London Symphony Orchestra Living Music Tuesday 23 May 2017 7.30pm Barbican Hall London’s Symphony Orchestra MAHLER SYMPHONY NO 9 Bernard Haitink conductor Concert finishes approx 9pm Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 2 Welcome 23 May 2017 Welcome Living Music Kathryn McDowell In Brief A warm welcome to this evening’s LSO concert. LSO PLATFORMS: GUILDHALL ARTISTS Tonight we are joined by conductor Bernard Haitink for the first of three performances with the Orchestra Before today’s concert we welcomed artists at the Barbican this season. from the Guildhall School to the stage, performing Mahler’s Piano Quartet in A minor and Webern’s Bernard Haitink is a great friend of the LSO and Piano Quintet. These performances take place our relationship with him spans many years, before certain LSO concerts and are free to attend. with his extraordinary music-making a joy for LSO musicians and audiences alike. Most recently lso.co.uk/lsoplatforms the Orchestra was honoured to perform Mahler’s Third Symphony with him at the 2016 BBC Proms. LSO LIVE NEW RELEASE This evening we perform the last symphony that Mahler completed, his Ninth, a deeply reflective The new recording of Mozart’s Serenade No 10 and emotional work written in the wake of the for Wind Instruments (‘Gran Partita’) by the LSO death of his youngest daughter and at the onset Wind Ensemble is now available on LSO Live. of his declining health. To order your copy, please visit the website: Thank you to our media partners, BBC Radio 3, lsolive.lso.co.uk who are broadcasting tonight’s concert live on air. I hope you enjoy the performance and that you can A WARM WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS join us again soon. On Sunday 28 May Bernard Haitink continues his exploration of late works with Bruckner’s Groups of 10+ receive a 20% discount on standard Ninth Symphony and choral Te Deum, before being tickets to LSO concerts, plus other exclusive benefits. joined by pianist Mitsuko Uchida on Thursday 1 June. Tonight we are delighted to welcome: British Emunah Entertains Marjorie Wilkins & Friends University of Wisconsin Kathryn McDowell CBE DL lso.co.uk/groups Managing Director London Symphony Orchestra Season 2016/17 The LSO’s Family of Conductors Summer 2017 Michael Tilson Thomas (4 & 8 Jun) MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: DANIEL HARDING: SIR SIMON RATTLE: CONDUCTOR LAUREATE 10 YEARS WITH THE LSO MUSIC DIRECTOR DESIGNATE Sun 4 Jun 7pm Daniel Harding concludes his 10-year Sun 9 Jul 7pm Stravinsky Scènes de ballet tenure as Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Norman Prokofiev Violin Concerto No 1 with Mahler’s Third Symphony. A Trip to the Moon (UK premiere) Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6 (‘Pathétique’) Sibelius Symphony No 2 Sun 25 Jun 7pm Michael Tilson Thomas conductor Mahler Symphony No 3 Sir Simon Rattle conductor Lisa Batiashvili violin Guildhall School Musicians Daniel Harding conductor LSO Discovery Choirs Thu 8 Jun 7.30pm Anna Larsson alto LSO Community Choir Brahms Piano Concerto No 2 Ladies of the Simon Halsey chorus director Nielsen Symphony No 5 London Symphony Chorus Supported by The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Simon Halsey chorus director Michael Tilson Thomas conductor Tue 11 & Wed 12 Jul 7.30pm Yuja Wang piano Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from ‘Tristan and Isolde’ Bartók Piano Concerto No 2 Haydn An imaginary orchestral journey Yuja Wang and Lang Lang’s appearances Sir Simon Rattle conductor with the LSO are generously supported by Lang Lang piano 12 July supported by LSO Music Director Donors 4 Programme Notes 23 May 2017 Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) Symphony No 9 in D major (1908–09) 1 ANDANTE COMODO (A LEISURELY WALKING PACE) circulation: Mahler had known he was going to die, 2 IM TEMPO EINES GEMÄCHLICHEN LÄNDLERS – and the Ninth Symphony was his ‘Farewell to Life’ – ETWAS TÄPPISCH UND SEHR DERB (IN A LEISURELY the title his teacher Bruckner had given to the last LÄNDLER TEMPO – RATHER AWKWARD AND COARSE) movement of his own (incomplete) Ninth Symphony. 3 RONDO-BURLESKE: ALLEGRO ASSAI – SEHR TROTZIG (VERY FAST – DEFIANT) But we should be careful about accepting this 4 ADAGIO – SEHR LANGSAM (VERY SLOW) reading unconditionally. Mahler may have been shaken by the discovery of his heart problem, PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER When Gustav Mahler died in 1911, not quite 51 years but it wasn’t until the last year of his life that he STEPHEN JOHNSON is the author old, he left two works complete but unperformed: began to slacken the pace of his frantically busy of Bruckner Remembered (Faber). the symphonic song-cycle Das Lied von der Erde life. In 1909, the year after the ominous diagnosis, He also contributes regularly to BBC (The Song of the Earth) and the purely orchestral he accepted