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Home , A Sea Symphony, Caroline Alice Elgar, Cello Concerto (Elgar), Enigma Variations, Falstaff (Elgar), In Haven

Thursday 12 December 2019 7.30–9.30pm Barbican

LSO SEASON CONCERT BRITISH ROOTS

Tippett Concerto for Double String Orchestra Elgar Interval PAPPANO Vaughan Williams No 4 Sir conductor Karen Cargill mezzo-

Supported by LSO Friends Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

6pm Barbican LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists

Vaughan Williams Phantasy Quintet Howells Rhapsodic Quintet

Portorius Quartet Welcome News On Our Blog

Thank you to our media partners: BBC Radio 3, LSO STRING EXPERIENCE SCHEME BELA BARTÓK AND who broadcast the performance live, and THE MIRACULOUS MANDARIN Classic FM, who have recommended the We are delighted to appoint 14 players to concert to their listeners. We also extend this year’s LSO String Experience cohort. Against a turbulent political background, sincere thanks to the LSO Friends for their Since 1992, the scheme has been enabling Bartók wrote his pantomime-ballet The important support of this concert; we are young string players from London’s music Miraculous Mandarin, which a German delighted to have so many Friends and conservatoires to gain experience playing in music journal reported caused ‘waves of supporters in the audience tonight. rehearsals and concerts with the LSO. They moral outrage’ to ‘engulf the city’ when it will join the Orchestra on stage for concerts premiered in Cologne. Ahead of tonight’s performance, the in the . Guildhall School’s Portorius Quartet gave elcome to this evening’s LSO a recital of music by Vaughan Williams WHAT’S NEXT FOR OUR 2018/19 concert at the Barbican. It is a and Howells on the Barbican stage. These LSO DISCOVERY IN TOKYO LSO JERWOOD COMPOSER+ ARTISTS? pleasure to be joined by Sir Antonio performances, which are free to attend, Pappano, a long-standing friend and regular provide a platform for the musicians of the In November, LSO players Amanda Truelove We talk to Daniel Kidane and Amir Konjani guest conductor with the Orchestra, for future, and take place throughout the season. and Robert Turner, and musical animateur about their time as LSO Jerwood Composer+ the first of two concerts this season. He Rachel Leach, visited Tokyo to lead artists and their future plans, and hear from begins an exploration of music by English I hope that you enjoy the concert and that workshops for young people with learning incoming composers Hollie Harding and Des composers of the 20th century, opening you will join us again soon. Sir Antonio disabilities at the British Council in Japan. Oliver about their experience so far. with Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Pappano returns on 15 March, conducting Many thanks to All Nippon Airways for Orchestra and Elgar’s evocative Sea Pictures. Britten’s and Vaughan providing flight support. • Read more at lso.co.uk/blog We are pleased to welcome mezzo-soprano Williams’ Symphony No 6, and you can Karen Cargill for this performance, who hear more music by Tippett on 14 June, returns to the LSO following her acclaimed as Alan Gilbert closes the season with WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUP appearance in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder at the oratorio A Child of Our Time. the BBC Proms in 2017. In the second half, We are delighted to welcome Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Vaughan Linda Diggins and friends Williams’ Fourth Symphony, a dramatic to tonight’s concert. work that illustrates the darker side of the composer’s music. Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Please ensure all phones are switched off. Managing Director Photography and audio/video recording are not permitted during the performance.

2 Welcome 12 December 2019 Tonight’s Concert In Brief In the New Year The LSO at the Barbican

lthough it was composed on the PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Thursday 9 January 7.30pm Thursday 16 January 7.30pm eve of World War II, the subject matter reflected in Tippett’s Oliver Soden is the author of Michael STUTZMANN RATTLE: BEETHOVEN 250 Concerto for Double String Orchestra is Tippett: The Biography (Weidenfeld MENDELSSOHN VIOLIN CONCERTO BEETHOVEN & BERG totally musical. Following in the footsteps and Nicolson, 2019). of Stravinsky and BartÓk, Tippett picked up Wagner Overture and Venusberg Music Berg Seven Early Songs the trend of writing an orchestral concerto Stephen Johnson is the author of Bruckner from ‘Tannhäuser’ Berg Passacaglia using elements of a Baroque ‘concerto Remembered. He contributes regularly to Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Berg Three Pieces for Orchestra grosso’, with no soloist and with groups BBC Music Magazine and , and Brahms Symphony No 1 Beethoven Symphony No 7 of instruments passing around musical broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and ideas. The piece is melodious, with dance World Service. Nathalie Stutzmann conductor Sir conductor rhythms and harmonies characteristic Alina Ibragimova violin Dorothea Röschmann soprano of the folk-inspired style of his English Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and contemporaries. Then, before the interval, translator who writes extensively on French, Sunday 19 January 7pm is Elgar’s Sea Pictures, a full-bodied suite of Russian and Eastern European music. orchestral songs showing the composer’s Wednesday 15 January 6.30pm RATTLE: BEETHOVEN 250 full expressive range. Stephen Connock MBE is the author of CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES Toward the Sun Rising – Ralph Vaughan HALF SIX FIX Vaughan Williams’ Fourth Symphony Williams Remembered. He is also Chairman of BEETHOVEN & BERG Berg Violin Concerto finishes the concert. It was written in 1934 in Albion Music, which is dedicated to publishing Beethoven Christ on the Mount of Olives the composer’s 60s – a fierce and dissonant books on English music and poetry. Berg Violin Concerto piece that contradicted his reputation as a Beethoven Symphony No 7 Sir Simon Rattle conductor pastoralist. Commenting on the symphony, Lisa Batiashvili violin Vaughan Williams said, ‘I don’t know if I like Sir Simon Rattle conductor Elsa Dreisig soprano it, but it’s what I meant.’ He also avoided Dorothea Röschmann soprano Pavol Breslik any explanation of what inspired the David Soar music, though many have heard the Fourth Supported by the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne London Symphony Chorus Symphony as a cry of pain at World War I Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican Simon Halsey chorus director and the looming threat of another, possibly worse, war to come. Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican

Tonight’s Concert 3 Concerto for Double String Orchestra 1938–39 / note by Oliver Soden

1 Allegro con brio master. The BBC dismissed the music Tudor madrigalists. The string parts are should incorporate melodies and rhythms 2 Adagio cantabile as ‘unattractive’ and refused broadcast. rhythmically disinhibited, refusing to be of English folk-songs and dances. So the 3 Allegro molto Tippett was very little known as a composer, contained by bar lines, and paying scant third movement regains all the vitality of having given over much of his composition attention to the eight-beats-in-a-bar time the first, and Tippett includes snatches of n the summer of 1943, Michael in the 1930s to political activism. Not until signature. Each melodic line freewheels a Northumbrian bagpipe tune which, as Tippett’s Concerto for Double the 1950s, when Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt downhill, as if improvising, beating time each of the orchestras spurs the other on String Orchestra was performed conducted a performance with sympathy by irregular and unpredictable accents that to greater and greater heights, lead the at Wigmore Hall. The composer was and understanding, did the Concerto begin Tippett derived from the syncopation of Concerto to bursting point. The strings absent, ‘circumstances beyond his control’ to take its place among the acknowledged jazz. ‘One could fill pages’, reads one liner tauten, as if winding up a spring that, when preventing his attendance. In truth, he was masterpieces of 20th-century string writing. note, ‘on just the opening ten seconds.’ released, propels the movement to a burst in a cell in His Majesty’s Prison Wormwood of melody that ends the piece in burnished Scrubs, where he had been jailed for defying The piece does not pitch a soloist against Tippett took the structure of the Concerto joy, a final whoop from the . • the terms of his military exemption as a an orchestra; it is more a ‘concerto grosso’, from Beethoven. The first movement is an conscientious objector, and where he still the form of Baroque music that passes allegro in sonata form; the slow movement was when the Concerto was recorded in a material between a group of soloists and (in Tippett’s words) is ‘explicitly modelled on London studio. stepped in orchestra. Tippett’s forces, however, are two the song-fugue-song layout of the andante as producer. equal string orchestras, of five parts each. of Beethoven’s in F minor, They form a complementary partnership, Op 95’; and the final movement is a sonata World War II had interrupted the Concerto’s from which Tippett spins an astonishing rondo with a coda. The central movement birth in other ways. The premiere, scheduled number of textures and effects, as the has a part for solo violin, based on the for late 1939, had been cancelled. Tippett’s two orchestras kick the music joyfully folksong ‘Ca’ the Yowes’, that is taken up by publishers, Schott, were German, making back and forth, each winding in and out of the whole orchestra to form a slow, yearning release of the score all but impossible (to the spotlight. The Concerto clearly owes a interlude, indebted to the blues songs of say nothing of paper rationing). A handful debt to the music of folk-inspired English Bessie Smith. Tippett worked on the of performances over the following decade composers: Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro movement during the breakdown of a fiery seemingly did little to elucidate the piece, and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a and all-consuming love affair. which bristles with all the hallmarks of Theme of Tallis (also written for two string Tippett’s first mature style, drawing on orchestras). But Tippett was suspicious The Concerto’s dedicatee, Jeffrey Mark, a wide range of influences – Beethoven, of any exclusively pastoral school of was a composer severely traumatised by blues, Bartók, bagpipes – and displaying a British music, and wove into his Concerto his experiences in World War I. Mark was complex rhythmic innovation that would a seductive rhythmic gallop, redolent not certain, in his advice to Tippett about the take English orchestras some time to only of Stravinsky and Bartók but of the Concerto, that British orchestral music

