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Home , Cecilia Bartoli, Harold en Italie, Hector Berlioz, John Eliot Gardiner, Marc Minkowski, Mosco Carner

Sunday 11 March 2018 7–9pm Barbican Hall

LSO SEASON CONCERT GARDINER’S SCHUMANN

Schumann : Genoveva Berlioz Les nuits d’été Interval Schumann No 2 SCHUMANN Sir conductor Ann Hallenberg mezzo-

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This evening we hear Schumann’s works THANK YOU TO THE LSO GUARDIANS WATCH: alongside a set of orchestral songs by another WHY IS THE STANDING? quintessentially Romantic composer – Berlioz. Tonight we welcome the LSO Guardians, and It is a great pleasure to welcome soloist extend our sincere thanks to them for their This evening’s performance of Schumann’s Ann Hallenberg, who makes her debut with commitment to the Orchestra. LSO Guardians Second Symphony will be performed with the Orchestra this evening in Les nuits d’été. are those who have pledged to remember the members of the Orchestra standing up. LSO in their Will. In making this meaningful Watch as Sir John Eliot Gardiner explains I would like to take this opportunity to commitment, they are helping to secure why this is the case. thank our media partners, medici.tv, who the future of the Orchestra, ensuring that are broadcasting tonight’s concert live, our world-class artistic programme and .com/lso and to Classic FM, who have recommended pioneering education and community A warm welcome to this evening’s LSO tonight’s concert to their listeners. The projects will thrive for years to come. concert at the Barbican, as we are joined by performance will also be streamed live on WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS one of the Orchestra’s regular collaborators, the LSO’s YouTube channel, where it will lso.co.uk/legacies Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Alongside a significant be available to watch again for 90 days. Tonight we are delighted to welcome: European tour during the last fortnight, Queenswood School which concludes at the Philharmonie I hope that you enjoy tonight’s concert and YOUTUBE LIVE STREAM Waltham Forest Service on Tuesday, tonight’s performance marks that you can join us again as we continue our Hertford U3A the beginning of his latest project with the exploration of Schumann’s . Tonight’s concert is being broadcast on LSO, exploring the full cycle of Schumann’s On Thursday 15 March Sir John Eliot Gardiner both medici.tv and YouTube. Head to our symphonies during 2018 and 2019. Following conducts the Fourth Symphony, the most YouTube channel at youtube.com/lso, where Read our news, watch videos and more the success of the conductor’s recent cycle innovative of Schumann's symphonic output. it will be available to watch for 90 days. • lso.co.uk/news of Mendelssohn’s symphonies – which were • youtube.com/lso recorded and released to critical acclaim on • lso.co.uk/blog LSO Live – we greatly anticipate this cycle OBITUARY: NELSON COOKE 1919–2018 and the insight which he will bring to these rarely performed works. The LSO was saddened to sad to hear Kathryn McDowell CBE DL of the death of former Principal Cello Managing Director Nelson Cooke on 7 February. Nelson was Principal Cello of the LSO from 1963 to 1968, before moving back to Australia where he trained generations of cellists. We extend our condolences to his family. 2 Welcome 11 March 2018 Tonight’s Concert / by Stephen Johnson Coming Up in April

obert Schumann and ’s Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights) Sunday 8 April 2018 7pm Thursday 19 & 26 April 2018 7.30pm Berlioz were two of ’s on the other hand is an oasis of calm, poise Barbican Hall Barbican Hall wildest and most brilliant spirits. and exquisite beauty, quite unlike anything Their dazzling imagination and utterly fresh else Berlioz every composed. Its tender, NOSEDA’S SHOSTAKOVICH MAHLER’S NINTH attitude to familiar musical forms has earned atmospheric lyricism and glorious vocal them devotion, but also furious criticism. writing have made it a firm favourite, even Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4 Helen Grime Woven Space * Even today they still divide the crowds. with listeners normally resistant to Berlioz. Shostakovich Symphony No 8 (world premiere) While some find their passion and fantasy Putting Schumann and Berlioz together like Mahler Symphony No 9 enthralling, others draw back – perhaps this gives some idea of the incredible range Gianandrea Noseda conductor sensing something of the mental instability of feeling and colour opened up in music by Nikolai Lugansky piano Sir conductor that caused both men such acute suffering. the Romantic revolution. * Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the But the works in this programme, in their Sunday 15 April 2018 7pm LSO by the Barbican very different ways, show how creativity PROGRAMME NOTE WRITERS Barbican Hall can bring relief, even joy, to troubled minds. 26 April generously supported by Baker McKenzie Schumann’s Overture to Genoveva tells Stephen Johnson is the author of Bruckner ELGAR CELLO CONCERTO the story of a woman wronged, plunged Remembered (Faber). He also contributes into despair, yet ultimately vindicated. The regularly to BBC Music Magazine and The Patrick Giguère Revealing music’s energy and pathos suggests that Guardian, and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 (world premiere, Panufnik Commission*) he identified deeply with the sufferings of (Discovering Music), BBC Radio 4 and the Elgar Cello Concerto Sunday 22 April 2018 7pm the woman he chose as the heroine of his BBC World Service. Sibelius Symphony No 5 Barbican Hall only . The Second Symphony was written while Schumann was trying to drag David Cairns Volume Two of David Cairns’ Susanna Mälkki conductor MAHLER’S TENTH himself from the pit of a terrible depression. biography of Berlioz (Servitude and Daniel Müller-Schott cello We can perhaps hear something of his pain Greatness) won the biography category Tippett The Rose Lake † in the music, especially in the wonderful of the Whitbread Prize and the Samuel * The Panufnik Composers Scheme is generously Mahler comp Cooke Symphony No 10 slow movement, but the finale leads us Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Volume One supported by Lady Hamlyn and the Helen Hamlyn Trust through to glorious sunlit re-emergence from (The Making of an Artist) has been re-issued Sir Simon Rattle conductor the previous dark shadows, culminating in in a revised edition. a hymn of thanks to his wife Clara for her † Supported by Resonate, a PRS Foundation initiative in devoted support in time of crisis. lso.co.uk/whatson partnership with the Association of British , 020 7638 8891 BBC Radio 3 and the Boltini Trust

