Saturday 14 September 2019

RATTLE SEASON OPENING

Emily Howard Antisphere (world premiere) * FREE PRE-CONCERT PERFORMANCE Violin Concerto † From 6.45pm, Freestage, Level G Interval LSO Discovery Choirs Walton Symphony No 1 WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS Sir conductor violin

NE * Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO by the Barbican, supported by PRS Foundation’s Open Fund for Organisations. Performance generously supported by The Community Foundation and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts.

MUSIC

† Generously supported by Resonate, a PRS Foundation initiative in partnership with the Association of British BITAIN , BBC Radio 3 and Boltini Trust. Concert ends approx 9.40pm

Filmed for broadcast at youtube.com/lso on Saturday 21 September at 7.30pm

28 Emily Howard Antisphere (world premiere) 2019 / programme note by Paul Griffi ths

n antisphere is, as anyone might chords (thirds in the double-basses are guess, the opposite of a sphere. fundamental) that will recur through the Where a sphere curves round course of the piece. Thickening with quarter- its centre, the surface of an antisphere tones adds grit and force, here and in much is everywhere curving away. Its form is that follows. The sequence speeds up, to something like that of a spindle, with an a tutti chord whose repetitions conversely infinitely wide circle at its middle, narrowing slow down, allowing other music to come in each direction to ends that reach to their through and begin a new process. (Howard own infinities – a strange thing, impossible to has said how she wanted to give the LSO realise, but to the imagination full of potential. opportunity to show off their command of dynamic extremes, and of swift moves To Emily Howard’s imagination it spoke, between them). Soon after comes another in particular, of infinity, of shrinkage (for graphic image, from the five percussionists, images on the surface of an antisphere will of speeding up and slowing down. be squeezed relative to their appearance on M.C. Escher’s Fish and Scales a flat plane, and squeezed the more as they All the time, in different ways, the © 2019 The M.C. Escher Company – move towards the infinite edge and ends), basic chord sequence is contracting and the Netherlands. All rights reserved. mcescher.com and therefore of designs in which the same expanding. When spaced out, it may cease pattern is repeated in smaller and smaller to be heard as a sequence at all; at the central, quasi-fugal passage. Finally, after Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO by versions of itself, down to the infinitesimal other extreme, it may be compacted into a a long deceleration–acceleration, the music the Barbican, supported by PRS Foundation’s Open Fund (or larger and larger versions, up to the single event. Connections will sometimes becomes slow, quiet and bare, until the for Organisations. Performance generously supported infinite), as in some of the works of M.C. be emphatic: there is a massive shivering arrival of its chord sequence in one last by The London Community Foundation and Cockayne – Escher •. Howard was also stimulated by on the first of the basses’ thirds, with transformation. Grants for the Arts. the collision in the very word of two radically further intensification and release, and dissimilar elements: ‘sphere’, with its rich much later an outburst of E-flat minor, Antisphere completes a triptych with other range of reference (from mustard seeds to which comes from the basses’ endpoint. works Howard has based on curvatures: suns, not excluding ‘personal sphere’, ‘sphere This is by no means the only element of Torus, which was played at the 2016 BBC of knowledge’, and so on), and ‘anti’, with its traditional tonality that will be encountered, Proms, and sphere. We might feel, once single impulse to negate. but estranged now, as if inscribed on the again, the excitement of hearing geometry, antisphere’s inward curving. It is on this but the excitement, too, of music stretching Part of Life Rewired at the Barbican, a season Her work’s urgent opening – ‘Viscerally’ unfamiliar surface, too, that we find motifs its limbs – and wrapping itself back up into exploring what it means to be human when technology is the marking – presents a sequence of expanded and contracted in the work’s an instant. • is changing everything.

