London Symphony Orchestra Living Music

Sunday 1 February 2015 7.30pm Barbican Hall

ONES TO WATCH: DAVID AFKHAM

Webern Passacaglia Beethoven Piano Concerto No 3 INTERVAL Brahms Symphony No 2

David Afkham conductor London’s Symphony Orchestra Nicholas Angelich piano

Concert finishes approx 9.45pm

Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 2 Welcome 1 February 2015

Welcome Living Music Kathryn McDowell In Brief

Welcome to tonight’s LSO concert at the Barbican. THE LATEST RELEASE ON LSO LIVE It is a pleasure to be joined by David Afkham, who was previously Assistant Conductor of the Orchestra For the latest release on LSO Live, violist for two years after winning the 2008 Donatella Flick Antoine Tamestit and mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill Conducting Competition. During his time with the join forces with the LSO and for the LSO, David Afkham assisted in rehearsals and led a next instalment of Gergiev’s revelatory Berlioz series. number of educational projects with LSO Discovery, This new recording features Harold in Italy, which and in later seasons worked with his mentor Bernard uses a solo viola to depict the dreamy Harold’s Haitink. Since then, he has established a successful wanderings through the countryside, and The Death international career and we are delighted to see him of Cleopatra, an experimental cantata. Available to return tonight for his debut in the LSO’s season. pre-order now, on SACD and download.

This evening’s concert also features American lso.co.uk/lsolive pianist Nicholas Angelich in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. This marks Nicholas Angelich’s second appearance on the Barbican stage with BBC RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERTS IN 2015 the Orchestra, and he is also a regular guest at LSO St Luke’s, where he has performed in several Brighten up your Thursday lunchtimes and join us BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concerts. for a new series of BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concerts, beginning at LSO St Luke’s on Thursday 5 February. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our For the first four performances cellist Natalie Clein media partners BBC Radio 3, who are broadcasting curates her own series, joined by some of her this evening’s performance live, and Classic FM, regular musical collaborators. supporters of our ‘Ones to Watch’ series. lso.co.uk/lunchtimeconcerts Please join us again for another LSO concert in the month ahead. For our next performance, on Thursday 5 February, Sir Mark Elder conducts A WARM WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS works by Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, with mezzo- soprano Susan Graham as soloist. The LSO offers great benefits for groups of 10+. Tonight we are delighted to welcome: The Hospital Kosher Meals Service Elizabeth Simpson & Friends Anne Parrish & Friends Faversham Music Club Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Managing Director lso.co.uk/groups lso.co.uk Programme Notes 3

