Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
The Bournemouth 'Poole' Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an orchestra founded in Bournemouth in the south of England in 1893 , which has developed into one of the most important orchestras in the United Kingdom to this day. In 1979 the orchestra moved its venue to the Lighthouse in Poole, near Bournemouth .
Many important conductors have worked with the orchestra such as Sir Dan Godfrey , Rudolf Schwarz , Constantin Silvestri , Paavo Berglund , Andrew Litton , Marin Alsop and Kirill Karabits as chief conductors. In addition to Poole, the orchestra's main venues are the Guildhall in Portsmouth , the Great Hall of the University of Exeter , and Colston Hall in Bristol . The orchestra also performs a few concerts in Bournemouth at the Pavilion Theater and in Basingstoke .
In 2014 the orchestra was voted the most popular orchestra in the world by 383 different orchestras from more than 40 countries on the major online portal for classical music, Bachtrack .
From inception to 1934: The Godfrey era
In 1893 Dan Godfrey founded the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra with 30 wind instruments and a drummer . It was advantageous that some of the former military musicians also mastered the use of string instruments. With these prerequisites, it was flexible enough not only to give marches and similar song belts as open-air concerts, mainly on Bournemouth pier, but also classical works in closed rooms. The ensemble gave the first concert on Whit Monday 1893 and the first classical performance in October of the same year.
The group quickly expanded into a respected full-fledged orchestra in England, already making a name for itself across the UK at that time. Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst were won over to conduct their own works. The orchestra was also responsible for the premieres of the major works by Richard Strauss , Camille Saint-Saëns and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Great Britain. Just ten years after it was founded, the orchestra gave its 500th symphony concert on December 13, 1903, conducted by the founder Godfrey himself. The Bournemouth Municipal Choir, also founded by Godfrey in 1911, became an integral part of the orchestra.
From 1922 to 1940, the orchestra's Easter Festival was an important date on the Bournemouth calendar. In 1927 the festival was dedicated to the compositions of British women. In 1934 Godfrey resigned as chief conductor after conducting more than 2,000 symphonies.
The first recording of the orchestra on recordings dates back to 1914 under Godfrey's direction. These include pieces from Ferdinand Hérold's overture to Zampa , Daniel Aubers' overtures such as Le cheval de bronze and Les diamants de la couronne or Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Petite Suite de Concert , including more recent pieces with titles such as Slippery Sticks and Whispering Pines by members performed by the orchestra and by themselves as soloists.
Godfrey has held the position of music director of the orchestra for the longest time and it is thanks to him that only the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, unlike other orchestras that formed in southern England from the end of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War II as the only respected orchestra to establish itself far beyond England. Godfrey was also not too bad to underlay so-called serious music with popular music. He was also responsible for a series of premieres with his orchestra. He maintained close relationships with many prominent composers of his time, such as Edward Elgar , Hamilton Harty , Alexander Mackenzie , Hubert Parry , Charles Villiers Stanford , Ethel Smyth , Gustav Holst and the Australian Percy Grainger .
From the first day the orchestra was founded, Godfrey had complicated relationships with the Bournemouth authorities, who, as a commercial enterprise, would not subsidize the orchestra and should therefore pay for their own expenses. Although part of Bournemouth's attractions, requests for assistance from the authorities have repeatedly led to heated debates in Bournemouth City Council. At least Godfrey always managed to strike a satisfactory balance between the high standard of the orchestra and the financial necessities.
1934–1947: Austin, Birch, and the War Period
After Godfrey's resignation, Richard Austin was chosen to lead the orchestra as music director. A radio station set up a broadcasting station in Bournemouth and a number of famous composers such as Igor Stravinsky , William Walton , Ernest John Moeran , Sergei Rachmaninov , Roger Quilter , Balfour Gardiner and Percy Grainger attended the orchestra during this time.
After the outbreak of war, the orchestra initially melted from 61 to 35 and in 1940 again down to 24 members. Austin resigned that same year and made his post available. Montague Birch stepped in for him, but even he was no longer able to maintain regular concerts. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra as a resident orchestra was eventually disbanded but not forgotten. During this time, it was replaced by the so-called Wessex Philharmonic , a touring orchestra founded and conducted by Reginald Goodall that no longer exists today. An association of freelance musicians, including ex-members of the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, which performed a wide range of classical orchestral literature as well as works by contemporary British composers.
