Thursday 28 February 2019 7.30–9.40pm Barbican Hall

LSO SEASON CONCERT PAGANINI VARIATIONS

Weill Symphony No 2 Rachmaninov LAHA Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Interval Stravinsky Petrushka (1947 version)

Lahav Shani conductor Simon Trpčeski piano HANI This performance is funded in part by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc., New York, NY Welcome Latest News On our Blog

We are grateful to the Kurt Weill Foundation A TRANSATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP RAVEL IN MADRID for Music for their generous support of tonight’s performance, and I would like to In January, the LSO welcomed a team of In 1923, on his first visit to Madrid, Maurice take this opportunity to thank our media young professional musicians – Keston MAX Ravel was hard at work on a piece of music partner Classic FM for recommending Fellows of Santa Barbara's Music Academy which his publishers urgently required. this concert to their listeners. We also of the West – who spent a week working Read more on our blog about Ravel’s welcome guests from the London Chamber alongside the Orchestra and taking part in Spanish influences and inspiration. of Commerce and Industry, a partner rehearsals, a mock recording session and organisation of the LSO. performing in LSO concerts at the Barbican. MEET LAHAV SHANI

I hope that you enjoy the performance and CULTURE MILE COMMUNITY DAY Ahead of his LSO debut, we spoke to elcome to tonight’s LSO concert that you will be able to join us again soon. Lahav about Kurt Weill, musical life in at the Barbican for a programme In March we look forward to a trio of concerts On Sunday 17 February, LSO St Luke's Tel Aviv and what it’s like to step into of Stravinsky, Rachmaninov and celebrating Bernard Haitink’s 90th birthday was taken over for a day of performances, Zubin Mehta’s shoes as Music Director Kurt Weill. Lahav Shani, who was recently and his relationship with the LSO, which workshops, music, food and crafts, run by of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. appointed Chief Conductor of the Rotterdam spans more than two decades. Culture Mile to celebrate the irrepressible Philharmonic Orchestra, makes his debut creativity and community spirit of East • lso.co.uk/blog conducting the LSO. London. Join us for free at the next Community Day on 21 July. WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS The concert opens with Kurt Weill’s Second Symphony, a work that is a favourite of • lso.co.uk/news At tonight’s concert we are delighted to Lahav Shani’s and which he introduces to Kathryn McDowell CBE DL welcome the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra the Orchestra for the first performance in Managing Director Please ensure all phones are switched off. Foundation, Adele Friedland & Friends and the LSO’s recent history. It is also a pleasure Photography and audio/video recording Linda Diggins & Friends. to welcome back Simon Trpčeski to play are not permitted during the performance. Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini, before the concert finishes with Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka.

