Sunday 17 March 2019 7–9.10pm Barbican LSO SEASON CONCERT BARBARA HANNIGAN Ligeti Concert Românesc Haydn Symphony No 86 HANNIGA Interval Berg Lulu – Suite Gershwin arr Hannigan & Elliott Girl Crazy – Suite Barbara Hannigan conductor/soprano Welcome Latest News To create the high-spirited Girl Crazy Suite, THE LSO’S 2019/20 SEASON CULTURE MILE COMMUNITY DAY Barbara Hannigan collaborated with Tony Award-winning composer and arranger The LSO’s 2019/20 season is now on sale. On Sunday 17 February, LSO St Luke’s Bill Elliott. The Suite uses the same Sir Simon Rattle continues his exploration was taken over for a day of performances, orchestration as Berg’s Lulu and brings of the roots and origins of music, including a workshops, music, food and crafts, run by together four numbers by George Gershwin, look back to the influence of Beethoven in Culture Mile to celebrate the irrepressible who was a friend of Berg’s in Vienna and the composer’s 250th anniversary year and creativity and community spirit of East who died only a month after Lulu’s premiere. a focus on how folk music inspired Bartók London. Join us for free at the next and Percy Grainger. François-Xavier Roth Community Day on 21 July. I hope you enjoy the concert and that you conducts complementary programmes of will join us again soon. At the end of the Bartók and Stravinsky, while Gianandrea • lso.co.uk/news elcome to tonight’s LSO concert at month the LSO is joined by soprano Diana Noseda continues his survey of Russian the Barbican, as Barbara Hannigan Damrau, singing Strauss and Iain Bell’s song works. We also take the opportunity joins us in the role of both singer cycle A Hidden Place with Principal Guest to celebrate the 50th anniversary of LSO WATCH THE LSO ON YOUTUBE and conductor in a colourful, imaginative Conductor Gianandrea Noseda. Conductor Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas’ programme, which picks up the 2018/19 first appearance with the Orchestra. On Sunday 10 March, the LSO streamed a season’s broader theme of Roots and Origins. live broadcast of Bernard Haitink’s 90th • lso.co.uk/201920season birthday concert at the Barbican to online The first half links Ligeti’s beautiful and audiences. The concert will be available to rarely heard Concert Românesc with Haydn’s watch again on the LSO’s YouTube channel D major Symphony No 86, acknowledging Kathryn McDowell CBE DL for 90 days following the concert. the latter composer’s Hungarian roots. Managing Director After the interval Barbara Hannigan conducts • lso.co.uk/livestream Berg’s Lulu Suite, a precursor to the 1937 opera, • youtube.com/lso also adopting the voice of the title character – a role at the heart of Ms Hannigan’s repertoire. In the final movement she sings as the Please ensure all phones are switched off. Countess Geschwitz, who closes the opera Photography and audio/video recording with a farewell wish to Lulu. are not permitted during the performance. 2 Welcome 17 March 2019 Tonight’s Concert In Brief / by Paul Griffiths Coming Up: LSO Season Concerts e start out in Budapest in the Finally, from the same period, comes theatre Sunday 24 March 6–8.30pm Wednesday 27 March 6.30–7.30pm middle of the last century, where music of a very different but parallel sort. Barbican Barbican the young György Ligeti is hitching Finding traces of Lulu in the Molly of the rides on zesty Romanian folk tunes – and Gershwins’ musical Girl Crazy, Barbara LSO FUTURES: POEM OF ECSTASY HALF SIX FIX: SHOSTAKOVICH & STRAUSS steering them in unexpected directions. Hannigan, conductor and simultaneous A horn, playing natural harmonics, sounds vocalist, asked Bill Elliott to create a suite David Lang the public domain * (UK premiere) A one-hour, early-evening performance. Soak wild. Strings scramble, already scenting the to include numbers from the show: ‘But Not Philippe Manoury Ring (UK premiere) ^ up the informal atmosphere, hear introductions dense textures Ligeti was to make his own For Me’, ‘Strike Up the Band’, ‘Embraceable Donghoon Shin Kafka’s Dream (world premiere) † from the conductor and enjoy the music. a few years later. You’ and ‘I Got Rhythm’. Scriabin Symphony No 4, ‘The Poem of Ecstasy’ Strauss Till Eulenspiegel The next stop is Paris, for one of the grand PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS François-Xavier Roth conductor Shostakovich Symphony No 1 symphonies Haydn wrote for what was Simon Halsey conductor * the leading French orchestra in the last Paul Griffiths has been a critic for nearly Thomas Guthrie director * Gianandrea Noseda conductor years of the ancien régime. Again we meet 40 years, including for The Times and London Symphony Chorus * strangeness (in the slow movement) and The New Yorker, and is an authority on 20th- LSO Community Choir * folk tunes (in the middle section of the and 21st-century music. Among his books 500 Voices Participants * Scherzo) in a context of exhilarating humour. are studies