Thursday 9 January 2020 7.30–9.45pm Barbican

LSO SEASON CONCERT MENDELSSOHN

Wagner and Venusberg Music from ‘Tannhäuser’ STUTZ Mendelssohn Interval Brahms Symphony No 1

Nathalie Stutzmann conductor Alina Ibragimova violin MANN

6pm Barbican LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists Welcome News On Our Blog

LSO St Luke’s as part of BBC Radio 3’s LSO STRING EXPERIENCE SCHEME WHAT HAPPENS AT AN ‘Bach Up Close’ Lunchtime Concert series. LSO SINGING DAY? We are delighted to appoint 14 players to Thank you to our media partner Classic this year’s LSO String Experience cohort. On one of the first drizzly Sundays in FM for recommending this concert to Since 1992, the scheme has been enabling autumn, LSO Choral Director Simon Halsey their listeners, and to the Guildhall School young string players from London’s music rehearses Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount musicians who performed chamber music conservatoires to gain experience playing in of Olives in a singing day at LSO St Luke’s. before tonight’s concert. These recitals, rehearsals and concerts with the LSO. They which complement the repertoire in the will join the Orchestra on stage for concerts LSO’s season, take place throughout the in the new year. WHAT’S NEXT FOR OUR 2018/19 year and are free to attend. LSO JERWOOD COMPOSER+ ARTISTS? elcome to tonight’s London Symphony Orchestra concert at I hope that you enjoy the performance and LSO DISCOVERY IN TOKYO We talk to Daniel Kidane and Amir Konjani the Barbican, the first of the new that you will join us again soon. In January about their time as LSO Jerwood Composer+ year. We are delighted to welcome Nathalie and February, Sir Simon Rattle conducts In November 2019, LSO players Amanda artists and their future plans, and hear from Stutzmann, known to many for her singing, a series of concerts bringing together the Truelove and Robert Turner, and musical incoming composers Hollie Harding and Des and increasingly now as a conductor, for music of Alban Berg with Beethoven’s animateur Rachel Leach, visited Tokyo Oliver about their experience so far. her LSO debut. Her programme tonight Seventh and Ninth Symphonies, and the to lead workshops for young people with showcases composers from the Romantic oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, in learning disabilities at the British Council in • Read more at lso.co.uk/blog era, opening with extracts from Wagner’s Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year. Japan. Many thanks to All Nippon Airways opera Tannhäuser and concluding with for providing flight support. Brahms’ First Symphony. WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS

It is a great pleasure to welcome back We are delighted to welcome soloist Alina Ibragimova for Mendelssohn’s Gerrards Cross Community Association, Violin Concerto. Alina Ibragimova is a great Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Hertford U3A, IES Abroad and friend of the LSO, making her debut with Managing Director Linda Diggins and Friends to tonight’s the Orchestra in 2007 at the BBC Proms and concert. joining us regularly on the Barbican stage in later seasons. Ahead of tonight’s concert, Please ensure all phones are switched off. she gave a recital of music by J S Bach at Photography and audio/video recording are not permitted during the performance.