2 Welcome 28 February 2019 Tonight’s Concert In Brief Coming Up: LSO Season Concerts

urt Weill was a German Jewish PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Sunday 3 March 7–9pm Thursday 14 March 7.30–9.30pm composer, best know for his Barbican Thursday 21 March 7.30–9.30pm theatre music written between Meirion Bowen has been Director of Music Barbican the wars, which mixes Weimar modernism at Kingston-upon-Thames University and PUCCINI MASS with the sounds of Berlin cabaret. In the worked as a BBC Radio Producer. His books HAITINK AT 90: Second Symphony, Weill’s unique style include a studies on Tippett and the writings Ponchielli Elegia MAHLER SYMPHONY NO 4 is fleshed out into a full-size symphony – of Roberto Gerhard. Verdi String Quartet (version for full strings) a worthy companion to those of Mahler Puccini Messa di Gloria Dvořák Violin Concerto and Shostakovich. James Holmes is a Trustee of the Kurt Weill Mahler Symphony No 4 Foundation, New York, and is currently Sir Antonio Pappano conductor The Second Symphony was composed in editing Weill’s orchestral music for the Benjamin Bernheim tenor Bernard Haitink conductor 1934, around the time Hitler rose to power, Critical Edition of the composer’s works. Gerald Finley bass Isabelle Faust violin and was to become the last of Weill’s London Symphony Chorus Anna Lucia Richter soprano symphonic works. Rachmaninov composed Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and Simon Halsey chorus director his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in the translator who writes extensively on French, 14 March 6pm same year. A swashbuckling success at its Russian and Eastern European music. Streamed live on youtube.com/lso and medici.tv LSO Platforms: Baltimore premiere, the tuneful Rhapsody Guildhall Artists pre-concert recital has lost none of its appeal in the time since. Paul Griffithshas been a critic for nearly Sunday 10 March 7–9.15pm 40 years, including for The Times and Barbican Sunday 17 March 7–9pm Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka tells the The New Yorker, and is an authority on 20th- Barbican story of a puppet who comes to life, set and 21st-century music. Among his books HAITINK AT 90: BIRTHDAY CONCERT at a Shrovetide fair in folkloric Russia. are studies of Boulez, Ligeti and Stravinsky. BARBARA HANNIGAN Reminiscent of the brilliantly orchestrated, He also writes novels and librettos. Mozart Piano Concerto No 22 folk-inflected music of Rimsky-Korsakov Bruckner Symphony No 4 Ligeti Concerto Românesc and Mussorgsky, Petrushka features Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Haydn Symphony No 86 groundbreaking use of orchestral piano journalist and writer. He is the author Bernard Haitink conductor Berg Lulu – Suite and the constantly shifting rhythms that of The LSO at 90, and contributes to Till Fellner piano Gershwin arr Hannigan & Elliot became one of Stravinsky’s fingerprints. a wide variety of specialist classical Girl Crazy – Suite Petrushka was first performed in Paris in music publications. Streamed live on youtube.com/lso and medici.tv 1911, a collaboration with Mikhail Fokine, Recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast on 11 March Barbara Hannigan conductor/soprano Alexandre Benois and Vaslav Nijinsky.

Tonight’s Concert 3 Kurt Weill Symphony No 2 1934 / note by James Holmes

1 Sostenuto – Allegro molto — The unusual development sidelines this 2 Largo ‘It was conceived as a purely musical form.’ exposition material; a four-note figure heard 3 Allegro vivace in the coda as a timpani motif heads a new Kurt Weill clarinet melody with an elegant concluding urt Weill maintained that he — turn at its tail. ‘Head’ and ‘tail’ take control; never wrote for posterity; in turn, only when the tempo slackens into spectral posterity has found it hard to distinguished alumni – Ira Gershwin, Alan Sieben Todsünden (Seven Deadly Sins), wind phrases over pulsing timpani is their pin him down – an elusiveness perhaps Jay Lerner and Maxwell Anderson, among his last collaboration with Bertolt Brecht. grip loosened. During a meno mosso interlude encapsulated in his two most widely- others – as well as the ‘Broadway opera’ Yet Weill considered instrumental music with strings playing near the bridge, performed songs. ‘Mack the Knife’ typifies Street Scene, Weill’s own Porgy. 1940s central to his whole aesthetic, turning to sustained wind phrases unfold and interrupt the decadent tang of his collaborations with America was naturally closed to the Weill the stage ‘only when I discovered my music the recapitulation, before the coda and a Bertolt Brecht in late-20s Berlin; yet those of the Weimar Republic, while Europe felt contains the tension of scenic events.’ final defiant statement of the timpani motif. works, inspired by popular music, came he’d sold out on Broadway’s Great White Although conductor Bruno Walter elicited apparently out of nowhere after a decade Way; critics talked of ‘two Weills’, and the subtitle ‘Three Night Scenes’ for the Like a mischievous child, an impish triplet during which Weill distilled a unique, tersely disagreed as to which was the real deal. Second Symphony’s New York premiere, figure disrupts the opening cortège of the neo-Classical style from the forms and The debate may continue – but today Street Weill was clear that ‘It was conceived as Largo, only silenced by a stern trombone idioms of the late 19th century. Scoffing Scene is performed almost as regularly as a purely musical form.’ solo. Taken up by the violins and clinging by at this change of direction, Weill’s mentor Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny its fingertips to a tonal centre, the melody Busoni asked, ‘Do you want to be a Verdi Opera) and Weill’s lifelong efforts to tell There is a darkness to the introduction; lower reaches a climax in which wind instruments of the poor?’ Weill replied, ‘Is that so bad?’ vivid, human stories on the lyric stage have strings and woodwind brood beneath an echo the stoical quality of the introduction’s been deemed significant on both sides of insistent violin motif, and the resolute dotted trumpet solo over surging strings. The The bittersweet sentiment of ‘September the Atlantic. Perhaps it is becoming clearer rhythms of the trumpets are tonally uncertain. central section sees the procession of dotted Song’ came after a turbulent decade when that there is only one Weill; or maybe (as After 20 bars, the Allegro molto launches with rhythms alleviated by the return of the Weill fled the rise of Fascism, stayed long has also been said) – there are a thousand. chromatic string figurations restless beneath ‘head’ and ‘tail’ from the first movement – enough in Paris to compose the Second sparse rhythmic figures in the woodwind, the former turned into a consoling triplet, Symphony and several theatrical works, THE SECOND SYMPHONY one of which – also prominent in the ‘Stolz’ an inversion of the latter lending expressive and finally settled in America. He embraced Weill’s Second Symphony is the only major (Pride) episode of Sieben Todsünden – returns tranquility to a passage for strings alone. US citizenship and the English language, non-theatrical link in the 20-year chain in various guises throughout. The second A tender flute melody supported by clarinets contributed to the war effort and musical connecting The Threepenny Opera to Lost subject’s long-limbed violin melody can’t (whose seemingly innocuous figuration plays education; above all, inspired by an encounter in the Stars. As such, it seems a footnote escape the energy of the first subject, before a major role in the finale’s main idea) is with Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, he wrote to that catalogue – not least since its a mid-movement coda of rushing scales violently interrupted by a restatement of the a string of shows with Broadway’s most composition was intertwined with Die combined with the ‘Stolz’ rhythm. exposition’s climax; the recapitulation then

