Protest, Power, Revolution, Resistance

Joan Tower
Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1 3’

Margaret Bonds
Montgomery Variations 24’

Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 45 in F sharp minor, ‘Farewell’ 25’

INTERVAL: 15 minutes

Shostakovich
Symphony No. 9 in E flat major 25’

Johanna Malangré conductor

BBC Hoddinott Hall is certified by EcoAudio and we’re proud to be supporting the BBC in becoming a more sustainable organisation. For more information on the BBC’s net-zero transition plan and sustainability strategy please visit https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/bbc-net-zero-transition-plan-2024.pdf

The concert is recorded by BBC Radio 3 for Radio 3 in Concert; it will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds, where you can also find podcasts and music mixes.

This first Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman was written for the Houston Symphony in 1986 as part of a large programme of short introductory pieces commissioned mostly from American composers for the 1986/7 season marking the 150th anniversary of Texas’s brief independence. Another contribution to the series was Aulis Sallinen’s Fanfare, later incorporated into his Symphony No. 5, ‘Washington Mosaics’ (1987), following the example of Copland reworking his Fanfare for the Common Man (1942) into his Third Symphony (1944–6).

Tower’s original intention was to write a tribute to Copland, scoring for standard orchestral brass, timpani and percussion as in Fanfare for the Common Man, which is quoted in the opening bars. (Her succeeding Fanfares in the series to 1993 are scored respectively for orchestral brass and percussion; two brass quintets; full orchestra; four or eight trumpets in C, with percussion; most recently, a sixth for piano was added in 2014, orchestrated two years later.) 

However, Tower rather took Copland’s ‘common man’ as a starting point and evolved a feminist response, rhythmically vital and full of dynamic contrasts with a near-symphonic pulse. The first Fanfare did not bear any specific dedication originally (unlike its successors), honouring ‘women who take risks and are adventurous’, but Tower later added one to honour the pioneering conductor Marin Alsop.

^{Programme note © Guy Rickards}

1 The Decision
2 Prayer Meeting
3 March
4  Dawn in Dixie
5 One Sunday in the South
6 Lament
7 Benediction

Margaret Bonds became increasingly enraptured by Dr Martin Luther King’s nonviolent protest and the activity bubbling out of Montgomery, Alabama. Given that her own father, Dr Monroe Alpheus Majors, had been a civil rights activist all his life, and her mother, Estella Bonds, had instilled in the young Margaret a message of Christian love and social harmony from the outset, it’s hardly surprising that Dr King’s words and actions spoke to the core of her being. In 1964 she had completed a new orchestral composition in honour of Dr King, the African American communities of Alabama, and the fervour of this historic moment: her Montgomery Variations.

Bonds derives her theme from the minor-key spiritual ‘I want Jesus to walk with me’. This theme is heard emphatically in the brass and horns in the first movement, ‘The Decision’, where Bonds musically captures the determination of Dr King and his community to boycott segregated buses, even though this would mean, for many, waking up before dawn to walk endless miles to work. The theme hammers home the spiritual backbone of the Civil Rights Movement and the inexorable resolve that protestors drew from Black sacred song.

Across the suite of variations, Bonds engages the Black folk sound-world of the Antebellum South as she narrates the acts of protest and resistance that emanated from the Deep South of her present day. Montgomery Variations displays her predilection for soulful lyricism, rich harmonic colour, rhythmic flair and powerful storytelling. ‘Dawn in Dixie’, for example, evokes the beauty of the pastoral with its floating woodwind melodies. Yet, melancholy abounds in her evocation of a Southern landscape that not only blossomed with vibrant camellias and sweet-smelling magnolias, but also witnessed the lynchings of Black bodies from towering oak trees by white vigilantes, as well as the KKK’s bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on 15 September 1963.

Bonds portrays the latter in ‘One Sunday in the South’. Her major-key setting of the theme captures the joyful promise of the young children at Sunday School. However, towards the end of the movement, the soaring orchestration melts away into a percussion-led coda. A woodblock evokes the literal ticking time bomb of the impending devastation that killed four little African American girls.

The strands of mourning that Bonds threads through the next two movements are palpable. The horrors of the past cannot – and should not – be forgotten. Yet, as was the crux of Bonds’s own upbringing, she ends Montgomery Variations with a ‘Benediction’. There is hope, her music asserts with cinematic splendour, for a more just future.

