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Home , Barbara Hannigan, Genoveva, Manfred (Schumann), Piotr Anderszewski, Simon Rattle, Wigmore Hall

Thursday 15 March 2018 7.30–9.40pm Barbican Hall

LSO SEASON CONCERT SIR

Schumann : Mozart Piano Concerto No 25 SCHUMANN Interval Schumann Overture, Scherzo and Finale Schumann Symphony No 4

Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor piano Welcome LSO News Online

I hope that you enjoy tonight’s concert THE LSO’S 2018/19 SEASON YOUTUBE LIVE STREAM and that you are able to join us again soon. On Sunday 25 March, Principal Guest The LSO’s 2018/19 season is now on sale. Sunday’s concert with Sir John Eliot Gardiner Conductor François-Xavier Roth will conduct Highlights include Music Director Sir Simon was broadcast live and is available to watch the world premiere of Ewan Campbell’s Rattle’s exploration of folk-inspired music back for free at youtube.com/lso. Frail Skies, an LSO Panufnik Composers in his series Roots and Origins; Artist Portraits Scheme commission, alongside three with soprano and conductor works inspired by Debussy, and Debussy’s and pianist Daniil Trifonov; and eight WHY IS THE STANDING? best-loved orchestral piece, . premieres across the season. Full listings are available at lso.co.uk/201819season. This evening’s performance of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony will be performed with A warm welcome to this evening’s LSO concert some members of the Orchestra standing. at the Barbican. Tonight we are delighted AT TATE MODERN Sir John Eliot Gardiner explains why on to hear the second instalment of Sir John youtube.com/lso. Eliot Gardiner’s Schumann cycle with the Kathryn McDowell CBE DL The LSO has announced that the Orchestra Orchestra, which spans a European tour Managing Director will give two performances of Karlheinz and concerts at the Barbican in 2018 and Stockhausen’s Gruppen in Tate Modern’s LA MER: AN ANIMATED INTRODUCTION 2019. This programme focuses on three Turbine Hall with Sir on of the composer’s orchestral works: the Saturday 30 June 2018. Tickets will go on Ahead of François-Xavier Roth’s overture to his only , Genoveva, the sale in April; visit lso.co.uk/tate for details. performance of La mer with the Orchestra Overture, Scherzo and Finale, and the Fourth on 25 and 28 March, view our animated Symphony, which Sir John Eliot Gardiner introduction to Debussy’s great work on conducts this evening in its original form. WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS Instagram and Facebook.

It is also a pleasure to welcome pianist IFSA-Butler, FSU Study Centre, Piotr Anderszewski for Mozart’s Piano Gerrards Cross Community Association, Read our news, watch videos and more Concerto No 25. We are pleased that he Adele Friedland & Friends and • lso.co.uk/news is able to join us this evening, and we look Ann Parrish & Friends. • youtube.com/lso forward to welcoming him back again in • lso.co.uk/blog the 2018/19 season.

2 Welcome Thursday 15 March 2018 Tonight’s Concert / by Stephen Johnson Coming Up in April

chumann venerated Ludwig van The concert starts with the Overture to Sunday 8 April 2018 7pm Thursday 19 & 26 April 2018 7.30pm Beethoven – the titanic creator of Schumann’s only opera, Genoveva, which Barbican Hall Barbican Hall the greatest cycle of symphonies in tells the story of a woman wronged, plunged musical literature. In his role as a brilliantly into despair, yet ultimately vindicated. SHOSTAKOVICH’S EIGHTH MAHLER’S NINTH insightful critic he said rather less about Between these fascinating works comes one Mozart, but it’s arguable Schumann learned of Mozart’s most imposing piano concertos – Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4 Helen Grime Woven Space * just as much from him. Mozart’s ability to or at least that’s the way it seems at first. Shostakovich Symphony No 8 (world premiere) combine passion with ‘Grecian lightness and There are grand ideas, but there’s also Mahler Symphony No 9 grace’ enchanted Schumann, as did Mozart’s something impish, which seems to win out in Gianandrea Noseda conductor exquisite playfulness. We can see both the end. It’s possible Schumann never heard Nikolai Lugansky piano Sir Simon Rattle conductor qualities at work in Schumann’s Fourth it, but if he had, he would surely have loved it. Symphony. On one level, it is a deeply felt, * Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the acutely sensitive musical drama. On another, PROGRAMME NOTE WRITERS Sunday 15 April 2018 7pm LSO by the Barbican though, it’s a colossal tease, interweaving Barbican Hall and mixing up elements of the traditional Stephen Johnson is the author of Bruckner 26 April generously supported by Baker McKenzie four movements of a symphony, almost Remembered. He contributes regularly to ELGAR’S CELLO CONCERTO like one of the artist M C Escher’s famous BBC Music Magazine and , ‘impossible’ architectural drawings – a quality and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 Patrick Giguère Revealing that comes over particularly effectively in and the BBC World Service. (world premiere, Panufnik Commission *) the original version of the Symphony, which Elgar Cello Concerto Sunday 22 April 2018 7pm is the one performed tonight. Lindsay Kemp is a senior producer for Sibelius Symphony No 5 Barbican Hall BBC Radio 3, including programming The composer nearly called the Overture, lunchtime concerts at and Susanna Mälkki conductor MAHLER’S TENTH Scherzo and Finale ‘Symphonette’, arguably LSO St Luke’s; Artistic Advisor to York Daniel Müller-Schott cello a much better title. At times we hear echoes Early Music Festival; Artist Director of Tippett The Rose Lake * of the grandest of Beethoven and Schubert’s Baroque at the Edge Festival; and a regular * The Panufnik Composers Scheme is generously Mahler comp Cooke Symphony No 10 symphonies; at others – and especially contributor to Gramophone magazine. supported by Lady Hamlyn and The Helen Hamlyn Trust in the strangely captivating Scherzo – Sir Simon Rattle conductor it’s almost like listening to a clever child, Andrew Stewart is a freelance music one moment all adult seriousness, the journalist and writer. He is the author of * Supported by Resonate, a PRS Foundation initiative next delightfully naughty. The LSO at 90, and contributes to a variety lso.co.uk/whatson in partnership with the Association of British , of specialist classical music publications. 020 7638 8891 BBC Radio 3 and the Boltini Trust

