Thursday 30 January 2020 7.30–9.15pm Barbican

LSO SEASON CONCERT SHOSTAKOVICH NINTH SYMPHONY

Prokofiev Symphony No 1, ‘Classical’ Mozart Violin Concerto No 3 NOSEDA Interval Mussorgsky orch Rimsky-Korsakov Prelude to ‘’ Shostakovich Symphony No 9

Gianandrea Noseda conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin

6pm Barbican Hall LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists Kathy Chow piano

Mozart Piano Sonata No 9 in D major, K 311 ProkofievPiano Sonata No 7 in B-flat major Welcome Latest News On Our Blog

our season theme of ‘roots and origins’, and DONATELLA FLICK LSO LUNAR NEW YEAR PREMIERES: the concert concludes with Shostakovich’s CONDUCTING COMPETITION LSO DISCOVERY COMPOSERS PAST Ninth Symphony, a work which also AND PRESENT refers back to an earlier era, described by Applications are now open for the 16th Gianandrea Noseda as Shostakovich at his Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition Following a sold-out debut in 2019, artist ‘most classical’. in 2021, founded in 1990 by Donatella Flick collective Tangram returned to LSO St Luke’s and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. in January. We caught up with composers Before tonight’s concert, musicians from Raymond Yiu, Jasmin Kent Rodgman and the Guildhall School performed a recital on • lso.co.uk/more/news Alex Ho – all LSO Discovery composers – to the LSO stage in the Barbican Hall. These find out more about the music they wrote performances, which are free to attend for the concert. elcome to tonight’s LSO concert across the season, provide a platform for WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS at the Barbican. We are delighted the next generation of musicians, and CLASSIC FM RECOMMENDED CONCERTS: to welcome back Principal Guest complement the repertoire heard in the St Columba’s College SPRING 2020 Conductor Gianandrea Noseda for this evening concert. Charters School performance, as he continues his survey of We are proud to have been Classic FM’s Shostakovich’s symphonies, a major project I hope you enjoy tonight’s concert, and Please ensure all phones are switched off. Orchestra in the City of for over 17 that began in 2016 and is being recorded for that you will join us again soon. In February Photography and audio/video recording years. Don’t miss our round-up of Classic future release on LSO Live. we look forward to performances of are not permitted during the performance. FM's recommended concerts for spring and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony conducted by a look at where the music sits in the history Tonight’s programme looks back to the Sir Simon Rattle. At the end of the month, of the LSO. Classical period in music, opening with Elim Chan conducts the Orchestra in Ravel Prokofiev’s First Symphony, a witty and Rachmaninov, alongside a recent work • lso.co.uk/more/blog reference back to the era of Haydn and by Elizabeth Ogonek and a premiere from by Mozart, followed by Mozart’s own Third Panufnik composer James Hoyle. Violin Concerto. It is a great pleasure to be joined by Christian Tetzlaff as soloist for this performance, and we look forward to a series of concerts with him in our 2020/21 season.

After the interval, Mussorgsky’s folk-infused Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Prelude to the opera Khovanshchina builds on Managing Director

2 Welcome 30 January 2020 Tonight’s Concert In Brief Coming Up

rokofiev’s First Symphony opens PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Saturday 15 February 7pm Sunday 1 March 7pm the concert. It was composed LSO St Luke’s Barbican in 1917, the year of the Russian David Nice writes, lectures and broadcasts Revolution, but it has a rustic simplicity that on music, notably for BBC Radio 3 and LSO DISCOVERY SYMPHONIC GOSPEL SPIRIT keeps a distance from political upheavals. BBC Music Magazine. His books include SOUNDHUB SHOWCASE: PHASE II The ‘Classical’ symphony was imagined on studies of Strauss, Elgar, Tchaikovsky and Orchestral arrangements of gospel classics the smaller scale of a symphony by Haydn Stravinsky, and a Prokofiev biography, From Composers on Phase II of LSO Discovery’s and André J Thomas' celebratory Mass. or Mozart, with clear textures and melodies Russia to the West 1891–1935. Soundhub scheme showcase new music and harking back to an age before Romanticism. are joined by LSO musicians. André J Thomas conductor Mozart’s Third Violin Concerto follows, which Andrew Stewart is a freelance music NaGuanda Nobles soprano was written when the composer was 19 years journalist and writer. He is the author of LSO Soundhub is generously supported by Jason Dungee tenor old and is noted for its serene and melodious The LSO at 90 and contributes to a variety Susie Thomson Brandon Boyd piano slow movement. of specialist classical music publications. London Adventist Chorale Thursday 27 February 7.30pm Community Choirs from around London After the interval, the Prelude to Mussorgsky’s Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and Barbican unfinished operaKhovanshchina, orchestrated translator who writes extensively on French, Saturday 7 March 2.30pm by the composer’s friend Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian and Eastern European music. DAPHNIS AND CHLOE Barbican evokes dawn on the Moscow river, before the programme ends with Shostakovich’s James Hoyle Thymiaterion (world premiere) * LSO DISCOVERY Ninth Symphony, a piece which bypasses the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3 FAMILY CONCERT: heroism, grandeur and finality associated Elizabeth Ogonek All These Lighted Things HOW TO BUILD AN ORCHESTRA with a composer’s ‘Ninth’. – three little dances for orchestra Ravel Daphnis and Chloe – Suite No 2 When it comes to making music, there's For Noseda, the Ninth is ‘Shostakovich nothing for it like an orchestra. Learn how at his most ‘classical’’, but a modern Elim Chan conductor the instruments come together to make statement nonetheless. ‘Stalin wanted a Lukáš Vondráček piano on-stage magic. celebration of the victory of Russia, and Shostakovich came out with a sort of opera *Commissioned through the Panufnik Composers Jessica Cottis conductor buffasymphony,’ he says. ‘Short, witty, lots Scheme, generously supported by Lady Hamlyn Rachel Leach presenter of sarcasm. I can really feel his wish to go and The Helen Hamlyn Trust against what was expected of him.’ Recommended by

