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Download the Concert Programme (PDF) London Symphony Orchestra Living Music Thursday 8 December 2016 7.30pm Barbican Hall JOHN ADAMS AT 70 London’s Symphony Orchestra Bartók Hungarian Sketches Stravinsky Orpheus INTERVAL John Adams Scheherazade.2 John Adams conductor Leila Josefowicz violin Concert finishes approx 9.40pm 2 Welcome 8 December 2016 Welcome Living Music Kathryn McDowell In Brief A very warm welcome to this LSO concert at the CHRISTMAS OFFERS FROM LSO LIVE Barbican, the second of two programmes celebrating John Adams’ 70th birthday. After a long history of Take the LSO home with you this Christmas with working with the LSO, we are delighted that he joins LSO Live’s specially curated box sets and bundles. us this evening to celebrate this milestone, conducting Spend £35 or more to receive a 5% discount, £50 three works that show the power of storytelling or more for 10% discount, or £75 or more for 15% through music. discount, plus free shipping on orders over £30. The first half of the concert explores two evocative lsolive.lso.co.uk pieces by Bartók and Stravinsky, composers who have greatly influenced the work of John Adams. The first, Hungarian Sketches, narrates Hungarian LORD MAYOR’S APPEAL folk traditions, while Stravinsky’s ballet is a haunting interpretation of the Ancient Greek legend. We are delighted that the new Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Dr Andrew Parmley, has John Adams will also be conducting one of his chosen LSO Discovery, our education and community own works this evening, his dramatic symphony programme, as the main beneficiary of his charitable Scheherazade.2, a reimagining of the tale of the appeal for 2017. The appeal will support inspirational legendary heroine of One Thousand and One Nights. projects such as an open access choral programme, The LSO was fortunate to give the UK premiere of creative workshops for young people in special this work in October 2015, and it is a great pleasure schools and hospitals, and guided orchestral to welcome back violinist Leila Josefowicz, for whom concerts for school pupils at all levels. this piece was composed, to perform the work again. Both John Adams and Leila Josefowicz will also join thelordmayorsappeal.org the Orchestra in taking tonight’s programme on tour to Paris and Dijon later this week. SOUND UNBOUND 2017: I hope you enjoy tonight’s performance and that THE BARBICAN CLASSICAL WEEKENDER you can join the LSO at the Barbican again soon. On Wednesday 14 December violinist James Ehnes Early-bird passes are now available for Sound Unbound returns to perform Shostakovich’s First Violin 2017, the Barbican’s Classical Weekender, which takes Concerto alongside conductor Fabien Gabel. place on 29 and 30 April 2017. With 60 short sessions featuring everything from symphony orchestras to solo concerts, the Festival showcases the infinite variety of music, including film scores by John Williams performed by the LSO, cutting-edge new commissions, and performances by world-class soloists. Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Managing Director barbican.org.uk/soundunbound London Symphony Orchestra Ligeti’s Le grand Sat 14 & Sun 15 Jan 2017 Barbican Hall Sir Simon Rattle conductor Peter Sellars director London Symphony Chorus Simon Halsey chorus director A SEMI-STAGED PERFORMANCE produced by the LSO and Barbican Part of LSO 2016/17 Season and Barbican Presents Death walks into an opera, a fat prince falls off his horse and the end of the world is passed over in a drunken haze 4 Programme Notes 8 December 2016 Béla Bartók (1881–1945) Hungarian Sketches (1931) 1 AN EVENING WITH THE SZÉKLERS (ESTE A SZÉKELYEKNÉL) The alternation of slow and fast tempos in ‘An 2 BEAR DANCE (MEDVETÁNC) Evening with the Széklers’ has each section led by 3 AIR (MÉLODIA) a wind instrument; its affecting simplicity provides 4 A BIT TIPSY (KICSIT ÁZOTTAN) an effective curtain-raiser to the five movements 5 DANCE OF THE UROG SWINEHERDS (ÜRÖGI KANÁSZTÁNC) and sets off the gruff vigour of the ‘Bear Dance’ ideally. The ‘Air’ manages to strike a fine balance PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER The strains of folk-song flow strongly through between reflective and questing moods before JAN SMACZNY is the Sir Hamilton western art music in many eras, though never an exquisitely gentle conclusion. With irregular Harty Professor of Music at Queen’s more powerfully than in the early 20th century. rhythms and moments of sentimentality from the University, Belfast. A well-known Janácˇek and Vaughan Williams, both avid collectors strings, ‘A Bit Tipsy’ conveys superbly a sense of writer and broadcaster, he specialises of folk-song, willingly incorporated their findings near inebriation. By way of a finale, the ‘Dance of in the life and works of Dvorˇák and into many of their compositions. Bartók, however, the Urog Swineherds’, in which a solo clarinet takes Czech