Valery Gergiev and front cover © Alberto Venzago Fri 21Novsponsored by Guest Leader: Andrew Haveron Haveron Andrew Leader: Guest Barbican the at Resident Orchestra Symphony Recorded for LSO Live Live LSO for Recorded approx ends Concert II Act after interval One Gergiev Valery Prokofiev 7.30pm 2008 November 23 Sunday & 21 Friday Simply go to lso.co.uk/programmes to go Simply concert. each before days two from download to available now are programmes concert LSO it Download Romeo and Juliet (complete score) (complete Juliet and Romeo conductor 10.30pm Welcome & News

Welcome to the LSO’s concert LSO On Tour with LSO Principal Conductor From 27 November to 10 December the LSO continues its world . tour of the Prokofiev cycle with Valery Gergiev in . Sponsored by Takeda, the performances include all the symphonies and This evening the Orchestra performs feature the soloists violinist Vadim Repin, pianist Alexei Volodin Prokofiev’s complete revised score for and cellist Tatjana Vassiljeva in the concertos. You can keep the ballet Romeo and Juliet. Prokofiev up-to-date with the Orchestra on its travels by reading the blog sets Romeo and Juliet’s intimate love on lsoontour.wordpress.com scenes against a public life marked by lso.co.uk/lsoontour vicious brawls and intimidating family

© Camilla Panufnik demands. He was forced to rewrite his LSO’s on Track! original plan where the young lovers LSO On Track, a new initiative for East London schools and escape death, the version seen performed by the Mark Morris music services, launched last Monday with Take A Bow!, a string Dance Group and the LSO in the Barbican Theatre earlier this extravaganza with players of all ages and standards, from local month. Tonight we hear instead the better known tragic ending schools, LSO string players and LSO Friends and admin. To find with a larger orchestra throughout. out more see page 19 and visit lso.co.uk/lsoontrack LSO On Track is supported by UBS, and DCSF Music Partnership The Orchestra is about to go on tour to Japan but returns to Project grant. Thanks to London Councils and LSO Friends. the Barbican on 14 December with a Brahms concert with Daniel Harding so I hope that you can join us then! LSO Discovery November Video Podcast As we begin a new series of Brahms concerts at the Barbican and LSO St Luke’s, we ask LSO players and conductor André Previn what they think of Brahms; and broadcaster Rob Cowan tells us more about the composer’s life and works. Podcasts from Kathryn McDowell September and October are still available to download, including Managing Director an interview with Royston Maldoom who talks about his Orchestra 2012 project with 120 children and the LSO which took place at the Royal Albert Hall on 1 November (see also page 19). Watch online or subscribe via iTunes. lso.co.uk/videopodcast

2 LSO 2008/09 Season Émigré

For more information and to At the Barbican At LSO St Luke’s watch Valery Gergiev discuss the series visit lso.co.uk/emigre Tue 27 & Thu 29 Jan 2009 Thu 22 Jan, 1pm Stravinsky The Rite of Spring Songs by Rachmaninoff and Hahn Bartók Duke Bluebeard’s Castle Elizabeth Watts* soprano lso.co.uk/emigre Katarina Dalayman soprano Thu 29 Jan, 1pm Willard White bass-baritone Stravinsky The Rite of Spring (piano duet) Simon Crawford-Philips & Philip Moore

Thu 7 May 2009 Thu 5 Feb, 1pm Stravinsky Symphony in 3 Movements Dvorˇák ‘The American’ Schoenberg Violin Concerto Škampa Quartet & Maxim Rysanov* viola Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances Thu 12 Feb, 1pm Valery Gergiev conductor Chopin Sonata No 2, Op 35 Nikolaj Znaider violin Cédric Tiberghien piano

*Maxim Rysanov and Elizabeth Watts Fri 8 May 2009 are members of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme Stravinsky Symphony in 3 Movements Korngold Violin Concerto Tickets £9 Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances (£7 concessions) Valery Gergiev conductor 020 7638 8891 (bkg fee) Nikolaj Znaider violin lso.co.uk/lsostlukes (reduced bkg fee)

All concerts start at 7.30pm Tickets £7 £13 £19 £25 £32 Box office 020 7638 8891 (bkg fee) lso.co.uk (reduced bkg fee) Valery Gergiev © Alberto Venzago