Tonight’s Concert 3 Sergei ProkofievSymphony No 1 in D major Op 25, ‘Classical’ 1917 / note by David Nice

1 Allegro then they’ll kick up a fuss about a new The simple fact is that in the early part of joyful that it might, he thought, ‘verge on 2 Larghetto Prokofievian audacity, to the effect that he the year, Prokofiev was reasonably confident the indecently irresponsible’. He completed 3 Gavotte (Non troppo allegro) wouldn’t leave Mozart to rest in peace and about the upheavals. During the February the orchestration that September in his 4 Finale (Molto vivace) grabs at him with his dirty hands, smearing revolution he had been in Petrograd, as mother’s favoured southern health resort pure classical pearls with his Prokofievian his alma mater St Petersburg had been of Yessentuki. y 1917 the young Prokofiev was dissonances, but true friends will understand renamed in World War I, dodging the bullets known to his fellow Russians, that the style of my symphony is simply true on street corners, and he was glad to get The premiere, which Prokofiev conducted if not as yet to the world at Mozartian Classicism and will appreciate it, out of the ‘foul city’ in the spring. Yet as the the following April in Petrograd just before large, as the impudent composer of spicy while the public will probably just be glad diaries reveal, the ‘happy optimism’ of his his departure for the US, proved plain piano miniatures rife with nose-thumbing that it is uncomplicated and cheerful and character welcomed the form of provisional sailing, even though he had anticipated ‘wrong’ notes, of two piano concertos in will surely applaud it.‘ government proposed by the revolutionaries. some antagonism from the ‘Revolutionary which his own talents as a virtuoso were orchestra’. It was a success, pure and simple. more extensively served, and of a raucous Everyone, after all, took Prokofiev’s orchestral work, the Scythian Suite, drawn — self-styled ‘pure Mozartian Classicism’ at from a ballet rejected by the impresario ‘True friends will understand that the style of my symphony is simply true face value; the lessons he had learnt from Sergei Diaghilev. his favourite professor Nikolai Tcherepnin – Mozartian Classicism and will appreciate it … ’ who inclined more to Haydn than Mozart – Prokofiev’s symphonic ambitions were aired — and from his own conducting of a student in a three-movement student work of 1908, version of The Marriage of Figaro had then scaled down in the bright and breezy It is, perhaps, not so extraordinary that He was buoyant, too, to find a place in the not gone awry. Our own interest, even so, Sinfonietta the following year. He was never Prokofiev should be venturing into the kind country just a short distance from the dacha is much less in the perfect sonata-form a composer to repeat past successes, and of so-called neo-Classicism supposedly zone, where most Petrograders brought their workings of the Classical style than in in the May 1917 entry from his revelatory ‘discovered’ by Stravinsky several years later city ways to bear on the peace and quiet. the symphony’s youthful high spirits and diaries, published now in an English with Pulcinella; after all, Tchaikovsky had Here, at a simple farm serving up healthy surprising good humour. translation by Anthony Phillips (my own time-travelled long before in works like the food, he went walking and composed whole is used here), he shows delight at how the Rococo Variations and his opera The Queen stretches of the ‘Classical’ symphony that Its scoring is clean and clear, excelling in the ‘Classical’ symphony he has half-composed of Spades. What does seem odd is that May ‘without a piano’, exactly the kind of spry dialogues of strings and wind, with only in his head might court controversy: the ‘Classical’ Symphony should have been experiment he thought could be applied to trumpets, horns and timpani used to ballast produced in 1917, the year in which, according ‘a rather simple thing like this symphony’. the handful of louder outbursts. Most of ‘When our Classically oriented musicians to Soviet hindsight, Prokofiev should have He resumed further work in June on his the themes slip comfortably if quirkily in and professors (who are, to my mind, simply been capturing the spirit of revolution with return from a river cruise, scrapping the to neighbouring keys (usually in downward pseudo-Classicists) hear this symphony, tense, nervous scores. original finale and replacing it with one so steps) before steering back to base. The