4 Programme Notes 12 December 2019 Michael Tippett in Profile 1905–98 / by Oliver Soden

From 1940 to 1951 he was an enterprising After Britten’s death in 1976, Tippett had Head of Music at Morley College, in South no real competition for the title of Britain’s London. On the outbreak of war Tippett’s ‘greatest living composer’, an accolade to Trotskyist politics gave way to a committed which he lived up for a two-decade Indian pacifism, and in August 1943, having refused summer that saw no decline in energetic to fulfil the conditions of his exemption output. His was a career of constant from war service as a conscientious objector, reinvention. The lyricism that book-ended he served a three-month sentence in his oeuvre contained a period of violent and Wormwood Scrubs. fragmented mosaics, not least his war-blasted Homeric Works such as his String Quartet No 1 (1935) (1958–61). His third opera, and the Concerto for Double String Orchestra (1966–69), was shot through with jazz and (1939) displayed for the first time – and in electric guitar, while the Symphony No 3 all its originality – the rhythmic imagination (1970–72) turned both to Beethoven and to and blues-inflected lyricism of his hard-won blues for spiritual and emotional solace. — ichael Tippett was born on 2 January compositional maturity. In 1944, Benjamin ‘I am quite certain in my heart 1905 into a precariously wealthy Britten, who had become a close friend, Much of Tippett’s late music has yet to fasten family that was politically aware helped organise the premiere of Tippett’s its hold on the repertoire, but Birmingham of hearts that modern music (his mother was imprisoned as a suffragette) oratorio A Child of Our Time (1939–41). Opera Company’s revival, in April 2015, and modern art is not a conspiracy, but relatively unmusical. As a child, and of his fourth opera, The Ice Break (1973–6), but is a form of truth and integrity maybe as an adult too, he was something The oratorio’s success seemed almost to thrillingly re-imagined the work for the 21st of the perennial outsider, at odds with, even unravel the following decade when Tippett’s century. A final opera,New Year (1985–8), for those who practise it honestly, ahead of, the beliefs and taboos of the times. first opera, remains unrecorded and awaits reappraisal. decently and with all their being.’ (1946–52), was greeted with bafflement In his 80s, now a member of the Order of Tippett was eventually acclaimed as a and dislike. The breakdown of his Second Merit, Tippett produced a handful of last, Michael Tippett composer of international stature and Symphony’s premiere, in 1958, only added luminous works: a large-scale setting of Yeats’ — importance, but his career was slowburning, to the suspicion in which his music could Byzantium (1989–90); the last of his five and his originality slow to develop. After be held. A younger generation of performers string quartets (1990–91); and The Rose Lake studies at the , there eventually offered up such pieces new (1991–93), which crowned a 60-year career followed almost a decade of ambitious minted to a fresh and devoted audience, that, as for all innovators, has been greeted amateur music-making alongside and Tippett began to enjoy considerable with consternation and with jubilance alike. • involvement in left-wing politics. success. He was knighted in 1966.