Gergiev’s Prokofiev

To the world at large, Prokofiev will the LSO’s now legendary cycle of all seven Cantata of 1937. Its LSO performance at always be the composer of the ‘Classical’ Prokofiev symphonies to the world and the Barbican, with Kirov/Mariinsky singers Symphony, and Romeo will continue to do so. among the London Symphony Chorus, was and Juliet, and with good reason: these screened live in the City and subsequently are the works in which he used his gift for He had already taken the musical world televised; the same series, also alerted melody to captivate a wider public. Yet by storm as music director of what was an astonished public to the outlandish there has been no shortage of conductors then Leningrad’s Kirov Opera when he ‘incantation’ of 1917–18 Seven, they to champion the extraordinary depth and announced four new productions of are seven (which Rostropovich had also breadth of Prokofiev’s enormous output Prokofiev operas for the 1991–2 season. featured with the LSO in 1991 – these are as a whole: While the epic was territory surely the work’s only UK performances). and Neeme Järvi with their extraordinary to be more successfully repeated a decade legacy on disc, Sir Edward Downes to make later, David Freeman’s staging of the In 1993 Gergiev alighted in Rotterdam and sure that Britain came to hear as much still-shocking Fiery Angel jolted Russian managed 11 days of concerts devoted to little-known Prokofiev as possible, and the audiences into an awareness of late- music from two decades of Prokofiev’s life, composer’s friend and inspiration, 20th-century style in operatic production. mostly covering the Stalin years. It is safe the late lamented , Gergiev, who later remarked ‘what makes to say that no other living conductor in his far-reaching LSO series to mark the me incredibly proud is that I announced could have pulled off such a feat; and 1991 centenary of Prokofiev’s birth. these things and they happened’, was the audiences flocked. A Rotterdam convinced that his previously conservative performance of the complete Romeo and The baton has now passed to Valery singers’ approach to Prokofiev had Juliet in the Royal Festival Hall left critics Gergiev, and in sheer statistical terms, ‘opened their fantasy and improved helpless with superlatives and proved, as he has probably covered more ground their dramatic quality’. had an Edinburgh performance, that this than any of his predecessors. You can be is a Wagnerian narrative that works in the sure, as you listen to the original Fourth Gergiev has always been convinced concert hall – an opera without words. Symphony in the first of his Prokofiev that there was little in the composer’s concerts this autumn, that Gergiev is the later output where ‘you lose the original Gergiev’s performances may be charismatic only conductor in the world who has not Prokofiev language because of the political in the extreme, but Prokofiev still comes only conducted its huge revised version system under which he lived. The most first: ‘I still learn a lot about this composer, but has also been there in the pit for obvious examples are the Fifth and Sixth a lot. I never stop enjoying his fine sense staged performances of its parent work, symphonies, composed by a phenomenal of detail, his incredible harmonies and the ballet The . A pioneer artist who was at the heart of his artistic enjoyable melodies. It’s an endless wealth in of the works which Prokofiev and creative powers. But he also went on of musical ideas which we call today the composed in unintended exile in the west, in the late 1990s to lead the Kirov company music of Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev. and which had long been discredited in such Stalin-era works as the Soviet And it’s my duty to serve him well.’ as a musical dead-end by the Soviet operas and The Story of © David Nice establishment, Gergiev has already shown a Real Man, and the astonishing October 4 Conductor’s Biography Valery Gergiev

The London Symphony Orchestra’s Highlights of the 2008/09 season include a Principal Conductor, Valery Gergiev is Prokofiev cycle of staged works (Mariinsky also conductor of the World Orchestra for Orchestra) and the complete symphonies Peace (founded by Sir Georg Solti in 1995), (LSO) at Lincoln Center in New York and a Founder and Artistic Director of the Stars cycle of Prokofiev symphonies and concerti of the White Nights Festival, the with the LSO in and . Easter Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, the Mikkeli International Festival, He has taken Mariinsky ensembles to 45 the Red Sea Festival and the New countries, presenting the best of Russian Horizons Festival, the latter of which opera and ballets as well as the complete is a contemporary music festival in the Shostakovich and Prokofiev symphonies ’s new Concert Hall. and Wagner’s Ring. He was the subject of Carnegie Hall’s 2007/08 Perspectives: Valery Gergiev’s inspired leadership Valery Gergiev, in which he gave concerts as Artistic and General Director of the with the Kirov, Philharmonic and Mariinsky Theatre during the past 20 Met orchestras. In the same season he years has brought universal acclaim to conducted productions of Prokofiev’s War Valery Gergiev © Alberto Venzago this legendary institution, which recently and Peace and at the Met. celebrated its 225th Anniversary. His many awards include a Grammy, the Born in Moscow to Ossetian parents, he Award, Golden Mask studied conducting with Ilya Musin at the Award, People’s Artist of Russia Award, Leningrad Conservatory. At age 24, he the World Economic Forum’s Crystal ‘In the hands of Valery Gergiev was the winner of the Herbert von Karajan Award, Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, and the London Symphony Orchestra, Conductors’ Competition in Berlin and Valencia’s Silver Medal and the Herbert in this first of a three-concert made his Mariinsky Opera debut one year von Karajan prize. “Rachmaninoff Festival”, the music later in 1978 conducting Prokofiev’s War was raised to a higher plane with and Peace. In 2003 he led St Petersburg’s He has recorded exclusively for Decca committed performances that 300th anniversary celebration, and opened (Universal Classics), but appears also on utterly convinced of its claim to the Carnegie Hall season with the Mariinsky Philips and DG labels and LSO Live. be taken seriously.’ Orchestra, the first Russian conductor to do Graham Rogers, Classical Source, so since Tchaikovsky conducted the first- 20 Sep 08 ever concert in Carnegie Hall.

