sign in sign up
<<
Home , Barbara Hannigan, Bill Elliott (musician), Embraceable You, Girl Crazy, Hans Abrahamsen, Pascal Dusapin

Sunday 17 March 2019 7–9.10pm Barbican

LSO SEASON CONCERT

Ligeti Concert Românesc Haydn Symphony No 86 HANNIGA Interval Berg – Suite Gershwin arr Hannigan & Elliott – 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 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 , 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 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 ‘’. 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 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 , and the pianist of our age’ The Times György Ligeti, like his friend György later in his Viola Sonata and Violin . 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 , 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. Another Read more and book online

4 Programme Notes 17 March 2019 lso.co.uk/whats-on Continuing the LSO’s ARTIST concert series with ‘the most astounding pianist of our age’ The Times

Ives & Beethoven with Daniil Trifonov & Michael Tilson Thomas 2 June

Solo Recital: Beethoven & Prokofiev with Daniil Trifonov 10 June

Beethoven, Berlioz & Shostakovich with Daniil Trifonov & Gianandrea Noseda 16 June Daniil Trifonov

Read more and book online lso.co.uk/whats-on 5 Joseph Haydn Symphony No 86 in D major Hob 1:86 1786 / note by Paul Griffiths

1 Adagio – Allegro spiritoso for three more, which he wrote in 1788–9. and the resolution of contrast, but the main CONCERT DE LA LOGE OLYMPIQUE 2 Capriccio: Largo By then affairs in Paris were poised for idea, setting out innocuously from a rising 3 Menuetto: Allegretto change. D’Ogny’s Concert was disbanded arpeggio, keeps opening into a world of • The Concert de la Loge Olympique was 4 Finale: Allegro con spirito in October 1789, and the Count himself shocks and uncertainty. This was one of an orchestra and concert society founded in died the following year (of natural causes). only two symphonic movements, among the 1780s and considered one of the best in aydn spent much of his life working His immense debts were partly paid off more than four hundred, Haydn described Europe. The company ceased all activity in at the great palace of Eszterháza, by an auction of his belongings, which as a Capriccio. 1789, with the French Revolution, but was right on the other (western) side of included his Haydn scores. That of No 86, recreated in 2015. In 2016, the ensemble was Hungary from where Ligeti grew up. Some in the composer’s hand, ended up in the The next movement exemplifies a more renamed Concert de la Loge after the French time in 1785 he received word there of a Bibliothèque Nationale, whose online common Haydn type: the scherzo, with a National Olympic and Sports Committee commission from Paris for six symphonies to Gallica facility provides access to it. folk dance as its middle section. The finale, opposed its use of the term ‘Olympique’. be presented by the Concert de la Loge in sonata form, begins as if done with a Olympique • under the munificent patronage Haydn was almost certainly aware, through needle and thread, with only the strings of the Comte d’Ogny. The fee was set at 180 Saint-Georges, that the Concert de la Loge involved – but it is cut short by a bombastic Louis d’or, or about £40,000 in today’s terms. Olympique fielded a large ensemble, maybe outburst. Such episodes wittily recur. • Haydn, communicating with the organisation three times his Eszterháza band of two dozen through its music director, the Chevalier de musicians. In any event, he scored this D major Saint-Georges, completed three symphonies symphony for full forces, with trumpets and before the end of the year and the remaining timpani, and took advantage of opportunities three, including No 86, the next. for big effects. The slow introduction is followed by the first movement’s main theme, Because the orchestra could never be sure sliding via a back door into D major, which whether the Queen would come or not, is then strongly affirmed. The same thing they performed in court dress, in coats of happens again in establishing the dominant azure velvet or damask, gold-trimmed, key for the sidling second subject. with lace ruffs and cuffs, and with swords and plumed hats beside them. We know Replete in sound and chromatic in harmony, Marie Antoinette liked No 85, and it was the opening of the G major slow movement Interval – 20 minutes nicknamed ‘La Reine’ for that reason. prefigures Beethoven, but soon stops, There are bars on all levels. Her opinion of No 86 is not on record, but gets going again, and proceeds altogether Visit the Barbican Shop to see our the symphonies were generally received in strange ways. There are elements of range of Gifts and Accessories. with enthusiasm, and Haydn was asked Classical form, based on contrasting themes