Programme Notes 29 Emily Howard in profile b 1979

mily Howard’s music is known Quartet, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, for its particular connection with New Scientist Live 2017); and mini-operas EMILY HOWARD AT THE BARBICAN science. Her 2016 BBC Proms Ada sketches ( Linbury Commission Torus (Concerto for ), Theatre, 2012) and Zátopek! (New Music Friday 1 November 7.30pm, Barbican described by The Times as ‘visionary’ and 20x12, London Cultural Olympiad). by The Guardian as ‘one of this year’s finest Emily Howard Torus new works’, won the orchestral category Howard was a featured composer at the Vaughan Williams of the 2017 British Composer Awards. BBC Festival 2018 with the world The Lark Ascending; Symphony No 5 Radio 3’s Record Review described her NMC premiere of her opera To See The Invisible, Debut Disc Magnetite as ‘a confident, major an Commission. BBC Symphony Orchestra orchestral debut’, hailing its ‘scientific ideas The Anvil: An Elegy for Peterloo, the first of Martyn Brabbins conductor brilliantly articulated’. three world premieres in the current year, Elena Urioste violin is a major new work for orchestra, chorus Magnetite (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and soloists with a text by Michael Saturday 2 November 6.30pm, Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko), commissioned Symmons Roberts, commissioned by Milton Court Concert Hall by Liverpool European Capital of Culture the Manchester International Festival 2008, first won Howard critical acclaim and BBC Philharmonic. A new chamber ADA LOVELACE: the year she received the Paul Hamlyn work featuring mezzo-soprano Marta IMAGINING THE ANALYTICAL ENGINE Foundation Award for Composers. Works Fontanals-Simmons is part of a day-long include Solar (London Symphony Orchestra exploration of the work of Ada Lovelace Emily Howard new work; Ada sketches / Nicholas Collon, 2010); Calculus of the curated by the composer with Britten and works by Patricia Alessandrini, Nervous System (Vienna Radio Symphony Sinfonia for the . Shiva Feshareki & PRiSM Team led by Orchestra / Sir James MacMillan; Wien Her new orchestral score Antisphere Robert Laidlow Modern 2011 and City of Birmingham receives its world premiere with the Symphony Orchestra / Andris Nelsons; LSO in tonight’s concert. • Emily Howard curator BBC Proms 2012); Mesmerism (2011), Marta Fontanals-Simmons mezzo-soprano commissioned for pianist Alexandra Dariescu, Britten Sinfonia which won a 2012 British Composer Award; Axon (BBC Philharmonic / Juanjo Mena; 2013); barbican.org.uk Afference (Elias , 2015); sphere (Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Alondra de la Parra; 2017); The Music of Proof (Piatti

30 Composer Profile 14 September 2019 Emily Howard in conversation / interview by Lydia Heald

How do you start writing a new piece? Tell us about Antisphere …

At the start of a piece I have a huge moment It’s the third in a triptych of pieces of brainstorming. I collect ideas (there are influenced by mathematical shapes and usually too many) and at some point I find geometries alongside a piece called sphere I need to actually just decide on a few ideas and another called Torus. The idea for to use. That’s when the hard work begins. Antisphere came when speaking with my Often I will then set up a strict framework colleague, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy. based on algorithmic processes for working We were discussing Torus and the positive with these musical ideas until there comes curvature of the sphere and he said, ‘Have a point when I then work much more freely. you thought about the opposite of that?’ There are usually a couple of moments where somehow the point of the piece crystallises I like to use extreme moments of very, very in my head, and in these moments I need to loud or very, very quiet. I think the LSO are head of the world premiere of I’m in composing mode I’m quite rooted to be completely focused. There are also always so fantastic at making these changes. When Antisphere, we caught up with my desk, so it’s nice to get away from that. a couple of moments where you have a slight I knew I was writing for them I thought, ‘I’m composer, professor and LSO doubt, but you just have to learn that this going to make these shapes in the music Panufnik Scheme alumna Emily Howard How did it feel to be commissioned to write is part of the process. In fact, it wouldn’t be that go from one extreme to the other’. to talk about her writing, influences, and for Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO? right if you never worried about it. being a composer in the 21st century. I think it’s important not to tell the audience It was an amazing email I received; would I What is it like composing in the 21st century? how to listen to a piece of music. Everyone What’s a typical day in your life? like to write a piece for the LSO conducted has had their own experience in life and by Sir Simon Rattle? It was one of those I think it’s different for different people. their own experience of music. When a new I usually start work very early, mainly wonderful moments when you jump around Some people comment on society in a very piece is put out there, each person will have because I find that the best ideas come in the room and say ‘yes I really would like extrovert way and some people are much a different experience. I’ve had moments the morning. I have to feed the cat, after to do that’. It’s over 10 years on from my more subtle with what they’re doing. I think where performers and audience members that I’m allowed some coffee and then I experience on the LSO Panufnik Composers your role is to say something about what’s have said things to me about my piece and read something to stimulate my brain. It Scheme, so to have had time to mature and happening around you, but it’s up to the they’re things that I hadn’t thought about could be mathematics, philosophy, poetry, to have written so much music in between artist how visible that is. With my music myself. That is a very exciting experience, to anything. And then I start writing. Often in and then to go back – it’s an opportunity to currently, most often I’m overtly responding put something out there and have people the afternoon I do something else – I might return but to have grown. to artificial intelligence and algorithms, react in different ways. • read, go for a walk or go to the gym. When mathematical shapes and structures.