of Boulez, Ligeti and Stravinsky. He also writes novels and librettos. * Supported by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Sunday 31 March 7–8.45pm This major work of Viennese Classicism is and The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust. Barbican followed after the interval by music from Andrew Stewart is a freelance music the city’s age of decadence: the suite Alban journalist and writer. He is the author of ^ Generously supported by Diaphonique, the DIANA DAMRAU SINGS STRAUSS Berg made in the 1930s from his opera The LSO at 90, and contributes to a Franco-British fund for contemporary music Lulu, whose title character is the centre of a wide variety of specialist classical music Strauss Don Juan maelstrom of sexual attraction. Lulu excites publications. † Commissioned through the Panufnik Composers Iain Bell The Hidden Place youthful adoration, sardonic desire, mature Scheme, generously supported by Lady Hamlyn Strauss Till Eulenspiegel passion and, finally, murderous embrace, all Benjamin Picard is Music Librarian for the and The Helen Hamlyn Trust Strauss Closing Scene from ‘Capriccio’ expressed in the opulence, irony and sleaze London Symphony Orchestra. of Berg’s music. Gianandrea Noseda conductor Diana Damrau soprano Part of the Barbican’s Diana Damrau sings Strauss Tonight’s Concert 3 György Ligeti Concert Românesc 1951 / note by Paul Griffiths 1 Andantino – Dance for two violins Ligeti had written characteristic feature of his music is its Continuing the LSO’s ARTIST 2 Allegro vivace – the previous year. The Ballad is based on a brevity. With the exception of a handful 3 Adagio ma non troppo – tune presented by strings and clarinets in of works, Ligeti composed perfectly concert series with 4 Presto unison, with no harmony that could help formed miniatures that distil mammoth identify the keynote. Similarly ambiguous compositional ideas and processes into a ‘the most astounding ational boundaries in central is the metre, the time signature changing few minutes of music. Among his most Europe cannot take account of the every bar or two. This is Romanian territory popular works showcasing his style are area’s mingled populations. which the composer was to revisit 40 years the Piano Etudes, his Requiem, and the pianist of our age’ The Times György Ligeti, like his friend György later in his Viola Sonata and Violin Concerto. coloratura soprano showpiece Mysteries Kurtág, was born into a Hungarian Jewish There are foretastes of the future, too, in of the Macabre. family living in a region that, following other movements – not so much the second, Ives & Beethoven the repartition of the Habsburg empire perhaps, but certainly the third, with its In 1968 Ligeti’s music came into the public with Daniil Trifonov & Michael Tilson Thomas after World War I, had been granted to use of natural horn tones, unadjusted to consciousness when two of his pieces, Romania. For the young composer to write equal temperament, and the fourth, with Atmosphères and Lux Aeterna, were used 2 June a ‘Romanian Concerto’ in 1951 was therefore its swarming textures. Raw, wild, untamed, (without consent) in the soundtrack to not so strange – especially when, not long those horn sounds also prepare for the GYÖRGY LIGETI IN PROFILE (1923–2006) Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Solo Recital: Beethoven & Prokofiev after another war had changed the colours arrival later in the concert of Lulu. • Odyssey. The dense and internally dynamic with Daniil Trifonov on the map, expressions of solidarity among yörgy Ligeti is considered to be one ‘micropolyphonic’ textures of these two the new communist countries were being of the most influential composers works elided perfectly with the on-screen 10 June encouraged. What Ligeti came up with, of the 20th century, alongside images, with the vastness of space reflected however, did not make the authorities smile. the likes of Boulez, Stockhausen and Cage. in Ligeti’s complex, expansive music. • Beethoven, Berlioz & Shostakovich Though he based his work on recordings he Unlike his contemporaries, his undogmatic had made recently on the spot, here and approach to compositional techniques Composer Profile by Benjamin Picard with Daniil Trifonov & Gianandrea Noseda there he slipped the reins of safe folksy resulted in an output covering a vast range 16 June Daniil Trifonov interpretation. After a private reading of styles and expressivity. His influences can the score was put aside and lost, until be traced to sources including folk, 12-tone 20 years later the rediscovery of the parts techniques and American minimalism. meant it could be reconstructed. His music is characterised by rhythmic Of the four linked movements, which vitality, stylistic freedom, a keen sense of play for a total of twelve minutes, the wit, and his use of texture and timbre as first two were adapted from a Ballad and primary compositional elements.