Tonight’s Concert 3 in Profile 1810–56 / by Stephen Johnson

he youngest son of a Saxon Besides welcoming the financial return • SCHUMANN ON LSO LIVE bookseller, Robert Schumann that published Lieder (songs) could deliver, was encouraged by his father to Schumann was also able to preserve his study music. Soon after his tenth birthday intense feelings for Clara in the richly in 1820, young Robert began taking piano expressive medium of song. The personal lessons in his home town of Zwickau. nature of Schumann’s art even influenced Although he later enrolled as a law student his choice of certain themes, with the notes at University in 1828, music remained A – B – E – G – G enshrined as the theme of an overriding passion and he continued to one set of piano variations in tribute to his study piano with Friedrich Wieck. friend Countess Meta von Abegg. — ‘To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.’ — Robert Schumann Das Paradies und die Peri

Sir Simon Rattle conductor The early death of his father and two of Schumann also developed his skills as , , his three brothers influenced Schumann’s a composer of symphonies and concertos Kate Royal, Bernarda Fink, appreciation of the world’s suffering, during his years in Leipzig. Four years Andrew Staples, Florian Boesch soloists intensified further by his readings of after their marriage in September 1840, London Symphony Orchestra Romantic poets such as Novalis, Byron the Schumanns moved to where and Hölderlin and his own experiments as Robert completed his C major Symphony. chorus director poet and playwright. Schumann composed In the early 1850s the composer’s health a number of songs in his youth, but it was and mental state seriously declined. In March Available to purchase in the Barbican Shop, not until he fell in love with and became 1854 he decided to enter a sanatorium near at lsolive.lso.co.uk, on iTunes and Amazon, secretly engaged to the teenage Clara Wieck Bonn, where he died two years later. • or to stream on Spotify and Apple Music in September 1837 that he seriously began to exploit his song-writing gift.

4 Composer Profile 15 March 2018 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Profile 1756–91 / by Andrew Stewart

orn in Salzburg on 27 January 1756, Mozart to resign in 1781 and move to Vienna AT LSO ST LUKE’S IN 2018/19 Mozart began to pick out tunes in search of a more suitable position, fame on his father’s keyboard before and fortune. In the last decade of his life, Friday 14 September 2018 6.30–7.30pm his fourth birthday. His first compositions he produced a series of masterpieces in LSO St Luke’s were written down in the early months of all the principal genres of music, including 1761; later that year, the boy performed in the The Marriage of Figaro (1785), BBC RADIO 3 RUSH-HOUR CONCERT public for the first time at the University Don Giovanni (1787), Così fan tutte and ANNE QUEFFÉLEC of Salzburg. Mozart’s ambitious father, The Magic Flute, the Symphonies Nos Leopold, court composer and Vice- 40 and 41 (‘Jupiter’), a series of sublime Mozart Kapellmeister to the Prince-Archbishop of piano concertos, a clarinet quintet and the Menuet in G major Salzburg, recognised the money-making Requiem, left incomplete at his death on Menuet in F major potential of his precocious son and pupil, 5 December 1791. • Allegro in B-flat major embarking on a series of tours to the major Piano Sonata No 13 in B-flat major courts and capital cities of Europe. Piano Sonata No 11 in A major

In 1777 Wolfgang, now 21 and frustrated with Anne Queffélec piano life as a musician-in-service at Salzburg, left home, visiting the court at Mannheim on the way to Paris. The Parisian public gave the former child prodigy a lukewarm reception, and he struggled to make money by teaching lso.co.uk/lunchtimeconcerts and composing new pieces for wealthy patrons. A failed love affair and the death of his mother prompted Mozart to return to Salzburg, where he accepted the post of Court and Cathedral Organist.