Composer Profile 5 Sea Pictures Op 37 1897–99 / note by Stephen Johnson

1 ‘With short, sharp violent lights made vivid’ intensifies it at the words ‘shadowy sand’. imagery – close to the world of the first ‘Sea 2 (Capri) is a consonantal nightmare; but sung with Then comes a gorgeous contrasting major Picture’. The delicate upward arpeggio (for 3 gusto, as Elgar set it in the last of the Sea key section: ‘I, the Mother mild, / Hush pizzicato strings) of ‘In Haven’ then becomes 4 Pictures, it can be tremendously rousing – thee O my child’. Slow string figures suggest the ardent rising figure that opens ‘Sabbath 5 those same consonants like whip-cracks another kind of sea-swell, enhanced by Morning at Sea’ – the centre-piece of the pushing the music forward. The moral for harp, quiet and gong played ‘with cycle. Elgar doesn’t mark any of the ideas Karen Cargill mezzo-soprano listeners is: don’t try reading the poems sponge stick’. Vaughan Williams clearly had in this song with his favourite instruction off the page; listen to how Elgar sets them, this passage in mind when he set the words nobilmente, but the sentiment is clearly ritten in 1899, Elgar’s Sea Pictures and to the wonderful orchestral images he ‘With sad incessant refrain’ in the finale of there in the molto maestoso full orchestral is now established as one of the creates in response to key words and phrases. his own Sea Symphony, a decade later. theme that follows the line ‘Of holding the classics of the English orchestral day glory’. song repertory. Yet even today it’s rare to — find a concert programme note or CD booklet ‘It is better to set the best second-rate poetry to music, Still more striking is the way Elgar twists the essay that doesn’t grumble about the poetry music back to the home key at the words Elgar chose to set. Granted, none of it is for the most immortal verse is music already.’ ‘Creator on creation’. The rising and falling first-rate, and Adam Lindsay Gordon’s ‘The Edward Elgar ‘swell’ from the opening ‘Sea Slumber Song’ Swimmer’ in particular lends itself all too — joins as the song builds to its climax, ‘And easily to parody. Was Elgar’s literary taste on that sea commixed with fire’. The molto at fault? No, he had a clear idea what he maestoso theme appears to hold sway at was doing. Vera Hockman, a close friend in One of the finest of those orchestral images Elgar had already set words by his wife the end, but then comes a sudden hush and Elgar’s final years, remembered that Elgar occurs right at the beginning of the first in the ‘Lute Song’ a magical final cadence. ‘used to say that it is better to set the best number, ‘Sea Slumber Song’: the rising and of 1897, but he felt the song could be second-rate poetry to music, for the most falling string phrases capture the swell of developed. Alice rewrote the text to make it In a fine piece of formal symmetry, another immortal verse is music already’. the sea as vividly and atmospherically as the a ‘sea picture’: ‘In Haven’, the new subtitle lighter, more delicate song, ‘Where Corals menacing, quiet brass chords in the first of ‘Capri’ connecting it with memories of a Lie’, separates the weightier third and fifth Another great song composer, Gustav Britten’s Four Sea Interludes – though the visit to the island before her engagement movements. This was the hit of the cycle Mahler, would have agreed wholeheartedly. mood is quite different. Elgar was so proud to Elgar. and it soon began to enjoy a life of its own in Setting a sublime poem to music was, of this that he quoted it in his cantata The Edwardian parlours and public song recitals. Mahler once said, a form of sacrilege: ‘As if Music Makers, where it accompanies the The scoring is lighter, more transparent than But it clearly ‘belongs’ in this cycle, not just a sculptor chiselled a statue from marble words ‘Wand’ring by lone sea-breakers’. ‘Sea Slumber Song’, but it’s curious how the for its structural role, but for the subtle and a painter came along and coloured it.’ Especially effective is the way the singer brings the accompaniment connections with that all-important first Simply read aloud, Gordon’s opening line, picks up the ’ descending triplet and – originally unconnected with nautical song. At the beginning of the third verse,

6 Programme Notes 12 December 2019 Edward Elgar in Profile 1857–1934

‘Yes, press my eyelids close, ‘tis well’, the commissioned by the Leeds Festival and • ELGAR AND THE LSO vocal line recalls the strings’ falling phrases premiered in 1898, brought the composer originally associated with ‘I, the Mother recognition beyond his native city. By the time the London Symphony mild, / Hush thee, O my child’. Orchestra was established in 1904, Elgar At the end of March 1891 the Elgars were was a major figure in British musical life. His Finally comes the stormy ‘The Swimmer’, invited to travel to Bayreuth for that ‘Enigma’ Variations were performed in the glancing back occasionally to the earlier summer’s festival of Wagner’s , LSO’s first concert and he first conducted songs, but eventually pressing on towards a prospect that inspired Elgar immediately the Orchestra in 1905. a new resolution: ‘I would ride as never a to compose three movements for string man has ridden’. For Elgar in his Sea Pictures orchestra, the Serenade. The Variations on From 1911, he was Principal Conductor and – just as for Vaughan Williams in his Sea an Original Theme, ‘Enigma’ (1898–99) and he continued to appear with the Orchestra Symphony – the sea is the element in which his oratorio (1900) after this. A number of Elgar’s most the artist finds a new sense of self and, with cemented his position as England’s finest important works were premiered by the it, a new, heroic determination. • composer, crowned by two further oratorios, LSO, including his Introduction & Allegro a series of ceremonial works, two and the and Violin Concertos. lgar’s father, a trained piano-tuner, and concertos for violin and cello. ran a music shop in Worcester in the 1860s. Young Edward, the Elgar, who was knighted in 1904, became the fourth of seven children, showed musical LSO’s Principal Conductor in 1911 and shortly talent but was largely self-taught as a player before the end of World War I entered an and composer. During his early freelance almost cathartic period of chamber-music career, which included work conducting the composition, completing the peaceful, staff band at the County Lunatic Asylum in slow movement of his String Quartet soon Powick, he suffered many setbacks. after Armistice Day. The was finished in February 1919 and reveals the He was forced to continue teaching long composer’s deep nostalgia for times past. after the desire to compose full-time In his final years, he recorded many of his Interval – 20 minutes had taken hold. A picture emerges of works with the LSO • and, despite illness, There are bars on all levels of the a frustrated, pessimistic man, whose managed to sketch movements of a concert hall; ice cream can be bought creative impulses were restrained by Third Symphony. • at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. his circumstances and apparent lack of progress. The cantata Caractacus, Composer Profile by Andrew Stewart