2 Welcome 9 January 2020 Tonight’s Concert In Brief Coming Up The LSO at the Barbican

he Overture and Venusberg Music to literature, myth or any other non-musical Wednesday 15 January 6.30pm Sunday 19 January 7pm from Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser topics, but he nevertheless wrote rich, Thursday 13 February 7.30pm have been performed as a concert complex and original music that packs an HALF SIX FIX staple ever since Mendelssohn conducted emotional punch. • BEETHOVEN & BERG RATTLE: BEETHOVEN 250 them together as a stand-alone piece in CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES Leipzig in 1846. The work rises to an ecstatic PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Berg Seven Early Songs frenzy – representing the mountain of Venus Beethoven Symphony No 7 Berg Violin Concerto – in music that Wagner requested be cut Alison Bullock is a freelance music writer Beethoven Christ on the Mount of Olives from theatrical productions, since it was whose interests range from Machaut to Sir Simon Rattle conductor ‘as a prelude to the drama, too much’. Messiaen and beyond. She is a former editor Dorothea Röschmann soprano Sir Simon Rattle conductor for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Lisa Batiashvili violin Following this, Alina Ibragimova joins the the LSO. Supported by the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Elsa Dreisig soprano Orchestra to play Mendelssohn’s Violin Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican Pavol Breslik tenor Concerto, another piece that has enjoyed George Hall writes widely on David Soar bass huge popularity. What is remarkable about and especially opera for such publications as London Symphony Chorus the piece is its tuneful immediacy combined The Stage, BBC Music Magazine, Opera and Simon Halsey chorus director with innovations devised by a Opera Now. Thursday 16 January 7.30pm people-pleasing Mendelssohn: a down-to- Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican business opening for solo violin, and the Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and RATTLE: BEETHOVEN 250 seamless joining of its movements through translator who writes extensively on French, BEETHOVEN & BERG Thursday 30 January 7.30pm masterful tricks of orchestration. Russian and Eastern European music. Berg Seven Early Songs NOSEDA: RUSSIAN ROOTS The final piece is Brahms’ First Symphony, Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Berg Passacaglia SHOSTAKOVICH NINTH SYMPHONY composed 30 years later. At this time, journalist and writer. He is the author Berg Three Pieces for Orchestra there was a widespread view (expressed of The LSO at 90, and contributes to Beethoven Symphony No 7 Prokofiev Symphony No 1 ‘Classical’ by Wagner) that music ought to be about a wide variety of specialist classical Mozart Violin Concerto No 3 something other than just music, which is music publications. Sir Simon Rattle conductor Mussorgsky Prelude to ‘Khovanshchina’ reflected in Wagner’s music dramas and Dorothea Röschmann soprano Shostakovich Symphony No 9 Liszt’s . It is an idea Brahms didn’t subscribe to when writing Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican Gianandrea Noseda conductor his First Symphony. Like Mendelssohn’s Christian Tetzlaff violin Concerto, Brahms’ Symphony doesn’t refer

Tonight’s Concert 3 Richard Wagner Overture and Venusberg Music from ‘Tannhäuser’ 1845 / note by George Hall

agner first became interested Royal Theatre in Dresden. It contains two dined before the opera and arrived late, thus written though not yet produced. But the in combining elements of two main thematic elements, opening with the missing the gratification of seeing their voluptuousness of this new music was medieval German legends following sturdy, fervent chorale of the pilgrims’ hymn favourite ballerinas disporting themselves in not enough to save the production, which his departure from Paris – where he had before being superseded by the restless, a sequence intended to represent an orgy. received open hostility and was withdrawn made almost no impression – in 1842. The sensuous and exultant music associated after three performances. resulting narrative linked a competition with Tannhäuser’s sojourn in Venus’ realm Wagner’s own stage direction gives some between minstrels (or ‘Minnesingers’) at of erotic delight; these two elements idea of what he visualised: ‘The stage Tannhäuser nevertheless went on to become Wartburg (a medieval castle overlooking alternate throughout. represents the interior of the Venusberg … one of Wagner’s most successful works, the Thuringian town of Eisenach) around In the distant background is a blueish lake; whether in the Dresden, Paris or later the year 1207, to the somewhat later figure (with a few more changes) Vienna versions. of the poet and minstrel Tannhäuser, who The overture leading straight into the was active 1245–65. The opera’s full title, — ‘Venusberg Music’, which we hear tonight in in fact, is Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg ‘Venus lies on a couch, the head of the half-kneeling Tannhäuser in her lap. the ‘Paris’ version, remains a much-admired auf Wartburg (‘Tannhäuser and the Singing orchestral extract. • Competition at Wartburg’). The whole cave is illuminated by rosy light.’ — In Wagner’s libretto, drafted between June 1842 and April 1843, the minstrel, who has But Wagner was not done with Tannhäuser, in which naiads are bathing; sirens recline spent some time at the court of Venus and when a production was arranged at on its undulating banks. To the extreme left (the ‘Venusberg’, transferred to Germany the Paris Opéra in 1861, he made some foreground Venus lies on a couch, the head following the decline of the Greek gods), significant revisions, the most important of the half-kneeling Tannhäuser in her lap. enjoying the delights of sexual love, returns of which was to extend the Venusberg The whole cave is illuminated by rosy light. to Wartburg and duly takes part in the sequence that immediately followed the A group of dancing nymphs appears, joined competition. However. his frank hymn to Overture by adding a ballet – a standard gradually by loving couples from the cave. love and open admittance of his dalliance requirement at this particular theatre. A train of bacchantes enters from the back with the pagan goddess lead to his in increasingly wild dance … ’. banishment and subsequent pilgrimage to Traditionally, the ballet would come later Rome to seek absolution. in the score, though Wagner the dramatist Cutting into the final section of the overture found no use for it there. Thus it was that and leading on without a break, Wagner’s The overture was the last part of the score he earned the noisy displeasure of sections new music for this Venusberg section to be completed in April 1845, in preparation of the Parisian audience – particularly the was thrillingly erotic, after the manner for the work’s successful premiere at the uncouth members of the Jockey Club, who of Tristan and Isolde – which was already