This orchestral suite offers a chance for modern-day listeners to learn more of Bonds’s life and work, and find new resonance as we think about what social justice in classical music means today.

^{Programme note © Samantha Ege}

1 Allegro assai
2 Adagio
3 Menuetto: Allegretto
4 Presto – Adagio

Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony has become famous less for the passionate intensity of the music than for its picturesque ‘programme’. In the autumn of 1772 Prince Nikolaus Esterházy stayed on far longer than usual at his summer palace in the remote Hungarian marshes. The musicians, separated from their families in Eisenstadt, grew increasingly restive and begged Haydn to intervene. In the words of the composer’s friend and biographer Georg Griesinger: ‘Haydn hit upon the idea of writing a symphony … in which, one after the other, the instruments fall silent … Each musician was instructed that, as soon as his part had come to an end, he should extinguish his candle, pack up his music and leave with his instrument under his arm. The Prince and the audience at once understood the point of this pantomime; the next day the order came for the departure.’

The problem with the ‘Farewell’ is that the finale’s charming disappearing act, with the players literally voting with their feet, has tended to obscure the symphony’s originality. Firstly there is its outlandish key, F sharp minor, unique in 18th-century symphonies, and notoriously difficult for tuning. Haydn even had to commission new crooks for the horns. The extreme key goes hand in hand with extreme emotional states and a revolutionary structure. The opening Allegro assai is perhaps the most violent and unstable symphonic movement Haydn ever composed. In the exposition the music refuses to settle in the ‘relaxing’ relative major, A, veering instead to the much tenser key of C sharp minor. The development opens with a fortissimo (very loud) burst of A major before breaking off for a lyrical episode in D major, diatonic, piano (quiet) and delicately scored – an extreme contrast on every level with what has gone before. This interlude vanishes enigmatically into thin air; then, after a pause, the recapitulation storms in with renewed vehemence.

The tender yet austere A major Adagio, with the silvery sonority of muted strings, offers a degree of repose. Even here, though, there is a lingering sense of instability and unease, with frequent oscillations between major and minor and, in the recapitulation, a passage where the music hovers hypnotically on the brink of strange and remote harmonic regions. At the opening of the recapitulation the hitherto silent horns enter for the first time, adding a magical gloss to the string texture. 

In the Menuetto, in F sharp major, stability is immediately threatened by the rude, dissonant D natural in the third bar (suggesting F sharp minor) and later undermined by the violins’ whimsical, inconclusive cadential phrase. The Trio, again with major–minor contrasts, incorporates an ancient plainchant melody.

Resolution of a kind comes only with the finale, which in its two separate sections sums up the tonal sequence of the first three movements – F sharp minor, A major, F sharp major. The sonata-form Presto is in Haydn’s most searing and laconic Sturm und Drang (‘Storm and Stress’) vein – the contemporary musical language pushed to an extreme pitch of violence. But the compressed recapitulation breaks off abruptly. Then, doubtless to the surprise of Prince Nikolaus and his entourage, the symphony continues with a beautiful, tranquil Adagio in A major. After taking solo bows with a ‘farewell’ cadence, the first oboe and second horn snuff out their candles. The music then drifts to F sharp major, underpinned by triplets on the double bass. When the theme resumes, only the violins, viola and cellos remain, gradually whittled down to two muted solo violins. The symphony closes in an atmosphere of dream-like delicacy, the antithesis of the opening, and recalling both the first movement’s ‘unreal’ D major episode and the wispy ending of the Menuetto. 

^{Programme note © Richard Wigmore}

INTERVAL: 15 minutes

1 Allegro
2 Moderato
3 Presto –
4 Largo –
5 Allegretto – Allegro

Shostakovich composed his Ninth Symphony during the final weeks of the Second World War. Reports that he was working on it soon appeared in the papers, along with a fair amount of eager speculation. A bulletin from the Soviet news agency TASS announced that the new symphony would be ‘devoted to the celebration of our Great Victory’. A remark Shostakovich had made the previous year was widely quoted:

‘I am thinking of my next symphony, the Ninth. I would like to employ not only a full orchestra but a choir and soloists, if I can find a suitable text; in any case I don’t want to be accused of drawing presumptuous analogies.’