1947–1954: Black and Groves
After the end of the war, it took two years until the orchestra was re-established. It found its venue in the 1937 newly built Bournemouth Winter Gardens . In 1947 Rudolf Schwarz took over the position of music director. He conducted the orchestra in 1948 at the Royal Albert Hall in London , where it had last given a concert in 1911. Two more concerts in London followed in 1951 at the Royal Festival Hall during the Festival of Britain . Schwarz's tenure was marked by the artistic consolidation of the orchestra, but also by financial problems.
Charles Groves replaced Schwarz as music director, but an annually increasing deficit and the expiry of the contracts of many ensemble members let the orchestra slide into a crisis that was only cushioned somewhat by the support of the Winter Gardens Society . The plan to merge the BMO with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra could only be averted by an agreement with the Welsh National Opera for a few weeks. The Foundation of the Western Orchestral Society then stepped in to finally save the orchestra . In 1954 the orchestra changed its name to Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra , or BSO for short . The first appearance after the renaming was shared as conductors by Groves and Sir Thomas Beecham .
1954–1969: The Silvestris years
From 1954 the orchestra gave more and more guest performances in various cities in south-west England. In 1956 it accompanied the Bolshoi Ballet on their first tour of Great Britain.
In 1957, the orchestra played several concerts under Groves for the Classic Club label. Including Beethoven's 4th Symphony , Brahms ' Academic Festival Overture and Bizet's L'Arlésienne .
Constantin Silvestri took over the position of chief conductor in 1962 and under his aegis the standard and reputation of the orchestra increased with his performances at the Edinburgh Festival in 1963, the first European tour in 1965, notable recordings on sound carriers and regular radio broadcasts. The orchestra attracted international attention when, under Silvestri, it performed Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro in the hall of the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth together with the strings of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra .
Silvestri's cancer death abruptly ended his innovative and future-oriented term in 1969. His musical legacy includes Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Rimski-Korsakows Scheherazade and a 1966 recording by Tchaikovsky , the 1812 overture with the involvement of the band of the HM Royal Marines .
On the new recordings of the series BBC Legends with recordings from the Winter Garden in Bournemouth and other cities in Great Britain, Silvestrie's work was a memorial.
1969-1972: Hurst
Without formally having the position of music director, George Hurst led the orchestra between 1969 and 1972 and must therefore still be listed in the series of chief conductors of the orchestra. His period between the terms of office of Silvestris and Paavo Berglund was marked by continuity.
1972-1979: Berglund
Paavo Berglund's tenure was characterized by a large number of recordings on phonograms. Including the entire symphonies of Jean Sibelius for the EMI label . As early as 1965, when he was a guest conductor at the BSO, Sibelius's centenary was the world premiere of the recording of Sibelius's Kullervo Symphony .
Under Berglund, the BSO significantly increased the standards of its performances, which can also be heard during the recordings on the sound carriers for EMI. During his period, the orchestra's repertoire increased with a large number of concerts by Nordic composers. The artistic achievements of the orchestra of Sibelius's compositions under the direction of Berglund are legendary not only in live concerts, but also in recordings on phonograms.
The news of the death Berglund 25 January 2012 reached the orchestra as it currently on tour in southern England was and just at the time when it under the direction Kirill Karabits the 5th symphony played by Sibelius. Ironically, a piece with which the BSO and Berglund had set new standards. Kirill Karabits, chief conductor at the time, knew Berglund from a period of collaboration in Budapest and so the orchestra dedicated the concerts on January 26th in Cheltenham and January 27th in Portsmouth to the memory of Berglund.
A selection of the works that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Berglund played on phonograms:
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1980-1982: Segal
The Israeli conductor Uri Segal followed Berglund as music director. His "guest appearance" at the BSO only lasted 2 years. During his tenure, the orchestra played Benjamin Britten's Gloriana and The Prince of the Pagodas on phonograms.
1982–2008: Russian and American conductors
The Russian Rudolf Barshai took over the position of music director from 1982 to 1988. His time was marked above all by the recording of the 8th symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich, which was awarded by the magazine for classical music Gramophone .
The American Andrew Litton , who headed the BSO as a guest conductor as early as 1986, followed Barschai in its office from 1988 to 1994. He was the first American music director to lead the orchestra. He recorded William Walton's symphonies and concerts for DECCA and the complete Tchaikovsky symphonies including the Manfred symphony for the Virgin Classics label . He won a Grammy for recording Walton's Belshazzars Feast with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel in February 1997 .