Anton Webern (1883–1945) Anton Webern Passacaglia Op 1 (1908) Composer Profile

PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER Webern’s 1908 Passacaglia is a transitionary work. Born in in 1883, Anton Webern was GAVIN PLUMLEY is a writer, Composed as the last of his student pieces under introduced to music by his mother, a talented broadcaster and musicologist. the supervision of Arnold Schoenberg, it also amateur pianist. He later studied piano, and He has written for The Guardian symbolises the beginning of Webern’s career as an music theory with Edwin Komauer in Klagenfurt, and The Independent on Sunday independent composer, bearing his first official opus and in 1902 enrolled as a student at the University and appeared on BBC Radio 3 number. Formally, it looks back to the contrapuntal of Vienna. From the autumn of 1904 until 1908, and Radio 4. Gavin commissions canons and passacaglias of the Baroque period, in Webern took private composition lessons with and edits the English-language which a succession of variations emerges over the Arnold Schoenberg. The two men became close programme notes for the same repeated ground-bass figure. Yet this 1908 allies, and their pupil-teacher relationship endured Salzburg Festival. piece also has more recent models, such as the long after formal studies were concluded. extraordinary Finale to Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, in turn providing the model for Schoenberg’s brother- With limited experience and no training, Webern ALL COMPOSER PROFILES BY in-law Zemlinsky’s 1897 Symphony in B-flat major. slowly established a career as a conductor, ANDREW STEWART Webern’s chosen tonality of D minor, on the other eventually working at the Deutsches Theater hand, suggests a thoughtful tribute to Schoenberg’s in Prague during the autumn of 1917. The following evocative 1899 tone poem Verklärte Nacht. year he returned to the new Austrian Republic and took lodgings close to Schoenberg in the Vienna Such precedents aside, the work is entirely Webern’s suburb of Mödling. During the 1920s and early 1930s own. The angular theme, stated at the outset by he proved successful as a conductor, working with pizzicato strings, seems, with hindsight, to predict the Mödling Male Chorus, the Vienna Workers’ SERIALISM (or twelve-tone the tone rows of the composer’s later serial output, Symphony Concerts and the Vienna Workers’ Chorus, serialism) is a musical technique, while the work’s dark-hued chromaticism teeters and introducing new scores to his audiences. In pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg on the edge of expressionistic atonality. After the 1929 he toured as a conductor to Munich, Frankfurt, from the 1920s onwards, in which the initial group of lachrymose variations, dominated Cologne and London. His mature works, lyrical and twelve notes of the chromatic scale by sighing woodwind and horn melodies, the beautiful in nature, show a remarkable concision are arranged in a series or sequence. succeeding episodes assume an increasingly violent of thought, with formal procedures governed by In place of traditional major and edge, full of rasping trumpets and cymbals. For all his development of the twelve-tone composition minor keys, these ‘tone rows’ are this Passacaglia’s formal models and contrapuntal method pioneered by Schoenberg. used as the basis of a piece. complexities – the score is strewn with imitative gestures, passed between the various departments Following the Anschluss of 1938, Webern’s post as Schoenberg’s pupils Berg and of the orchestra – this is an emphatically emotive a conductor for Austrian Radio was withdrawn and Webern adopted the method, as did piece. A brief section in D major suggests the his music was largely ignored during the war years. later composers, who also extended sunlit havens of Mahler’s world, before the original During the siege of Vienna in 1944 he and his wife the technique to encompass other minor key returns, triggering ever more ferocious moved to Mittersill, near Salzburg, to be with their elements of music beyond pitch. outbursts, which build, at last, to a blistering climax. daughters. On the evening of 15 September 1945 All horror now unleashed, the Passacaglia draws he was shot and killed by an American soldier to a swift but shivering close, as a final D minor who is believed to have mistaken Webern for a chord brings us full circle, if offering little sense black-marketeer. of homecoming. 4 Programme Notes 1 February 2015

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor Op 37 (1800, rev 1804)

1 ALLEGRO CON BRIO Beethoven’s musical personality is stamped all over 2 LARGO the Third Piano Concerto, most unmistakably in 3 RONDO: ALLEGRO its choice of key. Almost from the beginning of his career, Beethoven had turned to C minor to express NICHOLAS ANGELICH PIANO some of his strongest sentiments, and by the time of this concerto he had already written several By the time the first two piano concertos were powerful works in that key, including the famous published in their final forms in 1801, Beethoven had ‘Pathétique’ Piano Sonata. Ironically, the inspiration for this most recognisable of Beethovenian long been at work on their successor, a piece which, emotional colourings was probably Mozart, whose he claimed, was at ‘a new and higher level’. C minor Fantasy and Sonata for solo piano and Piano Concerto No 24 provide clear anticipations Indeed, his intention had been to perform it at a of Beethoven’s C minor mood. Mozart’s concerto, benefit concert at Vienna’s Burgtheater in April 1800, a work Beethoven is known to have admired, also but in the event it was not ready and one of the appears to have provided some formal pointers. earlier concertos was substituted. It was not until 5 April 1803 that the Third was finally premiered, First Movement PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER at a concert in the Theater an der Wien which also That model is acknowledged in the opening bars, LINDSAY KEMP is a senior included the first performances of the Second where, as in the Mozart, a quiet theme is stated by producer for BBC Radio 3, including Symphony and the oratorio Christ on the Mount the strings in unison. This is the start of what turns programming lunchtime concerts of Olives. Even then the piano part had not been out to be an unusually long orchestral exposition, from LSO St Luke’s, Artistic Director written down: a fellow composer who turned but after an assertive entry it is the soloist who of the London Festival of Baroque pages for Beethoven found that they consisted delineates the movement’s formal scheme, as Music, and a regular contributor to of ‘almost nothing but empty leaves; at the most climactic trills and precipitous downward scales Gramophone magazine. on one page or the other a few Egyptian hieroglyphs, noisily signal the respective arrivals of the central wholly unintelligible to me, scribbled down to development section (characterised by flowing piano serve as clues for him’. octaves and a deliciously exotic G minor statement of the opening theme), the vital return to the The concert was a moderate success. Critics had opening theme in the home key, and the tumultuous little to say about the new concerto other than preparation for the solo cadenza. Normally in a that Beethoven’s playing was rather disappointing. concerto of this date, the soloist would not play after Yet even those familiar with the work’s predecessors the cadenza, leaving it to the orchestra to wrap up would surely have noticed that Beethoven’s pride the first movement; Beethoven, taking his lead again in it was justified. This is a more sophisticated, from Mozart, brings it back to be the prompter of an original and weighty piece than the first two atmospheric coda. concertos, one that reflects the changes that were occurring in the composer’s style as he Second Movement moved from early-period promise and brilliance to The slow movement contains what is perhaps the middle-period mastery and increasing individuality. most dramatically effective moment in the whole lso.co.uk Programme Notes 5