4 Programme Notes 28 February 2019 Kurt Weill in Profile 1900–50 plays in reverse until, led by the timpani (and The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. its libretto authored by expressionist still trying to shake off the impish triplet), promotes and perpetuates the legacies of playwright Georg Kaiser. The pioneering the opening cortège moves to a melancholy Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya by encouraging collaboration between Brecht and Weill cadence that echoes the end of Sieben an appreciation of Weill’s music through was formalised with The Threepenny Opera Todsünden. The Zorn (Anger) episode of the support of performances, recordings, in 1928, a ‘play with music’ based on John latter is also called to mind by the sardonic and scholarship, and by fostering an Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. Brecht and Weill energy of the Allegro vivace, an inventively- understanding of Weill’s and Lenya’s successfully reached mass audiences with scored rondo with a two-part main theme. lives and work within diverse cultural their incisive works of social satire, though Two episodes interrupt proceedings; a contexts. It administers the Weill-Lenya their writing partnership was unable to vigorous ostinato and a march during which Research Center, a Grant and Collaborative survive personal differences. the clarinet twists the trombone theme Performance Initiative Program, the Lotte from the second movement into something Lenya Competition, the Kurt Weill/Julius Political and economic turmoil in Germany, rather more cynical. The pace quickens and Rudel Conducting Fellowship and the Kurt and the rapid rise of Hitler’s Nazi party, led the Lento’s impish triplet drives the work to Weill Prize for scholarship in music theater; to reactionary, even hostile criticisms of a final exhilarating tarantella. it sponsors the Kurt Weill Fellowship at Weill’s progressive works; likewise, he was the Stage Directors and Choreographers he third son of Albert Weill, cantor the target of anti-Semitic abuse. After Hitler Perhaps it was this stealthy development of Foundation and Kurt Weill/Lotte Lenya of Dessau synagogue, and Emma seized power in March 1933, Weill moved small ideas across movements, along with Artists at various young artist training Weill, young Kurt became a protegé to Paris, stayed briefly in London in 1935 Weill’s predilection for finding endlessly programs in the US; and publishes the of a family friend: Albert Bing, Dessau’s and then sailed to New York. After several varied and vivid accompaniments for his Kurt Weill Edition and the Kurt Weill Kapellmeister. Weill studied privately with unsuccessful theatre and film projects, Weill themes that led one early critic of the work Newsletter. Building upon the legacies Bing, and after finishing secondary school scored notable hits on Broadway with shows to call it ‘a ragbag of theatre tunes.’ Yet many of both Weill and Lenya, the Foundation moved to Berlin to study as a conductor such as Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the concert-goers in 1934 readily warmed to its nurtures talent, particularly in the creation, and vocal coach. In 1920 he became Chief Dark, One Touch of Venus and Lost in the felicitous orchestration, its energy and wit performance, and study of musical theater Conductor of the new Municipal Theatre Stars, an adaptation of Alan Paton’s novel shot through with moments of melancholy – in its various manifestations and media. in Lüdenscheid, Westphalia, and was later Cry the Beloved Country. On 15 March 1950, and the increasing number of performances Since 2012, the Kurt Weill Foundation has chosen to be among Busoni’s composition Weill suffered a heart attack and died a few since the work’s publication in 1966 seems also administered the musical and literary masterclass students at Berlin’s Prussian days later in New York’s Flower Hospital. • to bear out their initial judgment. • estate of composer Marc Blitzstein. Academy of the Arts. Composer Profile by Meirion Bowen kwf.org Weill’s early works were soon performed and published, and he scored a success in 1926 with the one-act opera Der Protagonist,