6 Programme Notes 17 March 2019 Joseph Haydn in Profile 1732–1809 / by Andrew Stewart

ost general histories of music changes in Haydn’s circumstances. His son emphasise Joseph Haydn’s and heir, Prince Anton, cared little for what achievements as a composer of he regarded as the lavish and extravagant instrumental works, a pioneer of the string indulgence of music. He dismissed all but quartet genre and the so-called ‘father of a few instrumentalists and retained the the symphony’. In short, he was one of the nominal services of Haydn, who became a most versatile and influential composers free agent again and returned to Vienna. of his age. After early training as a choirboy at Vienna’s St Stephen’s Cathedral, Haydn Haydn was enticed to England by the became Kapellmeister to Count Morzin impresario Johann Peter Salomon, attracting in Vienna and subsequently to the music- considerable newspaper coverage and loving and wealthy Esterházy family at enthusiastic audiences to hear his new their magnificent but isolated estate at works for London. Back in Vienna, Haydn, Eszterháza, the ‘Hungarian Versaillles’. the son of a master wheelwright, was fêted Here he wrote a vast number of solo by society and honoured by the imperial instrumental and chamber pieces, masses, city’s musical institutions. • • RATTLE’S HAYDN ON LSO LIVE motets, and symphonies, besides at least two dozen stage works. In old age An Imaginary Orchestral Journey Haydn fashioned several of his greatest works, including his oratorios The Creation Sir Simon Rattle pays homage to a composer and The Seasons, his six Op 76 close to his heart with a journey through and his so-called ‘London’ Symphonies. the music of Joseph Haydn. From the great composer’s impressive catalogue, Rattle has ‘I am forced to remain at home … It is indeed pieced together excerpts from symphonies, sad always to be a slave, but Providence oratorios and operas spanning 40 years of wills it thus,’ he wrote in June 1790. Haydn Haydn’s career. was by now tired of the routine of being a musician in service. He envied his young lsolive.co.uk friend Mozart’s apparent freedom in Vienna, but was resigned to remaining at Eszterháza Castle. The death of Prince Nikolaus prompted unexpected and rapid

Composer Profile 7 Lulu – Suite 1934 / note by Paul Griffiths

1 Rondo: Andante und Hymne — Continuing to the third act, the variations, 2 : Allegro ‘Lulu is inspiring to me as a musician, an actor and a human being. on a tune by the playwright, form an 3 Lied der Lulu: Comodo interlude that gradually shifts the musical 4 Variationen: Moderato She has an instinctive emotional intelligence.’ action from the glamour of the first scene, 5 Adagio Barbara Hannigan set in a Parisian gaming hall, to Lulu’s final — location, on the streets of London. In the adagio that follows, music rises in response erg wrote his second opera – There was also an external reason for him third act. All that was known of it, until to her squalid death at the hands of Jack the Lulu, on a pair of plays by Frank to hesitate. By the spring of 1934 he had after her death in 1976, were the portions Ripper, and the last words are with her most Wedekind – while powerfully in finished the first two acts in full and drafted contained in the suite. faithful admirer, the Countess Geschwitz, love with a married friend, Hanna Fuchs- the third, but it must have been clear by whom Jack has also stabbed. • Robettin, and devised the work partly as an then that the work would not be stageable Scored for an orchestra with period colours ecstatic love song to her, the motivator of in Nazi territory. As in the case of his first (alto sax, vibraphone), the suite follows a Texts on Page 10 everything he could express of sensuality, opera, Wozzeck, he made a demonstration palindromic course around Lulu’s self- personal fascination and freedom of spirit, suite, and, as in that earlier case, Erich declaration in her song, a declaration at this last to be won only at ultimate cost. Kleiber conducted the first performance once of her moral and her musical being. That must be one reason he found it hard in Berlin, on 30 November 1934; but within She is at the centre of a hurricane of desire to finish the score, in which, as nowhere a few weeks Kleiber had emigrated, and and death – a hurricane that has swept away else, he could speak openly of what was soon Berg’s music was banned altogether two husbands by this point and is about to most important to him – in which he and in Germany. He may have been glad to have take a third – but that centre is still. Hanna could be together. a new project initiated by a musician from the United States: the he The first movement is a rondo associated Beyond that, Lulu, slipping from one was to write for Louis Krasner. with the young composer Alwa’s fresh and relationship to another, always changing, candid love for Lulu. The second was designed never fixable, is the embodiment of the When Berg died, in December 1935, Lulu to accompany a film that operates as a genre in which she exists, a genre that had advanced no further, and it was as a kind of fast-forward in the action, showing has wreaked havoc in the lives of so many two-act piece that it was first performed, Lulu’s arrest for murder, trial, imprisonment, composers. In Berg’s mind, perhaps, to in Zurich in 1937. His widow Helene, perhaps hospitalisation and escape, all in a rushing complete the work would have been to sensing, perhaps fully knowing the opera’s three-minute musical palindrome. (In the bring the whole history of opera to an end. secret story, grew reluctant to release the opera this sequence comes at the midpoint.)

