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London Symphony Orchestra Living Music Thursday 5 March 2015 7.30pm Barbican Hall DANCE OF THE GYPSY VIOLIN Brahms arr Schoenberg Piano Quartet in G minor INTERVAL Kodály Háry János – Suite Weiner Fox Dance Traditional arr Haanstra Deux Guitares Vladimir Cosma Le Grand Blond John Williams Schindler’s List London’s Symphony Orchestra Csampai / Bihari Memory of Bihari / Hejre Kati Kristjan Järvi conductor Roby Lakatos violin László Bóni violin Kálmán Cséki Jr piano Jenö Lisztes cimbalom László Balogh guitar László ‘Csorosz’ Lisztes bass Concert finishes approx 10.30pm 05-03 Jarvi.indd 1 3/2/2015 11:14:23 AM 2 Welcome 5 March 2015 Welcome Living Music London Symphony Orchestra Kathryn McDowell In Brief Living Music Welcome to this evening’s concert with the LSO, BBC RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERTS the next instalment in conductor Kristjan Järvi’s Eclectica at the Barbican series, which explores A new series of BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concerts different musical genres and cultures through begins at LSO St Luke’s this month, taking place diverse collaborations. Following a first half every Thursday at 1pm. In Haydn Plus One, dedicated to the orchestral arrangement of Brahms’ performers including the Endellion String Quartet, First Piano Quartet, with its vibrant ‘Rondo alla Ronald Brautigam, Meta4 String Quartet and the Zingarese’ finale, virtuoso violinist Roby Lakatos ATOS Trio examine influential works by Haydn, one and his Ensemble join the LSO for a programme of the truly pivotal figures in the history of chamber of Hungarian dances and gypsy-inspired tunes, music, alongside complementary masterpieces by melding classical, jazz and folk music. a range of later composers. Roby Latakos, celebrated as the ‘King of the Gypsy lso.co.uk/lunchtimeconcerts Violin’, is an old friend of the LSO, having previously performed several times with the Orchestra on the Barbican stage and in our UBS Soundscapes: THE LSO ON TOUR THIS MONTH Eclectica events at LSO St Luke’s. We are delighted to see him return tonight with his Ensemble. In celebration of LSO Principal Guest Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas’ 70th birthday, the Orchestra I hope that you enjoy the performance. Join us and MTT perform two concerts this month at the again on 12 and 15 March as we celebrate the Barbican on 12 and 15 March, before heading to the 70th birthday of Michael Tilson Thomas, the LSO’s US for an eleven-date tour. Keep up-to-date with the Principal Guest Conductor, with two special concerts. LSO’s travels and behind-the-scenes stories on our These are followed by a tour to New York and the Facebook and Twitter pages. LSO International Violin Festival West Coast of America. The Orchestra’s London season will resume on 8 April with the first concert facebook.com/londonsymphonyorchestra 12 Violin Superstars | 12 Amazing Concerts of the LSO International Violin Festival, featuring twitter.com/londonsymphony soloist Leonidas Kavakos. April to June 2015 A WARM WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS 020 7638 8891 | lso.co.uk/violinfestival Groups of 10+ receive great benefits, including a 20% discount on standard tickets, a dedicated The LSO International Violin Festival is Kathryn McDowell CBE DL group booking hotline and, for larger groups, the generously supported by Jonathan Moulds Managing Director chance to meet LSO musicians. This evening we are delighted to welcome Rachel Good & Friends and Simon Hewitt Jones & Friends. lso.co.uk/groups MEDIA PARTNER 05-03 Jarvi.indd 2 3/2/2015 11:14:25 AM IVF Colour.indd 1 16/02/2015 12:03 London Symphony Orchestra Living Music LSO International Violin Festival 12 Violin Superstars | 12 Amazing Concerts April to June 2015 020 7638 8891 | lso.co.uk/violinfestival The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds MEDIA PARTNER IVF05-03 Colour.indd Jarvi.indd 3 1 3/2/201516/02/2015 11:14:25 AM12:03 4 Programme Notes 5 March 2015 Tonight’s Concert Dance of the Gypsy Violin JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–97) played; and thirdly, ‘It is always played badly, because PIANO QUARTET NO 1 IN G MINOR OP 25 the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you ARR FOR ORCHESTRA BY ARNOLD SCHOENBERG hear nothing from the strings. I wanted just once to (1874–1951) hear everything, and this I achieved’. Schoenberg went on to say that his orchestration would be 1 ALLEGRO strictly in the style of Brahms, going no further than 2 INTERMEZZO: ALLEGRO Brahms would have gone ‘had he been alive today’. 