sign in sign up
<<
Home , Altenberg Lieder, Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Piano Sonata (Berg), Rinat Shaham, Seven Early Songs (Berg)

Thursday 16 January 2020 7.30–9.40pm Barbican

LSO SEASON CONCERT BEETHOVEN & BERG

Berg Berg Passacaglia Berg Three Pieces for Interval Beethoven Symphony No 7

Sir conductor Dorothea Röschmann soprano

Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican Welcome Latest News

at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall earlier DONATELLA FLICK LSO PROGRAMME NOTE WRITERS this week and last night’s Half Six Fix COMPETITION concert here at the Barbican. In the second Paul Griffiths has been a critic for nearly half, Sir Simon conducts Beethoven’s Applications are now open for the 16th 40 years, including for The Times and The Seventh Symphony, and we look forward to Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition New Yorker, and is an authority on 20th- forthcoming performances of Beethoven’s in 2021, founded in 1990 by Donatella Flick and 21st-century music. Among his books Ninth Symphony in the coming weeks, in and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. are studies of Boulez, Ligeti and Stravinsky. London and on tour to Barcelona, Paris, He also writes novels and librettos. Hamburg and Baden-Baden. • lso.co.uk/more/news Andrew Stewart is a freelance music journalist I hope that you enjoy tonight’s performance AN INTRODUCTION TO and writer. He is the author of The LSO at 90, warm welcome to this evening’s and that you are able to join us again CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES and contributes to a wide variety of specialist LSO concert at the Barbican, soon. On Sunday, Sir Simon conducts classical music publications. conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Beethoven’s rarely performed Christ on the In the words of Sir Simon Rattle, Beethoven This performance begins our year-long Mount of Olives together with Berg’s is ‘absolutely inescapable’, particularly in his Lindsay Kemp is a senior producer for celebrations of the 250th anniversary , for which we welcome soloist anniversary year. Ahead of two performances BBC Radio 3, including programming of Beethoven’s birth, as part of a wider . At the end of the month, of Christ on the Mount of Olives, find out lunchtime concerts at Wigmore Hall and Beethoven 250 series at the Barbican. Principal Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda more about the musical titan’s only oratorio. LSO St Luke’s. He is also Artistic Advisor to Throughout January and February, Sir Simon resumes his Shostakovich cycle with the York Early Music Festival, Artistic Director of will pair the music of this great composer Ninth Symphony, which will be recorded • lso.co.uk/more/blog Baroque at the Edge Festival and a regular with a master of the 20th century, Alban for LSO Live. • contributor to Gramophone magazine. Berg, opening tonight with a trio of the latter composer’s works – his Seven Early Songs WELCOME TO OUR GROUP BOOKERS and the Passacaglia, leading straight into his Three Pieces for Orchestra. Benjamin Brody & Friends

We are joined for the Seven Early Songs Kathryn McDowell CBE DL by soprano Dorothea Röschmann, who Managing Director made her LSO debut in 2012 with Mahler’s songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. It is Please ensure all phones are switched off. a pleasure to welcome her back tonight, Photography and audio/video recording following a performance with the Orchestra are not permitted during the performance.

2 Welcome 16 January 2020 Tonight’s Concert In Brief by Paul Griffiths Coming Up

he first half of tonight’s concert The first movement has an introduction Sunday 19 January 7pm Thursday 30 January 7.30pm invites us to follow that, by turns rousing and lyrical, Thursday 13 February 7.30pm Barbican through his twenties, from the accumulates energy to spin off through Barbican passionate Romanticism of his Seven Early the usual sections of a first movement: SHOSTAKOVICH NINTH SYMPHONY Songs to the devastating turmoil of the exposition, development and recapitulation. CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES Three Pieces he composed during the first Liveliness persists, thanks to quick-rotating ProkofievSymphony No 1, ‘Classical’ stages of World War I. The songs are love themes and fresh woodwind colour. Minor Berg Mozart Violin Concerto No 3 songs, centred on a luminous setting of an harmony and a steady tread might have Beethoven Christ on the Mount of Olives Mussorgsky Prelude to ‘’ early Rilke lyric, and all given extra elegance made the slow movement a funeral Shostakovich Symphony No 9 by the orchestration Berg added 20 years march, but it speaks more of effort and Sir Simon Rattle conductor later. Next comes a symphonic Passacaglia achievement. The scherzo has bursting Lisa Batiashvili violin Gianandrea Noseda conductor – an unfinished draft by Berg realised by energy, alternating with strong song and soprano Christian Tetzlaff violin the Swiss conductor Christian von Borries. leaving the symphony on course for a finale Pavol Breslik tenor Altogether larger in scope and catastrophic, of swelling joy. • David Soar bass 6pm Barbican the Three Pieces comprise a prelude that LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists grows and symmetrically unwinds, a Simon Halsey chorus director Free pre-concert recital Round Dance wafting on the rhythm of the Viennese waltz, and a huge march that Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican Friday 7 February 12.30pm reaches on further from Mahler, with military LSO St Luke’s signals and shattering hammer blows. Friday 17, 24 & 31 January 1pm LSO St Luke’s LSO DISCOVERY At the time he was composing his early FREE FRIDAY LUNCHTIME CONCERT: songs, Berg had a bust of Beethoven on BBC RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERT FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE his bedside table, and it is to Beethoven BACH UP CLOSE we turn after the interval for his Seventh Musicians from all backgrounds explore Symphony of 1811–12. Here, following Discover the idiosyncrasies of Bach’s 20th-century Russian responses to the the oppression-to-freedom story of his with intimate performances Baroque in chamber music by Bach, Fifth Symphony and the country scenes from soloists and ensembles. Stravinsky, Schnittke and Shostakovich. of the ‘Pastoral’, Beethoven returned to abstract form – though Wagner, noting the Recorded for future broadcast by BBC Radio 3 Rachel Leach presenter prominent rhythms throughout, called the piece ‘the apotheosis of the dance’.