Maybe not, but that last comment effectively invited comparison with another Ninth Symphony scored for choir and soloists: Beethoven’s ‘Choral’. The effect was predictable: Soviet Russia prepared itself for a masterpiece of national self-celebration, a musical ‘Ode to Joy’ to put beside Beethoven’s, with – naturally – an acknowledgement of the inspired role played in the Great Victory by the ‘Leader and Teacher’ himself, Joseph Stalin. 

In the event, the looked-for ‘Soviet Ninth’ turned out to be a bombshell – but of a completely unexpected kind. Not only was it surprisingly short (under half an hour) and scored for a modest-sized orchestra, but its whole character seemed staggeringly misjudged. This was the reaction of the composer Marian Koval: ‘The listeners parted, feeling very uncomfortable, as if embarrassed by the musical mischief Shostakovich had committed and displayed – mischief committed, alas, not by a youth but by a 40-year-old man, and at a time like that!’ The audience, Koval wrote, was presented with ‘old man Haydn and a regular American sergeant unsuccessfully made up to look like Charlie Chaplin, while every possible grimace and whimsical gesture galloped through the symphony’s first movement’. Koval’s remarks were republished in 1948, the year Shostakovich was denounced at the First Congress of the Union of Composers and forced to make a humiliating public statement of repentance. Stalin, it seems, had not forgotten that act of ‘musical mischief’.

Poisonous though Koval’s review was – and no doubt partly politically motivated – in one point he was right. Something of the spirit of the great 18th-century symphonist Haydn can be felt in Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, and especially in the first movement. The opening Allegro is lean, athletic, quick-witted music with some wonderful deflating humour. Take the second theme, a cheekily whistling piccolo tune introduced by martial percussion and a ludicrously pompous two-note ‘fanfare’ on trombone: Shostakovich thumbing his nose at Soviet pomp? In the recapitulation, the pompous trombone keeps trying to assert itself, but each time it is thwarted by the rest of the orchestra. Near the end of the movement the ‘mischief’ threatens to turn ugly, but Shostakovich suddenly drops the curtain with two brusque full-orchestral chords – a kind of neo-Classical ‘That’s all, folks!’

The second-movement Moderato is dark-hued, but prevailingly lyrical and mostly restrained – Shostakovich’s response, perhaps, to some of Haydn’s gently melancholic minor-key slow movements. 

Mocking humour then breaks out again in the scherzo-like Presto, with shades of the Russian circus. But this runs out of steam and subsides into the Largo. At this point the comic mask drops; in fact, if this movement turned up in one of the epic wartime symphonies that preceded the Ninth, it wouldn’t sound out of place. Grim, rhythmically jagged bass brass figures twice introduce long, plaintive, recitative-like solos for high bassoon.

But then comes a typical Shostakovich reversal: just when the subversive humour of the first and third movements seems forgotten, the tempo changes to Allegretto, and the bassoon drops to its lowest register for a sly, chuckling, folk-like theme. The rest of the orchestra catches the mood, but now the comedy has an unmistakably nervous edge. At the end the tempo quickens and the symphony dances wildly to its conclusion: still comic, but an ‘Ode to Joy’ it clearly isn’t.

^{Programme note © Stephen Johnson}

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Saturday 3/10/26, 7.30pm
Brangwyn Hall, Swansea

L. Boulanger D’un matin de printemps (Of a Spring Morning)
Schubert Allegretto in C major
Beethoven Choral Fantasy in C minor
Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

Jaime Martínconductor
Steven Osbornepiano
BBC National Chorus of Wales
National Youth Choir of Wales

DRAMA | AWAKENING | VISION

This programme traces a journey from momentary spring light to one of the most individualistic musical imaginations of the 19th century. The concert opens with Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps, which captures the energy of a spring morning: flickering colours, dancing rhythms and an unmistakable sense of life in motion.

At the heart of the first half is Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, a work as bold as it is unconventional. Beginning with piano alone, it gradually expands in scope as orchestra and then chorus are added, building towards a jubilant final statement.

After the interval comes Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, one of the most remarkable and influential symphonic works ever written.

Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker

Thursday 3/12/26, 7.30pm
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff

Humperdinck Hansel and Gretel – Prelude
Bridge Christmas Dance ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’
Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker – Suite

Luis Castillo-Briceño conductor
Steffan Rhodri narrator

 MAGIC | WONDER | DELIGHTFUL

A festive celebration of classics, conducted by Luis Castillo-Briceño. The evening opens with the magical Prelude from Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, in which folk-inspired melodies bring the fairytale forest vividly to life. Frank Bridge’s sparkling Christmas Dance ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’ follows, a whirlwind of variations on a familiar English tune associated with Christmas.

Benjamin Britten’s much-loved The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra offers an entertaining and illuminating tour of the orchestra, perfect for curious listeners of all ages. After the interval, Tchaikovsky’s irresistible Suite from TheNutcracker brings the concert to a close, overflowing with seasonal magic, dance and unforgettable melodies.

Tchaikovsky 5

Thursday 7/1/27, 7.30pm
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff

Williams Sea Sketches
Renié Harp Concerto
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5

Jaime Martín conductor
Mared Emyr Pugh-Evans harp

ATMOSPHERE | VIRTUOSITY | TRIUMPH

This richly coloured concert is conducted by Principal Guest Conductor Jaime Martín and brings together music of atmosphere, virtuosity and symphonic power. Grace Williams’s Sea Sketches opens the evening, capturing the character of the Welsh coastline in music of freshness, colour and flowing movement.

The focus then turns to Royal Harpist Mared Emyr Pugh‑Evans, soloist in Henriette Renié’s Harp Concerto, a deeply Romantic work shaped by long, sweeping melodies and brilliant, virtuosic passages for the harp.

After the interval, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 charts a dramatic journey from struggle to hard‑won triumph, bringing the programme to an impassioned close.

Book tickets for just £8 using promotion code NOWYOU https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/evr6gw

Biographies

 Johanna Malangréconductor

The award-winning German conductor Johanna Malangré has been Chief Conductor of the Orchestre de Picardie since September 2022, earning acclaim for her musicality and charismatic leadership style. As a guest conductor, she has led renowned ensembles such as the Dortmund, Munich and Nagoya Philharmonic orchestras, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre National de Lyon and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. She regularly collaborates with internationally celebrated soloists including Alban Gerhardt, Gautier Capuçon, Anastasia Kobekina, Alexander Melnikov, Carolin Widmann and Sergei Nakariakov.

Last season’s highlights included her debut with the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, conducting the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in the festival’s closing concert and giving the world premiere of Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s Double Concerto for violin and cello with the Lucerne Contemporary Festival Orchestra. She also returned to the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Orquesta Nacional de Sevilla and Orquesta de Murcia, as well as making her South American debut with the Orquesta Nacional de México.

At the 2019 MAWOMA Conducting Competition in Vienna, she was awarded both First Prize and the Orchestra Prize. She began her career at the Cologne Chamber Opera, where she worked as an assistant conductor and répétiteur on numerous productions. She is continuously expanding her opera repertoire and has conducted performances of Rusalka, The Marriage of Figaro,Fausto Romitelli’s An Index of Metals and Die Fledermaus.At the Opéra de Nice, she conducted 12 vies de Schönberg in a production by Bertrand Bonello.

In her quest to bring orchestral music to a wider audience, Johanna Malangré founded the HIDALGO Festival Orchestra. From 2019 to 2023 this brought together young professional musicians from the major orchestras in Munich.

After studies with Johannes Schlaefli in Zurich, Johanna Malangré has further refined her artistry in masterclasses with Bernard Haitink, Paavo Järvi, Nicolas Pasquet and Reinhard Goebel.

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

For over 90 years, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the only professional symphony orchestra in Wales, has played an integral part in the cultural landscape of the country, occupying a distinctive role as both a broadcast and national orchestra, and serving as an ambassador of Welsh culture, regularly performing music created in Wales and championing Welsh composers and artists.

Part of BBC Cymru Wales and supported by the Arts Council of Wales, BBC NOW performs a busy schedule of concerts and broadcasts, working with acclaimed conductors and soloists from across the world, including its Principal Conductor, the award-winning Ryan Bancroft.

The orchestra is committed to working in partnership with community groups and charities, taking music out of the concert hall and into settings such as schools and hospitals to enable others to experience and be empowered by music. It undertakes workshops, concerts and side-by-side performances to inspire and encourage the next generation of performers, composers and arts leaders, and welcomes thousands of young people and community members annually through its outreach and education projects.

