Vaughan Williams
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Sunday 15 March 2020 7–9pm Barbican LSO SEASON CONCERT VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Britten Violin Concerto Interval PAPPANO Vaughan Williams Symphony No 6 Sir Antonio Pappano conductor Vilde Frang violin 5.30pm Barbican Hall LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists Free pre-concert recital of music by Britten Miranda Liu violin Theresa Jensen violin Mabon Rhyd viola William Clark Maxwell cello Inoke Isobe oboe Welcome Latest News On Our Blog We extend thanks to our media partner, JUST ANNOUNCED: OUR 2020/21 SEASON INTRODUCING OUR 2019/20 Classic FM, who have recommended JERWOOD COMPOSERS+ tonight’s concert to their listeners. ‘Our theme is ‘Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano’, a phrase Alban Berg and others Ahead of their first LSO Jerwood Composer+ Ahead of the performance, Guildhall School used to describe the febrile atmosphere events in April and May, we caught up with musicians gave a recital on the Barbican stage. in Germany in the 1930s, as Europe lay on Des Oliver and Hollie Harding to talk about These performances, which are free to attend, the cusp of fascism. It’s an extraordinary their musical backgrounds and composing provide a platform for the musicians of the expression, one that inspires us to explore icons, and to learn what we can expect from future, and take place throughout the season. what was happening in the musical world in their curated events. the first half of the 20th century.’ (Sir Simon At this evening’s concert, we host LSO Rattle). Booking opens Monday 16 March. JONATHAN WOOLGAR: WORKSHOPPING warm welcome to this evening’s Guardians – those who have chosen to PROTO-SYMPHONY WITH THE LSO LSO concert at the Barbican, where remember the LSO in their wills. We are DONATELLA FLICK LSO we are delighted to be joined by grateful for the support of all our Guardians, CONDUCTING COMPETITION Emerging composer Jonathan Woolgar tells Sir Antonio Pappano, a great friend of the who help to ensure the future health of the us about his experience composing a three- Orchestra for many years. Tonight, following Orchestra and of our programmes to develop Applications remain open for the 16th minute piece as part of the LSO Panufnik his memorable performance of Vaughan tomorrow’s musicians and music lovers. Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition, Composers Scheme, ahead of a free public Williams’ Symphony No 4 in December, he which takes place from 27 February to workshop and discussion of the music on conducts the eagerly awaited second part I hope you enjoy tonight’s concert and 1 March 2021 in London. The deadline for Thursday 26 March. of his exploration of 20th-century British that you are able to join us again soon. submissions is 6pm BST Friday 26 June. music with two towering British composers. At the end of the month, Sir Mark Elder • lso.co.uk/more/blog conducts Elgar’s Violin Concerto, a piece • lso.co.uk/more/news Tonight’s performances of Vaughan Williams’ rooted in LSO history, performed by Nikolaj Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Szeps-Znaider. You can hear more music by his Sixth Symphony will be recorded for LSO British composers on 14 June, as Alan Gilbert WELCOME TO OUR GROUP BOOKERS Live. At the centre of tonight’s concert we closes the season with Walton and Tippett. • Please ensure all phones are switched off. hear Britten’s Violin Concerto, for which we Adele Friedland & Friends Photography and audio/video recording are delighted to welcome soloist Vilde Frang. are not permitted during the performance. After a number of performances at LSO Find out more at Photographs may be taken during applause St Luke’s in previous seasons, Vilde Frang • lso.co.uk/groups at the end of the concert. makes her first appearance with the Orchestra Kathryn McDowell CBE DL on the Barbican main stage this evening. Managing Director 2 Welcome 15 March 2020 Tonight’s Concert In Brief Coming Up onight’s concert highlights the PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Wednesday 18 March 6.30pm Sunday 22 March 7pm music of two highly distinguished Barbican Barbican British composers, Ralph Vaughan Having studied at the Royal College Williams and Benjamin Britten, opening of Music, Wendy Thompson took an HALF SIX FIX DUKAS with the former’s Fantasia on a Theme by MMus in musicology at King’s College, BARTÓK Thomas Tallis. Premiered by the LSO in 1910 London. In addition to writing about Dukas The Sorcerer’s Apprentice with the composer himself conducting, the music, she is Executive Director of Classic Bartók Dance Suite Dukas Polyeucte Fantasia initially underwhelmed its critics. Arts Productions, a major supplier of Bartók The Wooden Prince Dukas Symphony in C However, it has since become one of Vaughan independent programmes to BBC Radio. Williams’ most popular pieces, a lush and