In 1780 he was commissioned to write an opera, Idomeneo, for the Bavarian court in Munich, where he was treated with great respect. However, the servility demanded by his Salzburg employer finally provoked

Composer Profile 5 Sir John Eliot Gardiner In Conversation

SCHUMANN, THE SYMPHONIST

chumann had huge ambitions for his symphonies and his big choral works. But there has been this thick web of misunderstanding surrounding him, which started with , who didn’t rate Schumann and felt that Schumann didn’t know how to orchestrate. But that’s a complete nonsense: Schumann learned his craft with Mendelssohn in Leipzig, and even though Schumann is a very different beast, there are ‘fingerprints’ of Mendelssohn in his orchestration.

I think it’s a question of the approach of an orchestra and the approach of a conductor. If they allow themselves to be influenced by the late 19th-century, opulent concept of Schumann, they’re missing the point. Schumann is one of the successors to Beethoven: he’s trying his utmost to make his case for abstract music on a symphonic canvas, to be the equivalent of poetry, to This month Sir John Eliot Gardiner launched his Schumann cycle with the be the equivalent of the novel. I think he LSO, spanning a European tour and concerts at the Barbican this year and in 2019. succeeds triumphantly. In an excerpt from a conversation with David Nice, he introduces us to Schumann’s orchestral music and some of the works in tonight’s programme.

6 In Conversation 15 March 2018 MUSICAL LANGUAGE THE FOURTH SYMPHONY THE SCHUMANN CYCLE CONTINUES It’s very vocal. What I find hugely helpful The Fourth Symphony is a gripping piece, with the two versions side-by-side, which IN 2018/19: ON SALE NOW when interpreting the Schumann symphonies and I think it’s the most misunderstood is in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde with a modern orchestra is to get the piece of the four traditionally numbered in Vienna, showing, without any words orchestra to speak it. This abstract music symphonies, because it’s a symphony in one being necessary, why the first version is Thursday 7 February 2019 7.30pm, needs to be spoken and delivered as if it is movement. The fact that he quotes themes the better version – the more transparent, Barbican oratory, as rhetoric, as song. that recur all the way through is significant. and the more uncompromised version. Weber Overture: Euryanthe — Clara never really forgave him. • Mendelssohn Concerto for Violin & Piano ‘It’s got an amazing fantasy and imagination – Schumann Symphony No 3, ‘Rhenish’ • Visit youtube.com/lso to watch excerpts as do all Schumann symphonies.’ from Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s conversation Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor — with music critic David Nice Isabelle Faust violin Kristian Bezuidenhout piano The vowels need to be legato and smooth, I keep coming back to the Fourth, because the consonants need to be triggered like it caused the dispute that really broke percussive edges. If the woodwind use the relationship between Sunday 10 February 2019 7pm, Barbican that with their embouchure, and if the and Brahms. strings use it with their bowing articulation, Schumann Overture: you’re three-quarters of the way through Brahms revered Schumann, but he also Schumann Piano Concerto in uncovering his musical language. particularly revered the first version of the Schumann Symphony No 1, ‘Spring’ D minor [Fourth] Symphony. Clara wouldn’t have it at all. She insisted that the later Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor OVERTURE, SCHERZO AND FINALE version, with all this extra thickening of the Piotr Anderszewski piano textures, was the only version that could The magnificent Overture, Scherzo and be published. She was so overprotective of Tickets from £16 + booking fee Finale is totally ignored today. It’s just got a Schumann’s reputation that, with the distance cumbersome title and doesn’t have a slow of time, we can see that she was misguided. movement, but actually it’s a and lso.co.uk/schumann it’s got an amazing fantasy and imagination – What Brahms did, which I find so touching, 020 7638 8891 as do all Schumann symphonies. is that he enabled a score to be drawn up