Composer Profile 5 Sergei Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op 43 1934 / note by Andrew Huth

Simon Trpčeski piano It was such a success that Rachmaninov, Variation 11 is a slow, reflective piano • NICCOLÒ PAGANINI (1782–1840) always fastidious and self-critical, began to cadenza. Variations 12 to 15 are all in triple was an Italian violinist, guitarist and n 1933, a newspaper interviewer have doubts: if it was so popular, he wondered, time, beginning with a melancholy, slow composer. He was the most celebrated asked the 60-year-old Rachmaninov might there be something wrong with it? minuet, while Variations 16 to 18 form a sort violinist of his day and spent much of if he’d given up composing. of slow movement, culminating in the ‘big his career touring Europe as a travelling It wasn’t a tactful question. The years The famous theme comes from the last tune’ of No 18, which consists of Paganini’s virtuoso. He contributed prolifically between 1917 and 1926 had been completely of the Twenty-Four Caprices for solo violin theme slowed down and turned upside- to the development of modern violin barren of new music; and since the first published in 1820 by Niccolò Paganini •, down. The final section resumes the quick technique, greatly expanding the timbral performances in 1927 of the Fourth Piano and has attracted many composers tempo and begins a gradual acceleration to and technical possibilities of the instrument. Concerto and the Three Russian Songs besides Rachmaninov, among them the final Variation 24, with its last reference for chorus and orchestra there had been Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Szymanowski to the Dies Irae in the brass. • • THE DIES IRAE (Day of Wrath) only the Variations on a Theme of Corelli and Lutosławski. The theme is ideal is the 13th-century plainchant setting of for solo piano, composed in 1931. for variation: it has simple harmony, a Medieval poem, describing the biblical a memorable melodic shape, crisp and day of judgement. The theme has often In the summer of 1934, Rachmaninov characteristic rhythms and regular phrasing. been quoted by composers including Haydn, at last produced another major work. Any of these features can be varied, leaving Berlioz, Liszt and Tchaikovsky, though On 19 August he wrote to his sister-in-law: the other elements clearly recognisable. perhaps most notably by Rachmaninov, ‘This work is rather a large one, and only for whom the Dies Irae became a recurring yesterday, late at night, I finished it … Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody consists of 24 motif. The theme appears prominently This piece is written for piano and orchestra, continuous variations. Variation 1 precedes in many of his major works, including about 20–25 minutes in length. But it is no the theme, giving just its skeleton before the First, Second and Third Symphonies, concerto! It is called ‘Symphonic Variations the full theme is given by the violins. The Bells, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini on a Theme by Paganini.’ Three weeks Variations 2 to 10 are all in a quick tempo, and the Symphonic Dances. later, he was referring to it as a ‘Fantasia apart from No 7 where the solo piano for piano and orchestra in the form of introduces another theme – the Dies Irae •, variations on a theme of Paganini.’ the Medieval chant which pervades so Interval – 20 minutes much of Rachmaninov’s music as a symbol There are bars on all levels. The premiere was given by the composer of mortality. It re-appears in the march-like Visit the Barbican Shop to see our with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Variation 10, at first in the piano, then as range of Gifts and Accessories. Stokowski on 7 November 1934 in Baltimore. a brass fanfare.