BBC NOW performs annually at the BBC Proms and biennially at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and its concerts can be heard regularly across the BBC – on Radio 3, Radio Wales and Radio Cymru. On screen, music performed by BBC NOW can be heard widely across the BBC and other global channels, including the soundtrack and theme tune for Doctor Who, Planet Earth III, Prehistoric Planet, The Pact and Children in Need.

Based at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Bay, BBC NOW utilises a state-of-the-art recording studio with a camera system for livestreams and TV broadcasts to bring BBC NOW’s music to a broader audience across Wales and the world. For more information about BBC NOW please visit bbc.co.uk/now

Patron
HM King Charles III ^{KG KT PC GCB}
Principal Conductor
Ryan Bancroft
PrincipalGuest Conductor
Jaime Martín
Composer-in-Association
Gavin Higgins

First Violins
Martin Gwilym-Jones guest leader
Gwenllian Hâf MacDonald
Jack Greed
Terry Porteus
Suzanne Casey
Carmel Barber
Anna Cleworth
Žanete Uškāne
Kerry Gordon-Smith
Alejandro Trigo
Gary George-Veale
Zhivko Georgiev

Second Violins
Anna Smith *
Kirsty Lovie #
Ros Butler
Sheila Smith
Vickie Ringguth
Joseph Williams
Michael Topping
Katherine Miller
Beverley Wescott
Roussanka Karatchivieva
Lydia Caines **

Violas
Rebecca Jones *
Alex Thorndike #
Tetsuumi Nagata
Peter Taylor
Laura Sinnerton
Catherine Palmer
Mungo Everett-Jordan
Robert Gibbons
Dáire Roberts
Carl Hill

Cellos
Steffan Morris ‡
Raphael Lang
Sandy Bartai
Keith Hewitt
Rachel Ford
Carolyn Hewitt
Alistair Howes
Kathryn Graham

Double Basses
Ana Cordova ‡
Moray Jones
Emma Prince
Thea Sayer
Ketan Curtis
Will Priest

Flutes
Matthew Featherstone *
John Hall †
Lindsey Ellis

Piccolo
Lindsey Ellis †

Oboes
Steve Hudson *
Samuel Willsmore
Amy McKean

Cor anglais
Amy McKean †

Clarinets
Nicholas Carpenter *
William White †
Alison Lambert

Bass Clarinet
Alison Lambert

Bassoons
Jarosław Augustyniak *
Patrick Bolton
David Buckland

Contrabassoon
David Buckland †

Horns
Tim Thorpe *
Isabella Ackland
John Davy
Craig MacDonald

Trumpets
Phillipe Schartz *
Robert Samuel
Corey Morris †

Trombones
Dafydd Thomas †
Ross Johnson

Bass Trombone
Darren Smith †

Tuba
Ramon Branch

Timpani
Steve Barnard *

Percussion
Phil Hughes
Harry Lovell-Jones
Phil Girling
Rhydian Griffiths

Harp
Elen Hydref Wright

* Section Principal
† Principal
‡ Guest Principal
# Assistant String Principal

The list of players was correct at the time of publication

Director Lisa Tregale
Head of Artistic Planning and ProductionGeorge Lee
Orchestra Manager Liz Williams
Assistant Orchestra Manager Nick Olsen **
Orchestra and Operations Coordinator Eleanor Hall
Orchestra Personnel ManagerKevin Myers
Orchestra Librarian Naomi Roberts **
Stage and Technical Manager Josh Mead +
Assistant Stage and Technical Manager Richie Basham
Artists and Projects Manager Victoria Massocchi **
Producer Mike Sims
Broadcast Assistant Emily Preston
SeniorAudio Supervisors Simon Smith, Andrew Smillie
Education Producer/Chorus Manager Rhonwen Jones
Education Producer Beatrice Carey
Head of Marketing and Audiences Sassy Hicks
Marketing Coordinator Amy Campbell-Nichols
Growth Marketing Coordinator Angharad Muir–Davies
Digital Producer Angus Race
Marketing Apprentice Mya Clayden
Production Business Manager Lisa Blofeld
Business Coordinator Georgia Dandy **

+ Green Team member
** Diversity & Inclusion Forum