Tonight’s Concert 3 Beethoven 250 at the Barbican by Dr Joanne Cormac COMING UP AT THE BARBICAN

Saturday 1 – Sunday 2 February This season, the Barbican, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Academy of BEETHOVEN WEEKENDER Ancient Music and Guildhall School of Music & Drama celebrate 250 years since the birth of . But what is his relevance today? Nine symphonies. Five . One extraordinary weekend celebrating Beethoven is the ultimate creative genius. social change. It is a powerful symbol of the original musical trailblazer. He epitomises the popular, romanticised hope, revisited in times of political struggle, image of the great composer. Beethoven a celebration of freedom and brotherhood. Sponsored by DHL suffered. He was taciturn, isolated, and lacking in social graces. He endured the The popular image can be problematic. Thursday 6 February 7.30pm worst affliction imaginable for a musician: Beethoven’s vocal and choral music, or deafness. In spite of all this (many, including simply the works that do not contain PLAYS BEETHOVEN Wagner, would argue because of all this), journeys of struggle to redemption, are he managed to compose some of the most rarely performed because they do not comply Beethoven Sonata No 8 Op 13 breathtaking, transcendental, sublime with our perception of the heroic, suffering 15 Variations and a Fugue Op 35 music of the Western canon. At first, the artist. The Barbican’s innovative, inclusive No 17 Op 31 composer's deafness was understood as a and occasionally irreverent programme, Piano Sonata No 21 Op 53 barrier to his compositional prowess: the in contrast, will question the myths. The reason for the bizarre, jarring sounds of the Beethoven we hear will be refreshingly Thursday 27 February 7.30pm late string quartets. Later, it was seen as the unfamiliar at times. Milton Court Concert Hall key to his greatness, enabling Beethoven to access profound, inward truths. Beethoven’s music endures. Its universal THE LAST THREE PIANO SONATAS themes mean that it remains relevant to Living through turbulent revolutionary times, almost any time and place. It has been heard Beethoven Piano Sonata No 30 Beethoven was an advocate for political in prisons, concentration camps, at the fall of in E major Op 109 reform. He saw a power-shift away from the Wall, in films, and in venues across Piano Sonata No 31 in A-flat major Op 110 the aristocracy. His political beliefs were the globe. 250 years after his birth, Beethoven Piano Sonata No 32 in C minor Op 111 more ambivalent and changeable than his belongs to everyone. And that is something mythology allows, but Beethoven’s music to celebrate. • Ronan O'Hora piano has come to represent resistance against tyranny and oppression, and the defence Explore the whole series online Promoted by Guildhall School of Music & Drama of individual freedom, equality and radical • barbican.org.uk/beethoven250

4 Beethoven 250 at the Barbican 16 January 2020 Alban Berg Seven Early Songs 1905–08 / note by Paul Griffiths LATER THIS SEASON

Sunday 1 March 7pm 1 Nacht (Night) the first number and elsewhere, as well as, comes next, was the title poem of an early Barbican 2 Schilflied (Song Amongst the Reeds) where the choice of texts was concerned, for collection; here, midway 3 Die Nachtigall (The Nightingale) the shimmering imagery of contemporary through the cycle, it provides for a rapturous SYMPHONIC GOSPEL SPIRIT 4 Traumgekrönt (A Crown of Dreams) poetry. At the same time we can hear recollection of union, the voice wrapped by 5 Im Zimmer (Indoors) how Berg was learning from Schoenberg, the orchestra in a swathe of stars. Union André J Thomas conductor 6 Liebesode (Lovers’ Ode) especially in his use of motivic variation takes on a domestic character in the short NaGuanda Nobles soprano 7 Sommertage (Summer Days) to secure character and integrity. ‘Die fifth song and an erotic languor in the sixth, Jason Dungee tenor Nachtigall’, apart from its middle section, which is again a night scene, before the London Adventist Dorothea Röschmann soprano has the same pattern – leap up, trickle down sequence then ends in full passion. • – flowing all through, and similarly short Sunday 5 April 7pm t the age of 40, just beginning motifs function importantly in all the other Texts overleaf Barbican to explore what Schoenberg’s numbers. ‘Traumgekrönt’ is full of subtle twelve-note technique might hold interplay between voice and orchestra, and MACMILLAN: ST JOHN PASSION for him, Berg looked back to the songs he also includes an expressive longer-range had written almost two decades before correspondence around the halfway point, • BERG AND SCHOENBERG Gianandrea Noseda conductor under Schoenberg’s direct tutelage •. where these two partners exchange what Marcus Farnsworth baritone There were around 30 of them, from which they had at the opening, each remembering Berg studied counterpoint, music theory and London Symphony Chorus he chose seven, not only to publish but also, the other. harmony with from 1904 Simon Halsey chorus director in 1928, to orchestrate, brushing the rich to 1911 (his previous music education had been harmony of his original accompaniments Opening the set, ‘Nacht’ invites us to survey fairly minimal). He adopted Schoenberg’s Thursday 23 April 7.30pm with the clear colours of his present style. a wide landscape of magic and silver in the influential twelve-tone technique, a method Barbican The result is music of double focus, of deepening gloom, a landscape which is of composition using an ordered series of plush late-Romanticism observed through that of the songs to follow. Berg writes for the twelve notes of the . DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE a modern prism. a woman’s voice, but the songs’ persona is male, hearing the voice of his beloved Bartók Concerto for Orchestra The songs show the young composer’s in the whispering of the reeds beside a Bartók Duke Bluebeard’s Castle enthusiasms: principally for Mahler, but also forest pool in the second song and, in the for the radiance of , assisted third, reminded of her again by the singing Sir Simon Rattle conductor by Debussian whole-tone formulations in of the nightingale. ‘Traumgekrönt’, which Rinat Shaham mezzo-soprano Gábor Bretz bass