Tonight’s Concert 3 Overture: Genoveva 1849 / note by Stephen Johnson

ike many of the leading German Genoveva, the opera’s heroine, is the wife Romantics, Schumann was strongly of the legendary Germanic warrior Siegfried. drawn to the idea of national opera. While Siegfried is away performing heroic Ideally such a work might help create a feats, his rival Golo attempts to seduce sense of collective identity amongst the Genoveva. When she rejects him, Golo German-speaking peoples, at that time still denounces her as unfaithful and she is fragmented into principalities, dukedoms, condemned to death, only to be saved at independent city states and a much-reduced the last moment when Golo’s treachery is Austria. The great pioneering example here uncovered. Schuman’s Overture begins with was Weber’s Der Freischütz (The Free-Shooter, a sombre slow introduction, depicting both 1817–21), which combined old Germanic the anguish and the beauty of wronged LSO GUARDIANS legend, magic and a triumphant redemptive Genoveva. The following Allegro provides love story with music steeped in ‘folkish’ plenty of Romantic elements: the hunting and dance songs of (Storm and Stress), and evocative touches SECURE THE FUTURE the people, and the mysterious, elemental of colour, including some clearly masculine qualities of the great German forests. horn-calls (the absent Siegfried?). Eventually the dark minor key turns to bright major as Legacy Giving It wasn’t until the advent of Wagner that Genoveva’s triumphant vindication grows Leaving a legacy to the London Symphony Orchestra Der Freischütz found a truly great successor. ever more certain. • is one of the most enduring gifts you can make, But although Schumann’s only opera, and ensures that future generations will have access Genoveva (1847–49) is still often condemned as a failure from a dramatic point of view, to the outstanding music-making of the Orchestra. opinions of the music have risen recently – When the time is right for you to include a gift part of a welcome general re-appraisal of in your Will, please remember us. Schumann’s later works. All the same, the opera’s crowning glory remains its overture – To find out more about Legacy Giving, or to have a discussion which, like Schumann’s magnificent ‘Manfred’ Overture (also written in 1849), about leaving a legacy to the LSO, please contact us: works well both as a portrait of the leading lso.co.uk/legacies | [email protected] | 020 7382 2542 character, and as a concise, atmospheric tone poem in its own right.

4 Programme Notes 11 March 2018 Robert Schumann in profile 1810–56 / by Stephen Johnson

he youngest son of a Saxon Besides welcoming the financial return THE SCHUMANN CYCLE CONTINUES … bookseller, Robert Schumann was that published Lieder (songs) could deliver, encouraged by his father to study Schumann was also able to preserve his 2017/18 SEASON music. Soon after his tenth birthday in 1820, intense feelings for Clara in the richly young Robert began taking piano lessons expressive medium of song. The personal Thursday 15 March 2018 7.30pm, Barbican in his home town of Zwickau. Although nature of Schumann’s art even influenced THE FOURTH SYMPHONY Schumann enrolled as a law student at his choice of certain themes, with the notes University in 1828, music remained A – B – E – G – G enshrined as the theme of Plus Mozart Piano Concerto No 25 K503 an overriding passion and he continued to one set of piano variations in tribute to his study piano with Friedrich Wieck. friend Countess Meta von Abegg. Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor Piotr Anderszewski piano

— 2018/19 SEASON: ON SALE NOW ‘To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.’ Thursday 7 February 2019 7.30pm, Barbican — THE THIRD SYMPHONY Robert Schumann Plus Mendelssohn Concerto for & Piano

Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor The early death of his father and two Schumann also developed his skills as Isabelle violin of his three brothers influenced Schumann’s a composer of symphonies and concertos Kristian Bezuidenhout piano appreciation of the world’s suffering, during his years in Leipzig. intensified further by his readings of Sunday 10 February 2019 7pm, Barbican Romantic poets such as , Byron Four years after their marriage in THE FIRST SYMPHONY AND and Hölderlin and his own experiments as September 1840, the Schumanns moved PIANO CONCERTO poet and playwright. Schumann composed to where Robert completed his a number of songs in his youth, but it was C major Symphony. In the early 1850s Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor not until he fell in love with and became the composer’s health and mental state Piotr Anderszewski piano secretly engaged to the teenage Clara seriously declined. In March 1854 he decided Wieck in September 1837 that he seriously to enter a sanatorium near Bonn, where lso.co.uk/schumann began to exploit his song-writing gift. he died two years later. •

Composer Profile 5 Hector Berlioz Les nuits d’été c 1841 / note by David Cairns

1 Villanelle not survived in the repertory. Yet Berlioz, those two songs, both of them concerned retains something of the playfulness of 2 whatever his first intention, surely came with loss: the one a seascape, like the final ‘Villanelle’, as well as having a delicate 3 Sur les lagunes (Lamento) to regard it as one work, not as a collection song (but a tragic one, with the bereaved fragrance apt to its poetic ‘conceit’: the 4 Absence of separate pieces published together for lover doomed to travel alone over the empty ghost of a rose which returns to haunt the 5 Au cimetière (Claire de lune) convenience. Not only are the songs linked sea), the other an evocation of a moonlit dreams of the young woman who wore it at 6 L’île inconnue by recurring musical figures, phrase-patterns graveyard where the dead still have power her first ball. At the same time the music’s and intervals, but the structure of the whole, to possess the living. largeness of style anticipates the third song. Ann Hallenberg mezzo-soprano the progression from one song to another, is consciously shaped. The order finally — ‘Sur les lagunes’ is constructed round a riginally written in about settled on describes a clear sequence of idea ‘Never shall I love a woman as I loved her. characteristic Berlioz rhythmic and melodic 1841 for solo voice and piano and mood. Les nuits d’été is palpably a cycle: ostinato, a rocking three-note figure which, accompaniment, the six songs not a quasi-narrative cycle like Schubert’s How bitter is my fate! recurring almost invariably at the same of Les nuits d’été were arranged for Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise but, Ah, without love pitch, suggests both the boat’s movement chamber orchestra at various times during like Mahler’s, a grouping of separate to set forth on the sea!’ across the calm water and the obsessive the following 15 years, and the full score numbers round a common subject. The grief of the lover who must set out on published in 1856, just before Berlioz began work is an anatomy of romantic love, shown — the journey bereft of love. The loneliness working on The Trojans. By that time his in different aspects: light-hearted and Théophile Gautier, Sur les lagunes of the end, after the last impassioned career as a conductor was nearing its end. extrovert in the first and last songs, more climax, is palpable, as the sea swell in the Only two of the songs, ‘Le spectre de la rose’ intense and passionate in the middle four. bass subsides and the harmony hangs and ‘Absence’, ever figured in his concerts. THE SONGS suspended, unresolved. He never performed the complete work. Quite possibly, when he first chose some poems by his friend Théophile Gautier • The first song, ‘Villanelle’, already carries ‘Sur les lagunes’, the most dramatic piece AN ANATOMY OF ROMANTIC LOVE to set to music, Berlioz did not have a a hint of melancholy beneath the skittish in the cycle, is the only one in a minor key. precise scheme in his mind. At one point surface, conveying it by variations of Berlioz is just as likely to express loss by Because of this, and because the full score it consisted of four songs, not six, with harmony which heighten the tension from means of the major mode, as the fourth specifies different voice-types for the the same beginning and end as in the final verse to verse, implying that the idyll in the song, ‘Absence’, shows. Here it is separation various songs – mezzo-soprano, contralto, version but with ‘Absence’ preceding ‘Le woods and the lover’s whispered ‘for ever’ from a living beloved that is evoked in a , – it has been argued that spectre de la rose’, and ‘Sur les lagunes’ and are not all they seem. major-key refrain of the barest simplicity, he did not think of the work as a cycle. ‘Au cimetière’ still to come. It may have been enclosing two minor-key verses in which the The idea of an orchestral was that the circumstances of his personal life – The much grander ‘Le spectre de la rose’, sense of unbridgeable apartness rises each certainly a novelty at that date; if there were the collapse of his once happy marriage with its long, seductive melodic spans and time to a cry of pain. any examples from an earlier time they have to – moved him to add its textures at once rich and sparkling,