6 Programme Notes 28 February 2019 Sergei Rachmaninov in Profile 1873–1943

elody is music,’ wrote Rachmaninov, his Second Piano Concerto, widely known ̒ ‘the basis of music as a whole, through its later use as the soundtrack for since a perfect melody implies the classic film Brief Encounter. Thereafter, and calls into being its own harmonic his creative imagination ran free to produce design.’ The Russian composer, pianist and a string of unashamedly romantic works conductor’s passion for melody was central divorced from newer musical trends. to his work, clearly heard in his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He left Russia shortly before the October Revolution in 1917, touring as pianist and Although the young Sergei’s father conductor and buying properties in Europe squandered much of the family inheritance, and the United States. • he at first invested wisely in his son’s musical education. In 1882 the boy received Composer Profile by Andrew Stewart a scholarship to study at the St Petersburg Conservatory, but further disasters at home hindered his progress and he moved to study • GERGIEV’S RACHMANINOV at the Moscow Conservatory. Here he proved • ON LSO LIVE an outstanding piano pupil and began to study composition. Symphonies Nos 1 to 3 Symphonic Dances Rachmaninov’s early works reveal his debt to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and Valery Gergiev’s lush and colourful Tchaikovsky, although he rapidly forged a recordings of Rachmaninov showcase his personal, richly lyrical musical language, mastery of the repertoire of his homeland, clearly expressed in his Prelude in C-sharp recorded with LSO between 2008 and 2015. minor for piano of 1892. His First Symphony of 1897 was savaged by the critics, which lsolive.co.uk caused the composer’s confidence to evaporate. In desperation he sought help from Dr Nikolai Dahl, whose hypnotherapy sessions restored Rachmaninov’s self- belief and gave him the will to complete

Composer Profile 7 Igor Stravinsky Petruskha 1910–11, rev 1947 / note by Paul Griffiths

1 The Shrovetide Fair However unlikely this narrative may be in Russian Dance, the music offers a machine- Events in the first scene turn from the 2 In Petrushka’s Cell terms of chronology, it serves to show the made portrait of national style. Again in the general to the specific. At first the musical 3 In the Blackamoor’s Cell weight Stravinsky wanted his ballet scores last scene, the different dances interlock activity is that of the excited crowd at the 4 The Shrovetide Fair (Evening) to have as self-sufficient music. It also like cogwheels in a piece of machinery, so St Petersburg Shrovetide Fair, with shows how the drama on stage was equalled that the human spectators at the fair seem instruments (a hurdy-gurdy, two musical nce he had arrived in Paris with for him, if not surpassed, by a drama more artificial than the painted dolls in the boxes) and dancers among the throng. The Firebird, Stravinsky stayed. happening within the score – the drama Showman’s booth. Attention focuses cinematically on the The success of his first score for of a piano playing tricks on the orchestra, Showman and his three puppets: Petrushka, Diaghilev meant there would have to be of figures and instruments in liaison and By the time he was composing this, the Ballerina and the Blackamoor. In a another, and he immediately started work combat. The puppet-piano in the second Stravinsky was full of enthusiasm. In magical passage the Showman charms them on what would emerge as The Rite of Spring. scene he saw as ‘exasperating the patience January 1911, following a Christmas visit into life, and they step down from their But then, according to his own account, of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of to St Petersburg, he wrote to a friend: stage as they give their Russian Dance. he got sidetracked: arpeggios. The orchestra in turn retaliates with menacing trumpet blasts. The outcome ‘My last visit to Petersburg did me much The second scene conveys Petrushka’s ‘I wanted to refresh myself by composing is a terrific noise which reaches its climax good, and the final scene is shaping up bitterness and despair, which he feels an orchestral piece in which the piano and ends in the sorrowful and querulous excitingly … quick tempos, concertinas, at his dependence on the Showman and would play the most important part … collapse of the poor puppet.’ major keys … smells of Russian food … at his unrequited love for the Ballerina. I had in mind a distinct picture of a puppet, and of sweat and glistening leather boots.’ She visits him, but flees at the violence suddenly endowed with life.’ Other dramas here have to do with the of his advances. treatment of what, in his later conversations The quick tempos, the concertinas and the Continuing this story, he tells how he was with Robert Craft, he called the ‘Russian major keys are all easy to hear; the cabbage In the third scene she goes to his rival, the visited by Diaghilev – both of them were export style’. The Firebird had been an soup, the sweat and the boots might magnificent Blackamoor. Their love-making living on the Swiss riviera, around Lake unashamed instance, as had most of the need a little bit of imagination. The first is witnessed by Petrushka, who rushes in Geneva – and the great impresario smelt other scores Diaghilev had brought to Paris scene features mechanical rhythms, sharp and is promptly ejected. a show in the air: the music his young so far, including Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances cuts from one kind of music to another, composer was playing him would have to and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade. But and textures built from accumulations of The last scene returns to the world outside, be a ballet, not some kind of piano concerto. Petrushka looks at that style with ironic rotating motifs. Tunes are spliced together, now to observe individuals and groups, A puppet, did he say? Well then, that was detachment. The fanfare-like gesture at the or placed with accompanying figures that are each defined by characterful, folksy it. Petrushka, the story from the Russian start of the second scene is a speeded-up just spinning on the spot. Almost anything music. Everything comes to a stop when fairs, about a thing of wood and string version of a theme that had been luscious can happen, provided it happens on time. the puppets burst out. With his scimitar that does indeed gain human feelings, in Sheherazade. In the first scene, when the Blackamoor kills Petrushka, but the with tragic consequences. Petrushka and his fellow puppets perform a Showman reassures everyone that these