4 Programme Notes 30 January 2020 Sergei ProkofievIn Profile 1891–1953 sidestepping is never at rest in the first Before he left for exile, Prokofiev completed movement’s chirruping second subject and IN BRIEF his ‘Classical’ Symphony, a bold and appealing the compact gavotte, the first movement Prokofiev’s Symphony No 1 was written work that revived aspects of 18th-century to be composed and later losing much of its in 1917 and premiered the following musical form, clarity and elegance. He pointed wit as extended exit-music in the year under the baton of its composer. It received commissions from arts organisations 1935 score for Romeo and Juliet. was well received, owing to its familiar in the United States and France, composing ‘Classical’ style and high spirits, which his sparkling opera The Love for Three The poised violin melody of the larghetto were all the more appealing to a Russian Oranges for the Chicago Opera Company seems more secure at first, but has to glide audience burdened by revolution and war. in 1919–20. His engagements as a recitalist back obliquely over the insistent intervening Prokofiev had composed this symphony and concerto soloist brought Prokofiev to chatter on its two returns; and what sounds as an experiment in writing away from the a wide audience in Europe and the US, and like the most Classical melody of them all, piano, and the result shows Prokofiev’s he was in great demand to perform his own the throwaway flute tune that is the last distinctive musical personality, how he Piano Concerto No 3. The ballet Romeo and theme to make its appearance in the finale, used older techniques and styles to sound Juliet and the score for Feinzimmer’s film has a surprising source. It quotes fresh, vivid and precise. Lieutenant Kijé were among Prokofiev’s the heroine’s innocent theme in rokofiev was born in Ukraine and first Soviet commissions, dating from the Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1882 opera The Snow was encouraged to study music early 1930s. Both scores were subsequently Maiden, no doubt as an affectionate from an early age by his mother, cast as concert suites, which have become memorial to the older composer, but also a keen amateur pianist. The young Sergei cornerstones of the orchestral repertoire. as a tribute to the beauty of nature which showed prodigious ability as both composer inspired both works. • and pianist, gaining a place at the ‘The Fifth Symphony was intended as a St Petersburg Conservatory at the age of 13 hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty and shortly thereafter acquiring a reputation powers, his pure and noble spirit.’ Prokofiev for the uncompromising nature of his music. wrote these comments in 1944 as the According to one critic, the audience at the Russian army marched towards Berlin, 1913 premiere of the composer’s Second reflected his sense of hope in the future. Piano Concerto was left ‘frozen with fright, Sadly, his later years were overshadowed by hair standing on end’. He left Russia after illness and the denunciation of his works as the 1917 Revolution, but decided to return ‘formalist’ by the Central Committee of the to Moscow with his wife and family 19 Communist Party in 1948. • years later, apparently unaware of Stalin’s repressive regime. Profile by Andrew Stewart

Composer Profile 5 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Violin Concerto No 3 in G major K216 1775 / note by Lindsay Kemp

1 Allegro ‘An adagio that seems to have fallen straight • MOZART’S VIOLIN CONCERTOS • MOZART ON LSO LIVE 2 Adagio from heaven', is how the Mozart scholar 3 Rondeau: Allegro Alfred Einstein described it, and indeed For many years it was believed that Mozart this is a movement that exhibits to an composed all five of his violin concertos in Christian Tetzlaff violin outstanding degree that God-given talent the same year, 1775, when he was just 19 for serene melodic perfection that was years old. However, after analysis of the espite the two-year gap between Mozart’s alone. The nocturnal sound-world, handwriting on the manuscript, scholars Mozart’s First Violin Concerto • too, is new to the violin concertos, with the now accept that the First Violin Concerto and his Second Violin Concerto, the orchestral strings muted and the oboes was written two years before the others. most startling advance in artistic inspiration giving way to softer-toned flutes. Mozart had become fascinated with the and identity occurs not between these two, instrument from a young age, and in but in the three months which separate the The rondeau finale demonstrates addition to the concertos, wrote 33 sonatas Second Concerto from the Third Concerto, another feature that was to colour many for violin and piano – some of which were which was completed on 12 September 1775. of Mozart’s later concertos, namely a among his very first works, written between Suddenly, we are hearing the 19-year-old greater independence given to the wind the ages of six and eight. Mozart as we know him from the great piano section, which here even has the work’s concertos of the 1780s – elegant, witty, final say. More noticeable, however, is the Mozart Requiem beguilingly changeable and above all capable element of knowing skittishness that it of writing music of surpassing beauty. introduces, nowhere more so than when, Sir Colin Davis’ landmark recording of after the cheerful main theme has made Mozart’s final work, the monumental The first movement finds him in the rare act its third appearance, orchestral pizzicatos Requiem, with the LSO, the London of borrowing material from another work, accompany an exaggeratedly powdered Symphony Chorus and an ensemble of the opening orchestral section being based French-style gavotte, and then a more rustic international soloists. on an aria from his recent opera Il re pastore tune is heard with bagpipe-like drones (The Shepherd King), in which the main from the soloist. Scholarship has revealed Available at lsolive.lso.co.uk, in the Barbican character sings of his love for the shepherd’s this tune to be a popular song of the day Shop, or online on Amazon, Apple Music lot, unaware that he is of royal blood. The known as ‘The Strasbourger’, and that this and Spotify. implied mixture of nobility and carefree concerto is therefore the one that Mozart Interval – 20 minutes contentment could not be a more apt way later performed ‘like oil’. The music lovers of There are bars on all levels of the of characterising the concerto movement. Augsburg were fortunate indeed! • Concert Hall; ice cream can be bought It is the slow movement, however, which has at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. won this work a place in people’s hearts.