In Conversation 31 Colin Matthews Violin Concerto 2009 / programme note by Paul Griffiths

1 Sognando – Scherzando – Tempo primo second. At the same time, a generally free, the violin ends as if it has discovered the PRS FOUNDATION: RESONATE – Scorrevole supple flow is replaced by stern but ever- gateway to the garden again. The question is 2 Molto sostenuto – Sostenuto con moto – changing pulsation. whether it stands open or is closed. PRS Foundation’s Resonate initiative is a fund Animato – Allegro molto and resource which encourages professional From the opening sound of the first Remembering its initiatory, low-register orchestras to programme into their repertoire Leila Josefowicz violin movement we are in a magic garden of high idea from before, the violin repeats it as the best pieces of UK music from the past and glistening sonorities – piccolos, harp – in a summons, which sends echoes through 25 years. Resonate aims to inspire more striking number of composers slow descent over brass chords (through the orchestra, fading and changing. From performances, recordings and broadcasts have written violin concertos most of the work trumpets are replaced by the outdoor space of the first movement of outstanding contemporary repertoire, as this century, urged on in many their warmer cousins, flugelhorns). And the we have come inside, into a kind of glowing chosen by UK orchestras, whilst strengthening cases by violinists, among whom tonight’s solo violin is here, too. This is its home, or gloom. The violin, while responsible for approaches to programming this music for the soloist – Leila Josefowicz – prompted not its dream home; the marking is ‘sognando’, this new ambience, appears to want out, benefit of audiences, composers and players only this concerto from Colin Matthews but dreaming. In this decelerated time, it and eventually, after some attempts in the UK and overseas. PRS Foundation also ’s (not to mention others dreams in great breaths that reach up to at the dream, it makes its exit, leaving offers financial support with grants of up by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Luca Francesconi, high notes and slowly, waveringly descend, the orchestra to repeat the summons to £10,000 to orchestras who commit to …). She played the Colin often echoed by the orchestra. Then it finds majestically. Then the violin returns, exploring contemporary UK repertoire as part Matthews for the first time with the City another voice, at the bottom of its range, seemingly with new confidence as it runs. of their season and longer term audience of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra just a little more urgent. It will need this voice The clamour of the orchestral cage, however, development programme. under ten years ago, on 30 September 2009, again, to start the second movement. comes right forward, and the solo instrument Knussen , and has since repeated is stopped. It comes back again with new Resonate is run by PRS Foundation in the work elsewhere in Europe and in the Meanwhile, there comes a turning, out vigour, and recovers its dream. Nobody else, partnership with the Association of British United States. of the dream into play. The violin is now however, is dreaming. The orchestra is, Orchestras (ABO), which has received spinning down like a sycamore seed, the rather, storming on, and the violin can only support from The Foyle Foundation to The two movements, each playing for around orchestra bouncing along beside and around. storm with it, at a peak of virtuosity, towards create a comprehensive database of pieces ten minutes, are different not so much in Excitement increases, but the violin is trying a stop that is abrupt, enigmatic. • commissioned by UK orchestras in the speed – both start out slow and have full to bring back dream time, and eventually it last 25 years. BBC Radio 3 is the broadcast capacity to accelerate – as in character, succeeds, leading the music towards a climax. Generously supported by Resonate, a PRS Foundation partner for Resonate and aims to broadcast mood, orchestral colour and rhythm. Where Here, however, it creeps out of its own dream, initiative in partnership with the Association of British as many of the Resonate pieces as possible Orchestras, BBC Radio 3 and Boltini Trust. colour is concerned, Matthews writes for a has to be called back, and returns with a whilst also helping to raise awareness of relatively modest ensemble, but with superb different sort of music, fizzing with little this national programme. resource and authority as he scans light in notes in rapid repetition. Racing around as if the first movement and darker tones in his in search, reclaiming elements of the dream,