Programme Notes 5 Seven Early Songs texts & translation

1 Nacht 1 Night Dämmern Wolken über Nacht und Thal, Twilight floats above the valley’s night, Wenn sich dann der Busch verdüstert, Soon the sun’s rays will be dying, Nebel schweben. Wasser rauschen sacht. Mists are hanging, there’s a whisp’ring brook. Rauscht das Rohr geheimnisvoll, Rustling reeds speak secretly, Nun entschleiert sich’s mit einem Mal: Now the cov’ring veil is lifted quite: Und es klaget, und es flüstert, Ever moaning, ever sighing, O gieb acht! gieb acht! Come and look! O look! Daß ich weinen, weinen soll. Telling me to weep for thee.

Weites Wunderland ist aufgethan, See the magic land before our gaze: Und ich mein, ich höre wehen And it seems the breezes blowing Silbern ragen Berge traumhaft gross, Tall as dreams the silver mountains stand, Leise deiner Stimme Klang In the air your voice retain, Stille Pfade silberlicht thalan Crossed by silent silver paths Und im Weiher untergehen And the water, scarcely flowing, Aus verborg’nem Schoss. Shining from a secret land. Deinen lieblichen Gesang. Brings your song to me again.

Und die hehre Welt so traumhaft rein. Noble, pure, the dreaming country sleeps. Text: Nikolaus Lenau Stummer Buchenbaum am Wege steht By the path the shadow black and high of a Schattenschwarz – ein Hauch vom fernen Hain beech; 3 Die Nachtigall 3 The Nightingale Einsam leise weht. A wisp of white smoke creeps to the Das macht, es hat die Nachtigall The nightingale, dark’ning sky Die ganze Nacht gesungen; Which sings to thee throughout the night, Where the valley is the darkest hued. Da sind von ihrem süßen Schall, Discloses in gardens its sweet melody, Da sind in Hall und Widerhall Heard echoing from tree to tree, Und aus tiefen Grundes Düsterheit By the path the shadow black and high of a Die Rosen aufgesprungen. That bears a thousand roses. Blinken Lichter auf in stummer Nacht. beech; Sie war doch sonst ein wildes Blut; She used to be a wild young maid, Trinke Seele! trinke Einsamkeit! Countless little lights shine silently. Nun geht sie tief in Sinnen, Now she in meditation O gieb acht! gieb acht! O my soul! Drink of solitude! Trägt in der Hand den Sommerhut Walks in the sun and scorns the shade, Come and see! O see! Und duldet still der Sonne Glut Nor of the wind and rain afraid: Text: Carl Hauptmann Und weiß nicht, was beginnen. Is it pain or exaltation?

2 Schilflied 2 Song Amongst the Reeds Das macht, es hat die Nachtigall The nightingale, Auf geheimem Waldespfade Through green secret paths I wander Die ganze Nacht gesungen; Which sings to thee throughout the night, Schleich ich gern im Abendschein To the reedy pool’s quiet brink, Da sind von ihrem süßen Schall, Discloses in gardens its sweet melody, An das öde Schilfgestade, In the evening there to ponder, Da sind in Hall und Widerhall Heard echoing from tree to tree, Mädchen, und gedenke dein! Sweet girl, there of thee to think. Die Rosen aufgesprungen. That bears a thousand roses.