6 Programme Notes 11 March 2018 Hector Berlioz in profile 1803–69 / by David Cairns

In the fifth song, ‘Au cimetière’, stepwise • THÉOPHILE GAUTIER His first large-scale orchestral work, the movement in the voice combines with the , followed in 1830. accompaniment’s shifting, somnambulistic Théophile Gautier (1811–72) was a French After a year in Italy he returned to Paris. chords to create a mood of morbid writer, critic and a contemporary and friend The and early 1840s saw a series fascination. Like ‘Le spectre de la rose’, of Berlioz who described the composer as of major works, including the music is haunted by a ghostly presence. ‘the most literary musician in existence’. (1834), the Grande Messe des Morts (1837), The poet lingers at dusk, held against his Gautier wrote poetry, plays, novels and (1839), the Symphonie will, hearing in the moaning of a dove the criticism on a wide range of subjects, funèbre et triomphale (1840) and Les nuits lament of the dead beneath his feet, while and proved a powerful influence on later d’été (c 1841). Some were well-received; the Berliozian flattened sixth grates against artistic movements and writers. but he soon discovered that he could not the major-key harmonies. rely on his music to earn a living, and became an influential critic. This claustrophobic atmosphere is abruptly dispelled by the bright sounds and salty In the 1840s he took his music abroad and rhythms of ‘L’île inconnue’. The final song established a reputation as one of the looks back to the mood of the opening, ector Berlioz was born in south- leading composers and conductors of the mocking the romantic assumptions and east in 1803, the son of a day, celebrated in Germany, Russia, , gestures of the intervening four. Yet there doctor. At the age of 17 he was sent Prague, Budapest and London. In 1849 he is a difference, reflecting all that has been to Paris to study medicine, but had already composed the , which had to wait lived through in between. In the end the conceived the ambition to be a musician and six years to be performed. The unexpected music half succumbs to the same illusion: soon became a pupil of the composer Jean- success of L’enfance du Christ in Paris in 1854 that the enchanted shore where one loves François Le Sueur. Within two years he had encouraged him to embark on a project long for ever is there, just over the horizon, composed the Messe solennelle, successfully resisted: the composition of an epic opera and, though it will never be found, must performed in 1825. In 1826 he entered the on the . Although Béatrice et Bénédict be forever sought. • Paris Conservatoire, winning the Prix de (1860–62) came later, The Trojans (1856–58) Rome four years later. It was his discovery was the culmination of his career. It was also Interval – 20 minutes of Beethoven at the Conservatoire concerts, the cause of his final disillusionment and the There are bars on all levels of the inaugurated in 1828, that was the decisive reason, together with ill-health, why he wrote Concert Hall; ice cream can be bought event in his apprenticeship, turning his nothing of consequence in the remaining at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. art in a new direction: the dramatic concert six years of his life. The work was cut in two Visit the Barbican Shop on Level -1 to see work, incarnating a ‘poetic idea’ that is and only part performed in 1863, in a poorly our new range of Gifts and Accessories. ‘everywhere present’. equipped theatre. Berlioz died in 1869 •

Programme Notes 7 Hector Berlioz Les nuits d’été Texts by Théophile Gautier (1811–72) / Translations by David Cairns

1 Villanelle 2 Le spectre de la rose

Quand viendra la saison nouvelle, When the new season comes, Soulève ta paupière close Lift up your tight-shut eyelids Quand auront disparu les froids, When the cold weather has gone, Qu’effleure un songe virginal; That glow with a maiden dream; Tous les deux nous irons, ma belle, The two of us, my beauty, will go Je suis le spectre d’une rose I am the ghost of a rose Pour cueillir le muguet aux bois. And pick lily of the valley in the woods. Que tu portais hier au bal. You wore last night at the ball. Tu me pris encore emperlée You took me still moist and glistening Sous nos pieds égrenant les perles Our feet scattering the glittering Des pleurs d’argent de l’arrosoir, From the gardener’s spray, Que l’on voit au matin trembler, Pearls of morning dew, Et parmi la fête étoilée And through the sparkling scene Nous irons écouter les merles We’ll go and listen to the blackbirds Tu me promenas tout le soir. You walked me with you all evening. Siffler. Whistle. O toi, qui de ma mort fut cause, Oh you who were cause of my death, Le printemps est venu, ma belle, Spring has come, my beauty, Sans que tu puisses le chasser, Without your being able to escape it, C’est le mois des amants béni; The month blessed by lovers; Toutes les nuits mon spectre rose Night after night my fragrant ghost Et l’oiseau satinant son aile The bird preening its wings A ton chevet viendra danser. Will come to dance at your pillow. Dit des vers au rebord du nid. Speaks poetry from the edge of its nest. Mais ne crains rien, je ne réclame But do not be afraid, I exact Oh! viens donc, sur ce banc de mousse, Oh! come and sit on this mossy bank Ni messe ni De Profundis. No mass or De Profundis. Pour parler de nos beaux amours, And talk of our beautiful love, Ce léger parfum est mon âme This delicate perfume is my soul Et dis-moi de ta voix si douce: And say to me in your soft voice: Et j’arrive du paradis. And it’s from paradise I come. ‘Toujours!’ ‘For ever!’ Mon destin fut digne d’envie, My destiny was one to be coveted; Loin, bien loin, égarant nos courses, Far, far away, our footsteps straying, Et pour avoir un sort si beau To have so fine a fate Faisons fuir le lapin caché, We’ll startle the rabbit from its hiding, Plus d’un aurait donné sa vie. Many a man would have given his life. Et le daim au miroir des sources And the deer admiring its great antlers Car sur ton sein j’ai mon tombeau, For my tomb is on your breast, Admirant son grand bois penché; Mirrored in the stream; Et sur l’albâtre où je repose And on the marble where I rest Un poète avec un baiser A poet with a kiss Puis chez nous, tout heureux, tout aises, Then home all happy and contented, Ecrivit: ‘Ci-git une rose Wrote, ‘Here lies a rose En paniers enlaçant nos doigts, Fingers entwined, return Que tous les rois vont jalouser’. That kings will envy’. Revenons, rapportant des fraises Carrying baskets of wild Des bois. Strawberries.