In Conversation 7 Robert Schumann Overture: Genoveva Op 81 1849 / note by Stephen Johnson

ike many of the leading German Genoveva •, the opera’s heroine, is the wife COMING UP IN 2018/19 : BBC RADIO 3 CONCERTS AT LSO ST LUKE’S Romantics, Schumann was strongly of the legendary Germanic warrior Siegfried. drawn to the idea of national opera. While Siegfried is away performing heroic Friday 14 September 2018 1–2pm Friday 21 September 2018 1–2pm Ideally such a work might help create a feats, his rival Golo attempts to seduce sense of collective identity amongst the Genoveva. When she rejects him, Golo INGRID FLITER VIKINGUR ÓLAFSSON German-speaking peoples, at that time still denounces her as unfaithful and she is fragmented into principalities, dukedoms, condemned to death, only to be saved at Chopin J S Bach independent city states and a much-reduced the last moment when Golo’s treachery is Selected Nocturnes Partita No 6 in E minor Austria. The great pioneering example here uncovered. Schuman’s Overture begins with Polonaise in F-sharp minor Adagio from Organ Sonata No 4 in E minor was Weber’s Der Freischütz (The Free-Shooter, a sombre slow introduction, depicting both Barcarolle in F-sharp major (arr August Stradal) 1817–21), which combined old Germanic the anguish and the beauty of wronged Ballade No 4 in F minor Invention No 15 in B minor legend, magic and a triumphant redemptive Genoveva. The following Allegro provides Sinfonia No 15 in B minor love story with music steeped in ‘folkish’ plenty of Romantic Sturm und Drang Ingrid Fliter piano Gavotte from Violin Partita No 3 in E major elements: the hunting and dance songs of (Storm and Stress), and evocative touches (arr Rachmaninov) the people, and the mysterious, elemental of colour, including some clearly masculine Prelude in B minor (arr Siloti) qualities of the great German forests. horn-calls (the absent Siegfried?). Eventually Prelude and Fugue in C minor the dark minor key turns to bright major as Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (arr Busoni) It wasn’t until the advent of Wagner that Genoveva’s triumphant vindication grows Aria from Cantata No 54, Der Freischütz found a truly great successor. ever more certain. • lso.co.uk/lunchtimeconcerts ‘Widerstehe doch der Sünde’ (arr Ólafsson) But although Schumann’s only opera, Genoveva (1847–49) is still often condemned • MARIA OF BRABANT (1226–56) Vikingur Ólafsson piano as a failure from a dramatic point of view, opinions of the music have risen recently – The medieval legend of Genoveva is loosely part of a welcome general re-appraisal of based on the 13th-century figure Maria Friday 21 September 2018 6.30–7.30pm Schumann’s later works. All the same, the of Brabant, the wife of a Bavarian duke. opera’s crowning glory remains its overture – Maria was executed in 1256 after being SIMONE DINNERSTEIN which, like Schumann’s magnificent convicted of infidelity, a verdict which was ‘Manfred’ Overture (also written in 1849), later shown to be unfounded. (Her husband Schubert works well both as a portrait of the leading was made to atone for his error by founding Impromptu in G-flat major character, and as a concise, atmospheric the Fürstenfeld Abbey near Munich). Maria’s Sonata in B-flat major tone poem in its own right. story then melded with that of St Genevieve of Paris to produce the Genoveva legend. Simone Dinnerstein piano

8 Programme Notes 15 March 2018 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Concerto in C major No 25 K503 1784–86 / note by Lindsay Kemp