Text: Theodor Storm

6 Texts 16 January 2020 4 Traumgekrönt 4 A Crown of Dreams Und aus dem Garten tastete zagend sich And from the garden came to us timidly Das war der Tag der weißen Chrysanthemem, The white chrysanthemums did bloom as ein Rosenduft an unserer Liebe Bett The roses’ fragrance blessing our bed of love Mir bangte fast vor seiner Pracht … never: und gab uns wundervolle Träume, And bringing wonderful sweet dreaming, Und dann, dann kamst du mir die Seele I almost feared their brilliant light. Träume des Rausches – so reich an Dreaming in rapture, and filled with longing. nehmen Tief in der Nacht. And then, and then you came my soul to Sehnsucht! Brings your song to me again. Mir war so bang, und du kamst lieb und leise, gather deep in the night. Ich hatte grad im Traum an dich gedacht. I was afraid, and you came softly to me, Text: Otto Erich Hartleben Du kamst, und leis’ wie eine Märchenweise As I’d just hoped in dreaming that you might. Erklang die Nacht. You came, and softly like an old, old story 7 Sommertage 7 Summer Days We heard the night. Nun ziehen Tage über die Welt, Now days of summer ride through the world, Text: Rainer Maria Rilke gesandt aus blauer Ewigkeit, Heralds of blue eternity; im Sommerwind verweht die Zeit. On gentler winds the hours flee. 5 Im Zimmer 5 Indoors Nun windet nächtens der Herr By night the Lord gently weaves Herbstsonnenschein, An autumn night. Sternenkränze mit seliger Hand Starry posies with his blessed hand, Der liebe Abend lacht so still herein, The evening looks in with its dying light. über Wander – unt Wunderland. Hangs them over his magic land. Ein Feuerlein rot A fire gaily burns, Knistert im Ofenloch und loht. Crackles and brightly glows by turns. O Herz, was kann in diesen Tagen My heart, in these days summer’s bringing So! Meinen Kopf auf deinen Knien, So! My head upon your knee: dein hellstes Wanderlied denn sagen What can you say with all your singing So ist mir gut; That’s happiness! von deiner tiefen, tiefen Lust; Of what you deeply, deeply feel? Wenn mein Auge so in deinem ruht. When my eyes your lovely face caress, Im Wiesensang verstummt die Brust, For beauty all your words doth steal, Wie leise die Minuten ziehn. How silently the minutes flee. nun schweigt das Wort, wo Bild um Bild And comes in silence with the view zu dir zieht und dich ganz erfült. Of eventide, and filleth you. Text: Johannes Schlaf Text: Paul Hohenberg Texts/translations reprinted with permission 6 Liebesode 6 Lovers’ Ode of Universal Edition (London) Ltd Im Arm der Liebe schliefen wir selig ein. Embraced by love we blissfully fell asleep. Am offnen Fenster lauschte der Sommerwind, A breeze of summer stood by the garden und unsrer Atemzüge Frieden door, trug er hinaus in die helle Mondnacht. Waiting to bear our peaceful breathing Out to the night that was bathed in moonlight.

Texts 7 Alban Berg Passacaglia 1913 / note by Paul Griffiths

fter his early songs, Berg wrote for his symphony is more regular, beginning more: a set of four with piano in with the bass alone (of nine bars, though, 1909–10, with which he stepped rather than the normal eight) and continuing gently away from traditional , and through ten cycles in which this bass is then five with orchestra in 1912, on poems more implicit than fully present, to falter of oriental brevity by a Viennese writer of just as the eleventh is beginning. The bass the previous generation, Peter Altenberg. is effectively atonal, with some lingering At the same time, he had his sights on sense of D minor, and it provides the motifs instrumental forms, and, after beginning for everything that follows. Soon the music with a piano sonata and a , is fully Bergian in its polyphony of emotions, both short, set himself in the summer of held back at the start of the fourth cycle by 1913 to write a symphony. Very much in his a call from the Mahlerian distance. mind was Mahler, whose Ninth Symphony The strings come sweeping up and the he had heard in its posthumous first slows into the exquisite eighth cycle, performance the year before. Perhaps the scored for solo violin, just a few woodwind, pressure was too great, for he abandoned and harp. A new beginning stalls on repeated his own enterprise after making various notes, to leave just a shuffling line in the far drafts. The most substantial of these is bass, after which another restart does not for a passacaglia •, breaking off after a take too long to unravel. • hundred bars and conveying indications of orchestration. This was taken to the next The Passacaglia will lead directly into the stage of a full score by the Swiss conductor Three Pieces for Orchestra, without a break. Christian von Borries, who presented the work for the first time in Berlin in 1999. • PASSACAGLIA

The passacaglia as a form, moving slowly Originating in early 17th-century Spain, a and inexorably forward over repetitions of passacaglia was an interlude between dances its bass line, had a particular appeal to Berg, or songs. The term itself derives from the who made the last of his Spanish ‘pasar’ (to walk) and ‘calle’ (street). songs this way and was to do the same for As a musical form it is still used today, though a scene in his . In comparison the term has developed and now denotes a with those examples, the one he planned series of variations over a bass-.

