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François-Xavier Roth Thursday 25 April 2019 7.30–9.35pm Barbican LSO SEASON CONCERT FRANÇOIS-XAVIER ROTH Ravel Rapsodie espagnole Ravel Boléro Interval Ravel L’heure espagnole François-Xavier Roth conductor RAVEL Isabelle Druet Concepción Jean-Paul Fouchécourt Torquemada Thomas Dolié Ramiro Edgaras Montvidas Gonzalve Nicolas Cavallier Gomez 6pm Barbican Hall LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists Free pre-concert recital Recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast on 30 April Welcome Latest News On Our Blog This evening we also hosted a free pre- THE LSO IN LATIN AMERICA THE PUBLIC DOMAIN concert recital by the Marmen Quartet from the Guildhall School, who performed one of This May, the LSO tours to Latin America for As part of our festival of new and Ravel’s string quartets here in the Barbican the first time in the Orchestra’s history. With contemporary music LSO Futures, 500 local Hall. These free LSO Platforms recitals concerts in Bogotá, Medellín, Lima, Buenos singers took part in a stirring performance seek to complement the repertoire in the Aires, Montevideo and Santiago, Sir Simon of David Lang’s the public domain on 24 Orchestra’s main season and showcase Rattle conducts performances of Mahler’s March. We look back on the project and the musicians of the future. Fifth Symphony, Berlioz’s Symphonie the participants’ experiences. fantastique and Britten’s Sinfonia da I would like to thank our media partner Requiem. Later in 2019, the Orchestra tours BBC Radio 3, which is recording tonight’s to Ireland, California, Central Europe and JOHN ADAMS’ HARMONIELEHRE elcome to this evening’s LSO concert for broadcast on Tuesday 30 April. Asia. Follow us on social media for behind- concert at the Barbican. Over the-scenes updates. In the age of synth pop, Live Aid and recent seasons, LSO Principal I hope that you enjoy tonight’s performance, Madonna’s Material Girl, how was a composer Guest Conductor François-Xavier Roth has and that you are able to join us again soon. to write large-scale orchestral music for the been exploring French repertoire with the Next Wednesday Sir Simon Rattle conducts WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS concert hall? Composed in 1985, John Adams’ Orchestra and tonight we continue that John Adams’ large-scale work Harmonielehre, Harmonielehre is one of the most significant quest, as we delve into Ravel’s fascination one of the great orchestral showpieces of the We are delighted to welcome two groups examples of a composer grappling with the with all things Spanish. late 20th century, paired with Stravinsky’s attending tonight’s concert: idea of a symphony in the 20th century. Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Sky Global Productions Following the Rapsodie espagnole and the Harrison Birtwistle’s The Shadow of Night. Bancroft’s School composer’s best-known work, Boléro, in the ARTIST PORTRAIT: DANIIL TRIFONOV first half, we are joined by an exceptional Please ensure all phones are switched off. cast of opera singers for the one-act comedy Photography and audio/video recording Pianist Daniil Trifonov tells us about his L’heure espagnole. Welcome to Isabelle are not permitted during the performance. life away from the concert stage and the Druet, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Thomas experiences that made him love music – Dolié and Nicolas Cavallier, who all make Kathryn McDowell CBE DL from rock and jazz to the films of Andrei their LSO debuts this evening, and also to Managing Director Tarkovsky and Scriabin’s ‘Poem of Ecstasy’. Edgaras Montvidas, who recently appeared with the Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle in a Read these articles and more at performance of Szymanowski’s Harnasie in • lso.uk/blog December 2018. 2 Welcome 25 April 2019 Tonight’s Concert In Brief / by Jeremy Thurlow Coming Up any French composers were delightful farce about a footling clockmaker Wednesday 1 May 7.30–9.20pm Thursday 30 May 7.30–9.40pm attracted by the siren song of and his feisty wife Concepción, would-be Barbican Barbican exotic Spain, not least Debussy lovers are carried up and down stairs like in some of his finest orchestral and piano weights and counterbalances in a clock, JOHN ADAMS CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA pieces. Ravel was no less enchanted, and his passion struggles to take wing within a investment was more personal, thanks strictly measured hour of freedom, and the Stravinsky Symphonies of Wind Instruments Cage The Seasons to his Basque, Spanish-speaking mother, uncomplaining muleteer makes everything Harrison Birtwistle The Shadow of Night Beethoven Violin Concerto though still characterised by the exquisite possible – even, in the end, the satisfaction John Adams Harmonielehre Bartók Concerto for Orchestra artifice which was fundamental to his of Concepción’s desire. creative personality. His most significant Sir Simon Rattle conductor Michael Tilson Thomas conductor forays into Spanish fantasy are gathered Julia Fischer violin together in tonight’s