a three-year contract to conduct the Music Magazine and The Guardian, Ninth Symphony. When these works were heard for New York Philharmonic (his first season included an and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 the first time, in the year following Mahler’s death, astonishing 46 concerts). And in 1910 he had begun, (Discovering Music), BBC Radio 4 listeners were struck by their intense preoccupation and very nearly completed, a Tenth Symphony – and the BBC World Service. with mortality – clear enough in the texts of Das Lied another big orchestral symphony, beginning where von der Erde, and unmistakable in the expressive the Ninth left off, but finding its way to a very tone of the Ninth Symphony. Alban Berg, who different, more affirmative conclusion. It could be adored Mahler, described the first movement as that Mahler thought that his days in the shadow of ‘the expression of an exceptional fondness for death were over, for the moment at least, and that this earth, the longing to live in peace on it, to he could now look forward to exploring new musical enjoy nature to its depths – before death comes. directions. The Tenth Symphony is full of pointers to For he comes irresistibly. The whole movement possible ways ahead. DAS LIED VON DER ERDE is permeated with premonitions of death’. is an orchestral cycle of six songs Still, when Berg wrote of the presence of death in sung by two alternating singers. A FAREWELL SYMPHONY? the Ninth Symphony, he wasn’t simply giving voice The texts are taken from a book There were good reasons why Mahler should have to a personal interpretation; the music is full of of 8th-century Chinese poetry been possessed by thoughts of death at this time. details that reinforce his words. From very early on, rendered in German by Hans Bethge He was approaching 50 when he completed his almost from the opening bars, the first movement and were chosen because their Ninth Symphony, and a 50th birthday is an important is dominated by a two-note falling figure, like a sigh themes reflected Mahler’s weighty milestone on the road from birth to death. But Mahler (first heard on violins). In the finale this figure returns, preoccupations throughout this final also had serious health worries. In 1908, a doctor had but it now falls by two steps – clearly spelling out period of his life. The music balances diagnosed a heart lesion, a condition which could the leading motif from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata the grand scale of a symphony only get worse. The previous year his elder daughter, ‘Les adieux’ (The Farewells), a work Mahler had with the intimacy required by song, Maria, had died of scarlet fever. All this was well- played in his student days. Beethoven marked his which made it difficult for even the known in musical Vienna when the Ninth Symphony motif ‘Lebe wohl’ (Farewell). composer himself to categorise. was first performed. Before long, a story was in lso.co.uk Programme Notes 5 MAHLER SYMPHONY NO 9 FIRST MOVEMENT THIRD MOVEMENT ON LSO LIVE In the first movement the two-note sigh emerges after All this is brusquely thrust aside by the Rondo – a short passage in which cellos and low horn spell or ‘Burleske’ as Mahler subtitled it. Brilliantly, out a strange, faltering rhythm, which the conductor sometimes garishly scored, this is the movement Leonard Bernstein compared to Mahler’s faltering in which Mahler shows off his contrapuntal skills; heartbeat. The exquisite long violin melody, which but a lot of it has a sarcastic tone: confirmed by grows from the first sighing figures, returns many Mahler’s dedication of this movement ‘To my times during the course of this long movement. brothers in Apollo’– a raspberry directed at the Between its appearances there are contrasting academics who found fault with his compositional episodes: impassioned, frantic, resigned, eerie by techniques. At the heart of this movement is an turns. One passage introduced by the ‘faltering heart’ extraordinary bittersweet episode, introduced rhythm on horns, followed by sinister drum taps, by a syrupy slow tune on a solo trumpet. But the is clearly a funeral march. movement ends as it began, full of sound and fury. £7.99 Valery Gergiev conductor Towards the end of the movement comes a sinister, FINALE skeletally scored passage, in which Mahler treats Finally comes the Adagio. In placing the slow ‘Nothing can detract from the his large orchestra as though it were a much movement last, Mahler may have been thinking of excellence of this disc: it is quite smaller chamber ensemble. But it is the sense Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ symphony, or again of outstanding in every respect.’ of the sweetness of life which prevails in the final Bruckner’s Ninth – both works are overshadowed by International Record Review bars, the orchestration wonderfully delicate and thoughts of death.