opera, and has published transcended both. Much encouraged by his exact the melody over excitable rhythms in the strings, books on the repertoire of the contemporary Zoltán Kodály, he discovered develops an exhilarating sense of impetus before Prague Provisional Theatre and an enthusiasm for Hungarian folk-song early a slightly quizzical close. Dvorˇák’s Cello Concerto. in the 20th century which led in short order to arrangements of melodies and, by 1907, serious collecting trips first in Slovakia, Transylvania and LSO LIVE NEW RELEASE ZOLTÁN KODÁLY (1882–1967) further east in Europe, and in 1913, North Africa. BARTÓK, STRAVINSKY AND PROKOFIEV was a Hungarian composer, linguist and philosopher. Kodály also took Even before 1910, folk-song was well integrated Stravinsky The Firebird a keen interest in education, and into Bartók’s developing compositional style and Bartók is known for creating the ‘Kodály permeates the piano collections he wrote between Piano Concerto No 3 method’, a system of music 1908 and 1911. While Bartók developed a modernist Bartók education for children that sought and more abrasive style during the 1910s and into The Miraculous Mandarin to develop musicality at an early the 1920s, there was no real sense of incongruity, Prokofiev age, with exercises that focused and when returning to these much earlier piano Romeo and Juliet – Suite on listening, singing and movement pieces in 1931 he made arrangements of five of before studying musical notation. them for orchestra entitled Hungarian Sketches. Valery Gergiev conductor Kodály met Bartók around the time The first two (No 1 is often translated as ‘An Evening Yefim Bronfman piano the former had started to collect in the Village’) were from the Ten Easy Pieces of folk songs in 1905, and the two 1908; the ‘Air’ is taken from the Four Dirges; and ‘An outstanding performance … Gergiev, hands men were lifelong friends and ‘A Bit Tipsy’ is from Three Burlesques. The more constantly aflutter, brought even the most champions of each other’s music. overtly folk-derived ‘Dance of the Urog Swineherds’ insignificant transition passages to vivid life.’ is from the large For Children collection. The Guardian £11.99 Buy now | lsolive.lso.co.uk lso.co.uk Programme Notes 5 Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Orpheus (1947) SCENE 1 lover, a harp representing his lyre, over a chorale-like 1 LENTO SOSTENUTO theme played by strings. Orpheus’ friends (represented 2 AIR DE DANSE: ANDANTE CON MOTO by woodwind) arrive to offer condolences, and the 3 DANCE OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH: L’ISTESSO TEMPO Angel of Death, represented by a solo violin, appears 4 INTERLUDE: L’ISTESSO TEMPO (Air de danse). The Angel takes Orpheus to Hades to seek his dead wife; during an atmospheric Interlude, SCENE 2 they appear in the gloom of the Underworld, their 1 PAS DES FURIES: AGITATO IN PIANO arrival heralded by trumpet calls. 2 AIR DE DANSE (ORPHEUS): GRAVE 3 INTERLUDE: L’ISTESSO TEMPO Scene Two introduces the Furies, who dance agitatedly, 4 AIR DE DANSE (CONCLUDED): L’ISTESSO TEMPO while making veiled threats towards the intruder. 5 PAS D’ACTION: ANDANTINO LEGGIADRO Stravinsky himself said that ‘the music for the Furies 6 PAS DE DEUX: ANDANTE SOSTENUTO is soft, and constantly remains on the soft level, like 7 INTERLUDE: MODERATO ASSAI most of the rest of this ballet’. Then comes a slow 8 PAS D’ACTION: VIVACE ‘Air de danse’, as Orpheus employs his lyre to move the gods of the Underworld to pity. As he dances, SCENE 3 the tormented souls in Hades stretch out their arms 1 ORPHEUS’ APOTHEOSIS: LENTO SOSTENUTO to him, imploring him to continue his heart-melting song (Interlude: L’istesso tempo). He continues his PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER Stravinsky’s penultimate ballet Orpheus was written ‘Air de danse’, and Hades calms down. The Furies WENDY THOMPSON studied at towards the end of his so-called ‘neo-Classical’ period, surround Orpheus, bind his eyes, and return Euridice the Royal College of Music, before which lasted from the 1920s to the early 1950s, after to him (Pas d’action: Andante sostenuto). The newly taking an MMus in musicology at which he began to experiment with serial techniques. reunited pair dance a Pas de deux, but Orpheus King’s College, London. In addition Orpheus was begun in the autumn of 1946 in response can no longer bear not to see his wife. He tears the to writing about music she is to a commission from Lincoln Kirstein, founder of the bandage from his eyes, and Euridice falls dead once Executive Director of Classic Arts Ballet Society (later the New York City Ballet), and the more (plucked strings). In a third Interlude, Orpheus Productions, a major supplier of choreographer George Balanchine who, like Stravinsky, returns to Earth, and in a violent and dramatic programmes to BBC Radio. had emigrated to the US from his native Georgia.
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