Bernard Haitink

Sunday 15 October 7–9.05pm Thursday 19 October 7.30–9.35pm Barbican Hall LSO SEASON CONCERT BERNARD HAITINK Thomas Adès Three Studies from Couperin HAITINK Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Interval Brahms Symphony No 2 Bernard Haitink conductor Veronika Eberle violin Sunday 15 October 5.30pm, Barbican Hall LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists Songs by Mendelssohn and Brahms Guildhall School Musicians Welcome / Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Tonight’s Concert The concert on 15 October is preceded by a n these concerts, Bernard Haitink warmth and pastoral charm (although the performance of songs by Mendelssohn and conducts music that spans the composer joked before the premiere that Brahms from postgraduate students at the eras – the Romantic strains of he had ‘never written anything so sad’), Guildhall School. These recitals, which are Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto; Brahms’ concluding with a joyous burst of energy free to ticket-holders for the LSO concert, Second Symphony; and the sophisticated in the finale. • take place on selected dates throughout Baroque inventions of Couperin, brought the season and provide a platform for the into the present day by Thomas Adès. musicians of the future. François Couperin was one of the most skilled PROGRAMME NOTE WRITERS I hope you enjoy this evening’s performance keyboard composers of his day, and his works and that you will join us again soon. After for harpsichord have influenced composers Paul Griffiths has been a critic for nearly Welcome to the second part of a series of this short series with Bernard Haitink, the through the generations, Thomas Adès 40 years, including for The Times and three LSO concerts, which are conducted by Orchestra returns to the Barbican on 26 among them. In his Three Studies from The New Yorker, and is an authority on 20th- the Orchestra’s long-standing friend and October to play the orchestral score for Couperin, Adès takes three of the Baroque and 21st-century music. Among his books collaborator, Bernard Haitink. Eisenstein’s October: Ten Days That Shook composer’s works as his starting point, are studies of Boulez, Ligeti and Stravinsky. the World alongside a screening of the film. recreating and reconfiguring them for He also writes novels and librettos. The LSO’s performances with Bernard Haitink instrumental ensembles. are always very special occasions for the Alison Bullock is a freelance writer and musicians and audience members alike, and Like many Violin Concertos, Mendelssohn’s music consultant whose interests range we are delighted that these concerts have enduringly popular work in E minor was born from Machaut to Messiaen and beyond. a particular focus on the music of Brahms. out of a friendship between the composer She is a former editor for the New Grove Following a performance of Brahms’ Third Kathryn McDowell CBE DL and its intended soloist, in this case the Dictionary of Music and the LSO. Symphony last week, we look forward to Managing Director violinist Ferdinand David. David played a his interpretation of the Second Symphony significant role in shaping the concerto, Andrew Stewart is a freelance music this evening. resulting in its combination of innovation, journalist and writer. He is the author graceful lyricism and virtuosity. of The LSO at 90, and contributes to We also extend a warm welcome to soloist We are delighted to welcome our a wide variety of specialist classical Veronika Eberle, who joins the LSO on stage group bookers for these concerts: There could not be greater contrast between music publications. following her BBC Radio 3 Artist Spotlight Ely Choral Society Brahms’ Second Symphony and his First, recital at LSO St Luke’s in September. Faversham Music Club which was around 20 years in the making Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and Tonight’s performance will be repeated Marjorie Wilkins & Friends and a dramatic journey from turbulence translator who writes extensively on French, later in the month on a short tour to Madrid. Ann Parrish & Friends to triumph. The Second is filled with light, Russian and Eastern European music. 2 Welcome 15 & 19 October 2017 Celebrating Bernstein Family Concert 4 November Symphony No 3, ‘Kaddish’ Pre-Concert Talk with Marin Alsop 5 November Symphony No 1, ‘Jeremiah’ 8 November Wonderful Town Symphony No 2, ‘The Age of Anxiety’ with Sir Simon Rattle 16 December Thomas Adès Three Studies from Couperin 2006 / note by Paul Griffiths 1 Les Amusemens ‘Les Amusemens’ has two matching • FRANÇOIS COUPERIN (1668–1733) was 2 Les Tours de passe-passe segments, in G major and G minor, each a French Baroque composer, harpsichordist 3 L’Âme-en-peine having a rondeau section whose repeats and organist. He was born into a prominent frame two couplets. Adès’ use throughout musical family, and probably began his rançois Couperin • (1668–1733) of muted strings with horns and lowish musical studies at a young