32 Programme Notes 14 September 2019 Colin Matthews in profile b 1946

olin Matthews was born in London His Violin Concerto for Leila Josefowicz and in 1946. He studied with Arnold the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra ‘The challenges associated with securing Whittall and ; in was premiered in 2009. In 2011 he completed repeat performances of new orchestral the 1970s he was assistant to Benjamin works for the , City of works are a long-standing topic for Britten, and worked for many years with London Sinfonia and Leipzig Gewandhaus. composers, orchestra directors and funding . His collaboration with Deryck He wrote his Fourth String Quartet, for the agencies. With our Resonate initiative, Cooke on the performing version of Mahler’s Elias Quartet, in 2012, and his Fifth, for the together with the ABO, Foyle Foundation Tenth Symphony lasted from 1963 until its Tanglewood Music Center, in 2015; Spiralling and BBC Radio 3, we’re able to respond to publication in 1975. was written for Spira Mirabilis in 2014; these challenges by offering funding to UK The Pied Piper, a collaboration with Michael orchestras who would like to invest in their Over four decades his music has ranged from Morpurgo, was performed by the LPO in 2015. programming of new and exciting UK music solo piano music through five string quartets Recent projects include two song cycles from the last 25 years and allow audiences and many ensemble and orchestral works. for voice and ensemble (for the London to get to know this fantastic music beyond From 1992 to 1999 he was Associate Composer Sinfonietta and Birmingham Contemporary its first performance.’ with the LSO, writing amongst other works Music Group, respectively) and Postludes, Joe Frankland, CEO of PRS Foundation a Cello Concerto for Rostropovich. In 1997 his an octet for oboe and strings for Nicholas choral/orchestral Renewal, commissioned Daniel and Britten Sinfonia. ‘I am proud to be an ambassador for PRS for the 50th anniversary of BBC Radio 3, was Foundation’s Resonate Fund, which helps to given a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. Matthews is Founder and Executive Producer ensure that the most incredible orchestral of NMC Recordings, Executive Administrator works written over the past 25 years can be Orchestral works since 2000 include of the Holst Foundation and Music Director performed and heard again. There is such a Reflected Images for the San Francisco of the Britten-Pears Foundation. Together rich repertoire out there, I believe we simply Symphony, Berceuse for Dresden for the with Oliver Knussen he founded the must ensure it is played. The Resonate New York Philharmonic, Turning Point for Aldeburgh Composition Course in 1992, and scheme is helping to make that possible.’ the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Traces has been Composition Director of the LSO’s Sir Simon Rattle Remain for the BBC SO. Panufnik Scheme since 2005. He holds honorary posts with several universities and Matthews was Composer-in-Association is Prince Consort Professor of Composition with the Hallé – for whom he completed at the . his of Debussy’s 24 Preludes Interval – 20 minutes in 2007 – from 2001 to 2010. He is now the Colin Matthews’ music is published by orchestra’s Composer Emeritus. Faber Music.

Composer Profile 33 William Walton Symphony No 1 in B-flat minor 1932–35 / programme note by Paul Griffiths

