London Symphony Orchestra Living Music

Tue 12 May 2015 7.30pm Barbican Hall

LSO INTERNATIONAL VIOLIN FESTIVAL NIKOLAJ ZNAIDER

Balakirev arr Lyapunov Islamey Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto INTERVAL Shostakovich Symphony No 15

London’s Symphony Orchestra Valery Gergiev conductor Nikolaj Znaider violin

Concert finishes approx 9.45pm

The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds CBE

International Violin Festival Media Partner 2 Welcome 12 May 2015

Welcome Living Music Kathryn McDowell In Brief

Tonight it is a real pleasure to welcome violinist PANUFNIK COMPOSERS WORKSHOP 2015 Nikolaj Znaider, a great friend of the Orchestra, who regularly appears with the LSO as both a soloist and, Witness a pivotal point in the process of putting in more recent years, as a conductor. He last joined together a new orchestral piece on Friday 5 June the Orchestra on-stage in December, conducting as the LSO works with the latest set of Panufnik Mahler’s First Symphony; this evening, for the next Composers, under the guidance of composer instalment of the LSO International Violin Festival, Colin Matthews and conductor François-Xavier Roth. he plays Tchaikovsky’s lyrical Violin Concerto, one Tickets are free; book by phoning the Box Office of the great works of the violin repertoire. on 020 7638 8891.

The concert is conducted by Valery Gergiev, The Panufnik Composers Scheme is generously marking the conclusion of his Russians series with supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust a performance of Shostakovich’s final symphony. lso.co.uk/composers I would like to thank Jonathan Moulds for his generous support of the LSO International Violin Festival, and our media partner The Strad. You can read coverage THE STRAD SUNDAYS of the Festival in The Strad magazine or on their website, or visit the next of their free The Strad Sunday The Strad celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, events on 28 June, featuring a photography exhibition and to mark this milestone it is partnering with the and pre-concert panel discussion. LSO during the International Violin Festival to host three free The Strad Sundays, where you can find out I hope that you enjoy the performance. For more about the string world and the art of violin making. Russian music, join us in Trafalgar Square on 17 May for the fourth annual BMW LSO Open Air Classics, Sunday 28 June featuring an all-Shostakovich programme conducted 3–5.30pm, Fountain Room – Photography Exhibition by Gergiev in this iconic London landmark. 6pm, Barbican Hall – Panel Discussion Making instrument lessons fun for kids

lso.co.uk/violinfestival

Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Managing Director A WARM WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS

Tonight we are delighted to welcome: The Mariinsky Theatre Trust

lso.co.uk/groups lso.co.uk LSO International Violin Festival 3

Coming soon LSO International Violin Festival

There are few violinists to match him at the moment. The Guardian, on Christian Tetzlaff

CHRISTIAN TETZLAFF JANINE JANSEN JAMES EHNES AT LSO ST LUKE’S Sun 24 May 2015 7.30pm, Barbican Tue 2 Jun 2015 7.30pm, Barbican Sun 7 Jun 2015 7.30pm, Barbican

Beethoven Violin Concerto Edward Rushton I nearly went, there* Bartók Divertimento for Strings Thu 21 May 2015 1pm, LSO St Luke’s Brahms German Requiem Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Korngold Violin Concerto BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert Mahler Symphony No 5 Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances Christian Tetzlaff violin Daniel Harding conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin Daniel Harding conductor Marin Alsop conductor Fri 22 May 2015 12.30pm, LSO St Luke’s London Symphony Chorus Janine Jansen violin James Ehnes violin Free Friday Lunchtime Concert Roman Simovic violin LSO Platforms * UK premiere Rachel Leach presenter 6pm – Chamber music for strings by Beethoven performed by students from the Guildhall School of Music 020 7638 8891

The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds CBE lso.co.uk/violinfestival 4 Programme Notes 12 May 2015

Mily Balakirev (1836–1910) Islamey Op 18 (1869, arr Sergei Lyapunov 1912)