8 Texts 11 March 2018 3 Sur les lagunes (Lamento)

Ma belle amie est morte. My fair one is dead. Sur moi la nuit immense Over me the vast night Je pleurerai toujours; I will weep for ever; S’étend comme un linceul. Spreads like a shroud. Sous la tombe elle emporte She has taken with her to the tomb Je chante ma romance I sing my song Mon âme et mes amours. My soul and all my love. Que le ciel entend seul. Which only heaven hears. Dans le ciel sans m’attendre She did not wait for me Ah, comme elle était belle Ah, how beautiful she was Elle s’en retourna. But returned to heaven. Et comme je l’aimais! And how I loved her! L’ange qui l’emmena The angel that took her back Je n’aimerais jamais Never shall I love Ne voulut pas me prendre. Would not take me too. Une femme autant qu’elle. A woman as I loved her. Que mon sort est amer! How bitter is my fate! Que mon sort est amer! How bitter is my fate! Ah, sans amour s’en aller sur la mer! Ah, without love to set forth on the sea! Ah, sans amour s’en aller sur la mer! Ah, without love to set forth on the sea!

La blanche créature Her white body Est couchée au cercueil; Sleeps in the grave; Comme dans la nature And now all nature Tout me paraît en deuil. Seems to me in mourning. La colombe oubliée The forsaken dove weeps Pleure et songe à l’absent; And broods on the departed; Mon âme pleure et sent My soul weeps and feels Qu’elle est dépareillée. Torn in two. Que mon sort est amer! How bitter is my fate! Ah, sans amour s’en aller sur la mer! Ah, without love to set forth on the sea!

Texts 9 Hector Berlioz Les nuits d’été Texts (continued) by Théophile Gautier (1811–72) / Translations by David Cairns

4 Absence 5 Au cimetière (Claire de lune)

Reviens, reviens, ma bien-aimée! Come back, come back, beloved! Connaissez-vous la blanche tombe Do you know the white gravestone Comme une fleur loin du soleil Like a flower far from the sun Où flotte avec un son plaintif Which a yew tree’s shade La fleur de ma vie est fermée My life’s flower is closed up L’ombre d’un if? Touches with a sigh? Loin de ton sourire vermeil. Far from your rosy smile. Sur l’if une pâle colombe On the yew a solitary white dove Triste et seule au soleil couchant As the sun goes down Entre nos coeurs quelle distance! Between our hearts what distance lies! Chante son chant: Sings its sad song: Tant d’espace entre nos baisers! So great a gulf between our kisses! O sort amer, o dure absence, Oh bitter fate, oh cruel absence, Un air maladivement tendre An achingly tender air O grands désirs inapaisés! Mighty desires unsatisfied! A la fois charmant et fatal At once enchanting and full of doom Qui vous fait mal Which pains you and which Reviens, reviens, etc Come back, come back, etc Et qu’on voudrait toujours entendre; One would like to listen to forever; Un air comme en soupire aux cieux Like a song sighed out to heaven D’ici là-bas que de campagnes, From here to there what plains, L’ange amoureux. By a love-lorn angel. Que de villes et de hameaux, What towns and villages, Que de vallons et de montagnes, What valleys and hills, On dirait que l’âme éveillée One would imagine the awakened soul A lasser le pied des chevaux! To weary the horses’ hooves! Pleure sous terre à l’unisson Wept under the earth De la chanson, In tune with the song, Reviens, reviens, etc Come back, come back, etc Et du malheur d’être oubliée And from pain at being forgotten Se plaint dans un roucoulement Complained in a soft murmur Bien doucement. Like the moaning of a dove.

10 Texts 11 March 2018 6 L’île inconnue

Sur les ailes de la musique You feel that a memory, Dites, la jeune belle, Tell me, young beauty, On sent lentement revenir Recalled by the music, Où voulez-vous aller? Where would you like to go? Un souvenir. Is floating back. La voile enfle son aile The sail is spreading its wings, Une ombre, une forme angélique A shade, a shimmering form La brise va souffler. The breeze is getting up. Passe dans un rayon tremblant Brushes past you L’aviron est d’ivoire, The oar is of ivory, En voile blanc. Shrouded in white. Le pavillon de moire, The flag is of silk, Le gouvernail d’or fin. The helm of finest gold. Les belles de nuit demi-closes From the half-open Amaryllis flowers J’ai pour lest une orange, For ballast I’ve an orange, Jettent leur parfum faible et doux A faint sweet perfume Pour voile une aile d’ange, For sail an angel’s wing, Autour de vous; Surrounds you; Pour mousse un séraphin. For ship’s boy a seraph. Et le fantôme aux molles poses And the phantom whispers, Murmure en vous tendant les bras: Softly stretching out its arms: Dites, la jeune belle, etc Tell me, young beauty, etc ‘Tu reviendras!’ ‘You will come back!’ Est-ce dans la Baltique? Is it to the Baltic? Oh, jamais plus, près de la tombe Oh never again, when evening Dans la mer Pacifique? To the Pacific Ocean? Je n’irai, quand descend le soir Comes darkly down, Dans l’île de Java? To the island of Java? Au manteau noir, Will I go near the grave Ou bien est-ce en Norvège, Or is it to Norway, Ecouter la pâle colombe And hear the pale dove Cueillir la fleur de neige, To gather snowflowers, Chanter sur la pointe de I’if Sing from the top of the yew Ou la fleur d’Angsoka? Or the flowers of Angsoka? Son chant plaintif! Its plaintive song! Dites, la jeune belle, etc Tell me, young beauty, etc

