St D avid `s H all, C ard iff Friday 9 D ecem ber 2011, 7.30 pm

Conductor Thierry Fischer
Mezzo-soprano Anna Stephany
Tenor Barry Banks
Bass-baritone Matthew Brook
Bass Henry Waddington
BBC National Chorus of Wales
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama Chamber Choir
Hector Berlioz L’enfance du Christ (90’)
There will be no interval.
This evening’s concert is being broadcast live in BBC Radio 3’s ‘Live in
Concert’ and will be available via the BBC iPlayer for on-demand listening
for seven days after broadcast.
Our programme notes are also available to download at bbc.co.uk/now
Family notes on tonight’s concert are available from the Orchestra Information Desk.
St David’s Hall, Cardiff Friday 9 December 2011, 7.30pm
Leader Lesley Hatfield
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Forthcoming concerts
St David’s Hall, Cardiff
Thursday 15 December 2011, 7.30pm
CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS
TCHAIKOVSKY Swan Lake – excerpts
HANDEL Messiah – For unto us a child is born
JOHN RUTTER Christmas Lullaby
EDMUND WALTERS Little Camel Boy
MATHIAS Bell Carol
PROKOFIEV Lieutenant Kijé – Troika
LEROY ANDERSON Sleigh Ride
GARETH GLYN Christmas Medley
Plus other seasonal favourites
Conductor Grant Llewellyn
BBC National Chorus of Wales
Thursday 1 March 2012, 7.30pm
ST DAVID’S DAY GALA
GRACE WILLIAMS Fantastia on Welsh Nursery Tunes
RODRIGO Concierto de Aranjuez (arr. harp)
MORFYDD OWEN Threnody for the Passing of Branwen
GARETH GLYN Pedair Hwiangerdd
Plus a selection of Welsh songs
Conductor Adrian Partington
Harp Catrin Finch
Soprano Rosemary Joshua
Massed Primary School Choirs
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Bay
and guest choirs
Wednesday 14 December 2011,
2.00pm
Friday 20 January 2012, 7.30pm
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor
TCHAIKOVSKY Swan Lake – excerpts
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1
TCHAIKOVSKY Manfred
Conductor Tadaaki Otaka
Piano Stephen Hough
Friday 10 February 2012, 7.30pm
SIBELIUS Tapiola
SIBELIUS Violin Concerto
ELGAR The Music Makers
Conductor Jac van Steen
Violin Akiko Suwanai
Mezzo-soprano Jane Irwin
BBC National Chorus of Wales
Conductor Grant Llewellyn
Piano Lara Melda (BBC Young Musician 2010)
Wednesday 11 January 2012, 2.00pm
JOHN ADAMS The Chairman Dances – Foxtrot for
Orchestra
ERKKI-SVEN TÜÜR Exodus
COPLAND Clarinet Concerto
STRAVINSKY Symphony in Three Movements
Conductor Olari Elts
Clarinet Shabaka Hutchings (BBC Radio 3 New
Generation Artist)
Wednesday 22 February 2012, 2.00pm
R. STRAUSS Metamorphosen
MAHLER Rückert Lieder
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 4
Conductor Thomas Dausgaard
Tenor Ben Johnson (BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist)
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Introduction
Tonight’s programme
Welcome to this evening’s concert, which features a work perfectly suited to
the festive season. Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ (or, as we know it, ‘The
Childhood of Christ’) began life in the unlikely setting of a Parisian salon in
1850. The melody that Berlioz inscribed in the host’s visitors’ book became the
‘Shepherds’ Farewell’, one of the pastoral highlights of the central panel in this
musical triptych. It was to be another four years before Berlioz completed the
entire work.
When L’enfance du Christ was well-received by both audiences and critics
Berlioz was initially pleased but later became somewhat disenchanted –
probably as much due to the suggestion that his style had changed in response
to criticism as for any other reason. As he pointed out, the style of his writing
in this work doesn’t represent a change of direction but simply a case of
matching subject-matter and music.
The work as a whole is conceived as a series of tableaux, beginning
immediately after the birth of Jesus and focusing on the catastrophic actions of
the paranoid Herod, the desperate crossing of the desert and the eventual
arrival in Egypt, where Mary, Joseph and their baby initially face hostility before
being taken in by a kindly Ishmaelite family. That Berlioz creates such an
evocative tale with relatively modest forces says much for his genius for
orchestral and vocal colouring and dramatic pacing.
lease turn off all mobile phones and digital watches during the performance.
P
Try to stifle unavoidable coughs until the normal breaks in the performance.
Photography and recording is not permitted.
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Programme notes
Hector Berlioz (1803–69)
L’enfance du Christ (1850–54)
1 Herod’s Dream
2 The Flight into Egypt
3 The Arrival at Saïs
Narrator Barry Banks tenor
Mary Anna Stephany mezzo-soprano
Joseph Matthew Brook bass-baritone
Herod/Father of Family Henry Waddington bass
Centurion Roland George tenor
Polydorus Gareth Rhys-Davies bass
BBC National Chorus of Wales
RWCMD Chamber Choir
Alone among Berlioz’s major works, L’enfance du
Christ (‘The Childhood of Christ’) came into being
not in response to a clear and fully formulated
plan, but gradually and haphazardly, over a period
of several years. One evening in 1850, at a party,
while the other guests were playing cards, his
friend, the architect Joseph-Louis Duc, asked him
to write something for his album. Berlioz
complied:
I take a scrap of paper and draw a few staves,
on which in a little while an Andantino in four
parts for organ makes its appearance. I am
struck by a certain character of naive, rustic
devoutness in it and promptly decide to add
some words in the same vein. The organ piece
disappears and turns into a chorus of the
shepherds of Bethlehem saying goodbye to the
child Jesus at the moment when the Holy Family
set out on their journey to Egypt.
The card-players, who interrupt their whist to
listen to it, are amused by the archaic flavour of
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both words and music, and Berlioz includes the
piece at his next concert, passing it off as the
work of a forgotten 17th-century Master of the
Sainte-Chapelle, whom he christens Ducré as a
gesture to his friend Duc. In the meantime the
‘Shepherds’ Farewell’ has been joined by two
other movements, also conceived (in the
composer’s words) ‘in the manner of the old
illuminated missals’: an overture on a modal
theme and a piece for solo tenor describing the
Holy Family resting at an oasis.
The resulting work, ‘The Flight into Egypt’, later to
form the central section of The Childhood of
Christ, seems then to have been put on one side
and forgotten. It was not until three years later
that it was performed in full, in Leipzig. Only then,
it seems, did Berlioz decide to take his ‘naive,
rustic’ composition really seriously. A sequel, ‘The
Arrival at Saïs’, was finished early in 1854, and the
‘sacred trilogy’ was completed in July (at the
suggestion of the British music publisher Frederick
Beale) with the addition of an introductory
section, ‘Herod’s Dream’. The whole work was
performed in Paris the following December. It had
taken four years to grow from its first chance
seed.
One reason was Berlioz’s reluctance to commit
himself to large-scale composition during these
years. He deliberately suppressed the urge to
write a symphony, ideas for which kept coming to
him. Once it was written, he would be impelled to
have it performed and therefore to spend money
(including a large copyist’s bill) which he hadn’t
got. The failure of The Damnation of Faust and
the heavy debts he had incurred because of it had
had a profoundly discouraging effect on him, and
he had vowed never to risk putting on a big work
in Paris again. The Childhood of Christ could come
Programme notes
into the world only by stealth. When, to his
surprise, it was received enthusiastically by critics
and public alike – and actually made a profit – he
was naturally delighted. The work was hailed as a
masterpiece. It seemed he had finally become
respectable. He found himself praised for the very
qualities he had always been told he lacked –
charm, gentleness, economy of means, simplicity
of utterance, melodiousness. Those who, like the
poet Heine, had written him down as a freak,
obsessed with the macabre and the gigantic, now
hastened to recant.
All this, if gratifying, was somewhat two-edged.