The music of the east exerted a powerful fascination Islamey is notorious as a fiendishly difficult piece on many 19th-century Russian composers: it can for solo piano. Nevertheless, the Italian composer be heard in such influential works as Glinka’s opera Alfredo Casella made an orchestral transcription Ruslan and Lyudmila, Borodin’s Prince Igor, Rimsky of it in 1907 and showed it to Balakirev, who Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Balakirev’s Islamey, recommended it to his publisher Jurgenson. PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER described as an ‘Oriental Fantasy for piano’ and ANDREW HUTH is a musician, composed in the autumn of 1869. Lyapunov’s orchestration was made in 1912, two writer and translator who writes years after Balakirev’s death. It was prompted by extensively on French, Russian When Balakirev first thought of Islamey, it was a charity ballet performance at the Mariinsky Theatre and Eastern European music. intended as a sketch for a large symphonic poem in St Petersburg. The choreographer Mikhail Fokine which had been taking shape in his mind, but the wanted to present part of Scheherazade, but Rimsky- orchestral work eventually called Tamara did not Korsakov’s widow objected, and he was forced to appear until 1882, by which time Islamey had look around for a similar oriental subject. He settled RUSSIAN ORIENTALISM already become famous in its own right. on Islamey, in Casella’s orchestration. Lyapunov at The late-19th and early-20th first protested at what he saw as a ‘profanation’ centuries saw the movement in ‘The majestic beauty of luxuriant of the work, but then decided to provide his own Russian art and culture known orchestration. This largely follows Balakirev’s own as Orientalism, with works in this nature there and the beauty of orchestral practices, with bold primary orchestral style depicting a romanticised view the inhabitants that harmonises colours and an uninhibited use of percussion. of the far east. In classical music Orientalism is characterised by with it – all these things together ornamented melodic lines, chromatic made a deep impression on me.’ accompanying figures, drone basses Balakirev on his travels to Caucasus, and exotic use of percussion. the trip that inspired Islamey

The overall shape of Islamey is quite simple: the first section presents and develops two related themes which Balakirev had heard during his visits to the Caucasus, where he was thrilled by the landscapes, the people and their music. A slower central section is based on a Tartar melody from the Crimea which Balakirev heard sung by an Armenian actor in Tchaikovsky’s Moscow flat in the summer of 1869 (the two men were then close friends). A third section is a varied and concentrated reprise of the first, followed by a dashing coda. lso.co.uk Programme Notes 5

Mily Balakirev Composer Profile London Symphony Orchestra

Mily Balakirev grew up down the Volga river from BMW LSO OPEN AIR CLASSICS Moscow in the provincial city of Nizhny Novgorod. But it was St Petersburg that beckoned, and the young Balakirev’s musical ambitions drove him to abandon his mathematical studies and pursue the artistic life in Russia’s cultural capital. His decision was quickly validated and the young composer rose to prominence in the city’s thriving intellectual community, eventually becoming part of a group known as The Five. Together with Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev rallied against the bourgeoise musical establishment, championing the untempered creative spirit of the autodidact and the inherent value of Russia’s rich folk culture. SUN 17 MAY 6.30PM, TRAFALGAR SQUARE

Because of his experience, Balakirev took on the Join the LSO in Trafalgar Square for the fourth unofficial role of mentor to the group but became BMW LSO Open Air Classics concert, an annual, somewhat of an authoritarian. He would reject free performance in this iconic London location. outright any musical opinion that differed from his This year’s concert, led by Principal Conductor own, which led to all of the Five’s music sounding Valery Gergiev, explores a selection of dramatic increasingly similar and more like his own. These works by Shostakovich. personal insecurities, magnified by a personality prone to bouts of intense depression, led to a Shostakovich nervous breakdown in 1871, when Balakirev Festive Overture abandoned all aspects of his musical life to find Violin Concerto No 1: Passacaglia & Burlesque solace in the Russian Orthodox Church. He also Jazz Suites: Selections (arr Gareth Glyn) * resigned from the directorship of the Free Music Symphony No 1 School in St Petersburg and found a comfortable position as a railway clerk away from the city. Valery Gergiev conductor By this point he had stopped composing altogether. Nicola Benedetti violin He eventually returned five years later to resume Paul Rissmann presenter his duties as director and began to write music in London Symphony Orchestra a style similar to his younger days, but tragically LSO On Track * lacking in passion. He retired in 1895 and devoted Guildhall School musicians * his remaining years to composition.

Composer Profile by Mark Parker lso.co.uk/openair 6 Programme Notes 12 May 2015

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93) Violin Concerto in D major Op 35 (1878)

