OTHER WORLDS 2019/20 Concert season at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall Highlights 2019/20 November Acclaimed soprano Diana Damrau is renowned for her interpretations of the music of Richard Strauss, and this November she sings a selection of her favourite Strauss songs. Page 12 September October Principal Conductor and Mark Elder conducts Artistic Advisor Vladimir Elgar’s oratorio Jurowski is joined by The Apostles, arguably Julia Fischer to launch his greatest creative the second part of Isle achievement, which of Noises with Britten’s will be brought to life elegiac Violin Concerto on this occasion with alongside Tchaikovsky’s a stellar cast of soloists Sixth Symphony. and vast choral forces. Page 03 Page 07 December Legendary British pianist Peter Donohoe plays his compatriot John Foulds’s rarely performed Dynamic Triptych – a unique jazz-filled, exotic masterpiece Page 13 February March January Vladimir Jurowski leads We welcome back violinist After winning rave reviews the first concert in our Anne-Sophie Mutter for at its premiere in 2017, 2020 Vision festival, two exceptional concerts we offer another chance presenting the music in which she performs to experience Sukanya, of three remarkable Beethoven’s groundbreaking Ravi Shankar’s works composed Triple Concerto and extraordinary operatic three centuries apart, a selection of chamber fusion of western and by Beethoven, Scriabin works alongside LPO traditional Indian styles. and Eötvös. Principal musicians. A love story brought to Page 19 Pages 26–27 life through myth, music and dance. Page 14 April May FUNharmonics As we mark the 250th Antonio Pappano conducts This October the Orchestra anniversary of Beethoven’s sublime Bach transcriptions, performs the live orchestral birth, Vladimir Jurowski brings and is joined by acclaimed soundtrack to Zog – four of the composer’s pianist Igor Levit for a a new animated film rarely heard works to the rare and eagerly awaited based on Julia Donaldson stage including his performance of Busoni’s and Axel Scheffler’s remarkable choral piece immense Piano Concerto. celebrated picture book. Cantata on the Death Page 36 Page 41 of Emperor Joseph II. Page 29 01 Introduction A warm welcome to our new season We have another fine array of concerts for During the second half of the season, we present you to enjoy in 2019/20. We begin the season the first part of a new strand of concerts entitled with the second part of Isle of Noises, our 2020 Vision, offering the chance to hear some exploration of landmark classics inspired by the of the most exciting music written since 2000 British Isles, and including the music of Walton, including works by Thomas Adès, Péter Eötvös, Vaughan Williams, Britten and Foulds, alongside Oliver Knussen and Kaija Saariaho. Each of these a celebration of a century of great British film will be combined in a concert with works written scores. Other early season highlights include both 100 and 200 years earlier, which along a performance of Mahler's mighty Resurrection the way gives us the perfect opportunity Symphony with Principal Conductor and to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary Artistic Advisor Vladimir Jurowski, Verdi’s with some of his great masterpieces including glorious Requiem under the baton of Edward his first six symphonies. Gardner, and a welcome return to the Royal We continue our Wagner Ring Cycle project Festival Hall stage for celebrated soprano with Siegfried in January, and in March our regular Diana Damrau, who performs a selection guest soloist and friend Anne-Sophie Mutter of her favourite Strauss songs. joins us for a performance of Beethoven's Triple After its critically acclaimed premiere with the Concerto, and an evening of chamber music LPO in 2017, Ravi Shankar’s only opera Sukanya with Principal musicians from the Orchestra. is performed again for one night only in January There really is something for everyone this 2020 – don't miss the chance to join us for this season, so please do join us again to experience special event. the wonder of orchestral music. Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director A selection of this season’s concerts will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds. © Chris© Blott Y– DECEMB AR ER U 2 N 01 A 9 J ISLE OF NOISES Landmark classics inspired by the British Isles 1689 –2019 Isle of Noises January–December 2019 lpo.org.uk/isleofnoises ‘Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.’ The British Isles have always been of British film scores tells stories of Polish a place where diverse traditions meet fighter pilots and Arabian adventurers; tragic and interact: where ideas are born lovers and 1930s sci-fi. It’s never just been and debated, and where past, present and about country lanes and stiff upper lips. future are in continual, often tempestuous So we’ll dive deeper. Elgar explores his dialogue. Throughout it all, musicians Catholic faith in music of red-blooded in and from Britain have created art passion, and Vaughan Williams summons as varied and as surprising as the nation the spirit of William Blake. There are bold itself – and in Isle of Noises, the LPO new sounds from Thomas Adès, and a vision performs and celebrates that music. of heaven from William Alwyn: his lovely, And it’s not necessarily what you might neglected Lyra Angelica. And to finish, expect – with soloists as dynamic as a rare performance of John Foulds’s Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Nicola Benedetti, Dynamic Triptych: a fusion of Art Deco classics like Elgar’s Cello and Violin modernism with Indian rhythms that might Concertos belong as much to the present also be the greatest piano concerto as the past. Holst’s The Planets will you’ve never heard. British music is rarely be a startlingly new experience when straightforward. We just know that it conducted by Thomas Adès, and a night sounds great. 03 September/October Friday 27 September 2019 | 7.30pm Jurowski’s Tchaikovsky Royal Festival Hall Tickets £46–£14 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242/lpo.org.uk Series discounts Page 47 Knussen Scriabin Settings At the dawn of a new century, Alexander Scriabin Britten Violin Concerto saw wondrous musical visions – but then, he was Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 standing on the shoulders of giants. Don’t be (Pathétique) misled by the name ‘Pathétique’: Tchaikovsky’s blazing, autobiographical final symphony summed up a century of Russian music, and Vladimir Jurowski conductor is still one of the classical concert hall’s most Julia Fischer violin uncompromising emotional experiences. As we start our new season, Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO gaze forward and backward, paying homage Vladimir Jurowski to a great friend, the late Oliver Knussen, and exploring one of British music’s most powerful 20th-century masterpieces with Julia Fischer. Free pre-concert event 6.15pm — 6.45pm | Royal Festival Hall As we continue our Isle of Noises festival featuring landmark classics from the British Isles, we look at how British music continues to be a strong force in the world of classical music – from Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten through to current © Matthias Creutziger© champions Colin Matthews and Thomas Adès. Wednesday 2 October 2019 | 7.30pm To the summit Royal Festival Hall Tickets £46–£14 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242/lpo.org.uk Series discounts Page 47 Elgar Violin Concerto Richard Strauss once boasted that he could R Strauss An Alpine Symphony depict even a knife and fork in music. So when he set out to portray the Bavarian Alps, the results are exactly as spectacular as you’d Vladimir Jurowski conductor expect, complete with waterfalls, glaciers, and Nicola Benedetti violin an ear-splitting storm. But Vladimir Jurowski will find an extra dimension in Strauss’s vast hymn to nature: the huge vistas and moments of stillness that make this infinitely more than just the world’s greatest musical picture postcard. It should Nicola Benedetti make a fitting counterpart to Nicola Benedetti’s performance of Elgar’s Violin Concerto – still the ultimate proof of the profoundly romantic heart behind Elgar’s veneer of Edwardian reserve. © Simon Fowler Simon © 04 October Saturday 5 October 2019 | 7.30pm Sheku Kanneh-Mason Royal Festival Hall plays Elgar Tickets £46–£14 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242/lpo.org.uk Series discounts Page 47 Sibelius The Oceanides Jean Sibelius found a vast stillness in the endless Elgar Cello Concerto forests of his native Finland, while an ocean Britten Variations on a Theme voyage prompted visions of classical myth of Frank Bridge and elemental power. Susanna Mälkki begins this concert with Sibelius’s warmest tone- Sibelius Symphony No. 6 poem and ends it with his gentlest symphony: in between come two very different visions Susanna Mälkki conductor of nature from two British masters. Fresh Sheku Kanneh-Mason cello sea air blows through every bar of Britten’s youthful Frank Bridge Variations. And Edward Sheku Kanneh-Mason Elgar retreated to rural Sussex to write his Cello Concerto, a work whose haunted poetry – as Sheku Kanneh-Mason (2016 BBC Young Musician of the Year) will demonstrate – takes on a fresh meaning for each generation. Concert generously supported by Victoria Robey OBE. © Lars Borges© Wednesday 9 October 2019 | 7.30pm The Inextinguishable Royal Festival Hall Tickets £46–£14 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242/lpo.org.uk Series discounts Page 47 Bartók Dance Suite ‘The struggle, the wrestling, the generation Walton Violin Concerto and the wasting away go on today as yesterday, Nielsen Symphony No. 4 tomorrow as today, and everything returns. (The Inextinguishable) Music is life, and like it, inextinguishable.’ While the Great War ravaged Europe, Carl Nielsen responded with a Fourth Symphony Edward Gardner conductor whose thundering drums represent a struggle James Ehnes violin for the future of life itself.