8 Programme Notes 17 March 2019 Alban Berg in Profile 1885–1935 / by Andrew Stewart

lthough piano lessons formed and, despite hostile early criticism, has since ADOLF LOOS part of Berg’s general education, entered the international repertoire. the boy showed few signs of • Adolf Loos was an architect and theorist exceptional talent for music. He struggled An innovative composer, Berg successfully who lived in Vienna and mixed in the to pass his final exams at the Vienna married atonality – and, later, a harmonic same circles as Berg. His essay Ornament Gymnasium, preferring to learn directly and melodic language based on the use of and Crime advocated smooth and clear of new trends in art, literature, music and all 12 tones of the chromatic scale – with surfaces – in contrast to lavish, fin de siècle architecture from friends such as Oskar forms from the past, and traces of popular decoration – exemplified by the Modernist Kokoschka, Gustav Klimt and Adolf Loos •. music also surface in his works. Berg died design of Looshaus, situated in the heart of septicaemia, almost certainly caused by of Vienna opposite the Baroque Hofburg On graduating from school, Berg accepted complications following an insect bite. • palace on Michaelerplatz. a post as a local government official, but in October 1904 was inspired by a newspaper Loos also developed the ‘Raumplan’ method advertisement to study composition with of arranging interior spaces, realised in the . He studied for six Villa Müller in Prague. He avoided organising years with Schoenberg, who remained his rooms by floor levels, preferring a sequence close friend and mentor. During this time of stepped areas with varying ceiling heights. Schoenberg evolved a new approach to composing, gradually moving away from the norms of tonal harmony.

In 1910 Berg completed his String Quartet, Op 3, in which he revealed an independent creative flair. Berg’s self-confidence grew with the composition of several miniature works and, in 1914, the large-scale Three Pieces for orchestra. Service with the Austrian Imperial Army during World War I did not completely halt Berg’s output; indeed, he began his first opera, Wozzeck, in the summer of 1917. The work was premiered at the Berlin Staatsoper in December 1925

Composer Profile 9 Alban Berg Lulu – Suite Texts

Lied der Lulu Song of Lulu Adagio (Words of Countess Geschwitz)

Wenn sich die Menschen um meinetwillen Although for my sake a man may kill Lulu! Mein Engel! Lulu! My Angel! Umgebracht haben, himself or kill others, Lass dich noch einmal sehen! Let me see you again! so setzt das meinen Wert nicht herab. My value still remains what it was. Ich bin dir nah! I am close to you. Du hast so gut gewusst, weswegen du mich You know the reasons why you wanted to be Bleibe dir nah – in Ewigkeit! Stay close – forever! Zur Frau nahmst, my husband, wie ich gewusst habe, weswegen ich dich And I know my reasons for hoping we zum Mann nahm. should be married. Du hattest deine besten Freunde mit mir You let your dearest friends be deceived by Betrogen, What you made me, du konntest nicht gut auch noch dich Yet you can’t consider yourself caught in selber mit mir betrügen. your own deception. Wenn du mir deinen Lebensabend zum Though you have given me your later and Opfer bringst, riper years, so hast du meine ganze Jugend dafür From me you’ve had my youth in flower as gehabt. fair exchange. Ich habe nie in der Welt etwas anderes I have not asked in my life to appear in Scheinen wollen, another colour Texts by Alban Berg, after Franz Wedekind als wofür man mich genommen hat. than the one which I am known to have. English Translation by Arthur Jacobs Und man hat mich nie in der Welt für Nor has any man in my life been led to look Etwas anderes genommen, on me Copyright 1935 by Universal Edition als was ich bin. as other than what I am. A.G., Wien