6 Programme Notes 30 January 2020 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart In Profile 1756–91

In 1777, Wolfgang, now 21 and frustrated with life as a musician-in-service at Salzburg, left home, visiting the court at BARTÓK Mannheim on his way to Paris. The Parisian WITH FRANÇOIS-XAVIER ROTH public gave the former child prodigy a & SIR SIMON RATTLE lukewarm reception, and he struggled to make money by teaching and composing new pieces for wealthy patrons. A failed love Wednesday 18 March 6.30pm Wednesday 22 April 6.30pm affair and the death of his mother prompted Barbican Barbican Mozart to return to Salzburg, where he accepted the post of Court and HALF SIX FIX HALF SIX FIX Cathedral Organist. THE WOODEN PRINCE CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA

In 1780, he was commissioned to write an François-Xavier Roth Sir Simon Rattle conductor & presenter opera, Idomeneo, for the Bavarian court in conductor & presenter orn in Salzburg on 27 January 1756, Munich, where he was treated with great Recommended by Classic FM Mozart began to pick out tunes respect. However, the servility demanded Recommended by Classic FM on his father’s keyboard before by his Salzburg employer finally provoked Thursday 23 April 7.30pm his fourth birthday. His first compositions Mozart to resign in 1781 and move to Thursday 19 March 7.30pm Barbican were written down in the early months of in search of a more suitable position, fame Barbican 1761; later that year, the boy performed in and fortune. In the last decade of his life, DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE public for the first time at the University he produced a series of masterpieces in THE WOODEN PRINCE of Salzburg. Mozart’s ambitious father, all the principal genres of music, including Bartók Concerto for Orchestra Leopold, court composer and the operas The Marriage of Figaro (1785), Bartók Dance Suite Bartók Duke Bluebeard’s Castle Vice-Kapellmeister to the Prince-Archbishop Don Giovanni (1787), Così fan tutte and Stravinsky Violin Concerto in D major of Salzburg, recognised the money-making The Magic Flute, the Symphonies Nos Bartók The Wooden Prince Sir Simon Rattle conductor potential of his precocious son and pupil, 40 and 41 (‘Jupiter’), a series of sublime Rinat Shaham mezzo-soprano embarking on a series of tours to the major piano concertos, a clarinet quintet and the François-Xavier Roth conductor Gábor Bretz bass courts and capital cities of Europe. Requiem, left incomplete at his death on Isabelle Faust violin 5 December 1791. • 6pm Barbican: Free pre-concert recital lso.co.uk/201920 with Guildhall Artists.

Composer Profile 7 Composer Profile 7 Prelude to ‘Khovanshchina’ (1874, orch Rimsky-Korsakov 1883) / note by Andrew Huth

late starter who died far too young, Unfortunately, it was also around this time Mussorgsky’s list of works features that Mussorgsky began to indulge in the several projects that were never uncontrolled drinking bouts that would kill properly started, soon abandoned or left him at the age of 42, leaving Khovanshchina incomplete. The biggest and most important incomplete and almost none of the music of these is the opera Khovanshchina. It orchestrated. After Mussorgsky’s death, is an immensely powerful work, but also his friend Rimsky-Korsakov prepared a infuriating for its waywardness and aching performing edition of the score, filling in gaps at vital parts of the structure. the gaps as best he could, orchestrating the music in his own subtle manner (very The year 1874 was a high point for different from Mussorgsky’s rough-edged Mussorgsky. In February, shortly before his but effective style) and smoothing out much 35th birthday, his first completed opera of what he considered to be Mussorgsky’s was staged at the Mariinsky harshnesses in melody and harmony. Theatre in St Petersburg; in June, he Another edition, restoring some of the music composed his piano work Pictures at an cut by Rimsky-Korsakov, was commissioned Exhibition and in November, the song cycle from Shostakovich in 1958 for a film version Sunless. The success of Boris spurred him of the opera. to press on with the composition of another historical opera, this time dealing with the The Prelude, however, is substantially the conflicts in Russian society at the end of the same in both rival versions. It was one of the 17th century when Tsar Peter the Great was earliest pieces to be composed (as a piano about to take absolute power. Its unwieldy score) in September 1874. Act One of the title, Khovanshchina, refers to the intrigues opera is set in Moscow’s Red Square, and of the powerful Khovansky family, whose the Prelude is an evocation of dawn breaking private militias are confronted with the rock over the Moscow River. It is built out of a of religious fundamentalism, and with the folk-like melody, expressively extended and modernising tendencies of Tsar Peter and decorated, with the sinister tolling of bells his allies. hinting at grim events to follow. •