4 Programme Notes 9 January 2020 Richard Wagner in Profile 1813–83

funded the building of a new theatre at Bayreuth exclusively for the performance of Wagner’s works, and the Bayreuth Festival was launched in 1876. Wagner’s final opera VIOLINSTRING & Parsifal was written specifically for Bayreuth. IN THE 2019/20 SEASON He died in Venice on 13 February 1883. •

Composer Profile by Andrew Stewart DVOŘÁK VIOLIN CONCERTO FLING with Gil Shaham 12 March 2020

BRITTEN VIOLIN CONCERTO with Vilde Frang 15 March 2020 agner was born on 22 May 1813 in Leipzig. In 1829, he completed his ELGAR VIOLIN CONCERTO first instrumental compositions, with Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider writing the libretto for his first opera Die 29 March 2020 Feen in 1833. In 1839, Wagner moved from Riga to Paris to escape his creditors, and was LIGETI VIOLIN CONCERTO living in extreme poverty. with Patricia Kopatchinskaja 26 April 2020 Here, he completed Rienzi and created The Flying Dutchman, which established BEETHOVEN VIOLIN CONCERTO his reputation. In the 1850s, he began with Anne-Sophie Mutter composing his cycle of the four Nibelung 28 May 2020 operas, also completing his opera Tristan and Isolde. His financial difficulties were Plus Mozart, Stravinsky & more removed in 1864 by King Ludwig II, a lso.co.uk/201920 dedicated Wagnerite who commissioned Der Ring des Nibelungen. The king later

Composer Profile 5 Violin Concerto in E minor Op 64 1838–44 / note by Alison Bullock

1 Allegro molto appassionato introduction, playing an ardent melody. The Throughout this wonderful, delicate flight 2 Andante orchestra is allowed to introduce the wistful of fancy, Mendelssohn introduces new 3 Allegretto non troppo second theme before the soloist takes it ideas and melodies. But it is the graceful, 4 Allegro molto vivace over; however, the gentler mood disappears effervescent opening melody that holds the as suddenly as it came. The central section movement just about under control, bringing Alina Ibragimova violin opens dramatically, later dissolving into this most inventive yet approachable virtuosic solo figurations that turn out to concerto to its dancing conclusion. • n 1825, the 16-year-old Felix be the cadenza (written by David), whose Mendelssohn met the 15-year-old dancing arpeggios melt away over the A TEENAGE FRIENDSHIP violinist Ferdinand David •; the orchestra’s reprise of the main theme. two prodigies would become both great • Ferdinand David (1810–73) first met friends and musical partners. Thirteen Mendelssohn, it is said, disliked applause Mendelssohn while working as a violinist in years later, in one of his many letters to between movements, and therefore decided Königstadt in 1825. Their relationship was the violinist, Mendelssohn mentioned to link the first two movements by way of a cemented in 1836 when David took up the that he wanted to write a violin concerto single note that hangs in the air. post of Leader for the Gewandhausorchester for him; however, it was not until 1843 After a brief prologue, the solo violin plays Leipzig, where Mendelssohn was the MENDELSSOHN ON LSO LIVE that he was able to give the work his full the movement’s sweet, singing main Kappellmeister. They enjoyed a close attention, and the work was not completed melody. The orchestra initiates the more musical partnership through the orchestra, Explore Sir ’s recordings until late in 1844. Mendelssohn referred agitated central section, but the mood here as collaborators on this Violin Concerto and on LSO Live, including his recent cycle of often to David for advice on matters both is one of passion rather than disruption, and in chamber settings, with Mendelssohn Mendelssohn’s symphonies. technical and artistic; the violinist made the atmosphere soon returns to the quiet joining David at the piano for public and numerous changes to the concerto, and was reverence of the opening. private performances. LSO Live recordings can be purchased from responsible for its unusual combination of the LSO Live website and the Barbican technical feasibility and virtuoso gloss. Once again, Mendelssohn denies the shop, are available to stream on Spotify, audience the chance to shuffle in their Apple Music and Primephonic, and can be The E minor concerto’s enduring popularity seats between the andante and the finale, downloaded on iTunes and Amazon. is due in no small part to its ease on the ear, creating a bridge passage that refers to the and so it is easy to forget its innovations. concerto’s opening theme. An unexpected Interval – 20 minutes lsolive.co.uk The immediacy of the first theme is one brass fanfare heralds carefree arpeggios There are bars on all levels of the example: instead of the usual full orchestral in the violin – and suddenly we are carried concert hall; ice cream can be bought opening, Mendelssohn has the soloist open headlong into a movement whose technical at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. the door on the concerto after barely a bar of wizardry is peppered with flashes of wit.

