Folk Roots, Urban Roots

Thursday 13 December 2018 7.30–9.55pm Barbican Hall LSO SEASON CONCERT FOLK ROOTS, URBAN ROOTS Bartók Hungarian Peasant Songs Szymanowski Harnasie Interval Stravinsky Ebony Concerto Osvaldo Golijov arr Gonzalo Grau Nazareno Bernstein Prelude, Fugue and Riffs ROOTS & Sir Simon Rattle conductor Edgaras Montvidas tenor Chris Richards clarinet Katia and Marielle Labèque pianos Gonzalo Grau percussion Raphaël Séguinier percussion London Symphony Chorus ORIGINS Simon Halsey chorus director In celebration of the life of Jeremy Delmar-Morgan Streamed live on youtube.com/lso Recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast on Tuesday 18 December Welcome Jeremy Delmar-Morgan In Memory 1941–2018 We are also delighted to welcome Katia and Jeremy Delmar-Morgan was a member of Marielle Labèque, who perform Nazareno, the LSO Advisory Council for over 20 years, a double piano suite drawn from Osvaldo a Director of LSO Ltd from 2002 to 2013, and Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marco, thereafter a Trustee of the LSO Endowment arranged by Gonzalo Grau, who appears Trust. He was also Honorary President of alongside Raphaël Séguinier as one of this the Ronald Moore Sickness and Benevolent evening’s percussion soloists. We then close Fund, where he brought invaluable advice with Prelude, Fugue and Riffs by the LSO’s to the LSO musicians on the investment former President, Leonard Bernstein, with strategy for the fund. After studying LSO Principal Clarinet Chris Richards as soloist. medicine at Cambridge he went into the City for a career in stock-broking, latterly elcome to this LSO concert at Tonight’s concert is performed in combining the two in the financing of the Barbican. Tonight the LSO’s memory of our esteemed former Trustee, medical research. Music Director Sir Simon Rattle Jeremy Delmar-Morgan. We extend continues his theme of Roots and Origins a warm welcome to all his family and Jeremy and his wife Mary have been with a programme bridging jazz, folk and friends who are in the audience. generous Patrons throughout their entire classical music. association with the LSO, and have drawn The performance will be streamed live on many other people into supporting the We begin with one of Bartók’s least the LSO’s YouTube channel, and available LSO over the years. performed works, his Hungarian Peasant to watch back for 90 days after. Thank you Songs, before the Orchestra is joined on- to BBC Radio 3, who also record tonight’s He will be remembered for his sense of stage by the London Symphony Chorus and concert for broadcast on 18 December. humour, his lively, charming personality tenor Edgaras Montvidas (who makes his and his zest for life – whether for music, LSO debut this evening) for Szymanowski’s I hope that you enjoy the concert and that sailing or fast cars. His love of the LSO’s ballet-pantomime depicting the Tatra you are able to join us again soon. music-making was an inspiration, and his mountain region, Harnasie. Following this, wise counsel, always quietly offered, was LSO Principal Clarinet Chris Richards will hugely appreciated by everyone at the LSO. perform the central role in Stravinky’s jazz- Tonight we celebrate Jeremy’s life with inspired Ebony Concerto. The members of gratitude and affection. the LSO are all exceptional musicians in their own right, and it is a great pleasure to hear Kathryn McDowell CBE DL them perform with the Orchestra as soloists. Managing Director 2 Welcome 13 December 2018 Latest News On Our Blog Tonight’s Concert In Brief / by Liam Hennebry BRITISH COMPOSER AWARDS MARIN ALSOP ON LEONARD onight’s is a truly pan-global PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS BERNSTEIN’S CANDIDE programme, with roots that stretch On Tuesday 4 December, The British from the folk traditions of central Edward Bhesania is a writer and editor Academy of Songwriters, Composers Marin Alsop conducted Bernstein’s Candide, Europe to the Latin dance rhythms of South who reviews for The Strad and The Stage. and Authors announced the winners of with the LSO earlier this month. Having America, the story of the Christian Passion, He has also written for The Observer, the 2018 British Composer Awards. worked closely with the composer across and North American big band jazz with its BBC Music Magazine, International Piano, her career, Marin drew on her unique insight origins on the African continent. The Tablet and Country Life. Congratulations go to 2018 Panufnik into Bernstein’s music, words and sense of composer Cassie Kinoshi, whose piece theatre to tell us about the production. Ruggedly cheerful Hungarian Peasant Songs Stephen Downes is Professor of Music at Afronaut won the Award in the Jazz start us off, with melodies drawn from Royal Holloway, University of London. He Composition for Large Ensemble category, • lso.co.uk/blog Bartók’s collections in Hungary between is a recipient of the Karol Szymanowski and to Soundhub Associate Liam Taylor- 1904 and 1913, before Szymanowski’s Memorial Medal. West, whose piece The Umbrella won