1 Allegro maestoso until 4 December 1786, and it is not even It is also his longest, breathing with an virtuosity, in a rondo whose returning theme 2 Andante certain when, if ever, Mozart got a chance easy expansiveness born of all the mastery has the flavour of a boisterous gavotte. 2 Allegretto to perform it; public enthusiasm for his Mozart had acquired in concerto-writing over Mozart was often more playful in his concertos was weakening by now, and the previous three years. C major is a key concerto finales than this, but rarely was Piotr Anderszewski piano a series of concerts advertised for that which often drew from the composer a lofty he more vigorously joyous and confident. • year’s Advent season appears to have been grandeur for which the word ‘Olympian’ has he two years or so from February cancelled. Furthermore, the intervening been much used, and whose connotations 1784 to March 1786 were when period had seen a significant change in his of nobility and strength are certainly Mozart’s interest in the piano composing life in the shape of the premiere appropriate to a work such as K503. Yet concerto was at its height. It was the period of his first full-scale Italian opera for while the imposing orchestral fanfare of when, having moved to Vienna in 1781, he Vienna, The Marriage of Figaro. From this the opening has a patrician flavour, like a found himself most able to connect with time on the stage was where his greatest ceremonial march for some enlightened the public as a composer and performer advances would be made, while even in emperor, Mozart almost immediately reveals in a stream of concerts, mounted at his the orchestral field the piano concerto was a more intimate side by allowing the oboes own financial risk, with piano concertos on the verge of being supplanted in his and bassoon to make the first of many as their centrepiece. Eleven new piano affections: K503’s completion coincides with diversions to the minor, for a passage whose concertos (Nos 14 to 24) date from this the period of composition of the ‘Prague’ insistent rhythmic figure subsequently time, dominating his output and creative Symphony, Mozart’s triumphant return informs much of the material of the rest enthusiasm at the expense of the operas, to the symphonic form whose revitalising of the movement. Indeed it is this kind of symphonies and (to a lesser extent) chamber effect was to fire the great final trilogy of tautly thematic working, associated more music. Not only that, they took a genre Symphonies Nos 39 to 41. with symphonies and than which Mozart had found in a state barely concertos, that hints at the direction his developed in expressive and formal terms Yet, if with K503 Mozart felt that he was music was on the point of taking. from that of the Baroque age and lifted it to saying goodbye to the piano concerto (he new heights of compositional sophistication would, in fact, compose two more), the music The second movement, on the other hand, and emotional eloquence. itself shows no sign of waning, either in seems to take us straight into the world Interval – 20 minutes inspiration or in execution. Far from suffering of the operas, in particular Figaro and the There are bars on all levels of the The Piano Concerto in C major could well be by the threat of its composer’s increased private apartments of the abandoned Concert Hall; ice cream can be bought thought of as a twelfth in this remarkable attraction to opera and symphony, it seems Countess, where the piano stands in at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. series, since there is evidence to suggest only to incorporate their particular strengths exquisitely for her wistful memories of love. Visit the Barbican Shop on Level -1 to see that it was begun during the winter of the more successfully. The result is one of And after this, the finale has the piano our new range of Gifts and Accessories. 1784–85. It was not completed, however, the greatest of all his piano concertos. switching to free-wheeling and athletic

Programme Notes 9 Wed 11 Apr Piotr Anderszewski in recital The stylish pianist performs Beethoven’s monumental Diabelli Variations and selected Bach Preludes and Fugues

Book now at barbican.org.uk/classical

Piotr Anderszewski 245x168 mono LSO programme ad.indd 1 07/03/2018 16:05 Robert Schumann Overture, Scherzo and Finale Op 52 1841 / note by Stephen Johnson

1 Overture: Andante con moto – Allegro The title Overture, Scherzo and Finale was • CLARA SCHUMANN (1819–96) 2 Scherzo: Vivo Schumann’s final, and possibly unwise, 3 Finale: Allegro molto vivace choice. At first he thought of calling the work ‘Symphony No 2’, then he toyed with illiam Blake wrote that ‘Symphonette’ – far less cumbersome and ‘improvement makes straight possibly more apt, as it stressed the fact roads, but the crooked roads that this is an integrated whole, but at the without improvement, are roads of same time more playful, more lateral, than genius’. Few composers exemplify that life a serious post-Beethovenian symphony. principal better than Robert Schumann. Having been a relatively late starter in The plan is unusual. For one thing, there is music, in his 20s he wrote virtually nothing no slow movement – a feature that seems but solo piano music – apart from two to have bothered one or two commentators. movements of a symphony that remained There is, however, a poignant, delicate slow mysteriously unfinished. In 1840, the year introduction in the minor, with some telling of his agonisingly delayed marriage to the oboe writing (Schumann seems to have a virtuoso pianist and composer Clara Wieck, special feeling for the oboe), before the lively • Clara Schumann (née Wieck) was one of Clara, and asked for her hand in marriage Schumann produced a torrent of songs. Allegro sets off in E major, the work’s home the most distinguished pianists of her era and when she turned 18 – which was refused by Then in 1841 he turned suddenly to orchestral key. The racing, dancing energy is intensified a frequent performance partner of violinist her father. After a court ruling in the couple’s music, composing two symphonies, the first in the finale, which contains strong echoes of Joseph Joachim. Her legacy is still felt today: favour they were married in 1840. Robert movement of the Piano Concerto, and the Schubert’s ‘Great’ C major Symphony – a work she was one of the first performers to play was devoted to Clara, and she served as his curiously entitled Overture, Scherzo and Finale. Schumann had rescued from obscurity three from memory, and was instrumental in inspiration for many of his greatest works. The following year saw a flood of chamber years earlier and championed enthusiastically. establishing her husband’s works in the works then, in 1843, it was the turn of choral- Between these, however, comes the strange, repertoire, as well as works such as Brahms’ orchestral music, to be followed in 1844 – not captivating Scherzo, the most original First Piano Concerto, which had fallen out surprisingly after all this frenzied productivity – movement of the three – mostly hushed, and of favour after its 1859 premiere. by mental collapse and creative silence. dominated by a hypnotic repetitive rhythm: de-da DA de-da DA. It is both enchanting and The couple met in 1830 when Robert was haunted – in other words, pure Schumann. • 20 years old, after he began studying with Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck, and had taken a room in his teacher’s house. In the years that followed Robert fell in love with