8 Programme Notes 16 January 2020 Alban Berg Three Pieces for Orchestra Op 6 1913–15 / note by Paul Griffiths

1 Präludium The second piece, ‘Reigen’, or ‘Round Dance’, drum beats, bugle calls and brazen band • NEW RELEASES ON LSO LIVE 2 Reigen starts out in 4/4 but soon achieves the waltz to create a potent military atmosphere. 3 Marsch rhythm that was second nature for this That this music was composed during the Viennese composer. Intimately Bergian, too, initial stages of World War I is uncanny, for it erg came to use others among is the sensuality. For anyone in at seems to predict the collapse of over-heavy his symphonic sketches over the time, the title would likely have called empires. It also seems to predict, with its the next two years, in a work for to mind the play by Arthur Schnitzler (also eventual arrival at a piping children’s song which the only title he could find wasDrei known as La Ronde, after the much later and then persuasively female imagery, Orchesterstücke – Three Pieces. Here again, film version by Max Ophuls), which, not the essence of Berg’s next work: Wozzeck. Mahler is the great ancestor, especially of yet staged at the time, had been published Perhaps, after all, he had indeed composed the big finale, where the hammer of the in 1908 and rapidly banned. Schnitzler his symphony. • Sixth Symphony returns to deliver its mortal imagined a succession of explicit couple blows. Schoenberg, too, stands behind this scenes with changing partners (AB – BC – music, in having led his small band of pupils CD, etc); Berg’s score is a succession of over the horizon of regular tonality. Paying variously passionate dances, arriving at a Sir Simon Rattle conductor homage – remembering – was essential great fortissimo of textural complexity, to Berg’s art, as was the combination we and ending in suspension at what is at find here of colossal power, at an extreme once trill and thrill. of wildness, with exact form. The opening prelude, for instance, rises steadily in Whatever the noise and entanglement at volume and urgency, then retreats, creating the height of this movement, however, a frankly displayed palindrome, emphasised everything is surpassed by the extraordinary by how it begins and ends with three bars march that follows. Filling as much time for percussion alone: tam tams, drums as the two preceding pieces together, this and . On another level, some of moves through great waves of increasing Interval – 20 minutes the themes here will reappear in the later weight and contrapuntal richness, to topple There are bars on all levels. movements, though this is not so easy to each time. The constant tread of the march, Visit the Barbican Shop to see our spot, given the music’s intense immediacy however much it might be assailed by range of gifts and accessories. and the rapidity with which it develops. counter-rhythms, is allied with a scenery of Gianandrea Noseda conductor

Programme Notes 9 Alban Berg In Profile 1885–1935 / profile by Andrew Stewart AT LSO ST LUKE'S

Sunday 19 January 10am–5pm lthough piano lessons formed and, despite hostile early criticism, has since Barbican & LSO St Luke’s part of Berg’s general education, entered the international repertoire. As the boy showed few signs of an innovative composer, Berg successfully DISCOVERY DAY: BEETHOVEN exceptional talent for music. He struggled married – and, later, a harmonic to pass his final exams at the Vienna and melodic language based on the use of all Attend a morning LSO rehearsal with Gymnasium, preferring to learn directly twelve tones of the chromatic scale – with Sir Simon Rattle, followed by a talk about new trends in art, literature, music forms from the past. Traces of popular music and chamber music in the afternoon. and architecture from friends such as Oskar also surface in his works, notably so in his Kokoschka, Gustav Klimt and Adolf Loos. opera (1929–35), a powerful tale of Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican immorality, completed from the composer’s On graduating from school, Berg accepted sketches only after the death of his widow Friday 24 & 31 January 1pm a post as a local government official, but in in 1976. Berg himself died of septicaemia, LSO St Luke’s October 1904 was inspired by a newspaper almost certainly caused by complications advertisement to study composition with following an insect bite. • BBC RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERT Arnold Schoenberg. He studied for six BACH UP CLOSE years with Schoenberg, who remained his close friend and mentor. During this time Sophisticated textures, complex shapes Schoenberg evolved a new approach to and irresistible melodic lines. Discover the composing, gradually moving away from the idiosyncracies of Bach’s chamber music. norms of tonal harmony. Recorded for future broadcast by BBC Radio 3 In 1910, Berg completed his String Quartet Op 3, in which he revealed an independent Friday 7 February 12.30pm creative flair. Berg’s self-confidence grew LSO St Luke’s with the composition of several miniature works and, in 1914, the large-scale Three FREE FRIDAY LUNCHTIME CONCERT Pieces for Orchestra. Service with the FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE Austrian Imperial Army during World War I did not completely halt Berg’s output; indeed, Guildhall School Musicians he began his first opera,Wozzeck , in the Rachel Leach presenter summer of 1917. The work was premiered at the Berlin Staatsoper in December 1925

10 Composer Profile 16 January 2020 RACHMANINOV NO 3 & Ravel Daphnis and Chloe with Lukáš Vondráček & Elim Chan 27 February RAVEL PIANO CONCERTO IN G & La valse with Cédric Tiberghien & Karina Canellakis 8 March DEBUSSY LA MER & Dvořák Violin Concerto with & Susanna Mälkki 12 March FANTASIA ON A THEME BY THOMAS TALLIS Coming up: the LSO’s & Vaughan Williams Symphony No 6 with Sir 2019/20 season continues 15 March ELGAR VIOLIN CONCERTO & Sibelius Symphony No 4 with Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider & Sir Mark Elder 29 March

lso.co.uk/201920 Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No 7 in A major Op 92 1811–12 / note by Lindsay Kemp