5 Prokofiev – the man

Although Prokofiev was well aware of the I want to be myself always.’ various artistic movements of the day, they rarely had more than a superficial effect Some reminiscences of people who worked on his music. Never seriously associated with him give a picture of an intimidating, with any group or ‘-ism’, his self-assurance rather cold figure. At rehearsals he was insulated him from much that might have severe, brisk, unsparing of personal been distracting. It also gave him a self- feelings. This was the outward persona of centred view of life and art that was both the hard-working professional who always a strength and – in later years – the source had to be occupied, who could never of enormous personal problems. He never bear to waste valuable time, who insisted taught, and never theorised about what he on strict organisation and relentless was doing: but he reacted quickly and with punctuality. imagination to the world around him – and what a world it was, beginning with But we also know how funny and kind he the cloudy and exciting experiments of could be with his friends and family. pre-revolutionary Russia, then the years of Prokofiev remembered his childhood in the exile in and America in the 1920s Ukrainian countryside as idyllically happy, and 30s, and finally the grim years of and never lost a fresh, uncomplicated Stalin’s Russia and the Nazi invasion. vision of the world. When fairy tales, animals and children are featured in his Free of political ideology or any music they are never sentimentalised, ‘You never knew what to expect of philosophical, religious or cultural but treated with irony, enjoyment and a Prokofiev. He was friendly, but not an preconceptions, he was generally prepared delightful sense of the ridiculous. He liked easy guy to talk to. I don’t remember ever to adapt to the circumstances in which he to wear bright clothes (particularly ties talking with him about anything serious. found himself. He was, after all, capable of and socks). Rather endearingly, his acute He tended to play a light, bouncy game; he writing wonderful music to order, whether rhythmic sense did not extend to his was boyish, easily bored, and even impolite for the capricious Diaghilev, for chic own body when he was away from a at times. He enjoyed teasing people and Parisians in search of novelty, for children, keyboard: he was a clumsy dancer and an loved to make witty remarks and tell for the Soviet masses or even to glorify enthusiastic but erratic driver. A passionate stories. He was very bright and outspoken, Josef Stalin. He was the very opposite of chess player, he was delighted when in and I can’t imagine that he would ever hide the confessional artist who needs to bare 1914 he managed to beat (just once) the how he felt about anything.’ That’s how, his soul. If he had an artistic credo, it was reigning world champion Raul Capablanca. in 1982, the American composer Aaron simply to work hard and make it new. He loved word games and was at home Copland recalled his meetings with ‘I loath imitation. I hate ordinary in several languages. An accomplished Prokofiev half a century earlier. methods. Originality is my goal and traveller, he enjoyed good food, but was

6 not interested in historical monuments and soon got bored with sightseeing. His friend the émigré composer Nicolas Nabokov recalled that all he could find to say when visiting Chartres Cathedral was ‘I wonder how they got those statues up so high without dropping them.’ He found it hard to take anything too seriously, often to his own disadvantage.

As a boy he was simply bursting with energy and talent, very sure of himself, and something of a spoiled brat. His student career followed the usual stages: precocious talent – golden boy – impatient radical – confounded nuisance. He came to wide public attention with two piano concertos, the first of which appeared by the time he was 20, a character that has in 1912, the same year as Vladimir Prokofiev on holiday in Mayaskovsky’s Futurist manifesto ‘A Slap proved both unique and widely appealing. Switzerland with his wife Lina, What we find in all his music are striking son Sviatoslav, friend Serge in the Face of Public Taste’. Hostile critics, Koussevitzky (publisher and images of contrast and confrontation, offended by Prokofiev’s high level of conductor), Koussevitzky’s dissonance and his percussive treatment strange juxtapositions of mood, powerful wife Natalia, and an unknown woman. of the piano, thought that he, too, was rhetoric followed by sudden moments of slapping the public’s face. True, his music shy or tender reflection. Despite his was often brash and provocative, and he generally cheerful nature there is plenty certainly enjoyed being naughty, but of darkness, even sometimes tragedy, there was much more to it than that: but it is expressed with clear objectivity and a tremendous vitality, a strong lyrical never confused with self-indulgence impulse and a rare prodigality of ideas. or sentimentality. Profile © Andrew Huth

Whatever compromises he had to make through the changing circumstances of his Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and life, Prokofiev remained true to a musical translator who writes extensively on French, character which was essentially formed Russian and Eastern European music

7 Prokofiev timeline

1891 Sergey Prokofiev born (11 April, or 23 April in the new-style calendar) at Sontsovka, a country estate in the Ukraine managed by his father 1900 Composes his first opera, 1904 Enrols as one of the youngest students at the St Petersburg Conservatoire for classes. Masters include Rimsky-Korsakov 1905 ‘Bloody Sunday’, in which troops fire on workers outside the Tsar’s Winter Palace, triggers off unrest disrupting classes at the Conservatoire 1908 Prokofiev’s concert debut playing a group of his early piano pieces at one of St Petersburg’s Contemporary Music Evenings 1910 Piano Sonata No 1 is Prokofiev’s first work to be published 1913 First performance of the Second Piano Concerto, with the composer as soloist, shocks audiences at Pavlovsk outside St Petersburg. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris

by Diaghilev’s Prokofiev aged 10 with the score of his first opera 1914 Shortly before the outbreak of World War 1 travel is impossible, The Giant but Prokofiev meets Diaghilev in London, who commissions a ballet 1916 Further scandal in Russia, where the drawn from the ballet Diaghilev has rejected creates a furore 1917 Between the February and October Revolutions, Prokofiev retreats to the Russian countryside to complete the ‘Classical’ Symphony and the First Violin Concerto 1918 Leaves Russia for America via Japan 1921 Premieres receive varying success: the ballet for Diaghilev in Paris, and the opera The Love for Three Oranges in Chicago