Programme Notes 11 Robert Schumann Symphony No 4 in D minor Op 120 (original version, 1841) / note by Stephen Johnson

1 Andante con moto – Allegro di molto Deflated, Schumann withdrew the symphony, perspectives. Art lovers have long taken the revision draws itself up portentously, 2 Romanza: Andante – and it remained silent for a decade. It was the same attitude to different versions of takes a deep breath and then the finale 3 Scherzo: Presto when he took up the post of Music Director famous paintings – why not symphonies? proper begins; but in the original version 4 Largo – Finale: Allegro vivace at the Lower Rhineland port of Düsseldorf the slow introduction bubbles over in 1850 that he decided the time was The original version of the D minor seamlessly into the fast main theme. s so often in classical music, right to revive it. But his failure to get it Symphony is significantly shorter than The revision makes it much clearer where the number is misleading. published shook his confidence again. the familiar score, largely because in we clearer where we are in the symphonic Symphony No 4 is actually the Was the structure simply too original for revising the work Schumann added big first argument, but something of the original second officially designated ‘symphony’ its own good? In 1851 Schumann undertook section repeats in both the first and last version’s joyous spontaneity is lost. Schumann completed. The premiere of a thorough revision, and it is in this version, movements. He also rewrote the transitions Symphony No 1, ‘Spring’, in March 1841, known as ‘Symphony No 4’, that the work from the Symphony’s slow introduction It’s also possible that Schumann was directed by Felix Mendelssohn, had been has been familiar for over a century. into the following Allegro and between worried about more than audience a surprise success. Exhilarated, Schumann comprehension. By the early 1850s his fears followed it up quickly with the Overture, — about his mental condition had grown. Scherzo and Finale and this Symphony ‘It would be best if he composed for orchestra; It is said that one of his reservations about in D minor. taking the job in Düsseldorf stemmed from his imagination cannot find sufficient scope on the piano … the fact that the town had an asylum – But when the latter had its premiere in His compositions are all orchestral in feeling.’ just being near such a place made him December 1841, its highly original structure Clara Schumann terribly anxious. Schumann’s revisions to baffled the audience. What they heard was this symphony – paralleled by an increasing not so much four linked movements as four — formal conservatism in other works movements interwoven into one continuous composed around that time – may be a dramatic argument – altogether too novel Some, including Schumann’s protégé the Scherzo and the Finale, making much reflection of a desire to contain his wayward, a concept even for some educated ears. Brahms, have argued that the original more use of the first movement’s main delightfully lateral ideas within a strong, One reviewer noted that ‘listeners were version is superior – that in reworking theme as a linking motif. It is clear that secure formal framework. But do they need visibly astonished … because the composer the music Schumann thickened the in the 1851 revision Schumann wanted to to be so firmly contained? In its original has joined the movements together, orchestration and, in making the structure make the symphony not only more unified version, the Fourth Symphony’s mercurial and this embarrassed a number of concert- more comprehensible, blunted some of thematically, but more like a familiar brilliance feels a lot closer to the dreamlike goers, for many believed in their musical its teasing subtleties. Ultimately the best Classical-Romantic symphony in form. logic of Schumann’s fantastical piano erudition that the whole symphony was solution might be to see the two scores as cycles Kreisleriana and Davidsbündlertänze, a somewhat extended first movement’. different ‘takes’ on the same idea, and to Arguably there are both losses and gains. and for some that makes it truer to this treasure them equally for their contrasting Take the beginning of the finale for instance: composer’s complex, enigmatic heart.