1 ALLEGRO MODERATO ‘different kind of love’ – and along with another 2 CANZONETTA Tchaikovsky brother, Modest, played godfather to 3 FINALE: ALLEGRO VIVACISSIMO the masterpiece Tchaikovsky completed so rapidly at Clarens that spring. NIKOLAJ ZNAIDER VIOLIN The Violin Concerto is indebted to Kotek’s Poor Tchaikovsky, forever typecast as the bard of demonstration of the possible in instrumental unhappy love and suicidal despair. Even his ballet technique – the concerto’s Spielbarkeit, as scores, the greatest ever composed, have been Tchaikovsky later put it; in spite of which the young conveniently labelled as escapist. Yet as his finest man did nothing to champion the work in critic, Hermann Laroche, wrote around the time St Petersburg or Moscow. Nor did its first dedicatee, PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER of The Sleeping Beauty’s premiere, the composer the much more experienced virtuoso Leopold Auer. DAVID NICE writes, lectures and may have been an ‘elegist by nature’ but the Tchaikovsky was to be eternally grateful to Adolf broadcasts on music, notably ‘other Tchaikovsky’ was just as real – ‘nice, happy, Brodsky, who gave the European premiere in the for BBC Radio 3 and BBC Music brimming with health, inclined to humour’. face of scurrilous abuse from top Viennese music Magazine. His books include short critic Eduard Hanslick, and first performed it in Russia. studies of Richard Strauss, Elgar, ‘A PERFECTLY SOUND AND HEALTHY MAN’ Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, and a Tchaikovsky even managed to tap in to that side THE MUSIC Prokofiev biography, From Russia after the biggest crisis of his life. The collapse of his It is hard to see what Auer and Kotek found so to the West 1891–1935. disastrous marriage to the unfortunate Antonina problematic about the work, since unlike the Milyukova in 1877 sent him abroad to escape colossal First Piano Concerto, which caused its wagging Russian tongues. There he attempted to dedicatee Nikolay Rubinstein such problems, the shuck off his depression in Paris, Montreux, Rome Violin Concerto’s lyrical flow of inspired material is and Florence. He succeeded by degrees, until very much in the central European tradition. Not that a heavenly spring by the lakeside at Clarens in Tchaikovsky is without his originalities; the smiling Switzerland rekindled his creative inspiration. He graciousness of the piece is something he derived returned to Russia in April 1878 as ‘a perfectly sound from two French scores he had come to adore just and healthy man, full of new powers and energy’. before composing the concerto, Delibes’ ballet Sylvia and Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole. Crucial to his sense of stability was the new-found patronage, and its attendant financial security, Clever, too, is the way the introductory collective of the wealthy Nadezhda von Meck, to whom he violins engage what is to become the principal unfolded the progress of his tormented Fourth theme in anticipatory dialogue with the woodwind – Symphony. Equally important was the mutual friend a subtle hallmark throughout, close to the world of who had introduced them. Josef Kotek, Meck’s the pastoral first act in the recently completed opera house violinist and a one-time pupil of Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin – before the soloist launches into it at the Moscow Conservatory, travelled with the from a soulful cadenza. composer – whose former infatuation with him had changed, Tchaikovsky told his brother Anatoly, into a lso.co.uk Programme Notes 7

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Composer Profile

The opening movement has been criticised for Tchaikovsky was born in the Vyatka province of its lack of contrasts, but wholesome, seemingly Russia on 7 May 1840; his father was a mining improvisatory charm is Tchaikovsky’s aim here, engineer, and his mother was of French extraction. with violinistic fireworks coming as an afterthought. In 1848 the family moved to the imperial capital, The second lyrical subject, even more expressive St Petersburg, where Pyotr was enrolled at the than the first, embraces fleeting sadness and the School of Juris­prudence. He overcame his grief furrowed brows of the development are entirely at his mother’s death in 1854 by composing and the orchestra’s, not the violinist’s, concern; this performing, and music remained a diversion from his is bracketed excitingly by the only full-blooded job – as a clerk at the Ministry of Justice – until he ensemble in the piece – a swaggering, polonaise- enrolled as a full-time student at the St Petersburg like treatment of the main theme. Conservatory in 1863.