6 Programme Notes 9 January 2020 Felix Mendelssohn in Profile 1809–47 / profile by Andrew Stewart

— ‘Even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God.’ Felix Mendelssohn —

elix Mendelssohn was the grandson Mendelssohn revived Bach’s St Matthew of the Enlightenment philosopher Passion exactly 100 years after its first and son of performance. Soon after, a trip to London an influential German banker. Born into a and the Scottish Highlands and nearby privileged family, he was encouraged to study islands inspired the overture The Hebrides. In the piano as a boy, learned to draw from his 1830, he travelled to Italy at the suggestion mother and became an accomplished linguist of Goethe and while in Rome started his and classical scholar. In 1819 he began so-called ‘Scottish’ and ‘Italian’ symphonies. composition studies with Carl Friedrich Zelter. In 1835, he was appointed conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, greatly expanding His family’s wealth allowed their home its repertoire with early music and his own in Berlin to become a refuge for scholars, works, including the E minor Violin Concerto. artists and musicians. The philosopher Hegel Two years later he married Cecile Jeanrenaud and scientist Humboldt were regular visitors, and in 1843 founded the Leipzig Conservatory. and members of the Court Orchestra and eminent soloists were available to perform His magnificent biblical oratorio , the latest works by Felix or his older sister commissioned for and first performed at Fanny. Young Mendelssohn’s twelve string the 1846 Birmingham Musical Festival, soon symphonies were first heard in the intimate gained a place alongside Handel’s Messiah setting of his father’s salon. in the hearts of British choral societies and audiences. He died in Leipzig in 1847. • Mendelssohn’s maturity as a composer was marked by his in E-flat major (1825) and concert overture to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826). In 1829,

Composer Profile 7 Symphony No 1 in C minor Op 68 1876 / note by Andrew Huth

1 Un poco sostenuto – Allegro shortly afterwards, Schumann published Once the idea of a symphony had taken root conductor Hermann Levi, ‘I shall never write 2 Andante sostenuto the famous article that proclaimed Brahms in his mind (and in Clara’s mind, too) there a symphony. You can’t imagine what 3 Un poco allegretto e grazioso to be the long-awaited Messiah who would was no turning back. Brahms was good at it is like to have that giant [Beethoven] 4 Adagio – Allegro non troppo ma con brio bring to fulfilment all the best tendencies covering his tracks, and so we cannot be sure marching along behind one.’