Ludwig van Beethoven Composer Profile

concerto, and it comes in the very opening piano Beethoven showed early musical promise, yet chord. Beethoven was always an adventurous reacted against his father’s attempts to train him explorer of key relationships, but to pitch this as a child prodigy. The boy pianist attracted the meditative Largo in E major, thereby instantly support of the Prince-Archbishop, who supported his sending the music into a distant and rarefied studies with leading musicians at the Bonn court. realm, is a coup de théâtre which will touch By the early 1780s Beethoven had completed his even those who think they know nothing of keys first compositions, all of which were for keyboard. and harmonies. The music itself has a summer- With the decline of his alcoholic father, Ludwig became afternoon drowsiness and warmth which puts the family bread-winner as a musician at court. one in mind of the ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, its loving nature epitomised by the central section’s piano Encouraged by his employer, the Prince-Archbishop arpeggios, caressingly accompanying a drawn-out Maximilian Franz, Beethoven travelled to Vienna to dialogue between flute and bassoon. study with Joseph Haydn. The younger composer fell out with his renowned mentor when the latter Finale discovered he was secretly taking lessons from The work ends with a Rondo, gleefully returning us several other teachers. Although Maximilian Franz to C minor, though not without a few diversions, BEETHOVEN on LSO LIVE withdrew payments for Beethoven’s Viennese including an episode resembling a Mozart wind education, the talented musician had already attracted serenade, a short fugue, and another typically neck- Beethoven box set support from some of the city’s wealthiest arts tingling Beethovenian key-shift as the main theme Symphonies patrons. His public performances in 1795 were well briefly re-acquaints us with the world of E major. Nos 1–9 received, and he shrewdly negotiated a contract with Finally, with the end in sight and the listener thinking £19.99 Artaria & Co, the largest music publisher in Vienna. there can be no more surprises, a grand piano lso.co.uk/lsolive flourish heralds a switch to C major, and a cheeky He was soon able to devote his time to composition altered-rhythm version of the theme to finish. ‘A towering achievement.’ or the performance of his own works. In 1800 The Times Beethoven began to complain bitterly of deafness, but despite suffering the distress and pain of Benchmark Beethoven Cycle tinnitus, chronic stomach ailments, liver problems BBC Music Magazine and an embittered legal case for the guardianship of his nephew, Beethoven created a series of Classical Recordings of the Year remarkable new works, including the Missa solemnis INTERVAL – 20 minutes New York Times and his late symphonies and piano sonatas. It is There are bars on all levels of the Concert Hall; ice cream thought that around 10,000 people followed his can be bought at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. Nominated for Best Classical Album funeral procession on 29 March 1827. Certainly, The Barbican shop will also be open. 49th Annual Grammy Awards his posthumous reputation developed to influence successive generations of composers and other Why not tweet us your thoughts on the first half of the artists inspired by the heroic aspects of Beethoven’s performance @londonsymphony, or come and talk to character and the profound humanity of his music. LSO staff at the Information Desk on the Circle level? 6 Programme Notes 1 February 2015

Johannes Brahms (1833–97) Symphony No 2 in D major Op 73 (1877)