8 Programme Notes 28 February 2019

LEEDS PIANO FESTIVAL IN LONDON Igor Stravinsky in Profile 1882–1971 are only puppets, and the crowd disperses Before that was completed, a ballet based in the evening snow. The Showman goes on 18th-century music, Pulcinella (1919–20), to drag the ‘corpse’ away, stopping in opened the door to a whole neo-Classical amazement when he sees Petrushka’s period, which was to last three decades ghost sneering at him. and more. He also began spending much of his time in Paris and on tour with his Where Stravinsky had written The Firebird as mistress Vera Sudeikina, while his wife, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, now he was part mother and children lived elsewhere in of a new entourage, Diaghilev’s, working France. Up to the end of the 1920s, his with colleagues whose talents sharpened Thursday 4 April 1pm, LSO St Luke’s big works were nearly all for the theatre his own: Alexandre Benois, who created the LANG LANG SCHOLARS (including the nine he wrote for Diaghilev). scenario and the designs, choreographer Three young pianists, hand-picked by By contrast, large-scale abstract works Mikhail Fokine and the dancers Vaslav Lang Lang, showcase their talents. began to dominate his output after 1930, Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina, who were including three symphonies, of which the in the starring roles when the ballet was Thursday 4 April 7.30pm, LSO St Luke’s first, Symphony of Psalms (1930), marks first presented, in Paris on 13 June 1911. The ERIC LU hird in a family of four sons, also his reawakened religious observance. musical magic, though, is all his own, made Be one of the first to hear Eric Lu, Stravinsky had a comfortable In 1939, soon after the deaths of his wife more streamlined in his 1947 revision. • winner of ‘The Leeds’ 2018. upbringing in St Petersburg, and mother, he sailed to New York with where his father was a Principal Bass at Vera, whom he married, and with whom he Friday 5 April 7.30pm, LSO St Luke’s the Mariinsky Theatre. In 1902 he started settled in Los Angeles. Following his opera STEVEN OSBORNE lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov, but he was a The Rake’s Progress (1947–51) he began to Steven Osborne explores Beethoven’s slow developer, and hardly a safe bet when interest himself in Schoenberg and Webern, final, profound piano sonatas. Diaghilev commissioned The Firebird. The and within three years had worked out a success of that work encouraged him to new serial style. Sacred works became more Saturday 6 April 7.30pm, LSO St Luke’s remain in western Europe, writing scores and more important, to end with Requiem BARRY DOUGLAS almost annually for Diaghilev. The October Canticles (1965–66), which was performed Barry Douglas pairs small-scale and Revolution of 1917 sealed him off from his at his funeral, in Venice. • expansive works by Tchaikovsky, homeland; his response was to create a rural Rachmaninov and Schubert. Russia of the mind, in such works as the Profile by Paul Griffiths peasant-wedding ballet Les Noces (1914-23). On sale now at lso.co.uk/leedsinlondon