10 Texts 17 March 2019 Barbara Hannigan In Conversation

her. She has a real connection to the ground, Gershwin and she’s also a spirit – you have earth and air in this one fantastic person! The Gershwin suite was invented as a companion piece to the Lulu suite. The Lulu Lulu’s inspiring to me as a musician, an actor suite and the opera both use the device of the and a human being. She has an instinctive mirror – the second movement is literally in emotional intelligence that tends to drive mirror form, the first 37 bars reflected in the the people around her up the wall. next 37 bars, and it works (and it’s music!). Then I wanted to have a suite with songs Singing and from Gershwin musicals, but to look at them through the prism of the Second Viennese The suite is in five movements and I sing School, and especially from the perspective of from the third. In the fourth movement I Lulu and the Countess Geschwitz. sing the words of the Countess Geschwitz, Working with the LSO There are few composers in the whole of singing to Lulu as she dies. So I commissioned Bill Elliott, who’s a Tony classical music who are funny; one of them Award-winning composer and arranger, My first project was ’s La Plus is Haydn and one of them is Ligeti, and one Singing and conducting at the same to compose the suite. When we had the Forte – a one-woman opera – with the LSO of them is Gerald Barry. time is something that changes as the piano version ready then he made the and Thomas Adès conducting. Then in 2015 rehearsal process goes on. In the first orchestration, using exactly the same we did Berg’s Wozzeck fragments and Ligeti’s Lulu rehearsal I’m really conducting while I sing, instrumentation as the Lulu suite. Mysteries of the Macabre. I think the Ligeti but as we build the material I do less and made a big impression. Somebody put the It’s hard to say who Lulu is because no one’s less. The audience might see very little It might be the first piece ever composed for video on YouTube without permission, but sure where she came from. She appeared conducting when I turn to them to sing, someone to sing and conduct at the same I was actually happy they did that; I loved around age 12 or 13 selling flowers outside of which would be the goal. time. It’s a lot of fun, and the orchestra sing that so many people got to see it. a café. Later she went to live with Dr Schön too, and I’m sure they’ll sing beautifully. • and his family – she seemed to have an affair Right now I’m spending a large part of my Tonight’s Programme with the father, the son fell in love with her, career just singing. I love working with other and meanwhile the mother was dying. conductors, and with all kinds of musicians. We have a Hungarian first half with Haydn It’s such an interesting experience for a curious and Ligeti – if you think of Haydn as She’s a character in Franz Wedekind’s plays, person to see how someone approaches a Hungarian. Haydn’s Symphony No 86 is where she’s also known as the Erdgeist piece and how an orchestra responds. one of the Paris symphonies and it’s funny. (Earth Spirit), which is an astute name for

Barbara HanniganProgrammeArtist in Conversation Biographies Notes 11

George Gershwin Girl Crazy – Suite, arr Hannigan & Elliott 2017 LEEDS PIANO FESTIVAL IN LONDON