Even the melancholy of the central Canzonetta is Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony was warmly received that of the conventional Russian romance, scored at its St Petersburg premiere in 1868. Swan Lake, the with extreme refinement. Tchaikovsky wrote it as first of his three great ballet scores, was written in an afterthought, prompted by Modest’s and Kotek’s 1876 for Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. Between 1869 criticisms of the original Andante molto cantabile and the year of his death, he composed over 100 which resurfaces as the Meditation of his Op 42 songs, cast mainly in the impassioned Romance pieces for violin and piano, Souvenir d’un lieu style and textually preoccu­­pied with the frustration cher. Like the movement it replaces, the substitute and despair associated with love, con­ditions that Canzonetta offers a pensive woodwind introduction, characterised his personal relationships. a melancholy song for the violin and a central consolation. Yet it goes one further by linking both Tchaikovsky’s hasty decision to marry an almost poetically and literally to the concluding folk-festival, unknown admirer in 1877 proved a disaster, his which is also connected to the first movement by homosexuality combining strongly with his sense of virtue of its bucolic exchanges between soloist, entrapment. By now he had completed his Fourth strings and woodwind. Few listeners, however, Symphony, was about to finish his opera Eugene will have the time or the inclination to mull over Onegin, and had attracted the considerable financial such subtleties, so brilliant and intoxicating is and moral support of Nadezhda von Meck, an Tchaikovsky’s most genuinely vivacious finale. affluent widow. She helped him through his personal crisis and in 1878 he returned to com­position with INTERVAL – 20 minutes the Violin Concerto. Tchaikovsky claimed that his There are bars on all levels of the Concert Hall; ice cream Sixth Symphony represented his best work. The can be bought at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. mood of crushing despair heard in all but the work’s The Barbican shop will also be open. third movement­ reflected the composer’s troubled state of mind. He committed suicide nine days after Why not tweet us your thoughts on the first half of the its premiere on 6 November 1893. performance @londonsymphony, or come and talk to LSO staff at the Information Desk on the Circle level? Composer Profile © Andrew Stewart 8 LSO International Violin Festival 12 May 2015

Artist Focus Nikolaj Znaider

1 MOVEMENT ONE 2 MOVEMENT TWO 3 MOVEMENT THREE I first learned [the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto] at 13 or 14. It’s such NAME NAME INSTRUMENT a seductive piece, you have to play it – Programme note body. it’s so well written, so beautiful, with

If note goes over a spread. so many things in it. I don’t think you can start too early. It’s a good piece PROGRAMME NOTE AUTHOR Last paragraph. LINDSAY KEMP is a senior to grow with as a violinist, because it producer for BBC Radio 3, including has all the challenges, all the difficulties. programming lunchtime concerts from LSO St Luke’s, Artistic Director Physically, it’s one of the hardest pieces of the Lufthansa Festival of to play – it’s a great workout! Baroque Music, and a regular contributor to Gramophone magazine.

LSO INTERNATIONAL VIOLIN Nikolaj Znaider’s violin is the ‘Kreisler’ Guarneri Znaider says: ‘I love this violin for its unique voice, FESTIVAL: FIND OUT MORE ‘del Gesù’ of 1741, which he has been playing for its variety of colours and power. I can trust that it will almost eight years, on extended loan from the always be heard. Of course anything worthwhile isn’t Get to know the soloists in the Royal Danish Theatre through the generosity of simple – the instrument goes through phases where LSO International Violin Festival the Velux Foundation and the Knud Højgaard it’s more moody and you have to know the right way and find out more about their Foundation. It replaced the ‘Liebig’ Stradivarius to caress it, but volume is so important and I don’t instruments on our website, of 1704, which Znaider began playing in 2003. want to have to worry about that. This violin has featuring in-depth profiles, volume in abundance.’ interviews, live-streamed artist The violin was famously played by Fritz Kreisler in conversations and more. all of his concerts and recordings between 1904 and 1919. Kreisler gave the first performance lso.co.uk/violinfestival of Elgar’s Violin Concerto on the violin in 1910. A century later, Znaider celebrated the work’s centenary with a global tour, culminating in a concert with the LSO on the anniversary day, in which he played the Concerto on the very same instrument. Something for every mood with the London Symphony Orchestra To roll our online dice, visit: lso.co.uk/findmeaconcert

London Symphony Orchestra London’s Music

lso.co.uk/findmeaconcert 10 Programme Notes 12 May 2015

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–75) Symphony No 15 in A major Op 141 (1971)