1 ALLEGRO NON TROPPO comes a soft drum roll followed by an uneasy phrase 2 ADAGIO NON TROPPO in the lower brass (this is Brahms’ only orchestral 3 ALLEGRETTO GRAZIOSO (QUASI ANDANTINO) – work to include a tuba; normally he preferred the PRESTO MA NON ASSAI contra bassoon as his lowest wind instrument). 4 ALLEGRO CON SPIRITO Brahms loathed uncritical praise, but when the conductor Vincenz Lachner made some unusually Brahms struggled with his First Symphony for intelligent comments on the intrusion of such dark something like 20 years. His Second followed moments in the Symphony he took the trouble to within a year, and the contrast between the two write a revealing defence, explaining: ‘I would have could hardly be greater. The First is a tormented to admit, moreover, that I am a deeply melancholy darkness-to-light work, while all four movements of person, that black wings constantly rustle over us, PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER the Second are in major keys. It begins and ends in that in my works – possibly not entirely without ANDREW HUTH is a musician, light, although in between there are many shadows. intent – this symphony is followed by a small essay writer and translator who writes As a whole, the Second displays the combination on the great Why?’. This refers to the first of his Two extensively on French, Russian and of lyricism and energy that was to continue into the Motets, Op 74, a setting of the text ‘Why is light given Eastern European music. Violin Concerto and G major Violin Sonata, all works to him who suffers, and light to the bitter in soul?’. that seem to have been composed quickly and with Brahms therefore saw the Symphony’s radiance as masterly ease. something conditional, precarious.

SYMPHONY NO 2: IN BRIEF After completing the Second Symphony in the What is not in doubt is the strong intellectual control After a 20-year wait for his summer of 1877, Brahms amused himself, in his that binds together the different aspects of the First Symphony, Brahms’ Second usual rather heavy-handed manner, by advertising Symphony. Much of this is due to the close motivic appeared within a year of its it to his friends as an abysmally gloomy work in relationship between themes, and particularly predecessor. It presented a striking F minor. ‘Musicians here [in Vienna] play my latest the pervasive use of the opening three notes contrast to the First through its one with black crepe armbands because it sounds (a falling and rising semitone D – C-sharp – D) played major keys, warm, lyrical melodies so mournful’, he wrote to his friend Elizabeth by and basses. This tiny figure is heard in a and sunny character, although von Herzogenberg the day before the premiere. number of different forms throughout the Symphony, Brahms also spoke of darker ‘It will also be printed with a black border’. It was sometimes on the surface of the music, but more moments, the ‘black wings’ premiered on 30 December 1877 under Hans Richter, frequently in a subliminal way. that ‘constantly rustle over us’. who the previous year had conducted the first After an expansive opening complete performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle at Second Movement movement, a rich Adagio and Bayreuth. With the revelation of the Ring and of the The two central movements of the First Symphony delicate scherzo follow, before two Brahms symphonies, these composers were were relatively short in proportion to the massive the Symphony concludes in an now the undisputed masters of German music. opening movement and finale. In the Second, the energetic, joyful Finale. opening movement ends quietly and modestly in First Movement preparation for the B-major Adagio, which is not only The Symphony begins in an unusually relaxed Brahms’ first extended symphonic slow movement, manner with soft horn calls suggesting a world of but one of the most ardent statements by a pastoral innocence. After a few bars, though, there composer who, in both his life and his music, lso.co.uk Programme Notes 7