ew works have taken so long — Brahms was cautious because he was so in the making as Brahms’ First ‘You can’t imagine what it is like to have that giant painfully aware of his mighty predecessor, Symphony, for its keenly awaited and because he knew that any symphony of performance on 4 November 1876 marked marching along behind you.’ his, when it appeared, would be judged the end of a process that had begun some — by the very highest standards. He 20 years earlier. At the time, though, only determined not only to produce a work Brahms’ closest friends were aware of in German music. Within months, however, when he actually began the composition of containing the very best of himself, but this. For the majority of his audience, the Schumann’s mental health collapsed; he what was to become the First Symphony. It also a work deliberately and consciously symphony came as a great and important attempted suicide and was confined to an has been suggested that it was as early as unlike anything that Beethoven might ever statement by a composer considered to asylum, where he died in 1856. the mid-1850s, although nothing definite is have composed. In fact, the two composers be the heir of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, known of it until 1862, when he sent Clara were profoundly different in character. Schubert and Schumann, and who upheld In the meantime, Brahms became closely the first movement. But 14 years passed Beethoven was consciously creating the the traditional values of ‘pure’ music in the attached to Schumann’s wife Clara, and much before the work was finally completed, and future; Brahms’ often radical innovations face of Liszt and of Wagner •, whose Ring of the music from these years expresses the even after the first performance, Brahms came from resolving the tensions between cycle had been staged for the first time turmoil and stress he suffered on account of made a number of changes to the two past and present. In contrast to Beethoven’s in its entirety just three months earlier at this impossible and unfulfilled relationship. middle movements. dynamic striving outwards, the music of Bayreuth. But Brahms himself sensibly Schumann’s generous tribute made Brahms’ Brahms usually shows a spontaneous avoided musical politics as much as he name widely known, but it also had an Brahms was the sort of man who found and passionate nature turned in on itself. could; and whatever the Symphony meant intimidating effect, raising expectations outright hostility easier to cope with Brahms has a richer sound, owing to his to his listeners, to the composer himself that the self-critical young man often than praise. He laughed when Hugo Wolf denser orchestral texture, more complex its significance was rooted in the troubled doubted he could meet; at the same time, described his symphonies as ‘nauseatingly harmony and tighter integration of musical period when, as an unknown 20-year-old, it was a challenge he could hardly ignore. stale, profoundly mendacious’; but he felt motives – but this same richness demanded he had first encountered Robert Schumann In 1854, he began a sonata for two pianos, real annoyance and embarrassment when from him a rigid control of his material. and his wife Clara. which then became the draft of a symphony Hans von Bülow extolled the First Symphony in D minor before the music was finally as ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’. As late as 1870, All this, and indeed the passionate The couple were amazed by the music absorbed into the First Piano Concerto and when much of the symphony had been strength of the symphony as a whole, is the young composer played to them, and the German Requiem. composed, he was still protesting to the summed up in the introduction to the first

8 Programme Notes 9 January 2020 Johannes Brahms in Profile 1833–97 movement, which was added at a late stage THE WAR OF THE ROMANTICS after her husband’s illness and death. The of composition. Many of the work’s most relationship did not develop as Brahms vital ideas are heard here, briefly and in In the mid-18th century, a schism formed wished, and he returned to Hamburg; their embryonic form, and it casts its dark shadow between ‘New German School’ composers close friendship, however, survived. over the main body of the movement. The Liszt and Wagner, and a group of two central movements are both lighter and ‘conservative’ composers represented by In 1862 Brahms moved to Vienna where shorter than their equivalents in Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann and the he found fame as a conductor, pianist and reflecting the lyrical side of Brahms’ nature Leipzig conservatoire that had been founded composer. The Leipzig premiere of his that came from Schubert and Schumann. by Mendelssohn. German Requiem in 1869 was a triumph, As a result of this relative lightness, a far with subsequent performances establishing greater weight of expectation is thrown onto Musical structure, programme music Brahms as one of the emerging German the finale. This was the movement that gave and absolute music were the topics nation’s foremost composers. Following Brahms the greatest trouble and delayed of contention, and at the heart of the the long-delayed completion of his First the work’s completion for so long, for it was disagreement was a debate on whether the Symphony in 1876, he composed in quick a formidable task to balance the power of symphony was still viable as a genre; in the succession the Violin Concerto; the two the opening movement and to resolve the works of Beethoven, it had developed from ohannes Brahms was born piano Rhapsodies, Op 79; the First Violin overall tensions of the symphony. a musical form meant for entertainment in Hamburg, the son of an Sonata and the Second Symphony. His to one that expressed ideas about impecunious musician; his mother subsequent association with the A year before finishing the symphony, society, morality and culture. For decades later opened a haberdashery business to much-admired court orchestra in Meiningen Brahms completed another work begun in afterwards, the composers who followed help lift the family out of poverty. Showing allowed him freedom to experiment and de­ the 1850s, a turbulent Piano Quartet in the grappled with the question ‘What next?’ early musical promise, he became a pupil of velop new ideas, the relationship crowned by same key of C minor. It suggests that in the distinguished local pianist and composer the Fourth Symphony of 1884. his early forties he had finally determined Liszt and his circle favoured styles and Eduard Marxsen and supplemented his once and for all to come to terms with forms that blended music with narrative parents’ meagre income by playing in the In his final years, Brahms composed a the emotional drama of his twenties. We and visual ideas, whereas Brahms made bars and brothels of Hamburg’s infamous series of profound works for the clarinettist might well wonder whether the change in the case for the continued relevance of the red-light district. Richard Mühlfeld, and explored matters of his personal appearance at this time – 1876 utterly musical symphony. Composers from life and death in his Four Serious Songs. He was also the year that he grew the heavy both sides looked back on Beethoven as a In 1853 Brahms presented himself died at his modest lodgings in Vienna in grizzled beard that dominates all his later hero: the conservatives seeing him as an to Robert Schumann in Düsseldorf, 1897, receiving a hero’s funeral at the city’s photographs – was merely coincidental. • unsurpassable peak, the progressives as a winning unqualified approval from the central cemetery three days later. • new beginning in music. older composer. Brahms fell in love with Schumann’s wife, Clara, supporting her