1 Allegro assai in March–April 1932 that Adolf Hitler won onwardness, which some oceanic swells at comes later, with the strings passionately 2 Scherzo: Presto con malizia more than a third of the vote in the German last make possible. Now more march-like urging short fragments of the theme. Then 3 Andante con malinconia presidential election, from which he went and martial, the music pushes on to another we are back with the solo flute. 4 Maestoso on to gain supreme power in Germany at the plateau from which to review itself. Slow start of the following year. Meanwhile, in rotations from the trombones suggest a It is hard to imagine now the impression t was Hamilton Harty, then October 1932, Oswald Mosley had founded great machine lumbering into action, and the the symphony made when it ended here. conductor of the Hallé, who the British Union of Fascists. If there is drive becomes almost painful until roarings There had to be more. But what? We have recognised that, after the turning turbulence and alarm in this symphony, so of the original themes signal that, despite a had power, acid comedy and lament. What point of the Viola Concerto of 1929, which there was in the world out of which it came. new impulse to march, it must all stop. could wrap up the experience? Walton’s was Walton’s first big orchestral piece, the And if the symphony as a form is most answer is a blaze of sunlight followed by young composer should go on to a symphony. typically engaged with progress, resolution, The scherzo that follows, though half as rip-roaring ebullience and jazzy fugue. Harty offered the invitation in January 1932, optimism, here may have been some of long as the first movement, could be said to Oboes introduce a moment of pensiveness, and the following month Walton set to Walton’s difficulty. throw up more ideas. Everything, though, but the development and recapitulation work. The task was not, however, to prove comes from the same store and is bound to concentrate on the positive and offer plentiful easy. Almost four years passed before the Like many composers at the time, Walton the same high speed: a presto ‘with malice’, opportunities to soloists and groups right score was ready. Meanwhile, Walton had found a new model for progress in the yet also surely with humour, sometimes across the orchestra. The sunlight returns, been persuaded against his will to allow symphonies of Sibelius, and his opening is sardonic but also sometimes open and and it might seem joy could go no further. a performance in December 1934 of the very much in that mould. Over a timpani roll, free-spirited. Much is impelled, too, by the However, a trumpet changes the mood with first three movements, the finale as yet a relatively static texture is built, to form recurrent long–short–short rhythm, the what might be a bugle call, though Walton unwritten. That partial performance, given a foil for an urgent signal from the oboe, second short emphatic. then does his huge best to reassure us that by the LSO, was conducted by Harty, as to which the bassoon makes a response all is well, very well indeed. was the full one with the BBC Symphony going in the opposite direction, upwards. Out of the thin grey light of a sustained Orchestra almost a year later. From these two ideas almost the whole C sharp, a solo flute unfolds the melody on Maybe it is, but maybe it is not. We have big first movement will be built – as very which the slow movement will be based – a become used (perhaps too used) to thinking Walton’s delay has been ascribed to an soon it begins to be, through dialogue and melody, in a modal variant of C sharp minor, of Shostakovich’s exuberance as forced. Of understandable wariness in the face of dynamism, the pressure steadily increasing that Walton had at first planned using, at course, Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister this classic genre, to his general inclination towards a break that only prompts a new higher speed, as the main theme of his first through almost all the time the symphony not to hurry, and to complications in his phase of growth. This arrives at a plateau, movement. In its new function it prompts was in progress, was no Stalin, but the love life (a six-year affair with a German where the bassoon develops its first variants, often still on solo woodwinds. splendiferous joviality of the finale may have baroness, Imma von Dörnberg, was ending, notion into an expressive solo, and the About halfway through, the wandering been something Walton forced on himself, though he dedicated the work to her). The symphony begins to consider whence it meditation passes under thunderclouds or felt obliged to present, at a time when a dates, however, tell their own story. It was came. The materials are all there for further announced by the brass, but the climax new dawn was the least likely prospect. •

34 Programme Notes 14 September 2019 William Walton in profile 1902–83 / profile by Lewis Foreman

music, first heard privately at the Sitwells’ • FROM THE ARCHIVES home in January 1922 when the composer was 19. The ensuing press rumpus actually followed the first public performance at the Aeolian Hall on Bond Street 18 months later. Over the succeeding years Walton gradually refined this score, its evolution marking his own emergence as an individual voice. In the long-term its royalties became a major strand of his income.

His reputation as a composer of achievement dates from the premiere of his Viola Concerto in 1929. Belshazzar’s Feast (1931) and the Symphony in B-flat alton was born in Oldham, minor (1934–35) consolidated this reputation Lancashire, the son of a local as the leading young composer of the day. • L to R, André Previn, Richard Rodney Bennett, Thea Musgrave, choirmaster and singing teacher. In the later 1930s Walton became known Walton, Robert Simpson, Peter Maxwell Davies, Nicholas Maw and At the age of ten he became a chorister at for his film music and various shorter Malcolm Arnold, pictured at Walton’s 70th birthday concert in 1972 Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, and an works, notably Portsmouth Point and undergraduate at the age of 16, but he never Siesta, and these would soon be joined took a degree. He received encouragement by his notable orchestral marches, from various leaders of Oxford musical starting with Crown Imperial written life, though as a composer he remained for the Coronation of George VI in 1937. • essentially self-taught.