12 Programme Notes 15 March 2018 As in the revised score, the original Fourth This is one of the things that makes • BRAHMS AND SCHUMANN support the family. He dealt with business Symphony begins with an ominous, Schumann’s D minor Symphony so matters on Clara’s behalf and acted as a brooding slow introduction, with a falling– absorbing: these ‘lateral’ connections go-between for Clara and Robert until his rising figure on strings and bassoons whose give the symphony something of the death in 1856. It is clear that Brahms was rhythmic flow seems to tug against the character of a Chinese puzzle, or very much in love with Clara and although rest of the orchestra’s steady three beats even of the graphic artist M C Escher’s the two had a deeply emotional connection, to a bar. Then the tempo increases, and a brain-teasing architectural prints. the relationship didn’t move beyond close strange, convulsive transition leads into the friendship. His work Variations on a Theme Allegro di molto main movement. The first The Scherzo’s second Trio section gradually of Schumann (1854) is dedicated to her. movement seems to come to a conclusion comes to rest; then begins a magnificent in the major key, if a little abruptly; but then long transition (Largo), with brass figures Brahms much preferred the original 1841 a melancholy minor woodwind chord leads rising menacingly through smoky fragments version of the Fourth Symphony, and into the Romanza, and a deliciously scored of the first movement’s main motif. Excited despite strenuous objections by Clara, melody for oboe and solo cello. (So much for horn and woodwind fanfares whip up the it was Brahms who published the work the notion that Schumann had no feeling excitement, then the muscular finale theme in its original form in 1891. for orchestration.) The music then turns strides forth. The impetus mounts, along Schumann met the then-unknown 20-year- elegantly back into a recollection of the with the tempo, towards the ending for old in 1853, four years symphony’s opening idea on full strings and one of the most uplifting of all Schumann’s after completing the first version of what horns. As if in a dream, this memory morphs accelerating symphonic codas. • would become the Fourth Symphony. deftly back into the oboe and cello melody, Brahms quickly became a close friend and comes to rest. of both Robert and Clara Schumann. He was dubbed by the elder composer as A warm major-key theme follows, the musical saviour who would ‘give ideal embellished by liquid solo violin triplets. expression to the times’, and Clara wrote in A brief recapitulation then leads into the her diary that the young composer ‘seemed energetic Scherzo, whose two contrasting as if sent straight from God.’ She would go Trio sections in turn look back to the solo on to become the first pianist to publicly violin-led theme from the heart of the perform Brahms’ compositions. Romanza. Here perhaps we can understand the confusion of that 1841 audience: is Following Robert’s attempted suicide this a memory of the previous movement, and confinement in an asylum in 1854, or are we still really in the same movement? Brahms moved to Düsseldorf in order to

Programme Notes 13 Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor

ir John Eliot Gardiner is include two GRAMMY awards and he has to 1988 he was Artistic Director of Opéra de respected as one of the world’s received more Gramophone Awards than Lyon, where he founded its new orchestra. most innovative and dynamic any other living artist. musicians. His work as Artistic Director Gardiner’s book, Music in the Castle of of his Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Gardiner’s long relationship with the LSO Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire has led to complete symphony cycles and Bach, was published in October 2013 by Allen et Romantique has marked him out as numerous recordings on LSO Live, most Lane, leading to the Prix des Muses award a central figure in the early music revival recently of Mendelssohn, which concluded (Singer-Polignac). Among numerous awards and a pioneer of historically informed in 2017, and, beginning this season, in recognition of his work, Sir John Eliot performance. As a regular guest of the of Schumann, which they take on a Gardiner holds honorary doctorates from world’s leading symphony orchestras, such ten-concert tour of Europe. Other guest the Royal College of Music, New as the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen highlights this season include Conservatory of Music, the universities Rundfunks, Royal Orchestra Schumann with the Symphonieorchester of Lyon, Cremona, St Andrews and King’s and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Gardiner des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and the Verdi College, Cambridge, where he himself conducts repertoire from the 17th to the Requiem with the Tonhalle-Orchester studied and is now an Honorary Fellow. 20th century. Zürich and Monteverdi Choir. He is also an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, London and the British Academy, The extent of Gardiner’s repertoire is Alongside performances at the Salzburg and an Honorary Member of the Royal illustrated in the extensive catalogue Mozart Week, Concertgebouw and Bachfest Academy of Music, who awarded him of award-winning recordings with his own Leipzig, Gardiner and the Monteverdi their prestigious Bach Prize in 2008. ensembles and leading orchestras, including ensembles this autumn conclude their He became the inaugural Christoph Wolff the on major labels celebration of the 450th anniversary Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Harvard (including Decca, Philips, Erato and 30 of the birth of Monteverdi with staged University in 2014/15 and was awarded the recordings for ). performances of his three surviving operas Concertgebouw Prize in January 2016. BARBICAN BACH WEEKEND Since 2005 the Monteverdi ensembles at the Festival, Paris Philharmonie, 15 to 17 June 2018 have recorded on their independent label, Harris Theater Chicago and Lincoln Center. Gardiner was made Chevalier de la Légion Soli Deo Gloria, established to release the d’honneur in 2011 and was given the Order of Sir John Eliot Gardiner live recordings made during Gardiner’s Gardiner has conducted opera at the Wiener Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in Monteverdi Choir Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, for which Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Opéra 2005. In the UK, he was made a Commander English Baroque Soloists he received Gramophone’s 2011 Special national de Paris and Royal Opera House, of the British Empire in 1990 and awarded a Achievement Award and a Diapason d’or de Covent Garden, where he has appeared knighthood for his services to music in the Find out more at barbican.org.uk l’année 2012. His many recording accolades regularly since his debut in 1973. From 1983 1998 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. •