1 ALLEGRETTO 1969 by its concentration on poems dealing with the 2 ADAGIO – LARGO un-Soviet subject of death, but it could never have 3 ALLEGRETTO been intended as a work of mass appeal. 4 AGAGIO – ALLEGRETTO Symphony No 15 was composed in July/August PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER All the contradictions and paradoxes of Shostakovich’s 1971 and premiered in Moscow on 8 January 1972 ANDREW HUTH career seem to come to a head in his last symphony, under the composer’s son Maxim. Scored for a fairly written four years before his death. The surface had standard orchestra (but with plenty of percussion), never been more lucid, the ideas never more clearly and cast in the standard four movements, in and forcefully presented, and their actual meaning standard proportions, it was Shostakovich’s most never more enigmatic. In the years since it was first outwardly conventional symphony since No 10 in performed, the 15th Symphony has fascinated and 1953. It was also his first symphony since the Tenth QUOTATION AND PARODY puzzled listeners in equal measure, and perhaps to be free of any titles, texts or other extra-musical A distinctive feature of even suffered from the swarm of conjectures associations. In common with much of his late music, Shostakovich’s musical style is speculating about its autobiographical meaning the textures are often very sparse, at times pared the frequent use of quotation and rather than trying to explain its effect on the listener. down to solo lines for single instruments. It is a style parody. His entire compositional where every note counts. output, from the youthful First By the mid-1960s the official pressures that had Symphony to his final work, the tormented Shostakovich for so much of his life had An important aspect of this symphony is its huge Viola Sonata, is peppered with begun to ease off. He had eventually come to a tacit range of expression: from the playful and ironic musical quotation. These range agreement with the Soviet authorities: he read the to the deeply tragic; from sparse textures to full from tongue-in-cheek references right speeches, signed the right articles (he usually orchestral scoring; from the epic to the enigmatically to popular tunes and allusions to didn’t even bother to read what was prepared for personal; from the assertive to the resigned. his own works, to the recurring him) and generally behaved himself in public. He This aspect emerges from the flexible nature of use of personal musical motifs, took no part in the growing dissident movement, and the themes themselves, which can be extended the most famous and recognisable didn’t seem to care what words were attributed to indefinitely, or wander off into distant regions, of which is his famous ‘DSCH’ him, as long as he could speak the truth in his music. changing their shape and character, suggesting (D, E-flat, C, B) musical signature. further themes, or twisting themselves into quotations His last serious confrontation with the Soviet state of other music. They vary from childishly simple tunes, had occurred in 1962, with Symphony No 13. The like the opening of the first movement, to complex authorities had objected to the texts by Yevtushenko, themes which include all twelve notes of the which were understood as a direct attack on many chromatic scale. aspects of Soviet life. This proved to be the last of Shostakovich’s big public works, for his music was FIRST MOVEMENT moving into a more private sphere, speaking in Since Shostakovich’s own public comments about a quieter voice and to a more intimate audience. his music were often trite or even deliberately The 14th Symphony – a cycle of eleven poems for misleading, we needn’t take too seriously the rather soprano and baritone accompanied by a small string banal ‘toy shop at night’ image with which he is orchestra with percussion – invited disapproval in supposed to have explained the Symphony’s first lso.co.uk Programme Notes 11

SHOSTAKOVICH on LSO LIVE movement. The opening bars, though, suggest an weary trombone glissando, a gesture also found in interesting parallel with another last symphony, the scherzo movement of Nielsen’s Sixth Symphony, Symphonies which Shostakovich apparently knew: Nielsen’s Sixth no doubt quite coincidentally. Nos 5, 8 & 11 (1925). This too begins with an innocent chiming £8.99 each on the glockenspiel and a naïve woodwind figure. FINALE lsolive.lso.co.uk Nielsen intended to write a work that was both The finale begins with another unexplained quotation simple and idyllic, but couldn’t achieve it: ill-health, from someone else’s music: the doom-laden brass Discover three of Shostakovich’s depression and disillusion led him into strange, motive from Wagner’s Ring associated with fate earlier symphonies on LSO Live, complex territory where innocence is threatened by and death, followed by the timpani rhythm from all conducted by the late Mstislav experience and hostility. A similar approach may well Siegfried’s Funeral March; and the repeated bass Rostropovich and recorded at the lie behind the first movement of Shostakovich’s 15th pattern introduced by pizzicato cellos and basses Barbican between 2002 and 2004. (but with a streak of bitterness and sarcasm foreign in the middle of the movement recalls the motive to Nielsen) and help explain the impudence of the of mechanised evil which is repeated over and ‘Deeply felt and superbly executed.’ quotations from Rossini’s Overture to William Tell over again in the first movement of Shostakovich’s BBC Music Magazine which seem so wildly inappropriate, but which grow Seventh Symphony (‘Leningrad’). (Symphony No 11) so naturally out of Shostakovich’s own themes. Symphony No 15 contains other veiled allusions ‘This must surely be the benchmark SECOND MOVEMENT to earlier works, stressing its autobiographical for this shattering work.’ The elegy of the second movement, as far removed dimension, but these cross-references and Daily Telegraph (Symphony No 8) as possible from the innocence aspired to in the quotations are so absorbed as to become a natural first, moves from the most withdrawn type of music part of the symphonic discourse. They certainly add (a solo cello) to the most violent, as the rhythms a layer of private meaning to the music, but they of a funeral march introduced by a pair of flutes are by no means the only key to its understanding, eventually build up to a massive and violent climax, which each listener must find from immediate the first occasion in the symphony when the entire experience. The finale ends with an effect of orchestra is playing. In the wake of this huge climax both simplicity and distance. It is not so much a the music seems to express exhaustion or numbed resolution as a ‘freeze’, the cold ticking of percussion shock, with some of the eeriest sounds in the instruments against a frozen A major chord in the Symphony, such as a passage for vibraphone, strings, an ending as mysterious as anything else in cello harmonics and solo double bass. this strangest and most bewildering of symphonies.