1923 Marries Carolina Codina, a soprano who performs under the name Lina Llubera, in Ettal, Bavaria

8 1924 Serge Koussevitzky conducts the premiere of the Second With his first wife, Symphony in Paris, where Prokofiev is now based Lina Llubera 1927 First concert tour of Soviet Union leads to cautious long-term rapprochement 1928 Unsuccessful negotiations for staging of the opera followed by reworking of material for the Third Symphony 1929 Work on Fourth Symphony alongside completion of its parent ballet, The Prodigal Son 1935 Summer in the Russian countryside working on the full-length ballet Romeo and Juliet 1936 Prokofiev moves with his wife and two sons from Paris to Moscow just before Stalin’s purges begin 1938 Rejects offer from Hollywood and works back in Russia on the film Alexander Nevsky directed by Sergey Eisenstein 1941 Leaves Lina for , a writer half his age; never legally divorced, he is ‘married’ to Mira under Soviet law seven years With his sons, Svyatoslav and later. invades the Soviet Union; Prokofiev starts work on his Oleg c 1936 most ambitious project, an opera based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace 1945 Fifth Symphony premiered in Moscow with Prokofiev conducting, coincides with news of Russian victory 1947 In poor health, completes the Sixth Symphony which is premiered in Leningrad that October with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting 1948 Double blow of the party Resolution against so-called ‘formalism’ in music and the arrest of his first wife Lina 1952 Completes the Symphony-Concerto for and orchestra, with the help of the young Mstislav Rostropovich, and the Seventh Symphony 1953 Dies in Moscow on 5 March, several hours before Stalin’s official time of death With a young Timeline © David Nice Rostropovich

9 Programme Notes Friday 21 & Sunday 23 November

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953) scenario called for 24 scene-changes. While the literary Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet – complete ballet, Op 64 took his time steering his collaborator towards a workable framework, political events overtook the partnership. On ‘A ballet for the Bolshoi has to be done “resplendently”, with velvet 1 December 1934 the party secretary for Leningrad, Sergey Kirov, costumes’, declared Sergey Prokofiev in early 1934 to a colleague was assassinated, the pretext for a ‘crackdown on terrorism’ leading who had proposed a bold scenario on a Soviet contemporary theme, to Stalin’s wholesale purges of the entire Soviet administration later ‘otherwise the public won’t come’. Prokofiev’s characteristically in the 1930s. Artistic enterprises in Leningrad shrivelled, the State clear-sighted assessment of the situation in the more conservative Academic Theatre took the name of Kirov, and the project passed of Russia’s two leading theatres heralded a new turn in his own work into the hands of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. During the summer for the Soviet stage. The glory days of his experimental one-acters of 1935, Prokofiev worked with astonishing speed on Romeo and for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris had come to an end with the Juliet in the peaceful surroundings of the Bolshoi’s country retreat death of the impresario in 1929; On the Dnieper, a music-first, at Polenovo. His clockwork precision was not to be rewarded so plot-afterwards concoction for the company of a Diaghilev protégé, quickly. When he played through the completed score that October, , fell flat three years later. opinions were divided, and the conservatives doubted whether the score was innately danceable. The homeland which Prokofiev had left behind for the west in 1918, and with which he had begun to make a chequered rapprochement Another, more curious sticking-point at further auditions in early since 1927, began to look more promising. His first Soviet projects 1936 was the proposed happy ending to the Prokofiev-Radlov in the early 1930s were with a freewheeling film-maker, Alexander scenario – Juliet stirs in the nick of time so that the dancers might Feinzimmer, on the satire Lieutenant Kijé, and, with a distinctly have a movement-filled few minutes together – which, of course, unorthodox theatre director, Alexander Tairov, On Egyptian Nights, had to be changed; but there were other reasons behind the veto, a Cleopatra fantasy drawn from Shaw, Shakespeare and Pushkin. not least Stalin’s increased control over artistic matters and the rapid Ballet was bound to require a more traditional approach, but that did gear-shift to a socialist-realist cult of personality. If you were lucky, not necessarily exclude high artistic aims. By 1934, the drive towards only two weeks ago you might have heard the score as Prokofiev reinstating western as well as Russian classics was in full swing, and originally conceived it here at the Barbican, alongside Mark Morris’s one of its strongest advocates was Sergey Radlov. The Leningrad new choreography, made in tandem with Princeton scholar Simon director had excellent Shakespearean credentials, including a rather Morrison’s reconstruction from manuscripts in Moscow archives. outlandish Othello as well as his Studio Theatre production of Romeo The original version includes several unfamiliar dances forming a and Juliet. It was a literary friend who brought Radlov together with kind of divertissement at the drugged Juliet’s bedside and a passage Prokofiev, his old chess opponent, to work on a ballet version of the Prokofiev was later to use as the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony for star-crossed lovers’ tragic tale, scheduled for Leningrad’s flagship the tumult that rouses Juliet in the Capulet family vault. Curiously, State Academic Theatre (Prokofiev still insisted on calling it by the the rather saccharine reconciliation music ends in the same way imperial name of Mariinsky). as the number we hear to mark Juliet’s suicide, allowing Morris an ambiguous ending. Radlov wanted at first to keep too much Shakespeare; an early