François-Xavier Roth conductor & presenter François-Xavier Roth conductor unmistakably English work for strings. Stephen Connock MBE is the author of Toward the Sun Rising – Ralph Vaughan Recommended by Classic FM Thursday 26 March 10am–1.30pm Britten’s Violin Concerto follows, a work of Williams Remembered. He is also the LSO St Luke’s 2.30–6pm expressive passages and technical challenges Chairman of Albion Music, which is Friday 20 March 12.30–1.15pm that demand the utmost virtuosity. The dedicated to publishing books on LSO St Luke’s LSO DISCOVERY original soloist, Antonio Brosa, pointed to English music and poetry. PANUFNIK COMPOSERS WORKSHOP Spanish influences in the concerto. Written LSO DISCOVERY: FREE FRIDAY LUNCHTIME CONCERT as Europe was in turmoil, and premiered Philip Reed’s publications include The FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE In this free public workshop, the LSO in 1940, the lyrical first subject might even Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin performs and discusses works by the latest be heard as a lament for the victims of the Britten, (two vols, co-edited with Donald Judith Laing Zaimont ‘Nocturne’ from cohort of LSO Panufnik composers. Spanish Civil War. Mitchell) and contributions to studies of Russian Summer Piano Trio Peter Grimes and the War Requiem. Rachmaninoff Trio Elegiaque No 1 Generously supported by Lady Hamlyn and We return to Vaughan Williams in the second Tchaikovsky Waltz of the Flowers from The Helen Hamlyn Trust half of tonight’s concert, which is dedicated Andrew Stewart is a freelance music ‘The Nutcracker’ to his Sixth Symphony. Composed as World journalist and writer. He is the author Sunday 29 March 10–10.45am War II came to its end and Europe lay in of The LSO at 90, and contributes to Belinda McFarlane violin LSO St Luke’s 11.30am–12.15pm ruins, it is one of his darkest works, with a wide variety of specialist classical Jennifer Brown cello passages ranging from the subdued and music publications. Elizabeth Burley piano LSO DISCOVERY ominous, to the startling and aggressive. Rachel Leach presenter MUSICAL STORYTELLING The quiet of the final movement evokes a somewhat bleak vastness, before a plaintive For under-5s. LSO musicians retell a popular oboe solo emerges from the emptiness. • children’s story through music. Tonight’s Concert 3 Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis 1910 / note by Wendy Thompson aughan Williams’ most in a fantasia based on Tallis’ psalm melody. • PHRYGIAN MODE famous fantasia sprang from He conducted the strings of the London VAUGHAN WILLIAMS ON LSO LIVE a combination of passions: his Symphony Orchestra at the work’s premiere The Phrygian mode owes its name to absorption in Tudor music and English folk on 6 September 1910. On the whole, the a kingdom from some 3,000 years ago, song, collecting, and from his editorship critics received it coolly, and after its London Phrygia, now part of Turkey. It is similar of The English Hymnal, which occupied premiere in February 1913, Vaughan Williams to a minor scale, giving music written in him almost exclusively from 1904 to withdrew it for substantial revision. It took the Phrygian mode a melancholy air of 1906. Several of the tunes included in the another two decades for the work to be majesty and thoughtfulness. hymnal influenced his own subsequent recognised as a minor masterpiece, and it compositions, including the third of nine has since been one of the composer’s most Psalm tunes by the Elizabethan composer popular and frequently performed pieces. Thomas Tallis, originally printed in Archbishop Parker’s metrical psalter of 1567. The fantasia is scored for double string This melody, in the Phrygian mode •, is set orchestra of unequal size (the second in The English Hymnal to Addison’s words consists of only nine players), from which ‘when rising from the bed of death’. the section leaders emerge as a solo quartet. Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Vaughan Williams took as his starting point Recorded at the Barbican, February 2016 In 1910, Vaughan Williams was Tallis’ original harmonisation of his modal commissioned to write a piece for the melody, and based his structure on the Roman Simovic director Three Choirs Festival. His piece was to be sectional concept of the Tudor fantasia. The LSO String Ensemble performed in Gloucester Cathedral alongside theme itself appears in various embellished Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, of which the guises before reappearing in its original ‘Three of the best British string Introduction and Allegro probably inspired grandeur in the closing section. • orchestra works, meticulously Vaughan Williams to use the same forces performed.’ BBC Music Magazine ‘A reminder of just how world-class the string section of the London Symphony Orchestra is.’ Classical CD Choice Available to purchase at lsolive.co.uk, on iTunes and Amazon.