Composer Profile 7 Texts

1 Sea Slumber Song Ocean’s shadowy might 3 Sabbath Morning at Sea He shall assist me to look higher, by Roden Noel (1834–94) Breathes good night, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) He shall assist me to look higher, Good night … Where keep the saints, with harp and song, Sea-birds are asleep, Leave woes, and wails, and sins. The ship went on with solemn face; An endless sabbath morning, The world forgets to weep, Good night … Good night … To meet the darkness on the deep, An endless sabbath morning, Sea murmurs her soft slumber-song Good night … The solemn ship went onward. And on that sea commixed with fire, On the shadowy sand I bowed down weary in the place; On that sea commixed with fire, Of this elfin land; For parting tears and present sleep Oft drop their eyelids raised too long 2 In Haven (Capri) Had weighed mine eyelids downward. To the full Godhead’s burning. I, the Mother mild, by Caroline Alice Elgar (1848–1920) The full Godhead’s burning. Hush thee, oh my child, The new sight, the new wondrous sight! Forget the voices wild! Closely let me hold thy hand, The waters around me, turbulent, Hush thee, oh my child, Storms are sweeping sea and land; The skies, impassive o’er me, Hush thee. Love alone will stand. Calm in a moonless, sunless light, As glorified by even the intent Isles in elfin light Closely cling, for waves beat fast, Of holding the day glory! Dream, the rocks and caves, Foam-flakes cloud the hurrying blast; Lulled by whispering waves, Love alone will last. Love me, sweet friends, this sabbath day. Veil their marbles The sea sings round me while ye roll afar Veil their marbles bright. Kiss my lips, and softly say: The hymn, unaltered, Foam glimmers faintly Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day; And kneel, where once I knelt to pray, faintly white Love alone will stay. And bless me deeper in your soul Upon the shelly sand Because your voice has faltered. Of this elfin land; And though this sabbath comes to me Sea-sound, like violins, Without the stolèd minister, To slumber woos and wins, And chanting congregation, I murmur my soft slumber-song, God’s Spirit shall give comfort. my slumber song He who brooded soft on waters drear, Leave woes, and wails, and sins. Creator on creation.

8 Texts 12 December 2019 4 Where Corals Lie 5 The Swimmer The skies were fairer, the shores were firmer – I would ride as never man has ridden by Richard Garnett (1835–1906) by Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–70) The blue sea over the bright sand roll’d; To gulfs foreshadow’d through strifes Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur, forbidden, The deeps have music soft and low With short, sharp violent lights made vivid, Sheen of silver and glamour of gold. Where no light wearies and no love wanes. When winds awake the airy spry, To southward far as the sight can roam, Sheen of silver and glamour of gold. No love, It lures me, lures me on to go Only the swirl of the surges livid, Where no love, no love wanes. And see the land where corals lie. The seas that climb and the surfs that comb. So, girt with tempest and wing’d with The land, the land where corals lie. Only the crag and the cliff to nor’ward, thunder The rocks receding, and reefs flung forward, And clad with lightning and shod with sleet, By mount and mead, by lawn and rill, Waifs wreck’d seaward and wasted And strong winds treading the swift waves When night is deep, and moon is high, shoreward, under That music seeks and finds me still, On shallows sheeted with flaming foam. The flying rollers with frothy feet. And tells me where the corals lie. And tells me where the corals lie. A grim, gray coast and a seaboard ghastly, One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade And shores trod seldom by feet of men - swims on Yes, press my eyelids close, ‘tis well, Where the batter’d hull and the broken The sky line, staining the green gulf crimson, Yes, press my eyelids close, ‘tis well, mast lie, A death-stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun But far the rapid fancies fly They have lain embedded these long That strikes through his stormy The rolling worlds of wave and shell, years ten. winding sheet. And all the lands where corals lie. Love! Love! when we wandered here O brave white horses! You gather and gallop, Thy lips are like a sunset glow, together, The storm sprite loosens the gusty rains; Thy smile is like a morning sky, Hand in hand! Hand in hand through the O brave white horses! You gather and gallop, Yet leave me, leave me, let me go sparkling weather, The storm sprite loosens the gusty rains; And see the land where corals lie. From the heights and hollows of fern The land, the land where corals lie. and heather, Now the stoutest ship were the frailest God surely loved us a little then. shallop In your hollow backs, on your high-arched manes. I would ride as never man has ridden In your sleepy, swirling surges hidden;