Composer Profile 9 Nathalie Stutzmann conductor

athalie Stutzmann’s 2019/20 Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Atlanta rank of Chevalier. She is also a Chevalier de season will be her second as Chief Symphony Orchestra, and the Bamberger l’ordre national du Mérite and an Officier des Conductor of the Kristiansand Symphoniker in 2019/20. She also returns to Arts et des Lettres in France. • Symphony Orchestra in Norway and third the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, as Principal Guest Conductor of the RTÉ Rotterdam, Oslo, Royal Liverpool and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Royal Stockholm Philharmonics, and the Her inaugural concert with the Kristiansand Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Symphony Orchestra was chosen as Norway’s Concert of the Year 2018 by the Nathalie is also gaining a reputation as Norwegian press. She will also be this an opera conductor. This season she will season’s Artist-in-Residence with the conduct Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. at La Monnaie in Brussels. She recently conducted critically acclaimed performances Nathalie is considered one of the most of Boito’s Mefistofele at the 2018 Chorégies outstanding musical personalities of d’Orange festival in Provence. This followed our time, with parallel careers as a an equally noted production of Wagner’s world-renowned contralto and as a rising Tannhäuser (2017) at Monte Carlo Opera. star conductor. Charismatic musicianship, combined with the rigour, energy and Nathalie started her studies at a young age fantasy that characterise her style. As a in piano, bassoon and cello, and studied conductor, her core repertoire focuses on the conducting with the legendary Finnish Romantic era — ranging from Beethoven, teacher Jorma Panula. She was mentored Brahms and Dvořák through to the larger by Seiji Ozawa and Sir Simon Rattle, who symphonic forces of Mahler, Strauss, says, ‘Nathalie is the real thing. So much Tchaikovsky and Wagner — as well as love, intensity and sheer technique. We French Impressionism. need more conductors like her.’ In addition to conducting, Nathalie continues to keep Having begun the season with her BBC engagements as a singer, performing song Proms debut, in which she performed recitals and concerts with her Stutzmann Wagner, Brahms and Mozart with the BBC Camerata. In January 2019, she was admitted National Orchestra of Wales, Nathalie into the Ordre National de la Légion will also debut with the LSO, Los Angeles d’Honneur (France’s highest honour) at the