Johannes Brahms Composer Profile

had a tendency to suppress his deeper passions. Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, the son of The movement opens with a double theme, for an impecunious musician; his mother later opened the rising line played by the bassoons is almost a haberdashery business to help lift the family out of as important as the wonderful melody on the poverty. Showing early musical promise he became a cellos. The scoring is full and rich throughout, pupil of the distinguished local pianist and composer but with a delicacy that Brahms is still not given Eduard Marxsen and supplemented his parents’ enough credit for. meagre income by playing in the bars and brothels of Hamburg’s infamous red-light district. Third Movement The Symphony’s point of greatest relaxation comes In 1853 Brahms presented himself to Robert with the Allegretto third movement, played by a Schumann in Düsseldorf, winning unqualified reduced orchestra without trumpets, trombones, approval from the older composer. Brahms fell tuba or timpani. The twice-recurring opening, led in love with Schumann’s wife, Clara, supporting by the woodwind accompanied by pizzicato cellos, her after her husband’s illness and death. The recalls the simplicity of a rustic serenade. The two relationship did not develop as Brahms wished, contrasting trio sections – actually variations – are in and he returned to Hamburg; their close friendship, a quicker tempo. Their staccato string and woodwind however, survived. In 1862 Brahms moved to Vienna writing suggest that perhaps Brahms wanted to where he found fame as a conductor, pianist and provide his own version of the delicate scherzo style composer. The Leipzig premiere of his German pioneered by Mendelssohn. Requiem in 1869 was a triumph, with subsequent performances establishing Brahms as one of the Finale emerging German nation’s foremost composers. The final movement opens sotto voce with a Following the long-delayed completion of his suppressed energy that cannot be contained for First Symphony in 1876, he composed in quick long: the very loud outburst that soon arrives succession the Violin Concerto, the two piano unleashes all the power Brahms was capable Rhapsodies, Op 79, the First Violin Sonata and of. Every phrase in this movement bears his the Second Symphony. His subsequent association unmistakable fingerprint, yet the overall effect is the with the much-admired court orchestra in Meiningen closest he came to the wild energy of a Beethoven allowed him freedom to experiment and de­velop finale, invigorating and joyful. new ideas, the relationship crowned by the Fourth Symphony of 1884.

In his final years, Brahms composed a series of profound works for the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, and explored matters of life and death in his Four Serious Songs. He died at his modest lodgings in Vienna in 1897, receiving a hero’s funeral at the city’s central cemetery three days later. 8 In Conversation with David Afkham 1 February 2015

Ones to Watch: In Conversation With … David Afkham

Why did you choose the pieces in tonight’s concert?

feel very close to those pieces. My musical roots are Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert: this Iis my home and I just wanted to do something that I love with the LSO. Brahms’ Symphony No 2 is full of intensity and passion … the last movement is pure joy.

How would you describe what a conductor does to someone who doesn’t know much about classical music?

hat’s a hard question! Your first role is to keep all these musicians playing together in the right moment, but this is Tvery technical. This doesn’t say anything about music. The second is that you have to give a vision to the musicians, have a message, so that these black points on the paper start to have a meaning. You also need to motivate and inspire and lead people. As part of our Ones to Watch series, which places the spotlight There are many things! It’s a long story. on seven of the world’s brightest emerging conducting talents, Sarah Breeden talks to David Afkham about working with the What made you want to become a conductor? LSO, his love of Brahms and more. t’s hard to say. I played piano and violin but I wanted more. You were the winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting When I became a young student I tried out conducting and I thought, Competition in 2008. What made you apply? I‘This is it!’. This is the thing I was looking for. It combines so many things. You have to know much more about the pieces: the history, was actually still in the middle of my music studies when I applied, the story or the composer or the literature. If you do opera you have but sometimes when you study you are kind of in a shell, so I was to learn languages suddenly. Then, to experience that orchestral sound! Iinterested in getting a new perspective. So I thought, ‘Why not apply? It’s a chance to work with the LSO – this is just fantastic’. I couldn’t If you could go back to the beginning of your career, do you believe that I was in the Final, but I remember very well the great joy of have one piece of advice that you would give yourself? working with the LSO. It was just an unbelievable feeling to work with these fantastic players and enjoy their sounds. don’t know! I didn’t plan it; it came by being in the right place at the right time, studying hard and being honest to music. This is really my [Being Assistant Conductor of the LSO] is a great opportunity. You can Ivision. It’s not about me, it’s not about the musicians, it’s about the work with this fantastic Orchestra, fantastic soloists, and learn from composer, it’s about the music – it’s being honest. And I think in the the great experience of fantastic conductors. And I also worked on end the truth comes through. That’s very important for me. educational projects and concerts, so it was a great time, a really great experience. Read the full interview at blog.lso.co.uk 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 Artist Biographies 1 February 2015

David Afkham ‘Afkham’s interpretation combined vigour with poetry.’ Conductor Bachtrack