ulu, for Barbara Hannigan, is a Bill Elliott, who won a Tony Award in 2015 for GERSHWIN AND THE SECOND spirit of freedom, who breaks his orchestration of Gershwin’s music in a new VIENNESE SCHOOL loose from the plays, the opera show, , was an obvious and the films in which she would seem to first choice, and created a 13-minute score on • Gershwin was not only a friend of Berg’s be contained. Refusing taming or limits which one could imagine the two composers but enjoyed a close relationship with the of any kind, she scorns death, even while had worked side by side. Berg sits back to giant of Viennese music Arnold Schoenberg. longing for it. Murdered in one scenario, she admire the course of a melody Gershwin is The pair frequently played tennis together simply finds herself another. She is a deity writing, then leans forward to add harmonies in and Gershwin competently with innumerable avatars. As pure voice – here, a wandering counterpoint there. painted a portrait of Schoenberg in oils. enticing, teasing, challenging – she can instil Thursday 4 April 1pm, LSO St Luke’s herself into ’s spectacular Into a beginning halfway between Vienna and Schoenberg’s high Modernism is starkly LANG LANG SCHOLARS Sequenza III for solo voice, or into Molly, New York, the distinctive four-note pattern different to Gershwin’s melodious, - Three young pianists, hand-picked heroine of the Gershwin brothers’ musical of ‘I Got Rhythm’ comes as the pink light inflected music, but the former composer by Lang Lang, showcase their skill. comedy Girl Crazy, to mention the two works of dawn. This is something for the future, deeply respected Gershwin. Speaking at Hannigan chose to frame Berg’s Lulu Suite though. The first song is ‘But Not for Me’ – his funeral, Schoenberg said that ‘Music Thursday 4 April 7.30pm, LSO St Luke’s on her Grammy-winning album of 2017. sung, Hannigan suggests, by the Countess was to George Gershwin not a mere matter ERIC LU Geschwitz. Either one of them then must of ability. It was the air he breathed, Be one of the first to hear Eric Lu, This is by no means far-fetched. Gershwin strike up the band and go on to ‘Embraceable the dream he dreamed. I grieve over the winner of ‘The Leeds’ 2018. admired Berg and welcomed the opportunity You’, after which another transition deplorable loss of music, for there is no of a meeting when the American was in introduces the song promised at the start. • doubt that he was a great composer.’ Friday 5 April 7.30pm, LSO St Luke’s Vienna • in the spring of 1928. This was a year STEVEN OSBORNE before Berg began work on Lulu, with its jazz- Programme Note by Paul Griffiths Steven Osborne explores Beethoven’s age touches, and two years before Gershwin final, profound piano sonatas. was writing songs for Girl Crazy, which Texts on Page 14 opened on Broadway on 14 October 1930. Saturday 6 April 7.30pm, LSO St Luke’s It might be hard to hear Berg’s influence BARRY DOUGLAS in Gershwin’s own score, but that can be Barry Douglas pairs small-scale and arranged. You just have to find an arranger. expansive works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Schubert.

On sale now at lso.co.uk/leedsinlondon

12 Programme Notes 17 March 2019 George Gershwin in Profile 1898–1937 Bill Elliott in Profile b 1951

records and over a million copies of sheet Sutton Foster and Josh Groban. He arranged music. The royalties from Swanee allowed and produced ’s Grammy- him to focus his energy on concert, theatre nominated album The Sinatra Project, and and film music. since 1993 he has led the 19-member Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra which has performed In 1924 Gershwin composed Rhapsody in and recorded widely. Blue, a ground-breaking concert work for solo piano and jazz orchestra that combined Elliott began his career as a rock’n’roll piano classical music and jazz. The work was an player in the Boston area, performing and instant and enduring success, establishing recording with such artists as Livingston Gershwin as a significant musical voice. Taylor and Tom Rush. After moving to Gershwin later travelled to Paris where he Los Angeles, he toured as keyboard player applied to study with prominent tutors with , and including Nadia Boulanger and Maurice . In Los Angeles his career Ravel, who famously rejected him, saying evolved to include arranging and producing eorge Gershwin was born in ‘Why become a second-rate Ravel when ill Elliott is a composer, arranger, pop records, and then into composing and Brooklyn, New York. He started you’re already a first-rate Gershwin?’ orchestrator and bandleader conducting. Bill Elliott’s compositions have playing the family upright-piano specialising in vintage styles of appeared in Independence Day, Gilmore Girls at the age of eleven, imitating the pop Gershwin’s output was prolific, and his music. His recent work on Broadway has and Cinderella Man. music he heard on the radio. He amazed catalogue boasts orchestral works, folk-opera earned three Tony Award nominations, his family with his natural musicality and (1935), four concertante works including a win for An American in Paris In 2004 Bill Elliott returned home to the rapid progress. Soon he began lessons with for piano and orchestra, as well as solo piano in 2015. In 2015 he also orchestrated Boston area and began teaching arranging renowned concert pianist Charles Hambitzer. and chamber music. Gershwin also penned Gershwin’s Damsel in Distress at the and orchestration at . 16 Broadway musicals, five film scores and Chichester Festival Theater and the Encores! He has enjoyed getting to know students At 15, Gershwin dropped out of school and hundreds of pop singles and jazz standards. revival of Lady be Good, and in 2012 he from all over the world, and has seen found his first job as a so-called ‘song- Today he is one of the most widely performed received Tony nominations for his work many former students become successful plugger’ for a publishing house on Tin Pan American composers and his estate on Nice Work if You Can Get It. colleagues in professional work. His return Alley. He penned his first great success in continues to collect significant royalties. • to the East Coast also led to new directions 1919 when his song Swanee was included Bill Elliott is a prolific arranger for the in his own career: working prolifically as by popular Broadway actor Al Johnson in Composer Profile by Benjamin Picard Boston Pops, New York Pops and Hollywood arranger for the Boston Pops under the his hit play Sinbad. Swanee would become Bowl orchestras, and has recently written direction of Keith Lockhart, and working on Gershwin’s greatest hit, selling two million orchestral arrangements for Kelli O’Hara, Broadway and elsewhere as an orchestrator. •