10 The only public life that Prokofiev’s ballet enjoyed over the next No 1 Introduction few years was in the form of the two concert suites he had put Three significant themes insist this is Romeo and Juliet, not together, with the selected numbers rather differently ordered and . The first one sighs for the ‘misadventur’d in some cases differently orchestrated from what we hear tonight. piteous overthrows’ Shakespeare has in store for his lovers, artfully A barely-noted premiere took place in Brno at the end of 1938; but taking just a phrase from Tchaikovsky’s celebrated love theme and the big event was the first Soviet performance, back at the Kirov, in transforming it. This contrasts with the simple elegance of Juliet the January 1940. After much justified pessimism over the ballet’s future, young girl and a preview of requited love floating starry-eyed above Prokofiev had been persuaded to work with the choreographer muted strings. Leonid Lavrovsky and even to provide a few extra numbers, shearing the others mentioned above. Rehearsals had been far from plain Act One sailing; as before, the dancers complained that the orchestration No 2 Romeo was inaudibly refined in places, and Galina Ulanova, the outstanding The curtain rises on Romeo pensive in the dewy freshness of a creator of the role of Juliet, was among them. She soon changed Veronese early morning, reaching out for his idealised Rosaline her tune. The instant classic that Romeo and Juliet became was not in a wide-ranging clarinet theme; only the three magical chords without its ‘improvers’; accepted into the Bolshoi repertoire, it was at the end will survive his acquaintance with true love. promptly reorchestrated by the percussionist and remained that way for decades. Now, however, with such unassailable classics No 3 The street awakens; No 4 Morning dance; as Kenneth MacMillan’s choreography for London’s Royal Ballet No 5 The quarrel; No 6 The fight and a painstaking refreshment of tradition at the Mariinsky Theatre, Civic life stirs to a strutting ditty, memorably transcribed in Romeo and Juliet is back in caring hands. Valery Gergiev’s bold step Prokofiev’s set of piano pieces drawn from the ballet. Its furtive in taking the full-length score out of the theatre and into the concert transformation in a lively dance, added in the revision, is vigorously hall, attempted with dazzling results with his Mariinsky Orchestra in chased by six virile horns. The ensuing dispute between the rival Edinburgh and with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, gives Prokofiev’s households of Montagues and Capulets is inevitable. Its scoring is music-drama a licence to stand alone which only Tchaikovsky’s edgier, scoring, all shrill chords, timpani tattoos and lower strings Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker have enjoyed before it. threatening sul ponticello (near the bridge of the instrument). Anger explodes in a hell-for-leather skirmish with flyaway violins thrice separated by a canon of heavy brass until an alarm bell joins the fray and the Duke of Verona makes an authoritative entry.

No 7 The Duke’s command; No 8 Interlude His order – no more fighting on pain of death – twice meets aggression with iron resolve (massive dissonances, daring for Soviet ballet in the mid-1930s) and the olive branch of peace (soft string chords). An pompous Andante introduces a stage band to join the orchestral brass in what sounds like a parody of military might.

11 No 9 Preparations for the ball No 15 Mercutio The scene changes to preparations for the ball chez Capulet, and The joker in the Montague pack diverts attention with a capricious textures lighten. More street bustle meets a new, swaying theme for interplay of energetic comedy and grotesquerie (a pawky solo for Juliet’s nurse; just a hint of her charge’s idiom suggests that she was bassoon, typical of Prokofiev in sarcastic mode). young once, too. No 16 Madrigal No 10 Juliet the young girl Love at first sight between Romeo and Juliet is quick to flare, rising The 14-year-old Juliet Capulet’s playfulness is captured in skittish from pure beginnings to the heights of the great love-theme, heard violin scales and wayward woodwind harmonies; her gracious for the first time. theme is varied from its first appearance in the introduction, and her seriousness takes us by surprise in an unaccompanied flute duet No 17 Tybalt recognises Romeo followed by a delicate reverie. A brief concluding phrase for Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, angrily taking up the Knights’ most brutal and cor anglais hints at heartache ahead. gesture, has to be restrained from provoking a quarrel with an unresponsive Romeo. No 11 Arrival of the guests Lights blaze on the ballroom as the invitees strut to the strains of a No 18 Gavotte garish, lofty minuet with a placid cornet solo at its heart. The party is over, and the scenery usually changed to an extended version of the third movement (much more succinct in its original No 12 Masks context) from Prokofiev’s 1917 masterpiece the ‘Classical’ Symphony. Three more wayward visitors parade to the glitter of a percussion battery – Romeo, Benvolio and the sardonic Mercutio (cornet, No 19 Balcony scene; No 20 Romeo’s variation; clarinet and oboe solos), concealing their Montague identity. No 21 Romeo and Juliet’s love dance Romeo’s dreamy chords dissolve the mockery. Romeo’s enchanted chords now preface a glowing nocturne. A chamber organ solemnises the music of the Madrigal as Juliet No 13 Dance of the Knights returns for a lost token (no balcony, this, in the original scenario) Pomp and satire give way to violence in the Knights’ Dance, familiar and is surprised by Romeo lurking in the shadows. Their love-dance from its title ‘Montagues and Capulets’ in the Second Orchestral begins with amorously sighing horns and is briefly interrupted by Suite. Its striding arpeggios frame the eerie ritual of the suitor Paris’s a leaping variation on Romeo’s ardour – a perhaps unnecessary dance with a reticent Juliet. addition, also taken from the original happy end in 1939–40, so of course nowhere to be found in the number from the First Suite – No 14 Juliet’s Variation before passion flows untramelled in a sequence of richly-scored One of the additional numbers for Lavrovsky in 1939–40, removed melodies and sinks back to its muted, magical starting-point. from the original finale. She shrugs off her reluctance with elegant variations on her themes.