Menez-moi, dit la belle, Take me, beauty replies, À la rive fidèle To the faithful shore Où l’on aime toujours. Where love lasts for ever. Cette rive, ma chère, That shore, my dear, On ne la connait guère Is little known Au pays des amours. In the land of love. Où voulez-vous aller? Where would you like to go? La brise va souffler. The breeze is getting up.

Texts 11 Robert Schumann Symphony No 2 in C major Op 61 1845 / note by Stephen Johnson

1 Sostenuto assai – amongst both admirers and detractors, He fell into terrible depression, accompanied But the fast main movement that emerges Allegro, ma non troppo that the Second Symphony was a product by chronic anxiety and a wealth of mysterious from this is dominated by an obsessively 2 Scherzo: Allegro vivace of an acute mental crisis. Schumann himself physical complaints, culminating in what repetitive theme, and for some, clearly, 3 Adagio espressivo was quite candid about this: Schumann himself called a ‘violent and this obsessiveness is too much. In the 4 Allegro molto vivace nervous attack’. For about a year he composed right interpretative hands, however, its — virtually nothing, but in May to July 1845 dogged determination can be enormously or many years, critics and musicians ‘I wrote my symphony in he was at last able to work again, though compelling – suggesting not so much a argued strenuously about how only with colossal effort. First he completed composer caught in the coils of depression, successful Schumann was as a December 1845, and I sometimes his Piano Concerto (the first movement had but a creative spirit struggling valiantly composer of symphonies. Was he a true heir fear my semi-invalid state can been composed in 1841), and then he started to work its way free. to the great Beethoven, or was he really a be divined from the music. work on the Second Symphony. miniaturist by nature, ill at ease in purposeful The first movement seems to end with hope large-scale forms? Of Schumann’s four I began to feel more myself when If the last two movements of the Piano renewed, the original hushed brass fanfare symphonies the Second is the one that I wrote the last movement, Concerto give little hint of ‘dark days’, that now sounding thrillingly in . But polarised opinion most dramatically. and I was certainly much better may be because their main ideas were there is something restless, edgy, even a For the eminent 19th-century German conceived before Schumann’s terrible little claustrophobic about the energy of the musicologist Philip Spitta, the Second when I finished the whole work. depressive collapse. The Second Symphony, Scherzo that the two gentler Trio sections Symphony had a ‘graver and more mature All the same it reminds me of dark days.’ however, is another matter. It is possible do little to molify. It is in the great Adagio depth of feeling; its bold decisiveness of that Mosco Carner’s intensely negative espressivo that Schumann finally confronts form and overpowering wealth of expression — reaction was partly a response to its melancholy and desolation head on. Here reveal distinctively the relationship in Robert Schumann on his Second Symphony emotional character, especially to the first above all it’s hard to understand how anyone art between Schumann and Beethoven’. movement. When the Symphony starts could dismiss this music as laborious, dull, But for the leading post-War British critic So what was this ‘semi-invalid state’? everything seems reasonably hopeful: and lacking in melodic invention. The opening Mosco Carner, the Second was a ‘pathetic To understand that, we need to take a longer a hushed brass fanfare confidently rises violin motif recalls Bach, whom Schumann failure … Laborious, dull, often mediocre in view. The staggering creative outpouring above a slowly flowing theme on low strings. revered, and who in his two great Passions thematic invention, plodding and repetitive that began in 1840 (the year of Schumann’s It’s a wonderful piece of romantic sound- transformed intense suffering into glorious, in argument’ – all of which, Carner suggested, long-desired and long-thwarted marriage painting, suggesting perhaps a castle or heart-easing lyricism. Schumann later is directly attributable to Schumann’s to Clara Wieck) lasted for three years. ancient city standing serenely above the admitted that composing the ‘mournful ‘mental state’ at the time he wrote it. Then, in 1844, came collapse – one of waters of a great river. Both these musical ’ solo at the heart of the movement those extreme mood-swings that occurred ideas will prove fertile later on. gave him ‘peculiar pleasure’, and the calm, In part this may have been a case of throughout Schumann’s adult life. major-key ending hints that the process of ‘too much information’. It was well known, recovery has truly begun.