age with his filled four big volumes with woodwind (alto and bass flutes, clarinet, father – Charles Couperin, organist of Paris’ music to scurry, leap, swoon or bassoon) creates a study in felted sonorities, Church St-Gervais – but his own success tease under the fingers. Adès had a first beautifully answering the syncopation surpassed that of his family, and he became brush with this great encyclopedia of wit, between the hands in the original. The know as ‘Couperin le grand’. passion and intelligence in 1994, when percussionist’s arrival is marked in the he arranged the harpsichord piece Les second couplet of the G major section by As a teenager, Couperin inherited his father’s Barricades mistérieuses, a strange instance strokes on two tuned metal bars, from post, and in 1693 he became one of the four of Baroque minimalism, for instrumental which the player moves to marimba. organists of the royal chapel. This position septet. In 2006 he returned for more, in opened up new, prestigious opportunities response to a commission from the Basel Syncopated imitation features again in the for the composer: he taught harpsichord Chamber Orchestra, and produced this D major centrepiece ‘Les Tours de passe- to the royal children, later became court triptych, in which the keyboard originals are passe’ (Conjuring Tricks) to bring about harpsichordist, and established a reputation reconfigured for dual ensembles of strings gamesome and deceptive textures that Adès as a teacher and performer without rival, with seven woodwind and brass soloists realises with a rare combination of subtlety as well as a highly skilled composer. plus a percussion player. and sense of fun. Here the percussionist is on rototoms and timpani, and uses both to Couperin composed chamber music, The adaptation is extremely subtle. give the ending a wallop. (This piece was including trio sonatas and his Concerts Couperin’s style involves a lot of repetition, also chosen by Richard Strauss as one of the royaux, and a small amount of music for which Adès varies by delicately altering eight he arranged for chamber orchestra as organ, but he is best known for his keyboard the orchestration or by adding shadows his Divertimento of 1940–41). works. He wrote four volumes of harpsichord or haloes to the parts, so imitating and music – over 230 pieces – that would extending the techniques of touch and ‘L’Âme-en-peine’ (The Soul in Torment), in become important influences on composers registration a performer at the harpsichord B minor, a chain of indeed painful cadences, as diverse as JS Bach, Richard Strauss and would use. Similarly, he scrupulously notates uncovers another world of feeling. • Ravel, and it was for the harpsichord that he the kind of languorously drawn rhythm wrote a treatise on playing style that would Couperin might have expected for the become one of the main resources in the last piece here. early music revival of modern times. 4 Programme Notes 15 & 19 October 2017 Thomas Adès in Profile b 1971 / by Paul Griffiths Two years later he wrote his first symphonic LISTEN ON LSO LIVE piece – Asyla, on a theme of havens, dark and benign – for Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; it has since been played by major orchestras throughout the world, and was performed as part of Rattle's first concert as the LSO's Music Director in September 2017. Then came the startling America: A Prophecy (1999), for the New York Philharmonic, and the beginning of a decade as artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. By now travelling widely, he also formed an association with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and became a regular visitor to Australia, introducing ntricacy can be direct, the new an Born in London in 1971, Adès studied his Piano Quintet (2000) with the Arditti echo, and bewilderment enticing. piano and composition with Erika Fox Quartet at the Melbourne Festival. Asyla; Tevot; Polaris Thomas Adès’ music glides and Robert Saxton at the Guildhall School Thomas Adès conductor effortlessly through boundaries, and links from the age of twelve, and wrote his first His second opera, The Tempest, had its world £12.99 what might have been thought irreconcilable acknowledged piece when he was 18. He premiere at Covent Garden in 2004, since opposites. It moves in a far modernist orbit went on to Cambridge, where he was a pupil when he concentrated again on instrumental ‘These are technically challenging scores (Ligeti, Kurtág and Nancarrow are among of Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway, and pieces, including a Violin Concerto (2005), that take an orchestra to its limits. With this composer’s adopted grandparents) in January 1993 made his London debut as the symphonic Tevot (2005–6), the piano Adès conducting, the London Symphony while still feeling the pull – and the light – both pianist and composer. The result was concerto In Seven Days (2008) and a second Orchestra reaches for the stars.’ of traditional consonance.

Load more