Konstantin Korovin's set design for Khovanshchina: Act I

8 Programme Notes 30 January 2020 Modest Mussorgsky In Profile 1839–81 / profile by Andrew Stewart

odest Mussorgsky was born in his government position was declared financial support from a few remaining Karevo, the youngest son of a ‘supernumerary’, a form of de facto friends, he lapsed still further, desperately wealthy landowner. His mother redundancy. Despite the associated loss of declaring to one there was ‘nothing left but gave him his first piano lessons at the age of earnings, his artistic life developed decisively begging’. He was eventually hospitalised six, and his musical talent was encouraged when he was referred to the kuchka (The in February 1881 after suffering a bout of at the Cadet School of the Guards in Five), a group of Russian composers centred alcoholic epilepsy. During a brief respite, St Petersburg, where he began to compose around Mily Balakirev. Soon afterwards, around the date of his 42nd birthday, Ilya (despite having no technical training). fired by the ideas discussed in his new Repin painted his famous portrait of the artistic circle, he began his opera Boris composer (pictured left), but within two In 1857, he met Mily Balakirev, whom Godunov, which he first completed in 1869 weeks of the sitting, Mussorgsky was dead. • he persuaded to teach him, and shortly while working at the Forestry Department, afterwards he began composing in earnest. and continued to revise for several years. The following year, Mussorgsky suffered He started work on another major work, an emotional crisis and resigned his army Khovanshchina, a little while later. commission, but returned soon afterwards to his studies. He was, however, plagued The first production ofBoris Godunov by nervous tension, and this, combined in 1874 would prove to be the peak of with a crisis at the family home after the Mussorgsky’s career. The Balakirev circle emancipation of the serfs in 1861, stalled had begun to disintegrate and he drifted his development quite severely. By 1863, away from his old friends. In a letter to though, he was finding his true voice, and he Vladimir Stasov, he described how bitterly began to write an opera (never completed) he felt, writing that ‘the Mighty Handful based on Flaubert’s Salammbô. At this time, has degenerated into soulless traitors'. he was working as a civil servant and living Around the same time Mussorgsky’s friend in a commune with five other young men Viktor Hartmann (whose exhibition would also passionate about art and philosophy, inspire Pictures) died, and his roommate where he established his artistic ideals. Golenishchev-Kutuzov moved away. For a time he maintained his creative output but In 1865, his mother died; this probably now divested of many of his former friends, caused his first bout of alcoholism. His first Mussorgsky resumed drinking heavily. By major work, Night on the Bare Mountain, 1880, he was forced to leave government was composed in 1867, the same year employ and became destitute. Despite

Composer Profile 9 Symphony No 9 in E-flat major Op 70 1945 / note by David Nice

1 Allegro character’, in this conclusion to the trilogy in the shape of a trilling grimace, and the interconnected last three moments. Though 2 Moderato ‘a transparent, pellucid, and bright mood second subject has a deadpan trombone instead of crashing into tragedy, this 3 Presto predominates’. Never for long, as it turns and side drum to introduce the piccolo’s scherzo burns out very quickly in depressive 4 Largo out. The symphony is in E-flat major, the key circus polka. Heightening the neoclassical sighs from the strings which in turn are 5 Allegretto of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’, but any heroism is of impression is an exposition repeat – the bludgeoned by unison brass at the beginning the comically tinted opera buffa• variety, only one in the 15 Shostakovich symphonies. of the fourth movement. The human plea is fter the apocalyptic austerity of and the composer’s definition of that is The development is more embattled, brass made by bassoonist in two free recitatives at his Eighth Symphony, arguably his distinctly awry. baring their fangs at the climax, and in a the symphony’s lowest ebb. most towering masterpiece and higher-volume return to order, the trombone an expression of absolute horror composed The premiere that November, conducted by only succeeds in reinstating the polka theme In the Eighth Symphony, it was the clarinets in the thick of World War II, Shostakovich Shostakovich’s ideal interpreter Yevgeny this time on the fifth attempt – this time who led us out of the darkness of the was expected to provide some kind of Soviet Mravinsky •, found praise from those on solo violin – and there’s more sudden devastating slow movement into C major victory ode in 1945. Apparently, he did start who linked it back to his earlier humour, brutality before the final chord. light, after which a bassoon crawled out work on a choral symphony – reports exist of though there were also criticisms of its from under a stone. Here the bassoon does what the first movement, played through by grotesqueries. The Ninth’s nomination for a If Shostakovich’s metronome marks are all the hard work, rousing itself from utter the composer early that year, sounded like, Stalin Prize in 1946 did not result in success. observed, the second movement is not so desolation to a cautious and wry dance in ‘majestic in scale, in pathos’, according to his When composers were publicly humiliated much a slow one as a limping waltz, led by E-flat major in another finale which follows reliable musical friend Isaac Glikman – but and denounced as ‘formalists’ – a multi- clarinet solo, with muted strings moving in without a break. As in the two other faster abandoned it in favour of a short purpose tag slapped on anything that might chromatic steps towards several anguished movements, jollity soon disappears in an five-movement work. not be easily understood by the Soviet peaks, and a genuine adagio, frozen by ominous build-up of tension. The drama people – in front of Stalin’s man Andrei the piccolo, only in the desolate final bars. becomes hysterical before the opening Sovietspeak still has its fallout in bizarre Zhdanov and the Central Committee of the So much for the brightness Shostakovich dance and its companion return in a parroting of Russian composers’ party-line Communist Party, the Ninth joined the Sixth described in his 1945 trailer. military parade that is both swaggering and statements: Prokofiev’s disingenuous and Eighth Symphonies as proscribed works. grotesque: the word can’t be avoided here, labelling of his Fifth Symphony’s victory- That might apply to the ensuing presto, and Shostakovich’s critics were right. to-parody trajectory, heard for the first Essentially the opening is Mozartian or something of a folk festival at first, time that same year, as ‘the triumph of the Haydnesque in its buoyance, a downward in brilliant high frequencies. But a Then the music switches dramatically, and human spirit’, for instance. In this case it was arpeggio that’s an answer to the upwardly fierce trumpeter may remind us of the without a pause, into a hell-for-leather seen in Shostakovich’s declaration, following mobile opening of Prokofiev’s ‘Classical’ Khachaturian parody which drops off the parade like the circus music that whirls the completion of his Ninth on 30 August, that symphony (composed in 1917 at a blissful production line of the Eighth Symphony’s Sixth Symphony to its surprising conclusion, while the Seventh (‘Leningrad’) and Eighth rustic distance from the year’s revolutionary terrifying toccata. The Ninth now pays cocking a snook at the victory parade. Here, Symphonies had been ‘tragic-heroic in upheavals). But the theme has a little twist compressed homage to that giant’s Shostakovich becomes once more the Soviet