Berlioz could not help regarding the extraordinary
success of his little oratorio as ‘insulting’ to his
other works; he understood the irritation the
painter Salvator Rosa felt when people kept
praising his smaller landscapes: ‘sempre piccoli
paesi!’ The Childhood of Christ was a ‘piccolo
paese’ beside The Damnation of Faust, in which
Paris had taken no interest, or beside the
monumental Te Deum, composed five years
earlier and still awaiting performance.
Even more galling was the suggestion that he had
changed – that he of all people, for whom artistic
integrity was the religion of his life, had altered
his style, even adapted his approach to suit the
public. ‘I should have written The Childhood of
Christ in the same style 20 years ago … The
subject naturally prompted a naive and gentle
kind of music’; and, in the nearest he ever got to a
direct statement of his artistic aims, he went on
to emphasise his preoccupation with ‘passionate
expression’, that is, ‘expression bent on
reproducing the essence of its subject, even when
that subject is the opposite of passion, and gentle,
tender feelings are being expressed, or the most
profound calm’. This applied to sacred music
exactly as it applied to secular; an oratorio should
be as true to its subject, as expressive, as an
opera.
Faithful to these principles, the composer of The
Childhood of Christ remains a dramatist. Though it
is not a work for the stage, and the delineation of
character is stylised ‘in the manner of the old
illuminated missals’, the approach is the same. He
is, as ever, concerned to express the essence of
his subject and to present it as he naturally sees it,
in dramatic terms. The work is conceived as a
series of tableaux in which we are shown the
various human elements of the story: the uneasy
might of Rome, the world-weariness of Herod,
the blind fanaticism of the soothsayers, the joys
and griefs of Jesus’s parents, the shepherds’
friendliness and the busy welcome of the
Ishmaelite household.
The tableaux are juxtaposed in a manner which
(as with The Damnation of Faust) it is tempting to
call cinematic. An example is the transition from
Herod’s rage to the peace of the Bethlehem
stable. We see as though in angry close-up the
fear-distorted faces of Herod and the soothsayers,
like faces in a Bosch or Brueghel crucifixion. Then
the nightmare fades, the picture dwindles, and
the manger comes into focus. In the epilogue it is
again as though the glowing family circle of the
Ishmaelites were growing faint and blurring
before our eyes. The moment has come for the
narrator to close the book and draw the timeless
moral; and the composer, having shown us the
loving kindness of his good Samaritans, tracks
away from the scene, causes the picture to fade
by means of a series of very quiet, still unisons,
surrounded by silence. The purpose of this strange
passage is to separate us from the scenes we have
been witnessing, to make them recede from us
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Programme notes
across the centuries and return to the ancient
past from which they have been evoked. This
distancing process, by removing us from the
action, achieves the necessary transition to the
final meditation on the meaning of the Christmas
drama.
Everything is visualised. In Part 3, when the Holy
Family, having trudged across the desert, reach
Egypt hungry and exhausted and beg in vain for
shelter, the musical imagery brings the scene
before us. The plaintive viola motif, the wailing
oboe and cor anglais, the fragmentary violin
phrases, the agitated tremor of cellos and double
basses, Mary’s panting utterances, Joseph’s long,
swaying melody constantly returning on itself, the
tap of the drums as he timidly knocks, the shouts
of ‘Get away, dirty Jews!’ which brusquely
interrupt the prevailing 3/8 metre – all this
combines to make a vivid and poignant
‘expression of the subject’. Nor is it only the
sufferings of the refugees from intolerance and
persecution that arouse the composer’s
compassionate understanding. He illuminates the
loneliness of the tormented Herod and the
forlornness of the soothsayers, whose gloomy
choruses and weird cabalistic dance in 7/4 time
express the sense that superstition is at once
sinister and ridiculous, to be pitied.
Such music was not unfamiliar to the public that
had followed Berlioz over the years. What
surprised it was the ‘Shepherds’ Farewell’ and the
trio for flutes and harp, the charm of the little
overture which represents the shepherds
gathering at the manger, the purity of the
narrative of the Holy Family at the oasis, the
hushed beauty of the unaccompanied chorus
which concludes the work. The Berlioz of the
cartoonists was given to augmenting his army of
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musicians with reinforcements from the nearest
artillery depot. Yet here he was, using a handful
of instruments to the manner born. Part 2 of the
work is written for a chamber orchestra of strings
and six wind, without bassoons or horns; Part 3
requires only slightly bigger forces; and even Part 1,
in which trombones appear, is sparingly scored.
Though the public was wrong in thinking that all
this was uncharacteristic of him, it was right in
sensing something special about the
achievement. In composing the work, Berlioz did
not repudiate his past methods and principles; but
these would not have been enough by
themselves to carry him successfully through the
hazardous task he had set himself. The subject
was full of pitfalls; it bristled with opportunities
for sentimental religiosity. Nineteenth-century
religious art is not notable for truthfulness of
feeling; for all its striving after purity, it frequently
suffers from the cold touch of artificiality,
combined with a cloying sweetness. Miraculously,
The Childhood of Christ is free from such defects.
Maybe something of the beautiful austerity of the
first inspiration was sacrificed when the scale and
scope of ‘The Flight into Egypt’ were enlarged so
as to make a full-length oratorio. Even so, the
music avoids taking the short step into
sentimentality, and in the most perilous places,
such as the scene in the stable, never seems in
danger of doing so. Its naivety is a natural naivety.
The explanation lies in the make-up of Berlioz’s
style. The purity the subject demanded did not
have to be sought; the archaic flavour that
permeates much of the score came quite easily to
him – it was in his musical blood. One element in
the formation of his style was the folk music of
his native Dauphiné and the noëls and other
popular chants he heard in his boyhood (the first
six notes of the tenor’s ‘Les pèlerins étant venus’
Programme notes
in ‘The Flight into Egypt’ are identical to those of
the ancient liturgical chant ‘O filii, o filiae’).
Another influence was the composer JeanFrançois Le Sueur, his teacher, whose biblical
oratorios had once had a great appeal for him,
and whose interest in modal music – most
uncommon in that period – was passed on to his
pupil. Berlioz often resorted to modality for
particular expressive effect; so that, when the
subject suggested a more systematic use of
modal inflections, he could meet the need
without falling into pastiche. It was an extension
of his natural style. By the time ‘The Flight into
Egypt’ was composed, the development of music
had left such things so far behind that Berlioz
felt it prudent to guard against possible
misinterpretation by printing an asterisk alongside
the theme of his overture, with a warning that the
seventh of the scale was to be read as a natural,
not as the usual sharp. The piece is certainly
untypical of its time. But it is pure Berlioz, as are
the long, chaste melodic lines and sweet serenity
of the narrator’s account of the Holy Family
resting in the shade of some palm trees, while the
child sleeps surrounded by kneeling angels.
returning to the sources of his artistic being. The
intensity of recollected feeling was such that in
composing the work he could momentarily
re-enter a world in which the personages and
events of the Christmas story, as they first
stamped themselves on a sensitive and
precocious child, were once again vibrantly alive.
The pang of regret gives a sharpness, a touch of
melancholy to his retelling of it. No sentimental
recovery of belief is involved. It is an act of piety
in the Roman sense. His mind remains sceptical.
But his imagination believes. He remembers what
it was like to have faith. And at the end, having
re-enacted the age-old myth, and stepped out of
the magic circle again, he can only pay tribute to
the power of the Christian message and, agnostic
as he is, bow before the mystery of Christ’s birth
and death.
How are we to account for the sharpness of
vision and the unclouded truthfulness of feeling
that made the music of this scene as fresh as the
spring water gushing up from the desert? Beyond
the possession of a musical style able to
encompass such simple sublimities lay something
else: the memory of childhood beliefs. They had
once been central to his life. As a boy, his first
musical experiences had come to him in the
context of the church. By the time he wrote The
Childhood of Christ he had long ceased to be a
Christian in any conventional or even
unconventional sense. But the past, increasingly,
dominated him. It was a time of looking back, of
Part 1: Herod’s Dream
Programme note © David Cairns
David Cairns, writer, lecturer and conductor, is a
former music critic of the ‘Sunday Times’. His most
recent book is ‘Mozart and His Operas’.