THIRD MOVEMENT The third movement, in common with so many other of Shostakovich’s scherzo movements, is short, spiky, uncomfortable in its distortions and twisted rhythms. There is a brief appearance of Shostakovich’s musical signature (the notes D, E-flat, C, B-natural, giving DSCH in German musical notation); here it is accompanied by a 12 Composer Profile 12 May 2015

Dmitri Shostakovich Composer Profile

Acclaim came not only from the Russian audience, who gave the work a 40-minute ovation, but also from musicians and critics overseas. If they With the outbreak of war against Nazi Germany in cut off both hands, June 1941, Shostakovich began to compose and arrange pieces to boost public morale. He lived I will compose music anyway through the first months of the German siege of Leningrad, serving as a member of the auxiliary holding the pen in my teeth. fire service. In July he began work on the first three movements of his Seventh Symphony, completing Dmitri Shostakovich to Isaac Glikman in 1936 the defiant finale after his evacuation in October and dedicating the score to the city. A micro- filmed copy was despatched by way of Tehran After early piano lessons with his mother, Shostakovich and an American warship to the US, where it was enrolled at the Petrograd Conservatory in 1919. broadcast by the NBC Symphony Orchestra and He supplemented his family’s meagre income from Toscanini. In 1943 Shostakovich completed his his earnings as a cinema pianist, but progressed Eighth Symphony, its emotionally shattering music to become a composer and concert pianist compared by one critic to Picasso’s Guernica. following the critical success of his First Symphony in 1926 and an ‘honourable mention’ in the In 1948 Shostakovich and other leading composers, 1927 Chopin International Piano Competition in Prokofiev among them, were forced by the Warsaw. Over the next decade he embraced Soviet cultural commissar, Andrey Zhdanov, to the ideal of composing for Soviet society, and concede that their work represented ‘most his Second Symphony was dedicated to the strikingly the formalistic perversions and anti- October Revolution of 1917. democratic tendencies in music’, a crippling blow to Shostakovich’s artistic freedom that was healed Shostakovich announced his Fifth Symphony of only after the death of Stalin in 1953. Shostakovich 1937 as ‘a Soviet artist’s practical creative reply answered his critics later that year with the powerful to just criticism’. A year before its premiere he Tenth Symphony, in which he portrays ‘human had drawn a stinging attack from the official Soviet emotions and passions’, rather than the collective mouthpiece Pravda, in an article headed ‘Muddle dogma of Communism. A few years before the instead of music’, in which Shostakovich’s initially completion of his final and bleak String Quartet No 15, successful opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk Shostakovich suffered his second heart attack and District was condemned for its extreme modernism. the onset of severe arthritis. Many of his final works – ‘It is leftist bedlam instead of human music,’ in particular the penultimate symphony (No 14) – the article claimed. When the Fifth Symphony are preoccupied with the subject of death. was premiered in Leningrad, the composer’s reputation and career were rescued. Composer Profile © Andrew Stewart London Symphony Orchestra Living Music

2015/16 SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

MAN OF THE THEATRE SHAKESPEARE 400 THE POWER OF THE VOICE Valery Gergiev conducts dramatic ballet Concerts celebrating the influence of an Immersive choral works, performed with scores by Stravinsky and Bartók iconic figure of literary history the London Symphony Chorus

Fri 9 Oct 2015 Thu 16 Feb 2016 Fri 6 Nov 2015 Stravinsky The Firebird Mendelssohn with Sir John Eliot Gardiner Bernstein Chichester Psalms with James Gaffigan Sun 11 Oct 2015 Thu 25 Feb 2016 Stravinsky The Rite of Spring Smetana, Tchaikovsky & Strauss Sun 20 Mar 2016 with Gianandrea Noseda Schumann Scenes from Goethe’s Faust Sun 18 Oct 2015 with Daniel Harding Bartók The Miraculous Mandarin Sun 28 Feb 2016 Berlioz with Sir John Eliot Gardiner Sun 17 Apr 2016 Haydn The Seasons (sung in German) 020 7638 8891 | lso.co.uk with Sir Simon Rattle 14 Artist Biographies 12 May 2015

Valery Gergiev ‘A memorable performance of huge Conductor theatricality and vividness.’ The Guardian