10 Programme Notes 30 January 2020 Dmitri Shostakovich In Profile 1906–75 / profile by Andrew Stewart

Till Eulenspiegel, like Prokofiev at the end his Second Symphony was dedicated to the the score to the city. A microfilmed copy of his Fifth Symphony. Both were lucky to October Revolution of 1917. was despatched by way of Tehran and an escape the hangman’s noose that befalls American warship to the US, where it was Richard Strauss’ prankster, but they knew Shostakovich announced his Fifth Symphony performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra their audiences would be pleased with a of 1937 as ‘a Soviet artist’s practical creative and Toscanini. In 1943, Shostakovich final bout of excitement in a resounding reply to just criticism’. A year before its completed his Eighth Symphony, its major key. • premiere, he had drawn a stinging attack emotionally shattering music compared by from the official Soviet mouthpiecePravda , one critic to Picasso’s Guernica. OPERA BUFFA in an article headed ‘Muddle instead of music’, in which Shostakovich’s initially In 1948, Shostakovich and other leading • Opera buffa is a genre of comic opera successful opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk composers, Prokofiev among them, were that proliferated in 18th-century Italian was condemned for its extreme modernism. forced by the Soviet cultural commissar, opera. Contrasting with opera seria, it ‘It is leftist bedlam instead of human Andrei Zhdanov, to concede that their represented everyday life (instead of music’, the article claimed. When the Fifth work represented ‘most strikingly the mythological stories) and placed fewer Symphony was premiered in Leningrad, formalistic perversions and anti-democratic technical demands on singers with simpler the composer’s reputation and career were tendencies in music’, a crippling blow to music that actors could perform. rescued. Acclaim came not only from the Shostakovich’s artistic freedom that was Russian audience, who gave the work a healed only after the death of Stalin in 1953. YEVGENY MRAVINSKY 1903–88 reported 40-minute ovation, but also from Shostakovich answered his critics later that musicians and critics overseas. year with the powerful Tenth Symphony, • Born in St Petersburg, Mravinsky began ollowing early piano lessons with in which he portrays ‘human emotions and his musical career as a rehearsal pianist for his mother, Shostakovich enrolled With the outbreak of war against Nazi passions’, rather than the collective dogma the . Recordings reveal at the Petrograd Conservatory in Germany in June 1941, Shostakovich began to of communism. he had extraordinary control over dynamics 1919. He supplemented his family’s meagre compose and arrange pieces to boost public and frequently changed tempo for effect. income from his earnings as a cinema pianist, morale. He lived through the first months A few years before the completion of his In the words of critic David Fanning, ‘The but progressed to become a composer of the German siege of Leningrad, serving in final and bleak Fifteenth String Quartet, Leningrad Philharmonic [played] like a wild and concert pianist following the critical the auxiliary fire service. Shostakovich suffered his second heart stallion … at any moment it may break into success of his First Symphony in 1926 and attack and the onset of severe arthritis. such a frenzied gallop that you hardly know an ‘honourable mention’ in the 1927 Chopin In July, he began work on the first three Many of his final works – in particular whether to feel exhilarated or terrified.’ International Piano Competition in Warsaw. movements of his Seventh Symphony, the penultimate symphony (No 14) – are Over the next decade, he embraced the completing the defiant finale after his preoccupied with the subject of death. • ideal of composing for Soviet society and evacuation in October and dedicating