His earliest music still heard today is the unaccompanied choral piece A Litany (‘Drop, drop, slow tears’) written when he was only 14. He was established as a name by the succès de scandale of Façade, Edith Sitwell’s poems recited through a megaphone to his

Composer Profile 35 Leila Josefowicz violin

eila Josefowicz’s passionate and Esa-Pekka Salonen, all written specially Recent highlights include engagements advocacy of contemporary music for for her. This season, she will perform the UK with the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal the violin is reflected in her diverse premiere of Helen Grime’s Violin Concerto Concertgebouw Orchestra, Washington’s programmes and enthusiasm for performing with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Dalia National Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle- new works. In recognition of her outstanding Stasevska. Other recent premieres include Orchester Zürich and Boston and Finnish achievement and excellence in music, she John Adams’ Scheherazade.2 (Dramatic Radio symphony orchestras. In summer won the 2018 Avery Fisher Prize and was Symphony for Violin and Orchestra) in 2015 2017, Josefowicz appeared at Birmingham’s awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship with the New York Philharmonic and Alan Symphony Hall and London’s Royal in 2008, joining prominent scientists, writers Gilbert, and Luca Francesconi’s Duende – Albert Hall at the BBC Proms with City of and musicians who have made unique The Dark Notes in 2014 with the Swedish Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under contributions to contemporary life. Radio Symphony Orchestra and Susanna conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. Mälkki. Josefowicz enjoyed a close working Highlights of Josefowicz’s 2019/20 season relationship with the late Oliver Knussen, Josefowicz has released several recordings, include opening the London Symphony performing various concertos, including his notably for Deutsche Grammophon, Philips/ Orchestra’s season with Sir Simon Rattle Violin Concerto, together over 30 times. Universal and Warner Classics and was and returning to featured on Touch Press’s acclaimed iPad with the incoming Music Director Esa-Pekka Alongside pianist John Novacek, with whom app, The Orchestra. Her latest recording, Salonen to perform his Violin Concerto. she has enjoyed a close collaboration since released in 2019, features Bernd Alois Further engagements include concerts 1985, Josefowicz has performed recitals at Zimmermann’s Violin Concerto with with , NDR world-renowned venues such as New York’s the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Orchestre de Zankel Hall, Washington DC’s Kennedy conducted by Hannu Lintu. She has previously la Suisse Romande, Chicago Symphony Center and London’s Wigmore Hall, as well received nominations for Grammy Awards Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony as in Reykjavik, Chicago, San Francisco and for her recordings of Scheherazade.2 with Orchestra and the Cleveland and Santa Barbara. This season, they appear the St Louis Symphony conducted by David orchestras, where she will be together at Washington DC’s Library of Robertson, and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin working with conductors at the highest Congress, New York’s Park Avenue Armory Concerto with the Finnish Radio Symphony level, including Susanna Mälkki, Matthias and Amherst College. She will also join Orchestra conducted by the composer. • Pintscher and John Adams. Thomas Adès in recital to perform the world premiere of his new violin and piano work A favourite of living composers, Josefowicz at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and the has premiered many concertos, including Japanese premiere at the Tokyo Opera City those by Colin Matthews, Steven Mackey Cultural Foundation.