Synopsis
The narrator sets the scene: Palestine shortly after
Christ’s birth, and the hopes and fears already in
the air. A Roman detachment patrols the empty
streets of Jerusalem. Their march is briefly
interrupted as two soldiers discuss the strange
terrors of King Herod. Alone, unable to sleep,
Herod reflects on the solitariness of his life and
on the dream that haunts him, of a child who will
overthrow his power. He consults his soothsayers
and learns that his throne will be preserved only if
all the children lately born in his kingdom are put
to death. He gives orders for the massacre of the
innocents. The scene moves to the stable in
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Programme notes
Bethlehem and Mary and Joseph worshipping the
child. In a vision they are warned by angels of the
danger to Jesus, and are told to leave at once and
travel across the desert to Egypt.
Part 2: The Flight into Egypt
Shepherds gather at the stable. They say goodbye
to the Holy Family. The narrator describes Mary,
Joseph, the baby and the donkey resting at an
oasis, watched over by angels.
Part 3: The Arrival at Saïs
The narrator tells how, after great hardships, the
travellers reach the city of Saïs. They knock at
many doors but are driven away. At last, half
fainting from hunger, they are hospitably received
by an Ishmaelite. Like Joseph, he is a carpenter,
and he invites them to stay and live with him and
his family. The grateful pilgrims take their rest,
entertained with music by the children, and then
retire to bed. In an epilogue the narrator tells of
their long sojourn in Egypt, their return to
Palestine, and the child’s fulfilment of his
redeeming mission. Narrator and chorus pray that
mankind’s pride may be abased before such a
mystery and its heart filled with Christ’s love.
Synopsis © David Cairns
For text, please see page 10.
About the composer
The son of a country doctor, Berlioz arrived in
Paris at the age of 18 as something of a musical
innocent who had never heard an orchestra.
Overwhelmed by the performances he heard at
the Paris Opéra, he at first immersed himself in
the French operatic tradition. Although he
benefited from the strict training of the
Conservatoire, he was far more stimulated by his
discovery of German Romanticism, of
Shakespeare and of Beethoven. The climax of
these early years was his Symphonie fantastique
(1830), which exemplified his free approach to
form, his vivid orchestral sense and a very
expressive type of extended, often irregular
melody.
In that year he was awarded the Prix de Rome.
Already prejudiced against Italian music, he
considered the months he spent in Italy musically
barren, but they allowed him to cultivate a wider
individuality that included grace, light, wit, irony
and a Classical detachment. His first major work
on returning to France was Harold en Italie (1834);
the later 1830s saw the composition in quick
succession of three masterpieces: the opera
Benvenuto Cellini (1836–8), the Grande messe des
morts (Requiem) of 1837, and the dramatic
symphony Roméo et Juliette (1839).
Berlioz was never really accepted by the Parisian
musical establishment and what little money he
earned came mainly from journalism, which he
resented because it prevented him from devoting
more time to composition. From the early 1840s
he began to look further afield and began a series
of tours conducting his own compositions in
other European countries, astonishing audiences
with both his music and his ability to inspire
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Programme notes
orchestras. After the poor reception of The
Damnation of Faust, his major work of the
mid-1840s, he recovered some of his losses with
the first of two visits to Russia, where his
influence was to prove vital over the next
decades.
In 1855 he published the ceremonial Te Deum
(1849) and the gentle oratorio L’enfance du Christ
(‘The Childhood of Christ’, 1850–54), a surprise to
all those who thought him capable only of the
wild and the extreme. Between 1856 and 1858 he
summed up all his achievements in the grand
opera Les Troyens (‘The Trojans’) on the fall of Troy
and the love of Dido and Aeneas, a subject that
had haunted him since childhood. Its partial and
inadequate performance completed his disillusion
with Parisian musical life. His final work was the
witty Béatrice et Bénédict (1860–62), based on
Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
Find out more
Soloists; Tenebrae Choir; London
Symphony Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis
(LSO Live LSO0606)
Berlioz: The Making of an Artist
Berlioz: Servitude and Greatness
David Cairns (Penguin)
www.hberlioz.com
For a long time after his death Berlioz’s
reputation was compromised by romantic
legends and an ignorance that exaggerated his
music’s impracticability. Recent decades have
seen a full rediscovery and appreciation of
Berlioz in all his variety and colour, his unique
passion and yearning, his sharp brilliance and
deep human insights.
Profile © Andrew Huth
Andrew Huth is a writer and translator working
extensively in Russian, Eastern European and
French music.
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Text
L’enfance du Christ
PART 1: HEROD’S DREAM
Prologue
Narrator
Dans la crèche, en ce temps, Jésus venait
de naître,
Mais nul prodige encor ne l’avait fait connaître;
Et déjà les puissants tremblaient,
Déjà les faibles espéraient.
Tous attendaient.
Or, apprenez, chrétiens, quel crime épouvantable
Au roi des Juifs alors suggéra la terreur,
Et le céleste avis que, dans leur humble étable,
Aux parents de Jésus envoya le Seigneur.
At that time Jesus had just been born in the
manger;
but no portent had yet made him known.
Yet already the mighty trembled,
already the weak had hope.
Everyone waited.
Learn now, Christian folk, what hideous crime
terror prompted then in the King of the Jews,
and the heavenly counsel the Lord sent
to Jesus’s parents in their lowly stable.
SCENE 1
A street in Jerusalem. A guardhouse. Roman
soldiers on night patrol.
NOCTURNAL MARCH
Centurion
Qui vient?
Who goes there?
Polydorus, Commander of the Patrol
Rome!
Rome!
Centurion
Avancez!
Advance!
Polydorus
Halte!
Halt!
Centurion
Polydorus!
Je te croyais déjà, soldat, aux bords du Tibre.
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Polydorus!
Corporal, I thought you were on Tiber’s banks
by now.
Text
Polydorus
J’y serais en effet, si Gallus, notre illustre préteur,
M’eût enfin laissé libre.
Mais il m’a sans raison
Imposé pour prison
Cette triste cité, pour y voir ses folies,
Et d’un roitelet juif garder les insomnies.
So I should be if Gallus, our precious Praetor,
had only let me.
But for no good reason
he’s shut me up
in this dreary city, watching its antics
and keeping guard over a petty Jewish king’s
sleepless nights.
Centurion
Que fait Hérode?
What’s Herod doing?
Polydorus
Il rêve, il tremble,
Il voit partout des traîtres, il assemble
Son conseil chaque jour; et du soir au matin
Il faut sur lui veiller: il nous obsède enfin.
He broods, quakes with fear,
sees traitors on every side, and daily summons
his council; and from dusk to dawn
has to be looked after: he’s getting on our nerves.
Centurion
Ridicule tyran! Mais va, poursuis ta ronde.
Absurd despot! But off on your rounds now.
Polydorus
Il le faut bien. Adieu! Jupiter le confonde!
Yes, I must. Good night! Jove’s curse on him!
(The patrol resumes its march and moves off into
the distance.)
SCENE 2
The interior of Herod’s palace.
SONG OF HEROD
Herod
Toujours ce rêve! Encore cet enfant
Qui doit me détrôner!
Et ne savoir que croire
De ce présage menaçant
Pour ma vie et ma gloire!
Always the same dream! Again the child
who is to cast me down!
And not to know what to think
of this omen which threatens
my glory and my existence!
Please turn the page quietly
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Text
Ô misère des rois!
Régner et ne pas vivre!
À tous donner des lois,
Et désirer de suivre
Le chevrier au fond des bois!
Ô nuit profonde
Qui tiens le monde
Dans le repos plongé,
À mon sein ravagé
Donne la paix une heure,
Et que ton voile effleure
Mon front d’ennuis chargé.
Oh the wretchedness of kings!
To reign, yet not to live!
To mete out laws to all,
yet long to follow
the goatherd into the heart of the woods!
Fathomless night
holding the world
deep sunk in sleep,
to my tormented breast
grant peace for one hour,
and let thy shadows touch
my gloom-pressed brow.
Ô misère des rois!, etc.