Texts 9 Symphony No 4 in F Minor 1934 / note by Andrew Huth

1 Allegro and their relationships. But although a with the same note); the other is one of everything has already been said in the first 2 Andante moderato composer determines what goes into his rising fourths, first heard a few bars later three movements, ‘leaving the poor finale 3 Scherzo: Allegro molto music, he has little control over how it will in the brass. The scoring is for much of the the thankless task of bringing down the 4 Finale con epilogo fugato: Allegro molto be received. What everyone heard, and time deliberately thick and harsh, though curtain.’ still hears, in the Fourth Symphony is a cry the first movement’s coda fades away he Fourth Symphony astonished of rage and pain at World War I and the with hazy, muted strings, preparing for the It’s a just criticism of so many second-rate its first audiences in 1935. Here was looming threat of another, possibly worse, emotional limbo of the slow movement. symphonies that try to follow Beethoven’s a composer in his 60s unexpectedly war to come. manner without having his strength, but unleashing a torrent of dissonant anger there’s no chance of sleeping through the that utterly contradicted his reputation finale of the Fourth Symphony, which is an (however partial and misleading it was) as a — implied challenge to the optimism expressed reflective pastoralist. There had been hints ‘I don’t know if I like it, but it’s what I meant.’ in the finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. of the symphony’s harshness in other music The link between scherzo and finale in conceived around the same time – Satan’s Ralph Vaughan Williams Vaughan Williams’ symphony recalls the music in Job and the chromatic counterpoint — similar passage in Beethoven, but where in the – but the Fourth Beethoven’s finale bursts into a triumphant Symphony far surpassed these in In whatever way it reflects the troubled The scherzo and finale contain types of more C-major march, one of his most affirmative its vehemence. atmosphere of the 1930s, it is very much ‘popular’ themes, but there’s an element of movements, Vaughan Williams’ march-like in the line of post-Beethoven conflict menace – even malice – here too. Vaughan idea gives little comfort The first three symphonies had names, symphonies, and is Vaughan Williams’ most Williams took trouble over these themes. In not numbers – , A London ‘classical’ in its shape: a sonata-form first December 1933, he wrote to Gustav Holst •, Beethoven’s type of symphony depends on Symphony, A Pastoral Symphony – but with movement, slow movement and scherzo who had closely followed the symphony’s direction and resolution of tension. Vaughan the Fourth there is no name, and Vaughan all building up to resolution in a finale. composition, ‘The ‘nice’ tunes in the Finale Williams’ world doesn’t allow this, nor do Williams obstinately avoided offering any The violence and dissonance come with have already been replaced by better ones his two recurrent motto themes, which are explanation of what lay behind the music. a punch right at the beginning. Much of (at all events they are real ones). What designed to avoid a clear sense of tonality. There are some self-deprecating comments the symphony’s intensity comes from an I mean is that I knew the others were The nearest Vaughan Williams comes to (‘I don’t know if I like it, but it’s what I almost obsessive concentration on the two made-up stuff and these are not.’ Some resolution is a frantic fugal epilogue in which meant’) and the more explicit ‘I wrote it not motives heard after the grinding semitone 30 years earlier, in an essay entitled ‘The the themes are thrown recklessly together, as a definite picture of anything external, clash of the symphony’s opening: one is the Soporific Finale’, Vaughan Williams had and which spills out into the grinding but simply because it occurred to me like four-note figure E – E flat – F – E natural (the asked, ‘Why does everyone go to sleep over dissonance of the symphony’s opening, as this’, and that was all. His own programme same shape as the familiar BACH motive, the last movement?’ going on to complain though a single moment of vision had been note does little more than list the themes but more compressed, beginning and ending that many finales lack excitement because concentrated into its 30-minute span. •

10 Programme Notes 12 December 2019 Ralph Vaughan Williams in Profile 1872–1958

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS & HOLST VAUGHAN WILLIAMS ON LSO LIVE His ‘discovery’ of folk song in 1903 was a major influence on the development of • Ralph Vaughan Williams first met his style. A period of study with Maurice composer Gustav Holst (1874–1934) in 1895, Ravel in 1908 was also very successful, beginning a lifelong friendship. with Vaughan Williams learning, as he put it, ‘how to orchestrate in points of colour In 1921, the two friends both had music rather than in lines’. The immediate outcome featured in the Three Festival, held in was the song-cycle On Wenlock Edge. . Vaughan Williams conducted his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, while using a tune he had studied while editing Holst conducted his The Hymn of , , was first performed which he dedicated to Vaughan Williams. in Gloucester Cathedral in 1910. With these works, he established a reputation which After the festival, they went on holiday subsequent compositions, such as the together and undertook long walks in the Symphony No 3 (‘Pastoral’), and Herefordshire countryside, sometimes Roman Simovic orn in Gloucestershire on 12 October the Mass in G minor, served to consolidate. extending for more than ten miles. LSO String Ensemble 1872, Ralph Vaughan Williams moved to Dorking in Surrey at the In 1921, he became conductor of the Bach This disc brings together three English age of two, following the death of his father. , alongside his professorship at the masterpieces: Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia Here, his maternal grandparents, Josiah RCM. Over his long life, he contributed on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Britten’s Wedgwood – of the pottery family – and his notably to all musical forms, including film Variations on a Theme of and wife Caroline, who was the sister of Charles music. However, it is in his nine symphonies, Elgar’s Introduction & Allegro, which was Darwin, encouraged a musical upbringing. spanning a period of almost 50 years, that composed for and premiered by the LSO the greatest range of musical expression in 1905. Vaughan Williams attended Charterhouse is evident. Vaughan Williams died on 26 School, and in 1890 he enrolled at the August 1958, just a few months after the lsolive.co.uk Royal College of Music, becoming a pupil of premiere of his Ninth Symphony. • Sir . Weekly lessons at the RCM continued when he entered Trinity College, Composer Profile by Stephen Connock Cambridge, in 1892. Vaughan Williams’ first composition to make any public impact, the song ‘Linden Lea’, was published in 1902.