David Afkham is rapidly establishing a reputation category of the 2002 Jugend Musiziert (Young as one of the most sought-after conductors to Musicians) National Piano Competition. He then emerge from Germany in recent years, and has completed his conducting studies at the Liszt School been appointed as the next Principal Conductor of Music in Weimar. of the Spanish National Orchestra, a tenure which will begin in the 2015/16 season. David Afkham was the first recipient of the Fund for Young Talent, and was a conducting Symphonic highlights over the past two years have fellow of the Richard Wagner Association Bayreuth included concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw and a member of the Conductor’s Forum of the Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, German Music Council. He assisted his mentor Staatskapelle Dresden, DSO-Berlin, Swedish Radio Bernard Haitink on a number of major projects, Symphony Orchestra, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, including symphony cycles with the Chicago Filarmonica della Scala, Philharmonia Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Cleveland Orchestra and Seattle Symphony, and Orchestra and LSO. a New York debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival. He was the winner of the 2008 Donatella Flick Principal Conductor Designate In summer 2014 David Afkham conducted a highly Conducting Competition in London, resulting in Spanish National Orchestra successful opera debut with Verdi’s La Traviata him becoming the Assistant Conductor of the LSO at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He revived this for two years. In August 2010 he became the first production in the autumn with Glyndebourne on Tour. recipient of the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award. David Afkham was Assistant Highlights over the next two seasons include return Conductor of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra for projects with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, three years, a tenure which ended in Summer 2012. Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony (Musikverein series), Orchestre National de France, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, and a tour with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. David is also looking forward to debuts with the Staatskapelle Berlin, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Born 1983 in Freiburg, Germany, David Afkham received his first piano and violin lessons at the age of six. At 15 he entered his native city’s University of Music to pursue studies in piano, music theory and conducting. He won first prize in the solo piano lso.co.uk Artist Biographies 11

Nicholas Angelich ‘He managed to make us forget the difficulty of the daunting Piano score, playing freely, with beautiful sound.’ The Huffington Post

Born in the US in 1970, Nicholas Angelich began Radio Symphony Orchestra and Charles Dutoit; the studying piano at five with his mother. At the age Tonkünstler Orchestra and Kristjan Järvi; the Stuttgart of seven he gave his first concert with Mozart’s Radio Orchestra and ; the Atlanta Piano Concerto K467. He entered the Conservatoire Symphony under Emmanuel Krivine; the Rotterdam National Supérieur de Musique in Paris at the age Philharmonic; the Seoul Philharmonic under of 13, where he studied with , Yvonne Myung-Whun Chung; the London Philharmonic Loriod, Michel Béroff and Marie-Françoise Bucquet, Orchestra under Kazushi Ono and Vladimir Jurowski; winning first prize for piano and chamber music. the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding; the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Nicholas Angelich participated in masterclasses and Gianandrea Noseda; the Mahler Chamber with Leon Fleisher, Dmitri Bashkirov and Maria João Orchestra and Tugan Sokhiev; the Chamber Orchestra Pires. In 1989 he won second prize in the Casadesus of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin; and the International Piano Competition in Cleveland, and, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and Valery Gergiev. in 1994, first prize in the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition. In 1996 he became Artist in He has performed recitals in London, Munich, Residence at the International Piano Foundation Geneva, Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Rome, in Cadenabbia, Italy. In 2002 he received the Lisbon, Brescia, Tokyo and Paris. He is a regular guest International Klavierfestival Ruhr Young Talent at the Verbier Festival and Martha Argerich’s festival Award (Germany) from Leon Fleisher. In 2013 in Lugano. He made his debut at the BBC Proms in he was awarded Instrumental Soloist of the Year July 2009 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and in France’s Victoires de la musique classique. Yannick Nézet-Séguin. An enthusiastic chamber musician, his partners are Gautier and Renaud Notable performances have included his debut Capuçon, Maxim Vengerov, Akiko Suwanai, in 2003 with the under Kurt Dimitry Sitkovetsky, Joshua Bell, Gérard Caussé, Masur at the Lincoln Center, and the opening concert Daniel Müller-Schott, Jian Wang, Paul Meyer, and of the Russian National Orchestra’s 2007/08 season the Ysaÿe, Pražák, Modigliani and Ebène Quartets. in Moscow with Vladimir Jurowski. His discography includes solo music by He has also performed with the Orchestre National Rachmaninov, Ravel, Liszt and Beethoven; a Brahms de France under Marc Minkowski; Orchestre de cycle for Erato, including Trios with Renaud and Paris; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France Gautier Capuçon, Sonatas for Violin and Piano with and Paavo Järvi; Orchestre National de Lyon and Renaud Capuçon and two recital discs; and Brahms’ David Robertson; Orchestre Philharmonique de First and Second Piano Concertos with Paavo Järvi Monte-Carlo under Jesús López-Cobos and Kenneth and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Montgomery; Orchestre National du Capitole de His most recent releases are chamber music by Toulouse under Jaap van Zweden and Yannick Fauré and Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Nézet-Séguin; the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Christian Zacharias; the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Swiss-Italian 12 The Orchestra 1 February 2015