Oh the wretchedness of kings!, etc.
Effort stérile!
Le sommeil fuit;
Et ma plainte inutile
Ne hâte point ton cours, interminable nuit.
All effort’s useless!
Sleep shuns me;
and my vain complaining
no swifter makes thy course, O endless night.
SCENE 3
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Polydorus
Seigneur!
My lord!
Herod
Lâches, tremblez!
Je sais tenir encore
Une épée …
Cowards, beware!
I can still handle
a sword …
Polydorus
Arrêtez!
Stop!
Herod (recognising him)
Ah! C’est toi, Polydore!
Que viens-tu m’annoncer?
Oh, Polydorus, it’s you!
What have you to tell me?
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Text
Polydorus
Seigneur, les devins juifs viennent de s’assembler
Par vos ordres.
My lord, the Jewish soothsayers have assembled
as you commanded.
Herod
Enfin!
At last!
Polydorus
Ils sont là.
They are here.
Herod
Qu’ils paraissent.
Let them come in.
SCENE 4
Soothsayers
Les sages de Judée,
Ô roi, te reconnaissent
Pour un prince savant et généreux;
Ils te sont dévoués;
Parle, qu’attends-tu d’eux?
The wise men of Judaea,
O King, know thee
for a learned and liberal prince;
they are thy servants;
speak, what wouldst thou of them?
Herod
Qu’ils veuillent m’éclairer.
Est-il quelque remède
Au souci dévorant
Qui dès longtemps m’obsède?
That they reveal to me
if there is any remedy
for the devouring care
which has so long beset me.
Soothsayers
Quel est-il?
What is it?
Herod
Chaque nuit,
Le même songe m’épouvante;
Toujours une voix grave et lente
Me répète ces mots: ‘Ton heureux temps s’enfuit!
Un enfant vient de naître
Each night
the same dream affrights me;
a slow and solemn voice
repeats these words: ‘The time of thy prosperity
is past!
A child has come into the world
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Text
Qui fera disparaître
Ton trône et ton pouvoir.’
Puis-je de vous savoir
Si cette terreur qui m’accable
Est fondée,
Et comment ce danger redoutable
Peut être détourné?
Soothsayers
Les esprits le sauront,
Et, par nous consultés,
Bientôt ils répondront.
(The soothsayers perform cabalistic movements,
then proceed to conjure the spirits.)
The spirits will know;
we shall consult them,
and they will soon give answer.
La voix dit vrai, Seigneur.
Un enfant vient de naître
Qui fera disparaître
Ton trône et ton pouvoir.
Mais nul ne peut savoir
Ni son nom, ni sa race.
The voice speaks true, O King.
A child has come into the world
that shall reduce to naught
thy throne and thy dominion.
Yet none may know
his name nor his race.
Herod
Que faut-il que je fasse?
What must I do?
Soothsayers
Tu tomberas, à moins que l’on ne satisfasse
Les noir esprits, et si, pour conjurer le sort,
Des enfants nouveaux-nés tu n’ordonnes la mort.
Herod
Eh bien, par le fer qu’ils périssent!
Je ne puis hésiter.
Que dans Jérusalem,
À Nazareth, à Bethléem,
Sur tous les nouveaux-nés
Mes coups s’appesantissent!
Malgré les cris, malgré les pleurs
14
that shall reduce to naught
thy throne and thy dominion.’
Can I discover from you
if this terror that oppresses me
has any truth,
and how this dread peril
may be averted?
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Thou shalt fall unless the dark spirits
are appeased and, to prevent thy fate,
for all the new-born children thou ordainest
death.
So be it, let them perish by the sword!
I cannot waver.
In Jerusalem,
in Nazareth, in Bethlehem,
on all the new-born
let my violence strike!
Though their mothers
Text
De tant de mères éperdues,
Des rivières de sang vont être répandues,
Je serai sourd à ces douleurs.
La beauté, la grâce, ni l’âge
Ne feront faiblir mon courage:
Il faut un terme à mes terreurs!
despair and wail and weep,
rivers of blood shall flow,
I will be deaf to their suffering.
Neither beauty, charm, nor age
shall weaken my resolve.
My terrors must have an end!
Soothsayers
Oui, oui, par le fer qu’ils périssent!
N’hésite pas.
Que dans Jérusalem,
À Nazareth, à Bethléem,
Sur tous les nouveaux-nés
Tes coups s’appesantissent!
Malgré les cris, malgré les pleurs
De tant de mères éperdues,
Les rivières de sang qui seront répandues,
Demeure sourd à ces douleurs;
Que rien n’ébranle ton courage!
Et vous, esprits, pour attiser sa rage,
Redoublez ses terreurs.
Yes, let them perish by the sword!
Do not waver.
In Jerusalem,
in Nazareth, in Bethlehem,
on all the new-born
let thy violence strike!
Though their mothers
despair and wail and weep,
and rivers of blood shall flow,
be deaf to their suffering.
Let nothing shake thy resolve!
And you, spirits, to whet his rage,
multiply his terrors.
Herod
Non, non, que dans Jérusalem, etc.
No, no, in Jerusalem, etc.
SCENE 5
The stable at Bethlehem.
Mary
Ô mon cher fils, donne cette herbe tendre
À ces agneaux qui vers toi vont bêlant;
Ils sont si doux! laisse, Laisse-les prendre!
Ne les fais pas languir, ô mon enfant.
O my dear son, give this fresh grass
to these lambs that come bleating to thee;
they are so gentle, let them take it.
Don’t let them go hungry, my child.
Mary and Joseph
Répands encor ces fleurs sur leur litière.
Ils sont heureux de tes dons, cher enfant;
Spread these flowers, too, about their straw.
They are pleased with thy gifts, dear child;
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Text
Vois leur gaîté, vois leurs jeux, vois leur mère
Tourner vers toi son regard caressant.
see how blithe they are, how they gambol, and
how their mother turns towards thee her grateful
gaze.
Mary
Oh! Sois béni, mon cher et tendre enfant.
Blessed be thou, my dear sweet child!
Joseph
Oh! Sois béni, divin enfant.
Blessed be thou, holy child!
SCENE 6
Choir of Unseen Angels
Joseph! Marie!
Écoutez-nous!
Joseph! Mary!
Hearken to us!
Mary and Joseph
Esprits de vie,
Est-ce bien vous?
Spirits of life,
can it be you?
Angels
Il faut sauver ton fils
Qu’un grand péril menace,
Marie!
Thou must save thy son
whom great danger threatens,
Mary!
Mary
Ô ciel! mon fils!
O heavens! My son!
Angels
Oui, vous devez partir,
Et de vos pas bien dérober la trace;
Dès ce soir au désert vers l’Égypte il faut fuir.
Mary and Joseph
À vos ordres soumis, purs esprits de lumière,
Avec Jésus au désert nous fuirons.
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Yes, you must go
and leave no trace behind you;
this very night you shall flee through the desert
towards Egypt.
Obedient to your word, pure spirits of light,
we shall flee with Jesus to the desert.
Text
Mais accordez à notre humble prière
La prudence, la force, et nous le sauverons.
But grant us, we humbly pray,
wisdom and strength, so we shall save him.
Angels
La puissance céleste
Saura de vos pas écarter
Toute encontre funeste.
The power of heaven
will keep from your path
all fatal encounters.
Mary and Joseph
En hâte allons tout préparer.
Let us hasten to get ready.
Angels
Hosanna! Hosanna!
Hosanna! Hosanna!
PART 2: THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
OVERTURE
The shepherds gather before the manger.
The Shepherds’ Farewell to the
Holy Family
Shepherds
Il s’en va loin de la terre
Où dans l’étable il vit le jour,
De son père et de sa mère
Qu’il reste le constant amour!
Qu’il grandisse, qu’il prospère
Et qu’il soit bon père à son tour!
He is going far from the land
where in the stable he was born;
may his father and his mother
always love him steadfastly;
may he grow and prosper
and be a good father in his turn.
Oncques si, chez l’idolâtre,
Il vient à sentir le malheur,
Fuyant la terre marâtre,
Chez nous qu’il revienne au bonheur!