Composer Profiles 13 George Gershwin Girl Crazy – Suite Lyrics by

But Not for Me I Got Rhythm

They’re writing songs of love, Dozens of men would storm up. But hang it, come on, let’s glorify love! I got rhythm. But not for me. I had to lock my door. Ding dang it! You’ll shout ‘Encore!’ if I love! I got music. A lucky star’s above, Somehow I couldn’t warm up Don’t be a naughty baby, I got my man, But not for me. To one, before. Come to mama, come to mama do … Who could ask for anything more? My sweet embraceable you. With love to lead the way, What was it that controlled me? I got daisies I’ve found more skies of grey What kept my love life lean? In green pastures. Than any Russian play My intuition told me you’d come on the scene. I got my man, Could guarantee. Mister, listen to the rhythm of my heartbeat, Who could ask for anything more? And you’ll get just what I mean. I was a fool to fall and get that way. Old man trouble? Heigh-ho alas, and also lackaday. Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you. I don’t mind him. Although I can’t dismiss Embrace me, you irreplaceable you. You won’t find him The memory of his kiss, Just one look at you, my heart grew tipsy in me. Round my door. I guess he’s not for me. You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me. I got starlight, It all began so well I love all the many charms about you. I got sweet dreams, But what an end. Above all, I want my arms about you. I got my man, This is the time a fella needs a friend. Don’t be a naughty baby, Who could ask for anything more? The climax of the plot should be the Come to mama, come to mama do … marriage knot, My sweet embraceable you. But there’s no knot for me. Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you. Embrace me, you irreplaceable you. In your arms I find love so delectable, dear. I’m afraid it isn’t quite respectable, dear.

14 Texts 17 March 2019 Barbara Hannigan conductor/soprano

mbodying music with an She will conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and unparalleled dramatic sensibility, de Radio France, the , Violence at the Royal Opera House Covent soprano and conductor Barbara Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Garden in 2018. Hannigan is an artist at the forefront of Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Münchner creation. Her artistic colleagues include Philharmoniker, in music by Haydn, Sibelius, Hannigan’s first album as singer and directors and conductors Christoph Strauss, Berg, Bartók and Gershwin. This conductor, Crazy Girl Crazy (Alpha Classics, Marthaler, Sir Simon Rattle, , season also sees the launch of her ground- 2017) – featuring works by Berio, Berg and Kent Nagano, Vladimir Jurowski, John Zorn, breaking mentorship scheme, ‘Equilibrium Gershwin – won her the 2018 Grammy Award Andreas Kriegenburg, , Young Artists’. With over 20 performances for Best Classical Solo Vocal album, the , David Zinman, with four partner orchestras, Equilibrium’s 2018 Opus Klassik award for Best Solo Vocal Sir Antonio Pappano, Katie Mitchell, Kirill first season sees Hannigan conduct her first Performance, and the 2018 for Petrenko and Krszysztof Warlikowski. opera, Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. Classical Album of the Year. She continued Barbara will also be Music Director of the her relationship with Alpha Classics and As a singer and conductor – or both prestigious Ojai Festival in California in with her long-time collaborator and mentor, simultaneously – the Canadian musician summer 2019, and in 2019/20 she begins her Dutch pianist Reinbert de Leeuw, for her has shown commitment to the music of tenure as Principal Guest Conductor of the 2018 album Vienna: Fin de Siècle. our time, and has given world premiere Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden. performances of over 85 new creations. Further awards include Singer of the Year Hannigan has collaborated extensively Unforgettable operatic title-role (Opernwelt, 2013); Musical Personality of with such composers as Boulez, Dutilleux, performances at the world’s leading the Year (Syndicat de la Presse Francaise, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Salvatore Sciarrino, opera companies include Berg’s Lulu in 2012); and the Rolf Schock Prize for Musical Gerald Barry, , , productions at La Monnaie and at Hamburg Arts (2018), the multi-disciplinary prize George Benjamin and . Staatsoper; Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas across science and the arts which recognises et Mélisande at the 2016 Festival d’Aix-en- trailblazing and brilliant figures within their Hannigan opened her 2018/19 season Province and in Krszysztof Warlikowski’s respective fields. Barbara Hannigan holds singing the title role in the world premiere 2017 production at the Ruhrtriennale; and honorary doctorates from the University of of Michael Jarrell’s Berenice at Paris Opera, Marie in Zimmermann’s at Toronto and Mt Allison University, and was conducted by Philippe Jordan and directed the Bayerische Staatsoper, for which she appointed to the Order of Canada in 2016. • by Claus Guth. She will give performances of won Germany’s Faust Award. Further Hans Abrahamsen's let me tell you – which recent operatic world premiere incarnations she has performed worldwide – this season include Ophelia in Brett Dean’s at with four more European orchestras. Glyndebourne Festival 2017; and Isabel in