3 ANDANTE CON MOTO In fact, Schoenberg’s vibrant orchestration intensifies 4 RONDO ALLA ZINGARESE: PRESTO the drama of the piece and gives it a modern twist, while retaining the rich, string-heavy sound of the PROGRAMME NOTES WRITER Tonight’s concert brings the alluring and exotic Romantic era. WENDY THOMPSON is sounds of Central Europe to the Barbican in a Executive Director of Classic Arts celebration of the iconic musical instrument of Although the first two movements – a large- Productions, a major supplier of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – the violin. The scale Allegro, which unwinds with concentrated independent programmes to BBC characteristic sound of the gypsy fiddle – soulful, intensity, and an intermezzo-like Scherzo with an Radio 3, including Essential Classics. intense, virtuosic, its plangent melodies derived animated trio in the major key – belong firmly to both from the folk music of the Danube plains and the concert hall, the music of the street intrudes in from Jewish klezmer bands – percolated throughout the broadly lyrical slow movement in the form of THE VERBUNKOS is an 18th and the squares, cafés and beer gardens of the Empire, a jaunty episode in military-style dotted rhythms. 19th-century Hungarian dance, infusing popular dance music and the orchestral The contrasting tempos of the episodes – slow or characterised by the alternation and chamber works of the concert hall alike. extremely fast – in the final ‘Rondo alla zingarese’ of slow and fast sections, dotted clearly derive from the gypsy verbunkos or csárdás rhythms, virtuosic melodies and As a youthful virtuoso pianist of 20, Brahms toured tradition. The percussion section comes into its own the clicking of spurs. A ‘recruiting with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, whose here, with a xylophone, punctuated by tambourine, dance’ performed by members of fiery playing owed much to the gypsy style. Brahms’ imitating the traditional cimbalom. Schoenberg the Hungarian light cavalry, it was own Hungarian Dances, begun at the same period, cleverly distributes Brahms’ brilliant piano passage- designed to encourage patriotism translated Reményi’s alla zingarese style to the work between violins and a solo flute, while several among those watching and to keyboard, while his Piano Quartet in G minor, written of the slow episodes, especially the last, which encourage young men in the in the early 1860s, bottles its essence within the features solo strings and a wailing clarinet, evoke villages to join the army. formal constraints of chamber music. the sound of a klezmer band. THE CSÁRDÁS is a 19th-century In 1937 Arnold Schoenberg, who had recently moved INTERVAL – 20 minutes Hungarian dance derived from the from the Berlin of the Third Reich to Los Angeles, There are bars on all levels of the Concert Hall; ice cream verbunkos, which was particularly arranged the Quartet for orchestra at the instigation can be bought at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. popular in aristocratic circles. Like of the conductor Otto Klemperer, who conducted The Barbican shop will also be open. the verbunkos, it alternates tempos, the premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. beginning slowly and ending at a very A fervent admirer of Brahms, Schoenberg said that Why not tweet us your thoughts on the first half of the fast (or ‘friss’, meaning ‘fresh’) speed. he had made the arrangement for three reasons: performance @londonsymphony, or come and talk to firstly, he liked the piece; secondly, it was seldom LSO staff at the Information Desk on the Circle level? 05-03 Jarvi.indd 4 3/2/2015 11:14:25 AM lso.co.uk Programme Notes 5 ZOLTÁN KODÁLY (1882–1967) Kodály said of his fantasist hero: ‘The stories HÁRY JÁNOS – SUITE released by his imagination are an inextricable mixture of realism and naivety, of comic humour 1 PRELUDE: THE TALE BEGINS and pathos … Though on the surface he seems to 2 VIENNESE MUSICAL CLOCK be just boasting, he is actually a natural visionary 3 SONG and poet. His stories may be untrue, but that is 4 THE BATTLE AND DEFEAT OF NAPOLEON irrelevant, for they spring from a lively imagination 5 INTERMEZZO which seeks to create an enchanted dream world 6 ENTRANCE OF THE EMPEROR AND HIS COURT for himself and others’. Zoltán Kodály was one of several 20th-century Kodály later extracted a six-movement orchestral Hungarian composers who fertilised western suite from the opera, which was first performed at genres with Magyar and gypsy folk idioms. From the Liceo Theatre in Barcelona on 24 March 1927. THE CIMBALOM is a Hungarian 1905 onwards he began to collect and record folk It uses a large orchestra, including a cimbalom. dulcimer – a musical instrument, like songs in collaboration with his friend, the composer a zither, with strings set across a Béla Bartók, with whom he shared a vision of The first movement, The Tale Begins, opens with trapezoid-shaped box that are struck ‘an educated Hungary, reborn from the people’. a famous orchestral ‘sneeze’. Kodály said that, by hammers or beaters. Kodály’s use ‘according to Hungarian superstition, if someone of the cimbalom in his Háry János ‘If I were to name the composer sneezes after hearing a statement, it is taken to Suite is one of the instrument’s most whose works are the most perfect mean that the statement is true.