Que la pauvreté du pâtre
Reste toujours chère à son coeur!
If ever among the idolaters
he should find misfortune,
let him flee the unkind land
and come back to live happily among us.
May the shepherd’s lowly life
be ever dear to his heart.
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Text
Cher enfant, Dieu te bénisse!
Dieu vous bénisse, heureux époux!
Que jamais de l’injustice
Vous ne puissiez sentir les coups!
Qu’un bon ange vous avertisse
Des dangers planant sur vous!
Dear child, may God bless thee,
and God bless you, happy pair!
May you never feel
the cruel hand of injustice!
May a good angel warn you
of all dangers that hang over you!
The Holy Family at Rest
Narrator
Les pèlerins étant venus
En un lieu de belle apparence,
Où se trouvaient arbres touffus
Et de l’eau pure en abondance,
Saint Joseph dit: ‘Arrêtez-vous!
Près de cette claire fontaine,
Après si longue peine
Ici reposons-nous.’
L’enfant Jésus dormait … Pour lors sainte Marie,
Arrêtant l’âne, répondit:
‘Voyez ce beau tapis d’herbe douce et fleurie,
Le Seigneur pour mon fils au désert l’étendit.’
Puis, s’étant assis sous l’ombrage
De trois palmiers au vert feuillage,
L’âne paissant,
L’enfant dormant,
Les sacrés voyageurs quelque temps
sommeillèrent,
Bercés par des songes heureux,
Et les anges du ciel, à genoux autour d’eux,
Le divin enfant adorèrent.
Angels
Alleluia! Alleluia!
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The pilgrims having come
to a place of fair aspect
with bushy trees
and fresh water in abundance,
St Joseph said: ‘Stop!
near this clear spring.
After such long toil
let us rest here.’
The child Jesus was asleep … Then holy Mary,
halting the ass, answered:
‘Look at this fair carpet of soft grass and flowers
that the Lord spread in the desert for my son.’
Then, having sat down in the shade
of three green-leaved palm trees,
while the ass browsed
and the child slept,
the holy travellers slumbered for a while,
lulled by sweet dreams,
and the angels of heaven, kneeling about them,
worshipped the divine child.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Text
PART 3: THE ARRIVAL AT SAÏS
Narrator
Depuis trois jours, malgré l’ardeur du vent,
Ils cheminaient dans le sable mouvant.
Le pauvre serviteur de la famille sainte,
L’âne, dans le désert, était déjà tombé;
Et, bien avant de voir d’une cité l’enceinte,
De fatigue et de soif son maître eût succombé
Sans le secours de Dieu.
Seule sainte Marie
Marchait calme et sereine, et de son doux enfant
La blonde chevelure et la tête bénie
Semblaient la ranimer, sur son coeur reposant.
Mais bientôt ses pas chancelèrent.
Combien de fois les époux s’arrêtèrent!
Enfin pourtant, ils arrivèrent
À Saïs, haletants,
Presque mourants.
C’était une cité dès longtemps réunie
À l’Empire Romain,
Pleine de gens cruels, au visage hautain.
Oyez combien dura la navrante agonie
Des pèlerins cherchant un asile et du pain.
For three days, despite the hot winds,
they journeyed through the shifting sands.
The holy family’s poor servant,
the ass, had already fallen in the desert dust;
and long before they saw a city’s walls,
his master would have died from exhaustion
and thirst
but for God’s help.
Only holy Mary
walked on serene and untroubled; and her
sweet child’s
fair locks and blessed head,
resting against her breast, seemed to give her
strength.
But soon her feet stumbled.
How many times the couple stopped!
At length they came
to Saïs, gasping
and near to death.
It was a city that had long been part
of the Roman Empire,
full of cruel folk, with haughty airs.
Hear now of the grievous agony endured so long
by the pilgrims in their search for food and
shelter.
SCENE 1
Within the town of Saïs.
Mary
Dans cette ville immense
Où le peuple en foule s’élance,
Quelle rumeur!
Joseph, j’ai peur! …
In this immense town
the roar and bustle
of the hurrying crowds!
Joseph, I’m frightened …
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Text
20
Je n’en puis plus … las! … Je suis morte …
Allez frapper à cette porte.
I can’t go on … alas … I’m dead …
Go and knock at that door.
Joseph
Ouvrez, ouvrez, secourez-nous!
Laissez-nous reposer chez vous!
Que l’hospitalité sainte soit accordée
À la mère, à l’enfant! Hélas! De la Judée
Nous arrivons à pied.
Open, open, help us!
Let us rest in your house!
Grant sacred hospitality
to mother and child! Alas, from Judaea
we have come on foot.
Chorus (Romans)
Arrière, vils Hébreux!
Les gens de Rome n’ont que faire
De vagabonds et de lépreux!
Get away, dirty Jews!
Roman people have nothing to do
with tramps and lepers!
Mary
Mes pieds de sang teignent la terre!
My bleeding feet stain the ground!
Joseph
Seigneur! Ma femme est presque morte!
Lord! My wife is nearly dead!
Mary
Jésus va mourir … c’en est fait.
Mon sein tari n’a plus de lait!
Jesus is going to die … all is lost.
My breast has run dry, no milk is left.
Joseph
Frappons encore à cette porte!
Oh! Par pitié, secourez-nous!
Laissez-nous reposer chez vous!
Que l’hospitalité sainte soit accordée
À la mère, à l’enfant! Hélas! De la Judée
Nous arrivons à pied.
We’ll try knocking at this door.
For pity’s sake, help us!
Let us rest in your house!
Grant sacred hospitality
to mother and child! Alas, from Judaea
we have come on foot.
Chorus (Egyptians)
Arrière, vils Hébreux!
Les gens d’Égypte n’ont que faire
De vagabonds et de lépreux!
Get away, dirty Jews!
Egyptian people have nothing to do
with tramps and lepers!
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Text
Joseph
Seigneur! Sauvez la mère!
Marie expire … c’en est fait …
Et son enfant n’a plus de lait.
Votre maison, cruels, reste fermée.
Vos coeurs sont durs … Sous la ramée
De ces sycomores, l’on voit
Tout à l’écart, un humble toit …
Frappons encore … Mais qu’à ma voix unie,
Votre voix si douce, Marie,
Tente aussi de les attendrir.
Lord! Save the mother!
Mary is fainting … all is lost …
and her child has no more milk.
Cruel people, your house remains closed.
Your hearts are hard … Beneath the branches
of those sycamores, set apart from the rest,
there’s a lowly dwelling …
We shall knock there … But Mary,
join your gentle voice to mine,
you, too, try to move them.
(He goes towards the distant house.)
Mary
Hélas! Nous aurons à souffrir
Partout l’insulte et l’avanie!
Je vais tomber …
Alas, everywhere we must endure
insult and rebuff!
I am fainting …
Joseph
Oh! Par pitié!
For pity’s sake!
Mary and Joseph
Oh, par pitié, secourez-nous,
Laissez-nous reposer chez vous!
Que l’hospitalité sainte soit accordée
Aux parents, à l’enfant! Hélas! De la Judée
Nous arrivons à pied.
For pity’s sake help us,
let us rest in your house!
Grant sacred hospitality
to parents and child! Alas, from Judaea
we have come on foot.
SCENE 2
Inside the Ishmaelites’ house.
Father of the Family
Entrez, pauvres Hébreux!
La porte n’est jamais fermée
Chez nous aux malheureux.
Pauvres Hébreux, entrez,
Entrez, entrez!
Come in, you poor Jews!
The door of our house
is never closed to the unfortunate.
Poor Jews, come in,
come in, come in!
(Joseph and Mary enter.)
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Text
Father of the Family
Grands Dieux! Quelle détresse!
Qu’autour d’eux on s’empresse!
Filles et fils et serviteurs,
Montrez la bonté de vos coeurs.
Que de leurs pieds meurtris on lave les blessures;
Donnez de l’eau, donnez du lait, des grappes
mûres;
Préparez à l’instant
Une couchette pour l’enfant.