Composer Profile 9 Lahav Shani conductor

ahav Shani has established himself Staatskapelle, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, with orchestras including the Philharmonia, as one of the most talked-about Budapest Festival Orchestra, Boston Staatskapelle Berlin and Orchestre young conducting talents, making Symphony, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Philharmonique de Radio France. Recent a huge impression with his maturity Berlin, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre concerto engagements include appearances and instinctive musicality. In September de Paris, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, 2018 he took over as Chief Conductor of Stockholm Philharmonic, Bamberger and the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphoniker and Orchestre Philharmonique Renaud and Gautier Capuçon with the Israel succeeding Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and de Radio France. Philharmonic. Shani also has considerable became the youngest Chief Conductor in the experience performing chamber music, Orchestra’s history. In the 2020/21 season, Shani’s close relationship with the Israel appearing recently at the Festival d'Aix- Shani will succeed Zubin Mehta as Music Philharmonic started in 2007 when he en-Provence, the Cologne Philharmonie Director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto and the Verbier Festival. • and will be the Orchestra’s Music Director under the baton of Zubin Mehta and Designate from 2019/20. continued in the following years as both a pianist and also as a double bass player. In the 2017/18 season, Shani became Shani was born in Tel Aviv in 1989 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Vienna started his piano studies aged six with Symphony Orchestra, following a number Hannah Shalgi, continuing with Professor of appearances with the Orchestra since Arie Vardi at the Buchmann-Mehta School his debut in May 2015, including a major of Music in Tel Aviv. He went on to complete European tour in January 2016. Shani his studies in conducting with Professor also works regularly with the Berlin Christian Ehwald and piano with Professor Staatskapelle, both at the Berlin Staatsoper Fabio Bidini, both at the Academy of Music and also for symphonic concerts. In spring Hanns Eisler Berlin. 2019 he will return to conduct Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Berlin Staatsoper. Whilst a student he was mentored by Daniel Barenboim. In 2013 he won First Recent and forthcoming highlights as a guest Prize in the Gustav Mahler International conductor include engagements with the Conducting Competition in Bamberg, and Vienna Philharmonic, Symphonieorchester as a pianist Shani made his solo recital des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Royal debut at the Boulez Saal in Berlin in July Concertgebouw Orchestra, Dresden 2018. He has play-directed piano concertos

10 Artist Biographies 28 February 2019 Simon Trpčeski piano

imon Trpčeski performs with Washington, New York Philharmonic and was immediately hailed by The Telegraph as the world’s foremost orchestras Chicago Symphony, among others. He will Classical CD of the Week. His recording for including the Royal Concertgebouw perform both Brahms concertos with the Onyx Classics of Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, both in Oslo and on Nos 1 and 3 again won him the Diapason d’Or NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, WDR tour. A committed chamber musician, he in September 2017. Sinfonieorchester, Helsinki Philharmonic has begun a duo partnership with violinist Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Eldbjørg Hemsing, including at Oslo Opera With the special support of KulturOp — Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, House, and appears at the Ludwigsburger Macedonia’s leading cultural and arts Real Filharmonía de Galicia, New York Schlossfestspiele as well as Festspiele organisation — and the Ministry of Culture of and Los Angeles Philharmonics, New Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, at the the Republic of Macedonia, Trpčeski works Japan Philharmonic, China Philharmonic invitation of his regular duo partner regularly with young musicians in Macedonia and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Daniel Müller-Schott. His self-made folk to cultivate the talent of the country’s next He regularly gives solo recitals in such project, Makedonissimo, which celebrates generation of artists. Born in the Republic cultural capitals as New York, London, the music and culture of his native of Macedonia in 1979, Simon Trpčeski is a Paris, Munich, Prague and Tokyo, and Macedonia, has been performed in the UK graduate of the School of Music in Skopje, performs chamber music at festivals at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and the where he studied with Boris Romanov. such as Verbier, Aspen Music Festival, Birmingham Piano Festival, in addition to He was previously a BBC New Generation Bergen International Festival, the Baltic performances in the Robeco series at the Artist, and was honoured with the Royal Sea Festival and the BBC Proms. Conductors Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award he regularly collaborates with include Marin in 2003. • Alsop, Lionel Bringuier, Thomas Dausgaard, Trpčeski has recorded prolifically to Gustavo Dudamel, Jakob Hrůša, Vladimir widespread acclaim. His first recording (EMI, Jurowski, Susanna Mälkki, Andris Nelsons, 2002) received both the Editor’s Choice and Gianandrea Noseda, Sakari Oramo, Antonio Debut Album awards at the Gramophone Pappano, Vasily Petrenko, Jukka-Pekka Awards. In 2010 and 2011, his interpretations Saraste, Lahav Shani, Dima Slobodeniouk, of Rachmaninov’s complete concertos plus Robin Ticciati and Krzysztof Urbański. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, with Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool During the 2018/19 season Trpčeski will Philharmonic Orchestra, were recognised appear with Philharmonia, the Russian State with accolades from Classic FM, Diapason Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica and Gramophone. Trpčeski’s 2012 Wigmore de Galicia, National Symphony Orchestra Hall recital, released on Wigmore Hall Live,