Artist Biography 15 London Symphony Orchestra on stage tonight

Guest Leader Violas Flutes Contra Bassoon Percussion LSO String Experience Scheme George Tudorache Edward Vanderspar Gareth Davies Dominic Morgan Neil Percy Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Gillianne Haddow Camilla Marchant David Jackson Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins German Clavijo Horns Sam Walton from the London music conservatoires at Clare Duckworth Lander Echevarria Piccolo Timothy Jones Tom Edwards the start of their professional careers to gain Ginette Decuyper Carol Ella Rebecca Larsen Angela Barnes work experience by playing in rehearsals Laura Dixon Julia O’Riordan Andrew Budden Harp and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Gerald Gregory Robert Turner Oboes Jonathan Lipton Bryn Lewis are treated as professional ‘extra’ players William Melvin Cynthia Perrin Olivier Stankiewicz Elise Campbell (additional to LSO members) and receive fees Elizabeth Pigram Alistair Scahill Rosie Jenkins Piano for their work in line with LSO section players. Claire Parfitt Sofia Silva Sousa Trumpets Catherine Edwards Laurent Quenelle Cor Anglais David Elton The Scheme is supported by: Sylvain Vasseur Cellos Christine Pendrill Robin Totterdell The Polonsky Foundation Rhys Watkins Rebecca Gilliver Niall Keatley Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Marciana Buta Alastair Blayden Clarinets Derek Hill Foundation Grace Lee Jennifer Brown Chris Richards Trombones Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust Dániel Mészöly Noel Bradshaw Chi-Yu Mo Rebecca Smith Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation Eve-Marie Caravassilis Kath Lacy James Maynard Rod Stafford Second Violins Daniel Gardner David Alberman Amanda Truelove E-Flat Clarinet Bass Trombone Sarah Quinn Morwenna Del Mar Chi-Yu Mo Paul Milner Miya Väisänen Editor David Ballesteros Double Basses Bass Clarinet Tuba Fiona Dinsdale | [email protected] Matthew Gardner Vitan Ivanov Alexei Dupressoir Sasha Koushk-Jalali Editorial Photography Julián Gil Rodríguez Colin Paris Ranald Mackechnie, Chris Wahlberg, Belinda McFarlane Patrick Laurence Saxophone Timpani Harald Hoffmann, Marco Borggreve, Iwona Muszynska Thomas Goodman Simon Haram Nigel Thomas Musacchio Ianniello, Elmer de Haas Csilla Pogany Jani Pensola Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 Andrew Pollock José Moreira Bassoons Advertising Cabbells Ltd 020 3603 7937 Paul Robson Rachel Gough Monika Chmielewska Joost Bosdijk Details in this publication were correct at time of going to press.

16 The Orchestra 17 March 2019