Chorus of Ishmaelites
Que de leurs pieds meurtris on lave les blessures;
Donnons de l’eau, donnons du lait, des grappes
mûres;
Préparons à l’instant
Une couchette pour l’enfant.
Great Gods! What a dreadful sight!
Come quickly and see to their needs!
Daughters, sons, servants,
show the kindness of your hearts.
Wash the sores on their bruised feet!
Give them water, give them milk and ripe grapes;
make up a cot
for the child at once.
Wash the sores on their bruised feet.
We’ll give them water, we’ll give them milk and
ripe grapes;
we’ll make up a cot
for the child at once.
(The young Ishmaelites and their servants scatter
about the house, carrying out their father’s
orders.)
Father of the Family
Sur vos traits fatigués
La tristesse est empreinte;
Ayez courage, nous ferons
Ce que nous pourrons
Pour vous aider.
Bannissez toute crainte;
Les enfants d’Ismaël
Sont frères de ceux d’Israël.
Nous avons vu le jour au Liban, en Syrie.
Comment vous nomme-t-on?
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Your tired faces
are lined with sorrow.
Take heart, we’ll do
what we can
to help you.
Cast away all fear;
the children of Ishmael
are brothers of the children of Israel.
We were born in Lebanon, in Syria.
What are your names?
Text
Joseph
Elle a pour nom Marie,
Je m’appelle Joseph, et nous nommons l’enfant
Jésus.
Her name is Mary,
I’m called Joseph, and we have named the child
Jesus.
Father of the Family
Jésus! Quel nom charmant!
Dites, que faites-vous pour gagner votre vie?
Oui, quel est votre état?
Jesus – what a sweet name!
Tell me, what do you do for a living?
What is your trade?
Joseph
Moi, je suis charpentier.
I am a carpenter.
Father of the Family
Eh bien, c’est mon métier,
Vous êtes mon compère.
Ensemble nous travaillerons,
Bien des deniers nous gagnerons.
Laissez faire.
Près de nous Jésus grandira,
Puis bientôt il vous aidera,
Et la sagesse il apprendra.
Laissez, laissez faire.
That’s my job too!
We’re comrades.
We shall work together,
and make lots of money.
No need to worry.
Jesus shall be brought up with us,
then before long he’ll be helping you,
and he’ll grow up to be a good boy.
No need to worry at all.
Ishmaelites
Laissez, laissez faire.
Près de nous Jésus grandira,
Puis bientôt il vous aidera,
Et la sagesse il apprendra.
No need to worry at all.
Jesus shall be brought up with us,
then before long he’ll be helping you,
and he’ll grow up to be a good boy.
Father of the Family
Pour bien finir cette soirée
Et réjouir nos hôtes, employons
La science sacrée,
Le pouvoir des doux sons.
Prenez vos instruments, mes enfants: toute peine
Cède à la flûte unie à la harpe thébaine.
To round off the evening
and cheer our guests, let’s use
the sacred science,
the power of sweet sounds.
Get your instruments, children; all cares
yield to the flute and the Theban harp.
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Text
Trio for two flutes and harp, performed by the
young Ishmaelites
24
Father of the Family (to Mary)
Vous pleurez, jeune mère …
Douces larmes, tant mieux!
Allez dormir, bon père,
Bien reposez,
Mal ne songez,
Plus d’alarmes.
Que les charmes
De l’espoir du bonheur
Rentrent en votre coeur.
You weep, young mother …
gentle tears; good, so be it!
Go to bed, good father,
rest well,
peaceful dreams,
no more alarms.
May the hope
of happiness once more
gladden your hearts.
Mary and Joseph
Adieu, merci, bon père,
Déjà ma peine amère
Semble s’enfuir,
S’évanouir.
Plus d’alarmes,
Oui, les charmes
De l’espoir du bonheur
Rentrent en notre coeur.
Adieu, merci, bon père.
Good night and thanks, good father,
already my bitter afflictions
seem to be vanishing,
fading away.
No more alarms.
Yes, the hope
of happiness once more
gladdens our hearts.
Good night and thanks, good father.
Father of the Family and Ishmaelites
Allez dormir, bon père,
Doux enfant, tendre mère.
Bien reposez,
Mal ne songez,
Plus d’alarmes.
Que les charmes
De l’espoir du bonheur
Rentrent en votre coeur.
Go to bed, good father,
sweet child, gentle mother.
Sleep well,
peaceful dreams,
no more alarms.
May the hope
of happiness once more
gladden your hearts.
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Text
SCENE 3: EPILOGUE
Narrator
Ce fut ainsi que par un infidèle
Fut sauvé le Sauveur.
Pendant dix ans Marie, et Joseph avec elle,
Virent fleurir en lui la sublime douceur,
La tendresse infinie
À la sagesse unie.
Puis enfin de retour
Au lieu qui lui donna le jour,
Il voulut accomplir le divin sacrifice
Qui racheta le genre humain
De l’éternel supplice,
Et du salut lui fraya le chemin.
Ô mon âme, pour toi que reste-t-il à faire,
Qu’à briser ton orgueil devant un tel mystère!
Thus it came to pass that the Saviour
was saved by an infidel.
For 10 years Mary, and Joseph with her,
watched sublime humility flower in him,
infinite love
joined to wisdom.
Then at length he returned
to the country of his birth,
that he might accomplish the divine sacrifice
which ransomed mankind
from eternal torment
and marked out the way of salvation.
O my soul, what remains for you to do
but shatter your pride before so great a mystery?
Chorus
Ô mon âme, pour toi que reste-t-il à faire,
Qu’à briser ton orgueil devant un tel mystère!
O my soul, what remains for you to do
but shatter your pride before so great a mystery?
Narrator and Chorus
Ô mon coeur, emplis-toi du grave et pur amour
Qui seul peut nous ouvrir le céleste séjour.
Amen.
O my heart, be filled with the pure deep love
which alone can open for us the kingdom
of heaven.
Amen.
Text by the composer
Translation © David Cairns
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25
Biographies
Thierry Fischer
Anna Stephany
conductor
mezzo-soprano
Swiss conductor Thierry
Fischer is Principal Conductor
of BBC National Orchestra of
Wales and Chief Conductor of
the Nagoya Philharmonic
Orchestra; last year marked his
first as Music Director of the
Utah Symphony Orchestra.
After studying flute with Aurèle Nicolet he became
Principal Flute of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe
where, encouraged by Claudio Abbado and Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, he conducted his first concerts; he has
dedicated himself entirely to conducting since 1992.
After apprentice years in Holland he became Principal
Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Ulster Orchestra
from 2001 until 2006.
In the past year he has made debuts with the Czech
Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment, as well as returning to the SWR
Orchestra Baden-Baden and performing with the
Scottish and Netherlands Radio Chamber orchestras,
the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and making his
Suntory Hall debut with the Nagoya Philharmonic.
Thierry Fischer took up his post with BBC National
Orchestra of Wales in September 2006. Since then he
and the Orchestra have mounted major celebrations of
the music of Dutilleux and Messiaen, toured to the
USA, Spain, Italy and Prague and, last August, gave two
concerts in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
His discography with BBC National Orchestra of Wales
includes music by Honegger, d’Indy and Florent
Schmitt, and an ongoing series of Stravinsky’s major
ballets.
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Anna Stephany studied at the
Guildhall School of Music &
Drama and the National Opera
Studio. In 2005 she won the
Kathleen Ferrier Award and in
2009 represented England at
the BBC Cardiff Singer of the
World competition.
She appears regularly with ensembles such as the
BBC and London Symphony orchestras, Orchestra of
the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli Consort & Players,
Ensemble Intercontemporain, Nieuw Ensemble and the
London Sinfonietta.
Recent highlights include Laurette (Offenbach’s
La chanson de Fortunio) for the Opéra Comique,
Pergolesi’s Stabat mater at the BBC Proms with the Early
Opera Company and Christian Curnyn, Stéphano
(Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette) with the State Symphony
Orchestra of Russia, a recital with Simon Lepper at
Chatsworth House, a return to Garsington Opera for
Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and her Bolshoi
debut as Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus).