Composer Profile 11 Gianandrea Noseda conductor

ianandrea Noseda is one of Teatro Regio Torino, where his leadership the world’s most sought-after and his initiatives propelled the company’s conductors, equally recognised global reputation. for his artistry in the concert hall and opera house. He was named the National During the 2019/20 season, Noseda will be Symphony Orchestra’s seventh Music a guest conductor of the Bavarian Radio Director in January 2016, beginning his Symphony Orchestra, Danish National four-year term in the 2017/18 season. Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della In September 2018, his contract was Scala, Orchestre National de France, extended for four more years through Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa to the 2024/25 season. In 2019, Noseda Cecilia, Philharmonia Zurich, Rotterdam and the NSO earned rave reviews for their Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra and the first concerts together at Carnegie Hall in Vienna Symphony Orchestra. New York. The 2019/20 season sees their partnership continue to flourish with twelve Noseda has an extensive discography weeks of concerts at the Kennedy Center – of over sixty recordings for Chandos and including performances of Beethoven’s nine Deutsche Grammophon, among others. He symphonies – the launch of a new recording is closely involved with the next generation label to be distributed by LSO Live and their of musicians through his work as Music first overseas tour together to Japan and Director of the Tsinandali Festival and China in March 2020. Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra, which just concluded its inaugural season, as well as Noseda also serves as Principal Guest with other youth orchestras, including the Conductor of the London Symphony European Union Youth Orchestra. Orchestra and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Orquestra de A native of Milan, Noseda is Commendatore al Cadaqués, and Artistic Director of the Stresa Merito della Repubblica Italiana, marking his Festival in Italy. In the 2021/22 season, contribution to the artistic life of Italy. In 2015, Noseda will become General Music Director he was Musical America’s Conductor of the of the Zurich Opera House, where he will Year, and was named the 2016 International lead his first Ring cycle. From 2007 to 2018, Opera Awards Conductor of the Year. • Noseda served as Music Director of the

12 Artist Biographies 30 January 2020 Christian Tetzlaff violin

qually at home in Classical, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and He plays a violin by German maker Peter Romantic and contemporary Robin Ticciati, released in the autumn of Greiner and teaches regularly at the repertoire, he sets standards with 2019, immediately received a mention as Kronberg Academy, near Frankfurt. • his interpretations of the concertos by Album of the Month in Gramophone. Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Berg and Ligeti, and is renowned for his innovative Other awards include a Diapason d’Or chamber music projects and performances of and the Jahrespreise der Deutschen Bach's solo repertoire. He turns his attention Schallplattenkritik in 2018, MIDEM Classical to forgotten masterpieces, such as Joseph in 2017, the Edison, and several Grammy Joachim’s Violin Concerto, while bringing nominations. His discography includes violin new works to the mainstream, including concertos by Dvořák, Mozart, Lalo, Sibelius, Jörg Widmann’s Violin Concerto, which he Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Jörg Widmann; premiered in 2013. Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Mambo, Blues and Tarantella; violin sonatas by Mozart, Bartók, Tetzlaff follows the musical manuscript Schumann and Brahms; and of special as closely as possible, foregoing standard significance, Bach’s complete solo Sonatas performance traditions and without and Partitas, which he has recorded three conceding to technical shortcuts, achieving times, the latest of which was released in renewed clarity and richness in works that September 2017. are well known to audiences. Chamber music is as important component to A former Artist-in-Residence with Carnegie his musical facets as his work as a soloist, with Hall, Wigmore Hall, Berliner Philharmoniker, and without the orchestra. Christian founded Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and Frankfurt the Tetzlaff Quartett in 1994, which received Radio Symphony, he has received numerous the Diapason d’Or in 2015, while the trio with awards for his recordings, most recently the his sister Tanja Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt Gramophone Classical Music Award in 2018 was nominated for a Grammy Award. for his album of Bartók’s concertos Nos 1 and 2 with Hannu Lintu and the Finnish Born in Hamburg in 1966, Christian Tetzlaff Radio Symphony Orchestra. His most recent studied at the Lübeck Conservatory with recording for the label Ondine, of Beethoven Uwe-Martin Haiberg and in Cincinnati with and Sibelius' Violin Concertos with the Walter Levin.

Artist Biographies 13 Gianandrea Noseda on Russian Roots

Principal Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda reflects on his Shostakovich symphony cycle and how music speaks to us today.