the Harnasie celebrates the rich highland culture Community or Educational Project Award. WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS of the Tatra mountain region bordering Paul Griffiths has been a critic for nearly 40 Poland and Slovakia. years, including for The Times and The New • lso.co.uk/news A warm welcome to the groups who Yorker, and is an authority on 20th- and join us in the audience tonight: After the interval, Stravinsky’s sultry and 21st-century music. Among his books are unclassifiable Ebony Concerto fuses classical studies of Boulez, Ligeti and Stravinsky. FELIX MILDENBERGER NAMED Sara Hawes & Friends music, jazz, ragtime and blues, before He also writes novels and librettos. LSO ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR The Jonathan Levene Music Scholarship Osvaldo Golijov’s Nazareno draws on the percussive rhythms of Cuban and Jan Smaczny is the Sir Hamilton Harty The Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Brazilian music to tell the Passion story Professor of Music at Queen’s University, Competition came to a thrilling conclusion from a vividly Latin American perspective. Belfast. A well-known writer and on Thursday 22 November, with the prize broadcaster, he specialises in the life and going to 28-year-old German conductor Felix The concert closes with what Sir Simon works of Dvořák and Czech opera. Mildenberger. He now takes up the position Rattle describes as the ‘greatest classical big of LSO Assistant Conductor, working with the band piece of all time’. Bernstein’s Prelude, Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Orchestra’s Music Director Sir Simon Rattle, Fugue and Riffs is an intoxicating cocktail journalist and writer. He is the author of The and Principal Guest Conductors François- of blasting trumpets, fast swinging tempos, LSO at 90, and contributes to a wide variety Xavier Roth and Gianandrea Noseda. chromaticism and luscious jazz changes. of specialist classical music publications. • lso.co.uk/blog Tonight’s Concert 3 Béla Bartók Hungarian Peasant Songs 1933 Béla Bartók in profile 1881–1945 1 Ballad – Largamente them results in an extensive suite including in which he became Professor of Piano at the 2 Hungarian Peasant Dances variations on the tragic ‘Ballad of Angoli Budapest Conservatory. Bartók established Borbála’. The orchestral version, along with his mature style with such scores as the artók’s relationship with Hungarian the Transylvanian Dances and Hungarian ballet The Miraculous Mandarin (1918–19, folk song was both vast and Sketches, arose in part from Bartók’s completed 1926–31) and his opera Duke intimate. Vast in that he became publisher’s desire to popularise his music Bluebeard’s Castle (1911, completed 1918). an avid collector of folk song from 1904 for a wider audience. He revived his career as a concert pianist when he came across real examples of in 1927 when he gave the premiere of his Hungarian national melodies as opposed The Ballad which initiates these two First Piano Concerto in Mannheim. to the romanticised ‘Gypsy’ style beloved contrasting movements begins with a of customers in the cafés of Vienna and rugged modal theme, irregular in rhythm Bartók detested the rise of fascism and Budapest. Much encouraged by his friend and interspersed with gentler, more quizzical in October 1940 he emigrated to the US. Zoltán Kodály, his enthusiasm for Hungarian interludes, which returns to dominate the At first he concentrated on ethno- folk song led not only to arrangements of close. The succeeding Peasant Dances musicological researches, but eventually the melodies, but to serious collecting trips begin with a robust, athletic theme adorned returned to composition and created a first in Slovakia, Transylvania and further with ear-catching orchestral touches. orn in 1881 in Nagyszentmiklós, significant group of ‘American’ works, east in Europe and, in 1913, North Africa. This opening melody frequently returns Hungary (now Sinnicolau Mare, including the Concerto for Orchestra as the dominant musical idea, but one Romania), Bartók began piano and his Third Piano Concerto. The intimacy arises from the fact that, along that is challenged with bold variations lessons with his mother at the age of five. with many contemporaries, such as Vaughan and the occasional rhythmic surprise. • From 1899 he studied piano and composition Throughout his working life, Bartók collected, Williams and Janáček, the contact with at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest, transcribed and annotated the folk-songs folk song went well beyond collecting and Programme Note by Jan Smaczny where he created a number of works echoing of many countries, a commitment that arranging to a profound underpinning of his the style of Brahms and Richard Strauss. brought little recognition but one which he compositional style from orchestral music to regarded as his most important contribution vocal music and chamber works. After graduating he discovered Austro- to music.

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