This season’s projects include Bruckner’s Requiem with
the NDR Sinfonieorchester, Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony with Musikkollegium in Winterthur, Dido
(Dido and Aeneas) at the Wigmore Hall with Curnyn,
Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) at the Bolshoi, Dvo∑ák
songs with the Manchester Camerata and Speranza
(Monteverdi’s Orfeo) with the Balthasar Neumann Chor
and Thomas Hengelbrock.
Biographies
Barry Banks
Matthew Brook
tenor
bass-baritone
Barry Banks is particularly
sought after in roles by Bellini,
Donizetti and Rossini at the
world’s leading opera houses.
Current season highlights
include his debut at La Scala in
Britten’s War Requiem under
Xian Zhang; Idreno
(Semiramide) at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples; the
title-role in Richard Jones’s new production of The Tales
of Hoffmann for English National Opera, a house with
which he has long enjoyed a close association; and
Berlioz’s Grand messe des morts with Sir Colin Davis and
the London Symphony Orchestra.
Matthew Brook has appeared
as a soloist in Europe, Australia,
South Africa and the Far East.
He has worked with prominent
conductors including Harry
Christophers, Sir Mark Elder,
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Charles
Mackerras, Paul McCreesh and
Christophe Rousset.
He has performed with many prominent symphony
orchestras and period-instrument ensembles and has
appeared at the Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Ambronay,
Innsbruck, Bermuda and Utrecht festivals and at the
BBC Proms.
At the Metropolitan Opera, New York, he has partnered
Renée Fleming in Rossini’s Armida, Natalie Dessay in
La fille du régiment and La sonnambula, Olga Borodina
in L’italiana in Algeri and Anna Netrebko in Don Pasquale
and L’elisir d’amore.
In the concert hall he has performed The Dream of
Gerontius under Sir Andrew Davis, the War Requiem
under Jan Latham-Koenig and Rossini’s Petite messe
solennelle under Daniele Gatti. Other highlights have
included Ermione in concert at Carnegie Hall; concert
versions of I puritani and Linda di Chamounix at the
Caramoor Festival; Rossini’s Armida at the Edinburgh
Festival under Carlo Rizzi and Elvino (La sonnambula)
under Kent Nagano at the Knowlton Festival.
Barry Banks’s discography includes a series of operas in
English, La bohème under Kent Nagano, Un ballo in
maschera under Carlo Rizzi; Trial by Jury under Charles
Mackerras, DVDs of Billy Budd and Die Entführung aus
dem Serail and a solo aria disc, Barry Banks Sings Bel
Canto Arias.
His operatic roles include Polyphemus (Handel’s Acis
and Galatea), Ismeron (Purcell’s The Indian Queen),
Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas), the title-roles in Eugene
Onegin, The Marriage of Figaro and Britten’s Noye’s
Fludde, Papageno (The Magic Flute), Leporello (Don
Giovanni) and Melchior (Menotti’s Amahl and the Night
Visitors), among others. He is also in demand on the
concert platform in repertoire ranging from Bach and
Handel, via Haydn, Mendelssohn and Brahms, to Elgar,
Vaughan Williams, Nielsen and Britten.
Matthew Brook’s recordings range from Bach to Gilbert
and Sullivan.
Engagements this season and beyond include Araspe
(Handel’s Tolomeo), Seneca (L’incoronazione di Poppea),
Kouno (Der Freischütz), Zuniga (Carmen), Walton’s
Belshazzar’s Feast, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Mozart’s
Requiem and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
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Biographies
Henry Waddington
bass
Born in Kent, Henry
Waddington studied at the
Royal Northern College of
Music, where he made his
operatic debut as Bottom
Gerald Place
(Britten’s A Midsummer
BBC National
Orchestra of Wales
BBC National Orchestra of Wales occupies a special
role as both a national and broadcasting orchestra,
acclaimed not only for the quality of its performances
but also for its importance within its own community.
The work of BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of
Wales is supported by the Arts Council of Wales.
Night’s Dream).
He joined Glyndebourne on
Tour in 1992, singing the role of the Madhouse Keeper
in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, a role he repeated at
the Glyndebourne Festival in 1994. The same year he
created the roles of the Monstrous Messenger and Joe
Shady in Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s The Second Mrs Kong,
which he reprised at the 1995 Glyndebourne Festival.
Other roles at Glyndebourne have ranged from Handel
to Janá∂ek. He has also appeared regularly with the
Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera,
Opera North, English National Opera, Garsington Opera
and Grange Park Opera.
Recent and future operatic engagements include
Jupiter (Rameau’s Castor and Pollux), Sacristan (Tosca)
and Lt Ratcliffe (Billy Budd) for English National Opera;
Spinelloccio (Gianni Schicchi) for the Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden; Bartolo (The Marriage of Figaro)
for Welsh National Opera; Lt Ratcliffe for Netherlands
Opera; Pallante (Handel’s Agrippina) for the Gran Teatre
del Liceu, Barcelona; Kothner (Die Meistersinger von
Nürnberg) for Glyndebourne Festival Opera; as well as
The Orchestra has won critical and audience acclaim
over recent years, under its formidable conducting team
of Principal Conductor Thierry Fischer, Principal Guest
Conductor Jac van Steen, Associate Guest Conductor
François-Xavier Roth and Conductor Laureate Tadaaki
Otaka. In September next year Thomas Søndergård will
succeed Thierry Fischer as Principal Conductor. As well
as an outstanding ability to refresh core repertoire, the
Orchestra is proud of its adventurous programming and
continuously demonstrates artistic excellence in new or
rarely performed works. This June Mark Bowden took up
the role of Resident Composer, alongside Composer-inAssociation Simon Holt, consolidating the ensemble’s
commitment to contemporary music.
It is Orchestra-in-Residence at St David’s Hall, Cardiff,
and also presents a concert series at the Brangwyn Hall,
Swansea. As well as international touring, it is in
demand at major UK festivals and performs every year
at the BBC Proms and biennially at the BBC Cardiff
Singer of the World. Education and Community
Outreach is also integral to its musical life and the
department has been challenging conventions for nearly
15 years, taking the Orchestra’s work into schools,
workplaces and communities.
concert performances of Wozzeck with the
Philharmonia Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen.
On the concert platform Henry Waddington’s
performances have encompassed the Baroque to
Gordon Getty’s Plump Jack.
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The Orchestra is based at its state-of-the-art recording
and rehearsal base, BBC Hoddinott Hall at Wales
Millennium Centre, Cardiff. It has recorded many
soundtracks, while its recent CD releases include David
Matthews’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6, which won a BBC
Music Magazine Award.
Biographies
BBC National
Chorus of Wales
Royal Welsh College of Music
& Drama Chamber Choir
Artistic Director Adrian Partington
The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama Chamber
Choir is an ensemble of vocal studies students which
participates regularly in projects with BBC National
Orchestra and Chorus of Wales under the leadership of
Adrian Partington. The Chamber Choir has recorded
with the BBC and has also appeared as semi-chorus for
a range of repertoire, including Bernstein’s Mass and
Vaughan Williams’s Flos campi.
Formed in 1983, the BBC National Chorus of Wales has
developed into one of the UK’s leading large mixed
choruses, enjoying a close performing relationship with
BBC National Orchestra of Wales. It gives most of its
concerts at St David’s Hall in Cardiff or at BBC
Hoddinott Hall at Wales Millennium Centre, but also
frequently performs at Brangwyn Hall in Swansea, the
Nimbus Concert Hall near Monmouth and St Davids,
St Asaph and Brecon cathedrals. In the UK it pays
regular visits to Symphony Hall, Birmingham, and to
Exeter, Gloucester and Worcester cathedrals, and takes
part annually in the BBC Proms. It has formed a close
relationship with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, with
which it has appeared in Paris and at the St Denis
Festival.
In addition, the ensemble has undertaken concert
performances in Cardiff and across Wales. In May this
year the Chamber Choir performed in London at
St Sepulchre, Newgate, the musicians’ church, again
under the baton of Adrian Partington.