1 Poco sostenuto – Vivace of it as ‘the apotheosis of the dance’. But been completed long before Hanau, in the actually a set of variations on a minor-key 2 Allegretto could that not equally well be said of a Bach spring of the previous year. theme, twice interrupted by consolatory 3 Presto suite? And by the time it has ended, has major-key episodes – soon found imitators. 4 Allegro con brio the Seventh Symphony not expressed a The Seventh starts with a massive Schubert, in particular, returned many times purer and freer form of euphoria than might slow introduction, the longest in any of both to its mood and to its characteristic he movement titles and specific primarily be associated with dancing? The Beethoven’s symphonies. Its leisurely wind long–short–short rhythm. birdcalls of the ‘Pastoral’ modern Beethoven scholar David Wyn Jones themes contain few hints of the energy soon Symphony are about as explicit as has suggested that in this work Beethoven to be unleashed, but there is a coiled-spring With the third movement, a scherzo, we Beethoven got when it came to noting down set himself the challenge of moulding a quality to the heavy accents and upward return to the prevailingly joyful tenor of ‘meanings’ for his major works. The man ‘continuous, cumulative celebration of joy’, string scales that accompany them. When the work. The main sections are typically who first realised the symphony’s universal and this seems a more accurate assessment the main part of the first movement arrives, Beethovenian: a lithe and playful mix of expressive potentialities in the ‘Eroica’, than Wagner’s. Yet even then, how exactly however, it is not with a rush but with a light-footed passages and forte outbursts in and for whom extra-musical inspirations does the melancholy second movement fit in? gentle slide into the principal theme, a lilting the outer sections, and deceptive simplicity formed an important part of his creative melody announced by the flute. This is also in the twice-heard contrasting section, said thinking, was usually happy to let his music The perceptions of the Seventh’s earliest where we meet the movement’s defining to have been based on the melody of an do the talking – ‘the listener should be audiences may well have been determined rhythmic unit, a three-note figure (think Austrian pilgrim hymn. able to discover the situations himself’, by the timing and circumstances of the of the rhythm of the word ‘Amsterdam’), he wrote on sketches for the ‘Pastoral’. premiere. It was first performed in December which from these unassuming beginnings In the finale, the music reaches its peak of And while few could deny that the ‘Eroica’ 1813 in the Hall of Vienna University in a gathers the power to dominate almost as elation in an unstoppable swirl of ebullience seems to embody a sense of rebirth, or that charity concert organised to raise funds obsessively, and in its way as powerfully, and energy, driven along by off-beat accents the Fifth marks out some kind of journey for the widows and orphans of wounded as the more famous four-note motif of the and prodding repeated-note figures. It is from darkness to light, the composer left soldiers. and her allies had recently Fifth Symphony. a subtlety worth listening out for when, in no actual clues that he thought of them scored a significant victory over Napoleonic the central development section, Beethoven thus. It is the music that communicates forces at the Battle of Hanau, and the The second movement is one of the most makes the two-note accompaniment figure these things so strongly that we feel we concert no doubt had a patriotic air; also striking in all of Beethoven’s symphonies, in the bass of the main theme a subject for understand them. on the programme was Beethoven’s noisy and one of the most immediately influential. discussion among the orchestra. But really, battle-piece Wellington’s Victory, and it It was encored at the first performance – a for the listener there is little choice here but Compared to the above symphonies, the would be no surprise if the jubilant Seventh testament no doubt both to its extraordinary to abandon oneself to the music’s engulfing Seventh is a little harder to pin down. was seen at first as another war celebration affecting power and its stand-out quality exuberance. • The rhythms which dominate each one – the second movement could then even within the symphony – and it did not of its movements have given rise to one be a lament for the wounded, of the type take long for it to make its mark on other oft-quoted appraisal: Wagner’s description traditional in such pieces. But, in fact, it had composers. Its insistent slow march –

12 Programme Notes 16 January 2020 Ludwig van Beethoven In Profile 1770–1827

Haydn. The younger composer fell out with his renowned mentor when the latter discovered he was secretly taking lessons from several other teachers. Although BEETHOVEN 250 Maximilian Franz withdrew payments WITH SIR SIMON RATTLE for Beethoven’s Viennese education, the talented musician had already attracted support from some of the city’s wealthiest Sunday 19 January 10am–5pm Wednesday 12 February 6.30pm arts patrons. His public performances in Barbican & LSO St Luke’s HALF SIX FIX 1795 were well received, and he shrewdly negotiated a contract with Artaria & Co, the DISCOVERY DAY: BEETHOVEN Sunday 16 February 7pm largest music publisher in Vienna. He was Barbican soon able to devote his time to composition Attend an LSO morning rehearsal with or the performance of his own works. Sir Simon Rattle followed by a talk and BEETHOVEN ‘CHORAL’ SYMPHONY chamber music in the afternoon. In 1800, Beethoven began to complain bitterly Iwona Sobotka soprano eethoven showed early musical of deafness, but despite suffering the distress Sunday 19 January 7pm Anna Stéphany mezzo-soprano promise, yet reacted against his and pain of tinnitus, liver problems, chronic & Thursday 13 February 7.30pm Robert Murray tenor father’s attempts to train him as stomach ailments and an embittered legal Barbican Florian Boesch baritone a child prodigy. The boy pianist attracted case for the guardianship of his nephew, London Symphony Chorus the endorsement of the Prince-Archbishop, Beethoven created a series of remarkable CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES Simon Halsey chorus director who supported his studies with leading new works, including the Missa Solemnis musicians at the Bonn court. By the early and his late symphonies and piano sonatas. Lisa Batiashvili violin Thursday 28 May 7.30pm 1780s, Beethoven had completed his first It is thought that around 10,000 people Elsa Dreisig soprano Barbican compositions, all of which were for keyboard. followed his funeral procession on 29 March Pavol Breslik tenor With the decline of his alcoholic father, 1827. Certainly, his posthumous reputation David Soar bass BEETHOVEN VIOLIN CONCERTO Ludwig became the family breadwinner as developed to influence successive generations London Symphony Chorus a musician at court. of composers and other artists inspired by Simon Halsey chorus director conductor the heroic aspects of Beethoven’s character Anne-Sophie Mutter violin Encouraged by his employer, the Prince- and the profound humanity of his music. • Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican Archbishop Maximilian Franz, Beethoven 6pm Barbican: Free pre-concert recital travelled to Vienna to study with Joseph Profile by Andrew Stewart lso.co.uk/btvn250 LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists

Composer Profile 13 Sir Simon Rattle conductor

Sir Simon has made over 70 recordings for productions of Beethoven’s Fidelio, Mozart’s Rundfunks, Staatskapelle Berlin and Vienna the record label EMI (now Warner Classics) Così fan tutte, Britten’s Peter Grimes, Philharmonic, with which he has recorded and has received numerous prestigious Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Strauss’ the complete Beethoven symphonies international awards for his recordings on Salome and Bizet’s , all with the and piano with . various labels. Releases on EMI include . He also conducted Sir Simon is also a Principal Artist of the Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms (which Wagner’s complete Ring cycle with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment received a Grammy Award for Best Choral Berlin Philharmonic for the Festival d’Aix- and Founding Patron of Birmingham Performance), Berlioz’s Symphonie en-Provence and Osterfestspiele, Contemporary Music Group. fantastique, Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, and most recently at the Deutsche Oper Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Mahler’s Berlin and the Wiener Staatsoper. Other The 2019/20 season sees Sir Simon embark Symphony No 2, Stravinsky’s The Rite of recent opera productions include Tristan upon tours to Hong Kong, China and Vietnam, Spring and Rachmaninov’s The Bells and and Isolde at the in New and the US and Europe with the LSO. He Symphonic Dances, all recorded with the York; Pelléas et Mélisande and Poulenc’s returns to the Symphonieorchester des Berlin Philharmonic. Sir Simon’s most recent Les Dialogues des Carmélites at the Royal Bayerischen Rundfunks with a programme recordings include Berlioz’s The Damnation Opera House, Covent Garden; Rameau’s of Strauss, Schumann and Rameau, the of Faust, Helen Grime’s Woven Space, Hippolyte et Aricie, Janáček’s Aus einem Berlin Philharmonic for Beethoven’s Christ Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Mark- Totenhaus and Káťa Kabanová, and Berlioz’s on the Mount of Olives and will tour Europe Anthony Turnage’s Remembering, which The Damnation of Faust for the Deutsche and the US in a chamber music project with ir Simon Rattle was born in were all released by LSO Live. Staatsoper Berlin; and Puccini’s Manon mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená. This Liverpool and studied at the Lescaut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. season’s operatic highlights include Der Royal Academy of Music. Between 2013 and 2018, Sir Simon and the Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera, Berlin Philharmonic took up residency at As well as fulfilling a taxing concert schedule Berg’s Wozzeck at the Festival d’Aix-en- From 1980 to 1998, Sir Simon was Principal Baden-Baden Osterfestspiele, performing a in London, Sir Simon regularly tours within Provence and Mozart’s at the Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the City variety of operatic and symphonic repertoire. Europe, North America and Asia, and has Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Past seasons included Puccini’s Manon strong longstanding relationships with was appointed Music Director in 1990. In Lescaut and ’ ritualisation the world’s leading orchestras. Initially Sir Simon Rattle was knighted in 1994. In the 2002, he took up the position of Artistic of Bach’s St John Passion, Strauss’ Der working closely with the Los Angeles New Year’s Honours of 2014 he received the Director and Chief Conductor of the Berlin Rosenkavalier, Berlioz’s The Damnation of Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Order of Merit from Her Majesty the Queen. • Philharmonic where he remained until the Faust, Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and, most Orchestras, Simon has also recently worked end of the 2017/18 season. Sir Simon took up recently, Parsifal (2018). In the years prior, with the Orchestra and the the position of Music Director of the London Sir Simon collaborated with the Salzburg Metropolitan Opera. He regularly conducts Symphony Orchestra in September 2017. Osterfestspiele, where he conducted staged the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen

14 Artist Biographies 16 January 2020 Dorothea Röschmann soprano

Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte, Mozart), Susanna new with role debuts as Ariadne (Ariadne US, culminating in a recital at New York’s and the Countess Almaviva (The Marriage auf Naxos, Strauss), Elisabeth (Tannhäuser, Carnegie Hall. The live recording from of Figaro, Mozart), Micäela (Carmen, Wagner) at the Dresden Semperoper and the Wigmore Hall won the Best Solo Vocal Bizet), Donna Elvira and Zerlina (Don title role in Gluck’s Alceste at the Bayerische Album at the 2017 Grammy Awards. Giovanni, Mozart) and the Marschallin Staatsoper, Munich. (Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss). Her other recordings include Countess Recent concert highlights include Almaviva with Harnoncourt, Pamina and In 1995, she made a critically acclaimed Wesendonck Lieder with Robin Ticciati/ Nannetta with Abbado, Puccini’s Suor début at the as Susanna Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Angelica with Sir Antonio Pappano, Strauss’ with and has returned and with Karina Kanellakis/Orchestre de Vier Letze Lieder with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, to the festival many times to sing Donna Paris, and Wozzeck (Marie) with Daniel Brahms’ Ein deutsches with Rattle Elvira, Countess Almaviva, Ilia (Idomeneo, Harding/Berlin Philharmonic and Bayerischer (which won a Grammy and Gramophone Mozart), Servilia and Vitellia (La clemenza Rundfunk Orchester, Munich. This season Award), Mahler’s Symphony No 4 with di Tito, Mozart), Nannetta, Pamina, and she sings Tove in Gurre-Lieder with Jonathan Harding, Handel’s Neun Deutsche Arien with Florinda (, Schubert), with Nott/Tokyo Symphony Orchestra; Rückert- the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Handel’s conductors such as , Daniel Lieder with Rafael Payare/San Diego Messiah with Paul McCreesh, Pergolesi’s Harding, and Christoph Symphony; and Beethoven Choral Fantasy with David Daniels and Fabio von Dohnányi. In the 2014 Saslzburg Festival, with Louis Langrée/Cincinnati Symphony. Biondi, and a disc of Schumann songs with orn in Flensburg, Dorothea she returned to sing Florinda with Ingo Ian Bostridge and Graham Johnson. She has Röschmann was awarded the Metzmacher and to the Easter Festival in A prolific recitalist, she has appeared at released two CDs on the Sony Classical label; title of Kammersängerin at the 2016 for Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello with London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Het in 2014, her debut recital album Portraits, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin in 2017, where Christian Thielemann. She is also a frequent Concertgebouw, Wiener Konzerthaus and in and in 2015, a greatly anticipated Mozart she was a member of the ensemble for many guest at the Wiener Staatsoper; Bayerische Antwerp, Lisbon, Madrid, Cologne, Brussels, arias disc with and the years. She is closely associated with the Staatsoper, Munich; Semperoper Dresden; Oslo and at the Edinburgh, Munich, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Both theatre; her roles there include Agathe and House, Covent Garden; Schwarzenberg Festivals. This season she discs have received great critical acclaim. • Ännchen (Der Freischütz, Mozart), Nannetta and in Berlin. will sing with at the Pierre (, Verdi), Eva (Die Meistersinger Boulez Saal, Berlin. She has also appeared von Nürnberg, Wagner), Elsa (Lohengrin, Renowned as a distinguished Mozartian, with at the Lucerne Festival, Wagner), Pamina (, Mozart), she has recently ventured into pastures London’s Wigmore Hall and on tour in the

Artist Biographies 15 London Symphony Orchestra on stage

Guest Leader Second Flutes Contra LSO String Experience Scheme Andrej Power David Alberman Rebecca Gilliver Gareth Davies Dominic Morgan Nigel Thomas Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Thomas Norris Alastair Blayden Patricia Moynihan Andrew Watson Sam Walton Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins Sarah Quinn Jennifer Brown Clare Childs from the London music conservatoires at Carmine Lauri Miya Väisänen Noel Bradshaw Horns Percussion the start of their professional careers to gain Clare Duckworth David Ballesteros Eve-Marie Caravassilis Piccolo Timothy Jones Neil Percy work experience by playing in rehearsals Ginette Decuyper Matthew Gardner Daniel Gardner Sharon Williams Eirik Haaland David Jackson and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Laura Dixon Naoko Keatley Hilary Jones Angela Barnes Sam Walton are treated as professional ‘extra’ players Gerald Gregory Belinda McFarlane Laure Le Dantec Alexander Edmundson Tom Edwards (additional to LSO members) and receive fees Maxine Kwok Alix Lagasse Amanda Truelove Juliana Koch Jonathan Maloney Helen Edordu for their work in line with LSO section players. William Melvin Csilla Pogany François Thirault Olivier Stankiewicz James Pillai Oliver Yates Claire Parfitt Iwona Muszynska Rosie Jenkins Michael Kidd Rachel Gledhill Taking part in rehearsals for this concert Laurent Quenelle Andrew Pollock Double Basses were Anthony Poon (First Violin) and Harriet Rayfield Paul Robson Colin Paris Harps Haim Choi (Second Violin) Colin Renwick Mariam Nahapetyan Patrick Laurence Christine Pendrill David Elton Bryn Lewis Sylvain Vasseur Matthew Gibson Gustav Melander Helen Tunstall The Scheme is supported by: Rhys Watkins Thomas Goodman Toby Street The Polonsky Foundation Julian Gil Rodriguez Rebecca Jones Joe Melvin Chris Richards David Geoghegan Piano Derek Hill Foundation Lyrit Milgram Gillianne Haddow José Moreira Chi-Yu Mo Catherine Edwards Idlewild Trust German Clavijo Jani Pensola Peter Sparks Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Stephen Doman Simo Väisänen Melissa Youngs Mark Templeton Thistle Trust Robert Turner James Maynard Michelle Bruil Bass Robert Holliday Editorial Photography Luca Casciato Duncan Gould Ranald Mackechnie, Chris Wahlberg, May Dolan Bass Harald Hoffmann, Marco Borggreve, Jenny Lewisohn Bassoons Paul Milner Oliver Helbig Cynthia Perrin Rachel Gough Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 Sofia Silva Sousa Daniel Jemison Advertising Cabbells Ltd 020 3603 7937 Heather Wallington Joost Bosdijk Ben Thomson Details in this publication were correct at time of going to press.

16 The Orchestra 16 January 2020