12 Programme Notes 11 March 2018 ‘I began to feel more myself when I wrote This has to be a thank-offering to Clara for • (1819–96) the last movement …’ The finale is in the devoted support she gave him during the fact one of Schumann’s most original crisis of 1844–5. The Symphony ends with a symphonic structures. A rousing first theme long but compelling crescendo of affirmation, is followed by a more lyrical second, itself at the height of which ‘Take, O take’ is a transformation of the slow movement’s transformed into a triumphant fanfare. • Bachian main motif. Both themes are developed and recapitulated – all very proper and classical, if a bit on the brief side. But then comes something very unusual: a plaintive inversion of the Adagio theme brings the music back to the slow movement’s sombre minor key, the energy seems to ebb away, and the music comes to a close in the minor – almost as though this were an alternative, tragic ending for the Adagio. Clara Schumann (née Wieck) was one of the Clara, and asked for her hand in marriage most distinguished pianists of her era and when she turned 18 – which was refused by How do you follow that? What happens is a frequent performance partner of violinist her father. After a court ruling in the couple’s that Schumann draws breath and simply Joachim. Her legacy is still felt today: favour they were married in 1840. Robert starts again. The section that follows has she was one of the first performers to play was devoted to Clara, and she served as his been described as a ‘coda’, but how many from memory, and was instrumental in inspiration for many of his greatest works. codas are longer than the movement they establishing her husband’s works in the are supposed to round off? First we hear repertoire, as well as works such as Brahms’ a new theme in woodwind harmonies. This First Piano Concerto, which had fallen out is a near-quotation from Beethoven’s song of favour after its 1859 premiere. cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved), which Schumann had alluded The couple met in 1830 when Robert was to in several works during his agonisingly 20 years old, after he began studying with protracted courtship of Clara. The words Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck, and had of the song Schumann invokes here are, taken a room in his teacher’s house. In the in English, ‘Take, O take these songs I offer’. years that followed Robert fell in love with

Programme Notes 13 Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor

ir John Eliot Gardiner is include two GRAMMY awards and he has to 1988 he was Artistic Director of Opéra de respected as one of the world’s received more Gramophone Awards than Lyon, where he founded its new orchestra. most innovative and dynamic any other living artist. musicians. His work as Artistic Director Gardiner’s book, Music in the Castle of of his Monteverdi , English Baroque Gardiner’s long relationship with the LSO Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire has led to complete symphony cycles and Bach, was published in October 2013 by Allen et Romantique has marked him out as numerous recordings on LSO Live, most Lane, leading to the Prix des Muses award a central figure in the revival recently of Mendelssohn, which concluded (Singer-Polignac). Among numerous awards and a pioneer of historically informed in 2017, and, beginning this season, in recognition of his work, Sir John Eliot performance. As a regular guest of the of Schumann, which they take on a Gardiner holds honorary doctorates from world’s leading symphony orchestras, such ten-concert tour of Europe. Other guest the Royal College of Music, New England as the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen highlights this season include Conservatory of Music, the universities Rundfunks, Royal Orchestra Schumann with the Symphonieorchester of Lyon, Cremona, St Andrews and King’s and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Gardiner des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and the Verdi College, Cambridge, where he himself conducts repertoire from the 17th to the with the Tonhalle-Orchester studied and is now an Honorary Fellow. 20th century. Zürich and Monteverdi Choir. He is also an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, London and the British Academy, The extent of Gardiner’s repertoire is Alongside performances at the and an Honorary Member of the Royal illustrated in the extensive catalogue Mozart Week, Concertgebouw and Bachfest Academy of Music, who awarded him of award-winning recordings with his own Leipzig, Gardiner and the Monteverdi their prestigious Bach Prize in 2008. ensembles and leading orchestras, including ensembles this autumn conclude their He became the inaugural Christoph Wolff the on major labels celebration of the 450th anniversary Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Harvard (including Decca, Philips, Erato and 30 of the birth of Monteverdi with staged University in 2014/15 and was awarded the recordings for ). performances of his three surviving Concertgebouw Prize in January 2016. SIR JOHN ELIOT GARDINER ON LSO LIVE Since 2005 the Monteverdi ensembles have at the Berlin Festival, Paris Philharmonie, recorded on their independent label, Soli Harris Theater Chicago and Lincoln Center. Gardiner was made Chevalier de la Légion Mendelssohn Deo Gloria, established to release the live d’honneur in 2011 and was given the Order of Symphonies Nos 1 to 5 recordings made during Gardiner’s Bach Gardiner has conducted opera at the Wiener Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Pilgrimage in 2000, for which Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Opéra 2005. In the UK, he was made a Commander he received Gramophone’s 2011 Special national de Paris and , of the British Empire in 1990 and awarded a Available now at lsolive.co.uk Achievement Award and a Diapason d’or de Covent Garden, where he has appeared knighthood for his services to music in the l’année 2012. His many recording accolades regularly since his debut in 1973. From 1983 1998 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. •