14 Artist Biographies 15 March 2018 Piotr Anderszewski piano

n recent seasons Piotr Anderszewski Piotr has been an exclusive artist with Recognised for the intensity and originality has given recitals at the Royal Warner Classics/Erato (previously Virgin of his interpretations, Piotr Anderszewski Festival Hall, the Wiener Classics) since 2000. His first recording has been singled out for several high-profile Konzerthaus, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and for the label was Beethoven’s Diabelli awards throughout his career, including the the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St Petersburg. Variations, which went on to receive a prestigious Gilmore award, given every four His collaborations have included appearances number of prizes, including a Choc du Monde years to a pianist of exceptional talent. with the and Berlin de la Musique and an award. Staatskapelle orchestras, Chicago Symphony He has also recorded a Grammy-nominated He has also been the subject of two award- Orchestra, and the CD of Bach’s Partitas Nos 1, 3 and 6, and a winning documentaries by the film maker Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has also critically acclaimed disc of works by Chopin. Bruno Monsaingeon for ARTE. The first of given many performances directing from these, Piotr Anderszewski plays Diabelli the keyboard, with orchestras such as the His affinity with the music of his compatriot Variations (2001) explores Anderszewski’s Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Szymanowski is captured in a highly praised particular relationship with Beethoven’s Orchestra of Europe, Sinfonia Varsovia and recording of the composer’s solo piano Op 120, while the second, Piotr Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. works, which received the Gramophone Anderszewski, Unquiet Traveller (2008), Award in 2006 for best instrumental disc. is an unusual artist portrait, capturing In the 2017/18 season so far Piotr has Anderszewski’s reflections on music, appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic His recording devoted to solo works by performance and his Polish-Hungarian roots. Orchestra, Deutsche Sinfonie-orchester Robert Schumann received an ECHO Klassik A third film by Monsaingeon, Anderszewski Berlin, Budapest Festival Orchestra, award in 2011 and two BBC Music Magazine Plays Schumann was made for Polish Orchestre de Paris and San Francisco awards in 2012, including Recording of Television and first broadcast in 2010. • Symphony. He will go on to perform with the Year. Anderszewski’s disc of Bach’s the Munich and philharmonics. English Suites Nos 1, 3 and 5 was released In recital he recently performed at Chicago’s in November 2014, going on to win both a Symphony Centre and the Concertgebouw Gramophone award and an ECHO Klassik in Amsterdam, and he will perform a Barbican award in 2015. His most recent recording recital in April 2018. In spring 2018 he will is of Mozart’s Piano Concertos 25 and 27, resume his play-direct collaboration with and was released in January 2018. the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for an extensive European tour.

Artist Biographies 15 London Symphony Orchestra on stage tonight

Leader Violas Flutes Trumpets LSO String Experience Scheme Carmine Lauri Edward Vanderspar Gareth Davies David Elton Since 1992, the LSO String Experience Malcolm Johnston Julian Sperry Gerald Ruddock Scheme has enabled young string players First Violins Anna Bastow from the London music conservatoires at Lennox Mackenzie Lander Echevarria Oboes Trombones the start of their professional careers to gain Clare Duckworth Julia O’Riordan Olivier Stankiewicz Dudley Bright work experience by playing in rehearsals Ginette Decuyper Jonathan Welch Rosie Jenkins James Maynard and concerts with the LSO. The musicians Gerald Gregory Michelle Bruil Paul Milner are treated as professional ‘extra’ players Maxine Kwok-Adams Clarinets (additional to LSO members) and receive Laurent Quénelle Cellos Andrew Marriner Timpani fees for their work in line with LSO section Harriet Rayfield Rebecca Gilliver Chris Richards John Chimes players. The Scheme is supported by: Sylvain Vasseur Alastair Blayden Chi-Yu Mo The Polonsky Foundation, Morane Cohen- Noel Bradshaw Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust, Lamberger Daniel Gardner Bassoons The Thistle Trust William Melvin Hilary Jones Rachel Gough Idlewild Trust Amanda Truelove Joost Bosdijk Angus Alnatt Charitable Foundation Second Violins David Alberman Double Basses Horns Thomas Norris Colin Paris Timothy Jones Miya Väisänen Patrick Laurence Vittorio Schiavone Matthew Gardner Matthew Gibson Angela Barnes Julian Gil Rodriguez Thomas Goodman Alexander Edmundson Editor Naoko Keatley Joe Melvin Jonathan Lipton Edward Appleyard | [email protected] Iwona Muszynska Jani Pensola Fiona Dinsdale | [email protected] Paul Robson Editorial Photography Dmitry Khakhamov Ranald Mackechnie, Sim Canetty-Clarke, Erzsebet Racz Gabrielle de Saint Venant Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 Advertising Cabbells Ltd 020 3603 7937

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16 The Orchestra 15 March 2018