concert, and display a fascinating range. Written straight after Sunday 5 May 7–9.05pm 6pm Barbican Hall L’heure espagnole, the Rapsodie espagnole PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Barbican LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists has a distinctly impressionist aura about it, free pre-concert recital with the scents and perfumes of a balmy Jan Smaczny is Hamilton Harty Professor BERLIOZ 150: SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE night mingling with snatches of flamenco. of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast. Only in the final Feria does the boisterous A writer and broadcaster on Czech music, John Adams Harmonielehre Sunday 2 June 7–9pm energy of carnival at last come to the fore. his most recent book is a study of Dvořák’s Berlioz Symphonie fantastique Barbican Cello Concerto. Boléro was written 20 years later, in a more Sir Simon Rattle conductor NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAYS self-consciously modern and technological Jeremy Thurlow is a composer whose music age. It is a remarkably original tour-de- ranges from chamber and orchestral to video- Streamed live on the LSO’s YouTube Channel Ives A Symphony: New England Holidays force, with a single melody of extraordinary opera. Author of a book on Dutilleux and a and available to watch back for 90 days after the Beethoven Piano Concerto No 5, ‘Emperor’ length and hypnotic fascination repeated in frequent broadcaster on Radio 3, Jeremy is a concert. Join presenter Rachel Leach from 6.30pm a delectable array of orchestral colours as it Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge. for an introduction to the music. Michael Tilson Thomas conductor grows in power and weight. The ending is at Daniil Trifonov piano once exhilarating and terrifying. Andrew Stewart is a freelance music London Symphony Chorus journalist and writer. He is the author Simon Halsey chorus director In L’heure espagnole, Ravel’s first opera, a of The LSO at 90, and contributes to fairytale Spain is viewed through a lens of a wide variety of specialist classical irony and wit, as well as affection. In this music publications. Tonight’s Concert 3 Maurice Ravel Rapsodie espagnole 1907 / note by Jan Smaczny 1 Prélude à la nuit If Ravel did not use actual Spanish melody, • HABANERA (DANCE) • WATCH: RAVEL ON LSO LIVE 2 Malagueña his command of the melodic and rhythmic 3 Habanera idioms of the style leave no doubt at all as 4 Feria to the setting. The contrast between dark sensuousness and the cumulative vitality mages of Spain have long been an of the dance can be felt immediately in important part of the French musical the first three movements. Apart from consciousness. Perhaps as an its unforgettable colouring, the Prélude antidote to the sophistication of Paris, the makes use of a descending four-note lure of the exotic within easy reach of the figure which recurs in all the movements Pyrenees evoked a powerful response across apart from the Habanera •. Although it several generations of French composers, to does not partake of this unifying element, the extent that many of the ‘Spanish’ works of and indeed was composed some twelve The habanera dance form (also called a the repertoire were composed by Frenchmen. years earlier as the first of the two-piano contradanza) has its earliest roots in English, Some of the most famous of these were by collection Sites auricuIaires, the Habanera in Scottish and French folk styles. These styles Ravel, who had recurrent bouts of ‘Spanish no way fractures the composition. Rather it melded to form the contradanse, which fever’ throughout his career, although none provides the ideal foil for the extended Feria was adapted by the French court in the surpassed the Iberian heyday of 1907 when movement which sums up and transcends 17th century and exported to the Americas. he wrote the Vocalise-Etude, the opera L’heure the moods evoked earlier. • There it mixed with local musical styles, Ravel Le tombeau de Couperin espagnole and the Rapsodie espagnole. becoming an important genre in South Ravel Daphnis and Chloe – Suite No 2 American and Cuban music. By the 18th Dutilleux L’arbre de songes Despite partisan criticism from the critic and century the contradanza incorporated sub- Dutilleux Métaboles composer Michel-Gaston Carraud, who called Saharan African rhythms and Latin Spanish Delage Four Hindu Poems it ‘slender’, and Pierre Lalo, who declared it musical elements. The result, the habanera ‘pedantic’, critical opinion was, in general, (dance of Havana), was the precursor to the Sir Simon Rattle conductor favourably impressed by the Rapsodie at its danzon, mambo and cha-cha-cha. Leonidas Kavakos violin first performance in March 1908. It was also Julia Bullock soprano the composer’s first important orchestral piece to come before the public and for the Filmed at the Barbican in January 2016. most part his only composition for orchestra not based on piano music or designed with Blu-ray and DVD available to purchase at some extra-musical framework in mind.
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