12 Act Two No 30 The people continue to make merry; No 31 Further No 22 Folk dance; No 23 Romeo and Mercutio; No 24 Dance public festivities of the five couples Lavrovsky in 1939 wanted to extend the crowd-music – perhaps the It’s time for Prokofiev to give the corps de ballet a lively chance only weakness in the revision. Prokofiev resorted to perfectly decent with street festivities: a tarantella folk-dance and a keenly-accented cut-and-paste reprises, perhaps the only unnecessary numbers in number interrupted by a brass band procession, the two broken up the ballet. by an exchange between lovestruck Romeo and teasing Mercutio. No 32 Meeting of Tybalt and Mercutio; No 33 Tybalt and No 25 Dance with mandolins Mercutio fight; No 34 Death of Mercutio; No 35 Romeo Prokofiev follows Tchaikovsky’s genius in selective scoring on his decides to avenge Mercutio’s death; No 36 Finale own terms – here mandolins and trumpets against pizzicato strings The street music has put us off our guard for the sudden flaring with shrill embroideries from clarinet and piccolo, also taken from of now-familiar Capulet aggression as Tybalt goads Mercutio. the original Act 3 Divertissment. In the extraordinary television Romeo pleads for restraint with his themes of new-found grace, documentary showing a group of inner city children working on a but Mercutio’s spirit is up as he gives a dangerous reprise of his production with dancers of the Royal Ballet, this was the only number party-piece, cut short by a sword-thrust from Tybalt. Shuddering to depart from the Kenneth MacMillan choreography and to allow the and sharing jokey reminiscences, Mercutio meets a characteristic boys a chance to show off their break-dancing. It worked brilliantly. death. Capulet violence infects Romeo Montague and the next fight is on to a heightened reprise of No 6; this time Tybalt falls, No 26 The Nurse; No 27 The Nurse delivers Juliet’s letter to 15 massive orchestral thuds. His body is raised aloft to the to Romeo strains of an orchestral funeral march, searing in the unrelieved The waddling go-between arrives with a letter for Romeo, airily intensity of the brass counterpoint. extending her repertoire of bustles and informing us musically of the sender’s identity. INTERVAL: 20 minutes

No 28 Romeo at Friar Laurence’s; No 29 Juliet at Friar Laurence’s The goodly friar greets Romeo in his cell, a portrait in dignified lower- range colours with special humanity from the divided violas and cellos. A radiant new flute theme announces Juliet, all in white, and a bittersweet secret wedding follows.

13 Act Three No 48 Aubade; No 49 Dance of the young girls with lilies No 37 Introduction; No 38 Romeo and Juliet; No 39 The Two numbers – four in the original 1935 version – divert but last farewell sustain the intimate mood. This is a more restrained dance with Despite the strategic return of the Duke’s discordant command mandolins and violin obbligato, and a graceful but oddly sad warning us that Romeo now faces the death penalty, most of Act number for girls bringing lilies to the bride-to-be (originally exotic Three is chamber-like in its delicacy. Romeo has passed the night dancers from the Antilles). in Juliet’s bedroom. The dignified flute theme from Friar Laurence’s cell now heralds the morning lark as the lovers face their sweetly No 50 At Juliet’s bedside sorrowful parting. Horn and clarinet share a new idea as they mourn The Nurse enters to waken Juliet, trumpets introduce a note of the passing of time before first raptures are poetically remembered doubt and the ‘death’ is discovered. High violins play a requiem by the fragile tones of the viola d’amore. Passion flares up again and version of Juliet’s most solemn and transfigured melody. dies with Romeo’s departure. Act Four No 40 The Nurse; No 41 Juliet refuses to marry Paris Epilogue Juliet sees the new arrivals in the room through a mist – the nurse, No 51 Juliet’s funeral; No 52 Death of Juliet her parents, Paris with his offer of marriage (solo-string echoes of Prokofiev’s Epilogue in his extensive revision sheds Shakespeare’s the Minuet). Her protests mix her old impetuousness with a new, multiple incidents at the Capulet vault and brings a harrowing lamenting cello phrase and a tragic version of the once-radiant flute focus to the lovers’ endgame. Juliet’s death-motif, subjected to duet; but her father insists, with the usual Capulet threats. an ever more forceful, heavily-scored funeral processional, brings with it Romeo’s suicide, and her transfigured theme, sorrowful No 42 Juliet alone; No 43 Interlude; No 44 At Friar Laurence’s as she wakes, soars in an accepting apotheosis before she stabs cell; No 45 Interlude; No 46 Juliet’s bedroom; No 47 Juliet herself and dies in his arms. A lone cor anglais announces that alone ‘never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo’ Left to cool down in her bedroom, Juliet can think only of Romeo before the last, transfigured chord brings down the curtain. and a massive orchestral development of the ‘parting’ music Programme note and synopsis © David Nice marks her decision that she cannot live without him. She visits Friar Laurence, who darkly accepts her predicament and offers David Nice writes, lectures and broadcasts on music, notably for her a death-simulating potion. Four constantly repeated rising BBC Radio 3 and BBC Music Magazine. His books include short notes convey its creeping effect and the lowest instruments of the studies of Richard Strauss, Elgar, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, orchestra rear up in a prophecy of Juliet’s death. Tragedy and threats and the first volume of his Prokofiev biography, From Russia to carry another interlude and back in her room, Juliet goes through the the West 1891–1935, was published in 2003 by Yale University motions of accepting Paris (more reprises). Once alone, she takes Press; he is currently working on the second. the potion; the same two chords which followed Mercutio’s death suggest the fatal effect its discovery will have on Romeo.