London Symphony Orchestra Your views On stage Inbox

FIRST VIOLINS VIOLAS FLUTES HORNS Harri Morgan-Williams Everything came together to make Carmine Lauri Leader Paul Silverthorne Adam Walker Timothy Jones it one of the best concerts I have ever been to; exciting, Lennox Mackenzie Gillianne Haddow Alex Jakeman Angela Barnes Clare Duckworth Malcolm Johnston Alexander Edmundson mesmerising and enlightening throughout. Nigel Broadbent Regina Beukes PICCOLO Jonathan Lipton on the LSO with Sir Simon Rattle & Barbara Hannigan (15 Jan) Ginette Decuyper Anna Green Sharon Williams Tim Ball Gerald Gregory Julia O’Riordan OBOES Maxine Kwok-Adams Robert Turner TRUMPETS Paul C Roberts Timothy Rundle Laurent Quenelle Heather Wallington Huw Morgan Katie Bennington Fantastic concert last night at The Barbican. For me Harriet Rayfield Jonathan Welch Gerald Ruddock Niall Keatley the highlight was the Ligeti, but I loved the intensity Colin Renwick Elizabeth Butler COR ANGLAIS Ian Rhodes Steve Doman Sarah Harper TROMBONES of the Webern. Sylvain Vasseur Caroline O’Neill Peter Moore on the LSO with Sir Simon Rattle & Barbara Hannigan (15 Jan) Rhys Watkins CLARINETS James Maynard David Worswick CELLOS Chris Richards Rebecca Gilliver Shlomy Dobrinsky Chi-Yu Mo BASS TROMBONE Dennis Sinden I’m not very often left speechless but Minat Lyons Hilary Jane Parker Paul Milner Alastair Blayden BASS CLARINET this was a concert of pure beauty. SECOND VIOLINS Jennifer Brown Duncan Gould TUBA on the LSO with Xian Zhang & Valentina Lisitsa (18 Jan) David Alberman Noel Bradshaw Patrick Harrild BASSOONS Sarah Quinn Eve-Marie Caravassilis Daniel Jemison Matthew Gardner Daniel Gardner TIMPANI Doug P Talk about virtuosity! The Prokofiev Piano Concerto Joost Bosdijk Belinda McFarlane Hilary Jones Nigel Thomas No 2 just has to be seen live. What a version tonight at Naoko Keatley Amanda Truelove CONTRA BASSOON PERCUSSION William Melvin Orlando Jopling the Barbican! Martin Field Neil Percy Iwona Muszynska on the LSO with Xian Zhang & Valentina Lisitsa (18 Jan) Glyn Matthews Andrew Pollock DOUBLE BASSES Colin Paris Paul Robson HARP Patrick Laurence Sarah Buchan Hugh Webb Erzsebet Racz Matthew Gibson Stephen Rowlinson Thomas Goodman Helena Smart Joe Melvin Roisin Walters Jani Pensola Benjamin Griffiths Jeremy Watt

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 Taking part in rehearsals for this concert were Registered charity in England No 232391 Bill Robinson, Alberto Venzago are selected to participate. The musicians Monica Chmielewska (Second Violin) and Details in this publication were correct Print Cantate 020 3651 1690 are treated as professional ’extra’ players Runqing Zhou (Cello). 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.