Valery Gergiev has been Principal Conductor of the He also serves as Chair of the Organisational London Symphony Orchestra since 2007, performing Committee of the International Tchaikovsky at the Barbican, BBC Proms and Edinburgh Competition, Honorary President of the Edinburgh International Festival, as well as leading the LSO on International Festival and Dean of the Faculty of Arts extensive tours of Europe, North America and Asia. at the St Petersburg State University. As Artistic and General Director of St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre since 1988, he has taken the Gergiev’s recordings on LSO Live and the Mariinsky Mariinsky ballet, opera, and orchestra ensembles to Label continually win awards in Europe, Asia and more than 50 countries and has resulted in building the United States. His recent releases on LSO Live of The Mariinsky Concert Hall (2006), the founding of include Brahms’ German Requiem, and Berlioz’s the Mariinsky Label in (2009) and the new Mariinsky II Symphonie fantastique, Waverley Overture, Harold (May 2013) alongside the classic Mariinsky Theatre. in Italy and The Death of Cleopatra. Earlier releases include the symphonies of Tchaikovsky and Mahler. He is Principal Conductor of the World Orchestra Recent releases on the Mariinsky Label include for Peace and in 2016 he assumes the role of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 2; Principal Conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 3 and Symphony Principal Conductor Orchestra. His other roles include Founder and No 5; Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet; and Mussorgsky’s London Symphony Orchestra Artistic Director of the Stars of the White Nights and Pictures at an Exhibition, Night on the Bare Mountain, New Horizons festivals in St Petersburg, the Moscow and Songs and Dances of Death. Artistic & General Director Easter Festival, Rotterdam Philharmonic’s Gergiev Mariinsky Theatre Festival, the Red Sea Classical Music Festival in Eilat, Valery Gergiev’s many awards include the People’s Israel and the Mikkeli Music Festival. In July 2013 Artist of Russia, the Dmitri Shostakovich Award, the Principal Conductor he led the debut international tour of the National Polar Music Prize, Netherland’s Knight of the Order of World Orchestra for Peace Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, the Dutch Lion, Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun and an orchestra founded by Carnegie Hall’s Weill the French Order of the Legion of Honour. Artistic Director Music Institute, and will lead them again in their Stars of the White Nights Festival 2016 tour of Europe.

Artistic Director Gergiev has led numerous composer-centered Moscow Easter Festival concert cycles in New York, London and other international cities, featuring works by Berlioz, Brahms, Dutilleux, Mahler, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and Wagner, as well as introducing audiences around the world to several rarely performed Russian operas. Future projects will include a Mariinsky celebration of Tchaikovsky’s 175th birthday and the Tchaikovsky International Competition held in St Petersburg and Moscow. lso.co.uk Artist Biographies 15

Nikolaj Znaider ‘His playing is phenomenally precise, Violin electric in its impact.’ The Guardian

Nikolaj Znaider is one of the foremost violinists of As a soloist, Znaider performs regularly with the today and combines a career as a soloist at the world’s leading orchestras. Highlights of the coming very highest level with a growing conducting career. season include performances with the Vienna A wonderfully versatile musician, Znaider has Philharmonic, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Cleveland established his credentials as a conductor over the Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst, and returns to the last several seasons, and is increasingly in demand Los Angeles Philharmonic with Andrey Boreyko and with many of the world’s leading orchestras. the Staatskapelle Dresden with Christian Thielemann. In addition, Znaider will undertake European tours Znaider is Principal Guest Conductor of the Mariinsky with the SWR Sinfonieorchester under Stéphane Orchestra in St Petersburg, where this season he Denève and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra with will conduct productions of Così fan tutte and Don Philippe Jordan, as well as a world tour with the Giovanni in addition to symphonic concerts. From Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly, the 2015/16 season, Znaider will have his own performing in Leipzig, Vienna, Houston, Washington, subscription series with the Mariinsky every season. Boston and New York. In recital and chamber music, Znaider has performed in all of the world’s major He is a regular guest conductor with orchestras concert halls. including the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Recording highlights of recent years include Elgar’s Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Violin Concerto with the late Sir Colin Davis and the Radio France, the Hallé and the Swedish Chamber Staatskapelle Dresden; award-winning recordings Orchestra, where he previously served as Principal of the Brahms and Korngold Violin Concertos with Guest Conductor. Following a very successful debut the Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev; the conducting the Cleveland Orchestra, Znaider has Beethoven and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos been invited to return for a two-week residency, with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic; and during which he will both conduct the Orchestra and Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No 2 and Glazunov’s play concertos conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. Violin Concerto with Mariss Jansons and the The 2014/15 season includes conducting and soloist Bayerischer Rundfunk. He has also recorded Brahms’ collaborations with the Staatskapelle Dresden at the complete works for violin and piano with pianist Salzburg Easter Festival and his conducting debut Yefim Bronfman. with the NDR Symphony Orchestra. Znaider is passionate about the education of young Last season Znaider was Artist-in-Residence with musical talent and was for ten years Founder and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, where he Artistic Director of the Nordic Music Academy, an conducted two symphonic programmes, and annual summer school. The Academy’s vision is to performed recitals, chamber music and concertos. create conscious and focused musical development In the 2008/09 season, he was the focus of the based on quality and real commitment. LSO’s UBS Soundscapes: LSO Artist Portrait. 16 The Orchestra 12 May 2015