14 On stage 21 & 23 November

First Violins Cellos Bassoons Mandolins Andrew Haveron Guest Leader Floris Mijnders Rachel Gough Jim Ellis LSO String Carmine Lauri Alastair Blayden Joost Bosdijk Nigel Woodhouse Experience Scheme Lennox Mackenzie Jennifer Brown Nicholas Wright Mary Bergin Contra-bassoon Off-stage band Established in 1992, the Nigel Broadbent Hilary Jones Dominic Morgan Horns LSO String Experience Ginette Decuyper Minat Lyons Tim Ball Scheme enables young string Michael Humphrey Amanda Truelove Horns Richard Clews players at the start of their Maxine Kwok Andrew Joyce David Pyatt David McQueen professional careers to gain Claire Parfitt Alexandra Mackenzie Angela Barnes Neil Mitchell work experience by playing in Laurent Quenelle Kim Mackrell John Ryan rehearsals and concerts with Colin Renwick Jonathan Lipton Trumpets the LSO. The scheme auditions Sylvain Vasseur Double Basses Jonathan Bareham David Archer students from the London Eleanor Fagg Rinat Ibragimov Philip Cobb music conservatoires, and 20 Gabrielle Painter Colin Paris Trumpets Niall Keatley students per year are selected Julia Rumley Patrick Laurence Roderick Franks Paul Mayes to participate. The musicians Helena Smart Michael Francis Martin Hurrell Joe Sharp are treated as professional Matthew Gibson Gerald Ruddock Tom Watson ‘extra’ players (additional to Second Violins Thomas Goodman Nigel Gomm LSO members) and receive Evgeny Grach Gerald Newson Euphoniums fees for their work in line with Thomas Norris Jani Pensola Trombones Simon Gunton LSO section players. Students Sarah Quinn Dudley Bright Steve Saunders of wind, brass or percussion Miya Ichinose Flutes James Maynard instruments who are in their David Ballesteros Michael Cox Tubas final year or on a postgraduate Richard Blayden Siobhan Grealy Bass Trombone David Kendall course at one of the London Matthew Gardner Paul Milner Sacha Koushk-Jalali conservatoires can also Belinda McFarlane Piccolo benefit from training with LSO Iwona Muszynska Sharon Williams Tuba Percussion musicians in a similar scheme. Philip Nolte Patrick Harrild Scott Bywater Paul Robson Oboes Stephen Henderson The LSO String Experience Stephen Rowlinson Emanuel Abbühl Timpani Glyn Matthews Scheme is generously Norman Clarke John Lawley Nigel Thomas Sam Walton supported by the Musicians David Worswick Benevolent Fund and Charles Cor Anglais Percussion and Pascale Clark. Violas Christine Pendrill Neil Percy Edward Vanderspar David Jackson List correct at time Gillianne Haddow Clarinets Benedict Hoffnung of going to press. Malcolm Johnston Andrew Marriner Tom Edwards Lander Echevarria Chi-Yu Mo Helen Yates See page 13 for London Richard Holttum Symphony Orchestra Robert Turner Bass Clarinet Harps members Jonathan Welch Katherine Lacy Bryn Lewis Michelle Bruil Nuala Herbert Duff Burns Saxophone Nancy Johnson Shaun Thompson Keyboard Caroline O’Neill John Alley Fiona Opie Celesta Clive Williamson

15 LSO’s Émigrés Rinat Ibragimov and David Ballesteros Photos © Alberto Venzago Alberto Photos ©

Rinat Ibragimov Principal Double Bass David Ballesteros Second Violin

I was born in Moscow, Russia. When I started the cello at the age I’m from Canary Island in Tenerife, . My mother loves music of six, it didn’t really go well; then I was advised to take up the double and my father loves the ocean, and those are my main two loves bass. I joined the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra as the Principal Double in my life! When I was young I was very keen on orchestral music, Bass, but we had a financial crisis and most of the musicians and but I mostly liked skateboarding and world music. As a teenager I conductors started to leave. The situation was terrible and after a decided to audition for orchestras and eventually I went to America while I thought I couldn’t carry on. When I told my wife about the idea to study and things became more serious. About nine years ago I of moving to England, she said OK, but she didn’t believe me until I had a last minute phone call from somebody desperately looking for told her I’d got a job in London! Thomas Martin, the LSO’s Principal a replacement for a quartet gig with LSO players Tim Hugh and Double Bass at that time, helped us find a house in London. My wife Evgeny Grach. I did that gig and Tim encouraged me to try to get an was shocked when she saw a two-floor, three bedroom house, as audition for the LSO. I had an audition and I was very happy when we used to live in a tiny flat in Russia! they told me that I was accepted!

I do feel that I am an outsider. I will never become an English man, I would say the main change was the language. Sometimes you do even though I start my English lessons right now! It’s a different want to say something, but even though you translate it into English mentality. Having said that, playing with musicians like Gordan the meaning can be different and you might not be aware of it! But I Nikolitch, Tim Hugh and other soloists, is great and I pick up new adore being a foreigner, and being a foreigner in the Orchestra. things in every concert. I’m now completely different from who I was. I consider myself really fortunate to be here.