10 Artist Biographies 9 January 2020 Alina Ibragimova violin

erforming music from across Resonanz and the Orchestra of the Age of Alina’s discography on Hyperion Records history on both modern and period Enlightenment with whom she is recording includes 16 albums ranging from Bach to instruments, Alina Ibragimova the three violin concertos by Michael Haydn Szymanowski and Ysaÿe. Her latest release, has a reputation as one of the most for Hyperion Records. featuring Vierne and Franck’s Violin Sonatas accomplished and intriguing violinists. This and Ysaÿe’s Poème élégiaque with Cédric is illustrated by her prominent presence at In the 2018/19 season, Alina made her Tiberghien, was referred to as ‘Simply superb the BBC Proms since 2015: in addition to debut with the Royal in every way’ by BBC Music Magazine. concerto performances from the standard Orchestra, leading to an immediate repeat An album featuring Brahms’ three Violin repertoire, her Proms appearances have invitation. She also played concertos with Sonatas was released in October 2019. included a concert with a Baroque ensemble the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen and two late-night Royal Albert Hall Rundfunks, Deutsches Symphonie- Born in Russia in 1985, Alina studied at recitals featuring Bach’s complete Partitas Orchester Berlin, Chamber Orchestra of Moscow’s Gnessinstate Musical College and Sonatas, about which The Guardian Europe, London Philharmonic Orchestra, before moving with her family to the UK commented, ‘The immediacy and honesty Swedish Radio Symphony, Royal Stockholm in 1995, where she studied at The Yehudi of Ibragimova’s playing has the curious Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony and the Menuhin School and the Royal College ability to collapse any sense of distance Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony. of Music. She was also a member of the between performer and listener.’ In the 2018 Kronberg Academy Master programme. BBC Proms, Alina gave the world premiere With her long-standing musical partner, the Alina’s teachers have included Natasha of Rolf Wallin’s Violin Concerto with the pianist Cédric Tiberghien, she has performed Boyarsky, and Christian Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted highly successful cycles of Beethoven and Tetzlaff. Alina has been the recipient of by Edward Gardner. 2018/19 saw her focus on Mozart’s Violin Sonatas at Wigmore Hall. awards including the RPS Young Artist Shostakovich’s Concertos Nos 1 and 2, which They have also toured to Japan, Korea, North Award 2010, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award she performed and recorded with Vladimir America and Berlin, giving a debut recital at 2008, the Classical BRIT Young Performer Jurowski and the State Academic Symphony the Pierre Boulez Saal. Highlights in their of the Year Award 2009 and was a member Orchestra of Russia. forthcoming season include appearances at of the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme the Beethovenhaus Bonn and Wigmore Hall, 2005-7. She was made an MBE in the 2016 This season, Alina has debut engagements and touring with the Doric . New Year Honours List. Alina performs on an with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Vancouver Alina is also a founding member of the Anselmo Bellosio violin kindly provided by Symphony and Barcelona Symphony Chiaroscuro Quartet. Together, the quartet Georg von Opel. • Orchestras and will return to the LSO and have toured and recorded extensively since Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. She also 2005 and have become one of the most tours with the Sinfonietta Riga, Ensemble sought-after period ensembles.

Artist Biographies 11 London Symphony Orchestra on stage tonight

Leader Second Horns LSO String Experience Scheme Carmine Lauri David Alberman David Cohen Gareth Davies Timothy Jones Nigel Thomas Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Sarah Quinn Alastair Blayden Hannah Grayson Angela Barnes Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins Miya Väisänen Jennifer Brown Alexander Edmundson Percussion from the London music conservatoires at Ginette Decuyper Matthew Gardner Noel Bradshaw Piccolo Meilyr Hughes Neil Percy the start of their professional careers to gain Gerald Gregory Naoko Keatley Eve-Marie Sharon Williams David Jackson work experience by playing in rehearsals Maxine Kwok-Adams Alix Lagasse Caravassilis Sam Walton and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Elizabeth Pigram Csilla Pogany Daniel Gardner Philip Cobb Jeremy Cornes are treated as professional ‘extra’ players Claire Parfitt Gordan Mackay Hilary Jones Olivier Stankiewicz Toby Street (additional to LSO members) and receive fees Harriet Rayfield Belinda McFarlane Amanda Truelove Rosie Jenkins Niall Keatley Harp for their work in line with LSO section players. Colin Renwick Iwona Muszynska Victoria Harrild Bryn Lewis Sylvain Vasseur Paul Robson Peteris Sokolovskis Trombones The scheme is supported by: Rhys Watkins Hazel Mulligan Sérgio Pires Helen Vollam The Polonsky Foundation Richard Blayden Greta Mutlu Double Basses Chi-Yu Mo Anthony Howe Derek Hill Foundation Eleanor Fagg Erzsebet Racz Sam Loeck Idlewild Trust Alexandra Lomeiko Colin Paris Bass Trombone Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Lyrit Milgram Patrick Laurence Daniel Jemison Paul Milner Thistle Trust Hilary Jane Parker Edward Vanderspar Matthew Gibson Joost Bosdijk Patrick Savage Gillianne Haddow Thomas Goodman Malcolm Johnston Joe Melvin Contra Bassoon Ben Thomson German Clavijo José Moreira Dominic Morgan Stephen Doman Gyunam Kim Julia O’Riordan Editorial Photography Robert Turner Ranald Mackechnie, Chris Wahlberg, Nancy Johnson Harald Hoffmann, Marco Borggreve, Claire Maynard Eva Vermandel Sofia Silva Sousa Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 Luba Tunnicliffe Advertising Cabbells Ltd 020 3603 7937 Anna Dorothea Vogel Details in this publication were correct at time of going to press.

12 The Orchestra 9 January 2020