As guest conductors, Litton and his successor Yakov Kreizberg supported Richard Hickox from 1992 to 1995 and Kees Bakels from 1990 to 2000 as music director ,
Yakov Kreizberg, American conductor with Russian roots and Austrian nationality, succeeded Litton in 1995 as music director, as already mentioned. His time was marked by tours with the BSO through the United States of America, including his debut at Carnegie Hall in April 1997. A three-day stay with the BSO at the Vienna Musikverein in 1999 is also worth mentioning .
After 2000, the position of music director remained vacant until, in September 2002, Marin Alsop was the first female chief conductor of an orchestra in Great Britain to take over this position. Her time was characterized by the continuity of the work of her predecessor Litton, who in particular performed compositions by American composers, although she was unable to hide her apprenticeship with Leonard Bernstein with her gestures on the podium . With the BSO she conducted all of Gustav Mahler's symphonies , with the exception of Mahler's 8th Symphony . In addition, she recorded several CDs with the orchestra from her repertoire of European and American composers for Naxos .
From 2008: Kirill Karabits
In November 2007 the BSO announced that in 2008 the Ukrainian conductor Kirill Karabits will take over the office of the 13th music director in the orchestra's history. His contract was initially for one season, but was then extended by one year to 2010. The BSO made its first appearance under Karabits at the Proms in August 2009. The first recording with Karabits, Rodion Shchedrin 's Concertos for Orchestra Nos 4 and 5 on CD, was published by Naxos in April 2010. The orchestra also recorded pieces by Aram Khachaturian on sound carriers for the Onyx label with Karabits . In August 2011, the contract with Karabits was extended to 2016. In April 2015, the BSO announced that Karabits would have signed up again as music director until at least 2018.
The President of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Council is David Mellor .
Daughter orchestra
In 1968, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta was founded as a chamber orchestra as a division of the BSO , which was also able to perform classical music in smaller towns in the south and west of England. Despite the artistic success during its existence, it had to be unexpectedly dissolved in September 1999 due to financial problems. Since then, smaller delegations of the orchestra have performed this task from time to time.
Kokoro , a smaller ensemble for contemporary music, founded in 1994 and also affiliated with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, made up of regular members of the orchestra but also with freelance artists, has maintained its place.
Concert programs
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra currently gives around 150 concerts a year.
Richard Hickox, as guest conductor, was the first to record the complete Ralph Vaughan Williams concert cycle in September 1995.
The world premiere of the recording on sound carrier Sibelius' Kullervo Paavo Berglund in 1970 .
Other notable recordings are Mahler's 10th Symphony , completed by the musicologist Deryck Cooke , conducted by Simon Rattle ; Edward Elgar's In the South (Alassio) with Constantin Silvestri; Tchaikovsky's 2nd piano concerto with Rudolf Barshai and Peter Donohoe as soloists ( Nigel Kennedy and Steven Isserlis in slow tempo); Anthony Payne's completion of Elgar's 3rd Symphony with Paul Daniel and Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms with Marin Alsop.
The orchestra recorded the entire cycle of Michael Tippett's symphonies on CD for Chandos Records ; the Vaughan Williams Symphonies for Naxos with Kees Bakels as conductor for seven of the symphonies and Paul Daniel with the rest, the A Sea Symphony and the 4th Symphony . The orchestra also played the complete series of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford's symphonies for Naxos .
For some time now, the BSO has been regularly organizing the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall and is a guest in many other large halls around the world, such as the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Wiener Musikverein and the Rudolfinum in Prague.
For many years, until his death in 2009, Ron Goodwin conducted Christmas concerts with the orchestra in the south west of England.
Premieres
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Initiatives
In addition to their normal areas of activity, one of the concerns of the members of the orchestra is to get involved in social initiatives such as the organization of workshops and performances in schools and retirement homes in the south and south-west of England.
media
The first recording on a record by the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra in 1914, followed in the 1920s by the first radio broadcasts (live concerts) from the orchestra's venue, the original Winter Gardens in Bournemouth, broadcast by the local radio station 2LO . In the same decade, the collaboration with the BBC began , including the farewell concert Godfrey. The Pathé Archives have short films made by the orchestra with conductors Dan Godfrey and Richard Austin from the Pavilion Theater in 1930 and 1937.
For the performance of the Good Friday magic from Wagner's Parsifal , conducted by Silvestri, the nave of Winchester Cathedral was cleared for the first time in several hundred years in 1963 to make room for a live TV broadcast of the orchestra.