In the 2019/20 season, we’ll perform the and to record Shostakovich in 2019 and 2020 Sixth, Seventh and Ninth Symphonies, which is different, because the world is different, are three of the four ‘War’ Symphonies because we are different. written during World War II. The Seventh coincided with the Siege of Leningrad, and — you can hear the march of the soldiers, the Each interpretation tells the story of obsessive repetition, a loop you cannot escape. But with the Ninth, Stalin wanted its own time … because the world is a celebration of the victory of Russia, different, because we are different. and Shostakovich came out with a sort of — opera buffa symphony – short, witty, lots of sarcasm. I can really feel his wish to go Shostakovich speaks equally to us today. against what was expected of him. I think art has this quality, this strength, to always be fresh. We tell stories that cycle of symphonies gives the Conducting a cycle with one orchestra — connect with us as human beings. As long ‘ complete picture. It’s storytelling also allows you to grow together, not just Shostakovich is one of the most as humankind occupies this planet, we will of [Shostakovich’s] life, but also as artists, but in the knowledge of the always love each other, hate each other, of what was going on in the history of the composer. Shostakovich is one of the most important symphonists. He knows how feel compassion, suffer … the infrastructure world in the 20th century. It’s fascinating to important symphonists. He knows how to use the orchestra, the instruments, of our lives may be different, but we belong see how an artist like Shostakovich reacted to use the orchestra, the instruments, the the combination of sounds. to humankind.’ • to that – how, with art, he tried to be true combination of sounds, but because of to himself, while also trying to accomplish that the music is incredibly demanding. — Listen to the cycle so far on LSO Live, the dictates of the Soviets. You have to find It requires stupendous virtuosity, and the It’s important that we continue to hear and featuring Symphonies Nos 4, 5 and 8. your way, to make your personal voice heard. LSO is that kind of orchestra. You have to perform this music. It’s not superfluous to • lsolive.co.uk When you listen to Shostakovich, it doesn’t keep the emotional charge without losing create another disc, another cycle, because sound out of fashion – it sounds important technical control. each interpretation tells the story of its own for our lives today. time. To record Shostakovich in the 1970s WYNTON

WITH JAZZMARSALIS AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA Saturday 30 & Sunday 31 May 7.30pm ynton Marsalis and Sir Simon The ‘La Esquina’ movement pays homage to Barbican Rattle blend jazz, blues and the city’s Afro-Latin culture while the work’s classical music in this crossover finale sees wailing brass spin bold melodies Wynton Marsalis Symphony No 4, collaboration with the Jazz at Lincoln over rhythmic riffs. Like the (second) ‘The Jungle’ Center Orchestra. greatest city in the world, this intoxicating cacophony of sounds, cultures and identities Plus Big Band classics with Jazz at Wynton Marsalis’ Symphony No 4, ‘The will leave you thinking. Lincoln Center Orchestra Jungle’ is a portrait of New York City in all its dazzling, cosmopolitan glory. Featuring Produced by the LSO and the Barbican. Sir Simon Rattle conductor glimpses of ragtime and dance music, its Part of the LSO’s 2019/20 Season and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra six movements combine rapid and hard- Barbican Presents with Wynton Marsalis swinging passages with poignant blues- London Symphony Orchestra tinged melodies and colourful, plushly orchestrated jazz chords. London Symphony Orchestra on stage tonight

Leader Second Violins Cellos Flutes Trumpets LSO String Experience Scheme Carmine Lauri Julián Gil Rodríguez David Pia Gareth Davies Philip Cobb Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Thomas Norris Alastair Blayden Victoria Daniel Kaitlin Wild Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins Sarah Quinn Jennifer Brown from the London music conservatoires at Clare Duckworth Miya Väisänen Noel Bradshaw Piccolos Trombones the start of their professional careers to gain Ginette Decuyper Matthew Gardner Eve-Marie Patricia Moynihan Rebecca Smith work experience by playing in rehearsals Laura Dixon Naoko Keatley Caravassilis James Maynard and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Gerald Gregory Alix Lagasse Daniel Gardner Oboes are treated as professional ‘extra’ players Maxine Kwok Belinda McFarlane Hilary Jones Juliana Koch Bass Trombone (additional to LSO members) and receive Laurent Quenelle Iwona Muszynska Amanda Truelove Rosie Jenkins Paul Milner fees for their work in line with LSO section Claire Parfitt Csilla Pogany Judith Fleet players. Players who joined the Orchestra in Elizabeth Pigram Andrew Pollock François Thirault Clarinets Tubas rehearsals: Gabriel Abad, Henry Hargreaves Harriet Rayfield Paul Robson Chris Richards Ben Thomson Abel Puustinen Colin Renwick Hazel Mulligan Double Basses Chi-Yu Mo Sylvain Vasseur Mariam Nahapetyan Graham Mitchell Timpani The scheme is supported by: Rhys Watkins Colin Paris Bassoons Nigel Thomas The Polonsky Foundation Richard Blayden Violas Patrick Laurence Daniel Jemison Derek Hill Foundation Lyrit Milgram Edward Vanderspar Matthew Gibson Joost Bosdijk Percussion Idlewild Trust Gillianne Haddow Thomas Goodman Neil Percy Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust Malcolm Johnston Joe Melvin Horns David Jackson Thistle Trust German Clavijo José Moreira Timothy Jones Sam Walton Stephen Doman Benjamin Griffiths Angela Barnes Carol Ella Alexander Edmundson Harps Julia O’Riordan Flora Bain Bryn Lewis Editorial Photography Robert Turner Ranald Mackechnie, Chris Wahlberg, Luca Casciato Harald Hoffmann, Giorgia Bertazzi, Marco Nancy Johnson Borggreve, Mark Allen Peter Mallinson Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 Cynthia Perrin Advertising Cabbells Ltd 020 3603 7937

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

16 The Orchestra 30 January 2020