Under the direction of its Artistic Director, Adrian
Partington, it has championed works by leading Welsh
composers such as William Mathias and Alun
Hoddinott, and has premiered major works by Daniel
Jones, Sir John Tavener and John Hardy, among others.
BBC National Chorus of Wales has made numerous
recordings, including a disc of works by Stanford, which
received a Gramophone Award in 2006, and Sullivan’s
Ivanhoe, which was nominated for a Grammy Award
this year. Many of its performances are broadcast on
national or regional radio or television.
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Chorus list
BBC National Chorus of Wales
Soprano
Jennifer Adams
Carol Barlow Davies
Sarah Benbow
Eve Bennett
Rosemary Brown
Sarah Chew
Olivia Collins
Helen V. Davies
Charlotte Edwards
Llio Evans
Jennifer Felstead
Emily Greenwood
Becky Gretton
Heidi Grice
Eleri Gwilym
Sarah Harrowing
Alison Henry
Sam Hickman
Rosie Howarth
Lucy Hughes
Rhian Hughes
Vanessa John Hall
Julie Jones
Lucie Jones
Nia Jones
Frances Kirby
Margaret Lake
Ann-Marie Lo
Joy Ludlow
Shakira Mahabir
Hannah Marshall
Helen May
Natasha Page
Elizabeth Phillips
Lowri Pugh-Morgan
Alison Rennie
Trys Sadowski
Lucy Shields
Eleanor Stowe
Amelie Taylor
Melanie Taylor
Helen Thomas
Jen Thornton
Louisa Turner
Lucy Waite
Soul Zisso
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Alto
Kate Aitchison
Holly Blundell
Amy Blythe
Helen Bosanquet
Fiona Bryant
Pru Davis-James
Catherine Duffy
Lucy Eliot-Higgitt
Rachel Farebrother
Sophie Fitzsimmons
Kathrin Hammer
Naomi Hitchings
Judith Hope
Rhian Humphreys
Rosie Inniss-Fitzhugh
Sarah Lee
Flora Macdonald
Sarah Page
Alessandra Palidda
Emma Powell
Erika Rawnsley
Angela Read
Kate Reynolds
Vicky Rodge
Kerry Rodgers
Cerian Rolls
Jess Ryan-Phillips
Anne Shingler
Llinos Swain
Vicki Westwell
Julie Wilcox
Tenor
James Atherton
Gareth Evans
Andrew Fung
Roland George
Daniel Greene
Phillip Lloyd-Holtam
Eugene Monteith
Geraint Morgan
Greg Satchell
Richard Shearman
Tom Smith
Wilhelm Theunissen
Richard Wilcox
Nick Willmott
Peter Wilman
Tom Winstanley
Bass
Alan Baker
Jacob Cooper
David Davies
Jeff Davies
Lyndon Davies
Nathan Dearden
Sam Foster
Joe Gorvett
Meurig Greening
Patrick Heery
Stuart Hogg
Gareth Humphreys
Tom Hunt
Matthew Jenkins
David Wyn Jones
David McLain
Callum Mitchell
David Parker
Lloyd Pearce
Michael Plowman
Gareth Rhys-Davies
Daniel Ridgeon
Cecil Sanderson
Mark Symonds
Allan Waters
Martyn Waters
Chorus list
Royal Welsh College of Music
& Drama Chamber Choir
Hannah Aubrey
Sarah Chew
Amy Fuller
Olivia Gomez
Frances Gregory
Kimberley Jones
Holly-Anna Lloyd
Sarah Maxted
Beth Moxon
Sian Newman
Hannah Poulsom
Jessica Robinson
Rebecca Sands
Phillippa Scammell
Catherine Schofield
Grace Wain
Gillian Wells
BBC National Chorus of Wales
Chorus member profile
Melanie Taylor soprano
What do you like best about being a
singer?
I like the spontaneity – I sing all the time to
my daughter, much to her amusement. It is
also fantastic to sing with a large group
where our voices blend together as one,
and to perform with a top-class orchestra.
What has been the most memorable
moment with the Chorus?
There have been many memorable
moments, but probably singing Elijah in
Welsh in the National Eisteddfod tent in
West Wales with Bryn Terfel and the late
Richard Hickox.
How do you spend your time when you’re
not singing with the Chorus?
I am currently a full-time mum, so I spend
my days running around after my three
children. The Chorus is a delightful rest
from that!
What does BBC National Chorus of Wales
mean to you?
I’ve been a member of the Chorus for 16
years, during which time I met my husband
and had three children. Last Christmas my
daughter’s school choir sang with the
Chorus in the BBC Wales carol concert.
How amazing is that?!
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Orchestra list
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Patron
HRH The Prince of Wales kg kt pc gcb
Principal Conductor
Thierry Fischer
Principal Guest Conductor
Jac van Steen
Associate Guest Conductor
François-Xavier Roth
Conductor Laureate
Tadaaki Otaka cbe
Principal Conductor Designate
Thomas Søndergård
Composer-in-Association
Simon Holt
Resident Composer
Mark Bowden
First Violins
Lesley Hatfield
Leader
Nick Whiting
Associate Leader
Gwenllian Haf
Richards
Terry Porteus
Suzanne Casey
Richard Newington
Paul Mann
Gary George-Veale
Hilary Minto
Robert Bird
Sybil Olive
Kerry Gordon Smith
Emilie Godden
Anna Cleworth
Elin Edwards
Second Violins
Naomi Thomas *
Jane Sinclair #
Charlotte Bonneton
Sheila Smith
Debbie Frost
Nicolas White
Beverley Wescott
Roussanka
Karatchivieva
Katherine Miller
Vickie Ringguth
Margot Leadbeater
Joseph Williams
Michael Topping
Violas
Alex Thorndike #
Martin Schaefer
Peter Taylor
David McKelvay
Sarah Chapman
James Drummond
Ania Leadbeater
Robert Gibbons
Catherine Palmer
Laura Sinnerton
Carl Hill
Cellos
John Senter *
Keith Hewitt #
Tom Rathbone
Sandy Bartai
Kathryn Harris
Carolyn Hewitt
David Haime
Margaret Downie
Magdalena
Pietraszewska
Double Basses
Tony Alcock *
Albert Dennis
Christopher Wescott
William
Graham-White
Richard Gibbons
Claire Whitson
Ian Hall
Flutes
Eilidh Gillespie ‡
Eva Stewart
Piccolo
Eva Stewart †
Oboes
David Cowley *
Amy McKean
Cor anglais
Amy McKean ‡
Clarinets
Robert Plane *
John Cooper
Bassoons
Jarosπaw
Augustyniak *
Martin Bowen
Horns
Tim Thorpe *
Irene Williamson
Neil Shewan
Trumpets
Philippe Schartz *
Robert Samuel
Cornets
Andy Everton †
Rachel Samuel
Trombones
Donal Bannister *
Brian Raby
Bass Trombone
Darren Smith †
Timpani
Steve Barnard *
Harp
Valerie
Aldrich-Smith †
* Section Principal
† Principal
‡ Guest Principal
# Assistant Principal
Director
David Murray
Assistant to Director
and Orchestra
Manager
Bethan Everton
Orchestra Manager
Byron Jenkins
Assistant Orchestra
Manager
Andy Farquharson
Orchestral
Coordinator
Eugene Monteith
Music Librarian
Christopher Painter
Stage Manager
Andrew Smith
Communications
Officer
David Hopkins
Audience Line
Operators
Nerys Lloyd-Evans
Margarita Felices
Phillippa Scammell
Education and
Community Manager
Suzanne Hay
Education and
Community
Assistant
Peggy Holder
Chorus Manager
Osian Rowlands
Senior Audio
Supervisor
Huw Thomas
Business and Finance
Manager
Chris Rogers
Transport Manager
Mark Terrell
Senior Producer
Tim Thorne
Artists and Concerts
Administrator
Victoria Massocchi
Broadcast Assistant
Callum Thomson
Marketing Manager
Sarah Horner
Assistant Marketing
Manager
Jodi Bennett
Harmonium
Robert Court
Programme produced by BBC Proms Publications. Welsh translation by Annes Gruffydd.
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