In the series Music in Camera of the private broadcaster Southern Television , which became part of the Walt Disney Company , the BSO, under the conductor Owain Arwel Hughes , contributed the music in the 1970s. Also in the 1970s, the recording of Gustav Holst's The Planets served as the soundtrack for Nicolas Roeg's film The Man Who Fell From Heaven .
The orchestra played a smaller series of pieces of music for the local commercial broadcaster 2CR . Members of the orchestra and the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus signed for a jingle for the yellow buses of the local Bournemouth bus company.
Music directors
- 1893-1934: Sir Dan Godfrey
- 1934-1939: Richard Austin
- 1939-1947: Montague Birch
- 1947–1951: Rudolf Schwarz
- 1951–1961: Sir Charles Groves
- 1962–1969: Constantin Silvestri
- 1972–1979: Paavo Berglund
- 1980-1982: Uri Segal
- 1982–1988: Rudolf Barshai
- 1988-1994: Andrew Litton
- 1995-2000: Yakov Kreizberg
- 2002-2008: Marin Alsop
- 2009 – present: Kirill Karabits
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Street, Sean, and Carpenter, R., The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, A Centenary Celebration . Wimborne, The Dovecote Press Ltd, 1993 ( ISBN 978-1874336105 ).
- ↑ Bachtrack . The online portal for classical music . Retrieved December 5, 2016 .
- ↑ Bachtrack . The choice of the most popular orchestra in the world . Retrieved December 5, 2016 .
- ^ Miller, Geoffrey, The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra . Dorset Publishing Company, 1970 ( ISBN 978-0902129061 ) (English).
- ↑ Croscombe B. A Chronology. In BSO 90 1893-1983 - A special souvenir edition of WOS News. 1983, Spring / Summer, p16-17. (English)
- ↑ Stephen Lloyd, Sir Dan Godfrey: Champion of British Composers . Thames, 1995 ( ISBN 978-0905210896 ).
- ^ Western Orchestral Society Trust Fund . Retrieved December 6, 2016 .
- ^ Stephen Lloyd, Liner notes to Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra 1893–1993 . EMI CD CDM 7 64719 2, 1993.
- ^ The Classics Club (label) . Retrieved December 6, 2016 .
- ↑ Constantin Silvestri . BBC Legends. Archived from the original on December 6, 2016 ; accessed on December 6, 2016 .
- ↑ Review of the recording on Gramophone . August 1987, accessed December 6, 2016 . (English)
- ^ Craig R. Whitney: 2 American Conductors Thriving in Europe . In: New York Times , August 8, 1991. Retrieved October 11, 2009.
- ↑ Allan Kozinn: Closing the Book on Bournemouth . In: New York Times , April 24, 1994. Retrieved October 11, 2009.
- ↑ James R. Oestreich: Sense and Sensibility, From Bournemouth . In: New York Times , April 22, 1997. Retrieved October 11, 2009.
- ↑ Alsops timeline from 2002 . Retrieved December 8, 2016 .
- ↑ Tim Ashley: Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle; Melath / Balacek / BSO / Alsop . In: The Guardian , December 14, 2007. Retrieved October 11, 2009.
- ↑ Andrew Clements: Copland: Symphony No 1; Short symphony; Dance Symphony: BSO / Alsop . In: The Guardian , October 31, 2008. Retrieved October 11, 2009.
- ↑ Kevin Shihoten: Karabits to Succeed Alsop as Bournemouth Symphony Principal Conductor. In: Playbill . November 27, 2007 .
- ↑ James Inverne, "Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra names new chief conductor". Gramophone , November 23, 2007.
- ↑ Tim Ashley: Prom 34 - BSO / Karabits (Royal Albert Hall, London) . In: The Guardian , August 12, 2009. Retrieved October 11, 2009.
- ↑ Tim Ashley: Khachaturian: Spartacus; Gayaneh (excerpts) - review . In: The Guardian , November 11, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2011.
- ^ Bournemouth Symphony extends principal conductor's contract . In: Gramophone , August 11, 2011.
- ^ Andy Martin: "I want to help take the BSO to the next level" - Conductor Karabits to extend stay to 2018 and beyond . In: Bournemouth Echo , April 29, 2015. Retrieved May 6, 2015.
- ^ Kokoro is the new music ensemble of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra . Kokoro. Archived from the original on October 19, 2014 .
- ↑ Lebrecht, Norman. "Too English for his own good". Daily Telegraph , September 11, 1995.