Composer Profile 11 Sir Antonio Pappano conductor

ir Antonio Pappano has been Highlights of the 2019/20 season include ‘a triumph’ (BBC Radio 3) and ‘a magnificent Music Director of revivals of Puccini’s and Madame achievement’ (Gramophone). House, Covent Garden since Butterfly, a tour of Japan with performances 2002, and Music Director of the Orchestra of Verdi’s Otello and Faust, and new As a pianist, Antonio Pappano accompanies dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia productions of Beethoven’s and singers including Joyce DiDonato, Diana in Rome since 2005. He was nurtured as a Strauss’ , featuring luminary singers Damrau, Gerald Finley and Ian Bostridge. He pianist, repetiteur and assistant conductor including , , has also partnered singers and instrumental at many of the most important opera Karita Mattila, Gerald Finley, Anna Netrebko soloists on disc, including in operatic recitals houses of Europe and North America, and . with Nina Stemme, Placido Domingo, Anna including at the and Netrebko and Joyce DiDonato. several seasons at the Pappano has appeared as a guest conductor as musical assistant to with many of the world’s most prestigious Antonio Pappano was born in London for productions of Wagner’s Tristan und orchestras, including the Berlin, Vienna, New to Italian parents, and moved with his Isolde, Parsifal and The Ring Cycle. Pappano York and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras, family to the United States at the age of was appointed Music Director of Oslo’s Den the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the 13. He studied piano with Norma Verrilli, Norske Opera in 1990, and from 1992–2002, Chicago and Boston Symphonies, the composition with Arnold Franchetti and served as Music Director of the Théâtre Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras and conducting with Gustav Meier. In 2012, he Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. From the Orchestre de Paris. He also has a strong was made a Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the 1997–99 he was Principal Guest Conductor of commitment to nurturing young singers and Republic of Italy, and a Knight of the British the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. instrumentalists, and the summer of 2020 Empire for his services to music, and in will see him deepening his connections with 2015 he was named recipient of the Royal Internationally, Sir Antonio Pappano has the Aldeburgh and Verbier Festivals, leading Philharmonic Society’s Gold Medal. • worked with the New concerts and masterclasses. York, the State Operas of Vienna and Berlin, the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals, San Pappano has been an exclusive recording Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, artist for Warner Classics (formerly EMI Théâtre du Châtelet and the Teatro alla Classics) since 1995, and his discography Scala. His repertoire at the Royal Opera features numerous complete operas, House has been wide-ranging, generating including Puccini’s La rondine, Rossini’s acclaim in productions including Strauss’ Guillaume Tell, Massenet’s Werther, and , Berg’s , most recently Verdi’s . These have been Verdi’s and Turnage’s Anna Nicole. hailed as ‘unmissable’ (The Sunday Times),

12 Artist Biographies 12 December 2019 Karen Cargill mezzo-soprano

cottish mezzo-soprano Karen appearances at the Royal Opera Covent Cargill studied at the Royal Garden; Metropolitan Opera New York; Conservatoire of Scotland and Deutsche Oper Berlin; Montpellier Opera, was the winner of the 2002 singing Wagner roles including Waltraute in Award. Current season highlights include Götterdämmerung, Erda in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust with DSO and , and Brangaene in Tristan and Berlin and Robin Ticciati, and the Finnish Isolde. Karen has also made appearances Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu as a soloist at major festivals including the Lintu; Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the Danish BBC Proms and the Edinburgh International National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Festival. Thomas Søndergård and Bach’s B Minor Mass with Philadelphia Orchestra and Highlights with her regular musical partner Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In opera, Karen Simon Lepper include recitals at Wigmore appears as Judith in Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Castle with Opera North and as Mère Marie Kennedy Center Washington and Carnegie in Poulenc’s Les dialogues des Carmelites Hall, New York as well as regular recitals at the 2020 Glyndebourne Festival. She will for BBC Radio 3. With Simon she recently return to the Metropolitan Opera of New recorded a critically acclaimed disc of lieder York in 2021. by Alma and for Linn Records for whom she has also recorded Berlioz’s Les Karen regularly sings with the Boston, nuits d’été and La mort de Cléopâtre with Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Rotterdam Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber and Orchestras, Dresden Orchestra. Staatskapelle, London Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Danish Radio In July 2018 Karen was awarded an Honorary Symphony and the Royal Concertgebouw Doctorate from the Royal Conservatoire of Orchestras working with conductors Scotland. She is also Patron of the National including Donald Runnicles, , Girls’ Choir of Scotland. • Sir Simon Rattle, Daniele Gatti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Daniel Harding, Robin Ticciati, Edward Gardner and Mirga Gražinytė- Tyla. Opera highlights have included