Visit lso.co.uk/emigre to watch complete interviews

16 Mahler and Special offer.qxp 18/11/2008 15:37 Page 1

LSO presents this Christmas... LSO Live lso.co.uk Sun 14 Dec 7.30pm

Bartók Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Brahms Piano Concerto No 1 Mahler Daniel Harding conductor Valery Gergiev Lars Vogt piano London Symphony Orchestra Lars Vogt © Anthony Parmelee Thu 18 Dec 7.30pm Bartók Divertimento Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Brahms Symphony No 1

Daniel Harding conductor ‘an edge of the seat experience’ Daniel Hope violin Sunday Times Daniel Hope © Harald Hoffmann /DG visit lso.co.uk/mahler for more Sun 21 Dec 7.30pm details including a video interview André Previn’s 80th Birthday Celebration with Valery Gergiev Haydn Symphony No 104 (‘London’) Special Offer Mozart Violin Concerto No 3

Handel Messiah (includes bonus DVD) André Previn Double Concerto Berlioz L’enfance du Christ for Violin, Contrabass and Orchestra (European premiere) Strauss Der Rosenkavalier – Suite

André Previn conductor Anne-Sophie Mutter © Anja Frers/DG Anne-Sophie Mutter violin Roman Patkolo double bass Get both for only £19.99 including postage to the UK Tickets £7–£32 lso.co.uk/buyrecordings 020 7638 8891 | lso.co.uk (reduced bkg fee)

17

LSO Discovery

LSO Discovery Dance Event LSO Discovery launches LSO On Track! by Camilla Panufnik Last Monday saw the A unique dance event premiered at the Royal Albert Hall on offical launch of LSO On 1 November, with 120 children between the ages of 8 and 17, Track with two incredible responding dramatically to Shostakovich’s monumental Symphony Take A Bow! concerts at No 10, performed live by the LSO conducted by François-Xavier LSO St Luke’s. LSO On Roth. Choreographer Royston Maldoom, (known especially for Track is a new initiative his community dance work in war-torn regions) created an which brings together impassioned story around Shostakovich’s artistic problems with the LSO, Barbican and Stalin. With great charm, tragedy in their faces, the young actor Guildhall School with dancers excelled as suffering Soviets in their interweaving, ten East London music fast-moving tableaux across the enormous stage. Coming from services, to offer young 32 London boroughs, selected from almost 500 applicants, they people, schools teachers were drawn from a variety of cultural backgrounds, some of © Kevin Leighton and music leaders across them with severe behavioural problems, some with learning or the region a compelling programme of concerts, workshops, physical disabilities, many who had never previously danced, coaching and performance opportunities. mixed together with some eager pupils from weekend dance schools. Maldoom somehow dragooned them into achieving The concerts gave some 100 young string players from East powerful teamwork and vigorous performances. In the course of London schools and music service centres the chance to perform their 3-month training they melded into a highly focused, close- on a world-class platform with the finest musicians. It included working company, a life-changing experience of self-discipline music specially arranged and composed to allow everyone, from and shared effort. A partnership with Dance Umbrella and Youth beginners right through to professional players, to perform at the Dance England, this is another important achievement in the rich very top of their ability. variety of educational work of the LSO’s Discovery Department. ‘It was in many ways the best example of professionals Download a videocast of Royston Maldoom talking about the working with young people and their teachers that I have seen,’ project at lso.co.uk/videopodcasts commented Richard Hallam, DCSF National Music Participation Director. Colette Shrubsole, Head of Waltham Forest Music Service whose students took part said that her line manager was delighted: ‘She emailed me this morning to say that your work reminds her of all that is good in the world and all that we should aspire to for our children.’

To find out more information about LSO On Track and future events visit lso.co.uk/lsoontrack.

19 In Box

Your thoughts and comments

Worth a long trip! Messier New Discovery No clear lineation Want to share William Crossan Anthony Harvey Mr & Mrs Warner Clive Honeywood your views? Email us at I agree with Richard Just to let you know that This was my first To me and my wife, the [email protected] Morrison [The Times we both enjoyed the experience of the LSO Sibelius sounded under critic] that the early Prokofiev concert. Three in the concert hall (I rehearsed and there Let us know what Nowak edition of of the four pieces were live in Scotland) and I was no clear lineation to you think. We’d like Bruckner’s Fourth new to us so it was an was not disappointed. the usual clear thematic to hear more from Symphony is ‘messier’ evening of discovery. Until Sunday I thought material of a symphony you on all aspects than the familiar Haas. Having been raised on Osmo Vänska’s reading from this composer. The of the LSO’s work. Not only that, but Peter and the Wolf as a of Sibelius’s Seventh Mozart Piano Concerto Please note that the with the knowledge of child, it was fascinating Symphony was the we found charming and LSO may edit your the exciting call and to see and hear the benchmark. Daniel we enjoyed Imogen comments and not response of the horns instruments used in Harding’s interpretation Cooper’s playing which all emails will be and brass that Bruckner mature orchestral works topped it in my humble we found to be honest published. changed it to, the early with every instrument opinion. The symphony and from the heart; we version by comparison, distinct within the whole was given room to didn’t quite think that the despite David Pyatt’s – wonderful! We noticed breathe, the pace of the second movement came [LSO Principal Horn] how attentive and various sections just off perfectly, although I splendid playing, seemed respectfully silent the right and the transitions still wish I could play ten like a spluttering firework audience was – a most handled skilfully. He percent as well as she that never went off. unusual tribute before coaxed absolutely did! We do think that bursting into applause. luminous string playing generally the LSO is the [8 Oct, Daniel Harding & and glorious sounds from best London orchestra Sally Matthews] Thanks to all for an the brass, especially so hope you will accept inspiring evening. the trombones, who our criticisms as well- were quite superb. meaning and we should [12 Oct Gergiev, Kavakos Schumann’s Second tell you that we enjoyed & Volodin] Symphony was the icing the concert. on a totally delicious

cake! Well worth a 1,000 [19 Oct, Daniel Harding & Editor Sarah Breeden mile round trip! Imogen Cooper] Designed by 300million Printed by Cantate Advertising Enquiries [19 Oct, Daniel Harding & Tel 020 8971 8450 Imogen Cooper] 20