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FIRST VIOLINS VIOLAS FLUTES HORNS TIMPANI SWillerton Awesome music making by Roman Simovic Leader Edward Vanderspar Gareth Davies Timothy Jones Nigel Thomas Roman Simovic and the @londonsymphony Carmine Lauri Gillianne Haddow Alex Jakeman Angela Barnes Lennox Mackenzie Malcolm Johnston Alexander Edmundson PERCUSSION strings this evening. Bleak and brilliant. Nigel Broadbent German Clavijo PICCOLOS Jonathan Lipton Neil Percy on the LSO String Ensemble concert Sharon Williams David Jackson Ginette Decuyper Anna Green Tim Ball (26 April) Gerald Gregory Robert Turner Patricia Moynihan Sam Walton Jörg Hammann Jonathan Welch TRUMPETS Jeremy Cornes OBOES Maxine Kwok-Adams Fiona Dalgliesh Philip Cobb Tom Edwards Emanuel Abbühl Alissa Firsova Just heard the most Elizabeth Pigram Caroline O’Neill Gerald Ruddock Benedict Hoffnung Ruth Contractor Claire Parfitt Alistair Scahill Daniel Newell Glyn Matthews genius, original, meaningful, unbelievably Laurent Quenelle Elizabeth Butler Robin Totterdell COR ANGLAIS HARPS amazing Tchaik 4 ever with Tugan Sokhiev Harriet Rayfield Steve Doman Maxwell Spiers TROMBONES Hugh Webb and @londonsymphony Colin Renwick Dudley Bright Tamara Young Julia Rumley CELLOS CLARINETS on the LSO with Tugan Sokhiev and Rebecca Gilliver Byron Fulcher Sylvain Vasseur Chris Richards CELESTE Baiba Skride (30 April) Alastair Blayden James Maynard Gabrielle Painter Chi-Yu Mo Catherine Edwards Jennifer Brown BASS TROMBONE SECOND VIOLINS Eve-Marie Caravassilis BASS CLARINET Paul Milner Sarah Tooke It was absolutely magical, Lorenzo Iosco Rieho Yu Daniel Gardner I’m so glad that I went! Both Nicola and the Thomas Norris Hilary Jones TUBA E-FLAT CLARINET Miya Väisänen Orlando Jopling Patrick Harrild orchestra are such an inspiration Chi-Yu Mo Naoko Keatley Deborah Tolksdorf on the LSO with Krzysztof Urban´ski and Belinda McFarlane Noel Bradshaw BASSOONS Nicola Benedetti (3 May) William Melvin Judith Herbert Daniel Jemison Iwona Muszynska Dominic Tyler Paul Robson DOUBLE BASSES Agata Policinska Colin Paris Malocco Patrick Laurence Ingrid Button Thomas Goodman Hazel Mulligan Jani Pensola Helena Smart Sebastian Pennar Matthew Gardner Simo Väisänen Gordon MacKay Matthew Gibson Joe Melvin

LSO STRING EXPERIENCE SCHEME

Established in 1992, the LSO String Experience The Scheme is supported by London Symphony Orchestra Editor Scheme enables young string players at the Help Musicians UK Barbican Edward Appleyard start of their professional careers to gain The Garrick Charitable Trust Silk Street [email protected] work experience by playing in rehearsals The Lefever Award London and concerts with the LSO. The scheme The Polonsky Foundation EC2Y 8DS Photography auditions students from the London music Igor Emmerich, Kevin Leighton, conservatoires, and 15 students per year Registered charity in England No 232391 Bill Robinson, Alberto Venzago are selected to participate. The musicians Details in this publication were correct Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 are treated as professional ’extra’ players at time of going to press. (additional to LSO members) and receive fees Advertising Cabbell Ltd 020 3603 7937 for their work in line with LSO section players.