Artist Biographies 13 2019/20 with the London Symphony Orchestra LSO Chamber Orchestra François-Xavier Roth Sir Simon Rattle Artist Portrait: Antoine Tamestit Rameau, Purcell, Handel Elgar’s Berg & Beethoven’s Seventh 15 December 2019 with Alisa Weilerstein 16 January 2020 Milton Court Concert Hall 19 December 2019 Jörg Widmann’s Concerto Beethoven: with Daniel Harding Half Six Fix: Bartók Christ on the Mount of Olives 19 April 2020 Gianandrea Noseda 18 March 2020 19 January & 13 February 2020 Berio Voci with François-Xavier Roth Shostakovich’s Ninth Bartók & Stravinsky Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony 11 June 2020 30 January & 9 February 2020 with Isabelle Faust 12 & 16 February 2020 19 March 2020 Walton Viola Concerto James MacMillan: St John Passion Bartók: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle with Alan Gilbert 5 April 2020 Dukas 23 April 2020 14 June 2020 22 March 2020 Mahler’s Fourth Symphony BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concerts: Panufnik Composers Workshop 26 April 2020 Antoine Tamestit & Friends 26 March 2020 8 & 15 May, 5 & 26 June 2020 Percy Grainger LSO St Luke’s 4 June 2020 Produced by the LSO and Barbican. Part of the LSO’s 2019/20 Season and Barbican Presents.

Gershwin, Ives, Harris & Bernstein 6 June 2020

Explore the season at lso.co.uk/201920season London Symphony Orchestra on stage

Leader Second Violins Cellos Horns Timpani LSO String Experience Scheme Roman Simovic David Alberman Charles-Antoine Gareth Davies Timothy Jones Nigel Thomas Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Sarah Quinn Duflot Patricia Moynihan David McQueen Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins Miya Väisänen Alastair Blayden Paul Gardham Percussion from the London music conservatoires at Clare Duckworth Matthew Gardner Jennifer Brown Piccolo Alex Willett Neil Percy the start of their professional careers to gain Ginette Decuyper Julián Gil Rodríguez Noel Bradshaw Sharon Williams Jake Bagby David Jackson work experience by playing in rehearsals Laura Dixon Naoko Keatley Eve-Marie Caravassilis and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Gerald Gregory Alix Lagasse Daniel Gardner Harp are treated as professional ‘extra’ players Maxine Kwok-Adams Iwona Muszynska Hilary Jones Juliana Koch David Elton Bryn Lewis (additional to LSO members) and receive fees William Melvin Csilla Pogany Laure Le Dantec Rosie Jenkins Toby Street for their work in line with LSO section players. Elizabeth Pigram Andrew Pollock Ghislaine McMullin Organ Laurent Quenelle Paul Robson Deborah Tolksdorf Bernard Robertson The scheme is supported by: Harriet Rayfield Hazel Mulligan Christine Pendrill Isobel Daws The Polonsky Foundation Sylvain Vasseur Helena Smart Double Basses James Maynard Derek Hill Foundation Julian Azkou Erzsebet Racz Sam Loeck Idlewild Trust Richard Blayden Colin Paris Arthur Stockel Bass Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Lyrit Milgra Violas Patrick Laurence Chi-Yu Mo Patrick Jackman Thistle Trust Mariam Nahapetyan Edward Vanderspar Thomas Goodman Julia Rumley Gillianne Haddow Joe Melvin Bass Malcolm Johnston José Moreira Laurent Ben Slimane Ben Thomson German Clavijo Simo Väisänen Stephen Doman Adam Wynter Robert Turner Rachel Gough Luca Casciato Joost Bosdijk Editorial Photography Nancy Johnson Ranald Mackechnie, Chris Wahlberg, Kimi Makino Contra Bassoons Harald Hoffmann, Marco Borggreve, Felicity Matthews Dominic Morgan Musacchio & Ianniello, Nadine Boyd Cynthia Perrin Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 Sofia Sousa Silva Advertising Cabbells Ltd 020 3603 7937

Details in this publication were correct at time of going to press.

16 The Orchestra 12 December 2019