36 Artist Biographies 14 September 2019 Leila Josefowicz in conversation / interview by Ariane Todes

new composers and do some explorative about it, that is a huge achievement by the listening. Go to concerts. As players we composer – if you can say, ‘When I heard need to find the things that we’re most things happening in this section, or those passionate about. Listening around can chords, feelings came over me.’ These might help you find out what that is. If you’re be more abstract feelings than you would open, certain pieces start speaking to you. get from a more classical composer, but not Already when I was at school, I was playing always. If you’re struck with huge thoughts Berg and Bartók (which were considered or emotions, or you remember certain new when I was at Curtis!). moments, that means the piece is great. This is what composers strive for. We have to listen to our instincts. What attracts us? What do we enjoy? If we don’t I’m lucky that my career is built on 20th- and enjoy it, there’s no point about being in 21st-century music. It’s where my passion music, so these are important questions to lies so I don’t play a lot of standard works ’ve always been attracted to modern composing it and I’m trying to translate ask. Audiences are not going to be convinced at this point. But my practice routine is very ‘ music. Perhaps it is the daring of it into ways that are more feasible for if performances are not persuasive, so we much like it was when I was younger. Just playing something that audiences the audience, or more performable. It’s have to be diligent and enthusiastic – it because the music is newer, what suits me don’t know. It’s in my rebellious nature so satisfying. I’m making the piece into makes a difference. as a player doesn’t mean that my regime has not to do the things that everyone predicts. what it is for the composer, but I’m also to be different. I’m still aiming for the same There is also a spontaneity in performing giving it to future generations of players. Things have progressed since I was a things: to understand the musical content something for which people can’t rely Every composer has a different language student. There are many more performances and to conquer the technical difficulties so on comparative listening – if they hear and I love putting care and diligence into of new music and composer-in-residence the musical content can speak, whatever something totally new, your performance understanding their grammar and the schemes, and new works are not so isolated the genre of music. In my head this does can’t be compared to another version. I find subtle markings of what they’ve written. on programmes – they may be thrown in not change. Maybe it takes more time to that refreshing. Growing up, I played all the among more standard repertoire. We’re understand so that part of the process takes standard repertoire over and over, and was For young players thinking of exploring moving in the right direction. more time, but that’s what I find interesting, always being compared to other players, which new music, listening is key. If you want to and why I gravitated to it in the first place.’ • is very competitive. I wanted to get away from be more informed, poke around YouTube What makes a piece great? Everyone will that feeling to something more creative. and the internet. Sometimes you need an say something different. For me, it can have introduction. I remember the first times certain flaws, but in general if the sound I enjoy the process of conversing with a people played John Adams and Thomas arrests you and stays with you, or if you’re composer as I work on their piece. They’re Adès for me – I was blown away. Look for left with strong feelings or impressions

In Conversation 37 London Symphony Orchestra on stage – 14 September 2019

Leader Second Violins Cellos Flutes Horns Timpani LSO String Experience Scheme Roman Simovic David Alberman Tim Hugh Gareth Davies Timothy Jones Nigel Thomas Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Thomas Norris Alastair Blayden Patricia Moynihan Angela Barnes Mark Robinson Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins Sarah Quinn Jennifer Brown Alexander Edmundson from the London music conservatoires at Clare Duckworth David Ballesteros Noel Bradshaw Piccolo Jonathan Bareham Percussion the start of their professional careers to gain Ginette Decuyper Matthew Gardner Daniel Gardner Sharon Williams Paul Gardham David Jackson work experience by playing in rehearsals Laura Dixon Julian Gil Rodriguez Hilary Jones Sam Walton and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Gerald Gregory Naoko Keatley Laure Le Dantec Oboes Trumpets Tom Edwards are treated as professional ‘extra’ players Maxine Kwok-Adams Csilla Pogany Jessie Ann Richardson Juliana Koch Philip Cobb Jake Brown (additional to LSO members) and receive fees William Melvin Belinda McFarlane Victoria Simonsen Rosie Jenkins Gerald Ruddock for their work in line with LSO section players. Claire Parfitt Iwona Muszynska Judith Fleet Niall Keatley Harp The Scheme is supported by: Harriet Rayfield Paul Robson Cor Anglais Toby Coles Susan Blair The Polonsky Foundation Rhys Watkins Siobhan Doyle Double Basses Christine Pendrill Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Soong Choo Victoria Irish David Desimpelaere Trombones Piano Derek Hill Foundation Morane Cohen- Hazel Mulligan Colin Paris Clarinets Peter Moore Joseph Havlat The Thistle Trust Lamberger Patrick Laurence Chris Richards James Maynard Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation Eleanor Fagg Violas Matthew Gibson Elizabeth Drew Lulu Fuller Jane Atkins Thomas Goodman Bass Trombone Jan Regulski Gillianne Haddow Joe Melvin Bass Clarinet Paul Milner Patrick Savage German Clavijo José Moreira Renaud Carol Ella Paul Sherman Guy-Rousseau Tuba Robert Turner Ben Thomson Ilona Bondar Bassoons Samuel Burstin Daniel Jemison Cameron Campbell Joost Bosdijk Luca Casciato Fiona Dalgliesh Contra Bassoon Alistair Scahill Andrew Watson Sofia Silva Sousa

38 The Orchestra 14 September 2019