Artist Biographies 11 London Symphony Orchestra on stage tonight

Leader Second Violins Cellos Flutes Horns Timpani LSO String Experience Scheme Carmine Lauri Julián Gil Rodríguez Rebecca Gilliver Julian Sperry David Alonso Matthew Perry Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Sarah Quinn Alastair Blayden Charlotte Ashton Angela Barnes Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins Miya Väisänen Jennifer Brown Alexander Edmundson Percussion from the London music conservatoires at Sharon Roffman Matthew Gardner Noel Bradshaw Piccolo Jonathan Lipton Neil Percy the start of their professional careers to gain Clare Duckworth Alix Lagasse Daniel Gardner Patricia Moynihan David Jackson work experience by playing in rehearsals Laura Dixon Belinda McFarlane Hilary Jones Trumpets Sam Walton and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Gerald Gregory Iwona Muszynska Daniel Benn Oboes Nicholas Betts Tom Edwards are treated as professional ‘extra’ players Maxine Kwok-Adams Csilla Pogany Laure Le Dantec Juliana Koch Toby Street (additional to LSO members) and receive fees William Melvin Ingrid Button Leo Melvin Rosie Jenkins Simon Cox Harps for their work in line with LSO section players. Laurent Quénelle Caroline Frenkel Ella Rundle Bryn Lewis Harriet Rayfield Grace Lee Cor Anglais Tombones Lucy Wakeford The Scheme is supported by: Colin Renwick Gordon MacKay Double Basses Christine Pendrill Blair Sinclair The Polonsky Foundation Sylvain Vasseur Alain Petitclerc Colin Paris James Maynard Piano Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Rhys Watkins Robert Yeomans Patrick Laurence Clarinets Philip Moore Derek Hill Foundation Richard Blayden Matthew Gibson Chris Richards Bass Trombone Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation Eleanor Fagg Violas Joe Melvin Chi-Yu Mo Paul Milner Celeste Rod Stafford Julia Rumley Jane Atkins Jani Pensola Clive Williamson Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust Patrick Savage Gillianne Haddow Josie Ellis Bass Clarinet Tuba Malcolm Johnston José Moreira Katy Ayling Ben Thomson Anna Bastow Simo Väisänen German Clavijo Bassoons Editor Lander Echevarria Rachel Gough Fiona Dinsdale | [email protected] Carol Ella Joost Bosdijk Editorial Photography Julia O’Riordan Ranald Mackechnie, Chris Wahlberg, Robert Turner Contra Bassoon Harald Hoffmann, Marco Borggreve, Samuel Burstin Dominic Morgan Benjamin Ealovega Cynthia Perrin Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 Alistair Scahill Advertising Cabbells Ltd 020 3603 7937

Details in this publication were correct at time of going to press.

12 The Orchestra 28 February 2019