14 Artist Biographies 11 March 2018 Ann Hallenberg mezzo-soprano

wedish mezzo-soprano Ann and Cavalli, via Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, and Vagaus in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans Hallenberg rose to fame in 2003 Mahler, Martin and Chausson, up to 20th- in New York and Illinois with Venice Baroque when she replaced century works by Franz Waxman and Daniel Orchestra. Concert engagements included at one day’s notice in Handel’s Il trionfo del Börtz. She has performed with orchestras Mahler’s Rückert Lieder in Amsterdam tempo e del disinganno at the Opernhaus such as the , Orchestre with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Zürich. She is now established as one of de Paris, Orchestre national de France, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 in Brussels, the world’s leading mezzo-. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Accademia Antwerp and Gent with the Royal Flemish Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, BBC Symphony Orchestra; Bach’s in Paris She regularly appears in opera houses and Orchestra, Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, with Orchestre National de France; Elgar’s festivals such as Teatro alla Scala Milan, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Russian The Dream of Gerontius with Dortmund Teatro la Fenice Venice, Teatro Real Madrid, National Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony Philharmonic; Bach’s St John Passion in , Opernhaus Zürich, Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Rome with Accademia Nazionale di Santa Opéra National Paris, Théâtre des Champs- Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Cecilia; Medea in Handel’s in Moscow Elysées Paris, Théâtre de La Monnaie Orchestra and the Danish Radio Orchestra. with Russian National Orchestra; and Brussels, Netherlands Opera Amsterdam, She enjoys close collaborations with the recitals with the pianist Magnus Svensson Vlaamse Opera Antwerp, Bayerische period instrument ensembles Les Talens in Madrid and Stockholm. Staatsoper München, Staatsoper Berlin, Lyriques, Il Pomo d’Oro and Europa Galante. Semperoper Dresden, Norwegian National 2018 has started with Giulietta in Zingarelli’s Opera, Royal Swedish Opera, Salzburg Ann Hallenberg regularly works with Giulietta e Romeo at Theater an der Wien, Festival, Salzburg Whitsun Festival, conductors including Fabio Biondi, Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder in Vienna and Edinburgh Festival and the Drottningholm William Christie, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Salzburg, arias by Handel in Madrid and Sevilla Festival in Stockholm. Her repertoire Emmanuelle Haïm, Daniel Harding, with Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla, and various includes a large number of roles in operas , , Baroque arias with Trondheim Baroque. by Rossini, Mozart, Gluck, Handel, Vivaldi, , , Evelino Pidò, Monteverdi, Purcell, Bizet and Massenet. Sir , Sir In the summer of 2017 her latest solo and . CD Carnevale 1729 was released to critical She is highly sought-after as a concert acclaim. She has so far performed the singer too, and frequently appears in 2017 included the title role in Handel’s programme in Vienna, Venice, Halle, concert halls throughout Europe and North at Opera Vlaanderen; Marguérite Bordeaux and Froville with Il Pomo d’Oro, America. She has built an unusually vast in Berlioz’s in with several more concerts still to come. • concert repertoire that spans music from London and La Côte-Saint-André with the early 17th-century works of Monteverdi Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique;

Artist Biographies 15 London Symphony Orchestra on stage tonight

Leader Second Cellos Horns LSO String Experience Scheme Carmine Lauri David Alberman Rebecca Gilliver Gareth Davies Timothy Jones John Chimes Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Thomas Norris Alastair Blayden Julian Sperry Vittorio Schiavone Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins Miya Väisänen Noel Bradshaw Angela Barnes Harp from the London music conservatoires at Lennox Mackenzie Matthew Gardner Daniel Gardner Alexander Edmundson Bryn Lewis the start of their professional careers to gain Clare Duckworth Julian Gil Rodriguez Hilary Jones Olivier Stankiewicz Jonathan Lipton work experience by playing in rehearsals Ginette Decuyper Naoko Keatley Amanda Truelove Rosie Jenkins and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Gerald Gregory Iwona Muszynska Trumpets are treated as professional ‘extra’ players Maxine Kwok-Adams Paul Robson Double Basses David Elton (additional to LSO members) and receive Laurent Quenelle Dmitry Khakhamov Colin Paris Andrew Marriner Gerald Ruddock fees for their work in line with LSO section Harriet Rayfield Erzsebet Racz Patrick Laurence Chris Richards players. The Scheme is supported by Sylvain Vasseur Matthew Gibson Chi-Yu Mo The Polonsky Foundation, Barbara Morane Cohen- Thomas Goodman Dudley Bright Whatmore Charitable Trust, The Thistle Lamberger Edward Vanderspar Joe Melvin James Maynard Trust, Idlewild Trust and Angus Allnatt Alix Lagasse Malcolm Johnston Jani Pensola Rachel Gough Paul Milner Charitable Foundation. William Melvin Anna Bastow Joost Bosdijk Lander Echevarria Julia O'Riordan Robert Turner Jonathan Welch Michelle Bruil Editor Edward Appleyard | [email protected] Fiona Dinsdale | [email protected] Editorial Photography Ranald Mackechnie, Sim Canetty-Clarke, Örjan Jakobsson Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 Advertising Cabbells Ltd 020 3603 7937

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

16 The Orchestra 11 March 2018