Elgar, Bruch & Dvořák
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Sunday 11 February 2018 7–9.20pm Barbican Hall LSO SEASON CONCERT ELGAR, BRUCH & DVOŘÁK Dvořák Overture: Othello Bruch Violin Concerto No 1 Interval Elgar Symphony No 2 SIR MARK Sir Mark Elder conductor Nikolaj Znaider violin Recommended by Classic FM ELDER 5.30pm Barbican Hall LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists Free entry Elgar Piano Quintet in A minor Op 84 Joon Yoon piano Amarins Wierdsma violin Lyrit Milgram violin Alexander McFarlane viola Ben Tarlton cello Welcome LSO News On Our Blog rehearsal and an afternoon of talks and THE LSO’S 2018/19 SEASON 2018 LSO PANUFNIK COMPOSERS chamber music. A warm welcome to those ANNOUNCED attendees who join us in the audience tonight. The LSO’s 2018/19 season is now on sale. Highlights include Music Director Sir Simon The LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme We also hosted a pre-concert recital with Rattle’s exploration of folk-inspired music in enables composers to experiment and musicians from the Guildhall School, featuring his series Roots and Origins; Artist Portraits develop their orchestral writing skills. Elgar’s Piano Quintet. These free recitals with soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Congratulations go to Joel Järventausta, take place before many LSO concerts, and Daniil Trifonov; and eight premieres. Cassie Kinoshi, Lara Poe, Ido Romano, seek to provide a platform for the musicians George Stevenson and Alex Tay, who of the future. For more information and Plus there’s much more to explore with join the 2018 scheme. future dates, visit lso.co.uk/lsoplatforms. LSO Discovery’s free lunchtime concerts, Welcome to tonight’s LSO concert at the Discovery and Singing Days, and BBC Radio 3’s Barbican. It is a pleasure to be joined by I would like to take this opportunity to thank concerts at LSO St Luke’s. BEHIND-THE-SCENES: WHY IS A GREEN Sir Mark Elder for the second instalment in his our media partner, Classic FM, who have ROOM CALLED A GREEN ROOM? exploration of Elgar’s symphonies with the recommended this concert to their listeners. Visit lso.co.uk/201819season for full listings. LSO. Following Thursday’s performance of Why are performers’ rooms in a venue called the First Symphony, and acclaimed readings I hope that you enjoy the performance and green rooms? We look further into this of The Kingdom and The Dream of Gerontius that you will join us again soon. The next WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS surprisingly difficult question on our blog. in previous seasons, we look forward to the LSO concert at the Barbican takes place on Second Symphony this evening. Sunday 18 February, with music by Strauss, We are delighted to welcome Prokofiev and Helen Grime conducted by Faversham Music Club We also hear music by Dvořák and Bruch Daniel Harding. Witham Choral Society Read our news, watch videos and more in tonight’s programme. For Bruch’s lyrical Guildford U3A • lso.co.uk/news Violin Concerto No 1, we are pleased that Haverhill Concert Club • lso.co.uk/blog Nikolaj Znaider returns as soloist, following European Travelplan Ltd • youtube.com/lso his recent Mozart and Tchaikovsky series. This performance forms the culmination Kathryn McDowell CBE DL of a day of activity centred around Elgar’s Managing Director life and music. Earlier today, we hosted a Discovery Day at the Barbican and LSO St Luke’s, with access to this morning’s 2 Welcome 11 February 2018 Tonight’s Concert / by Stephen Johnson Coming Up ven for those who know Dvořák Between these two absorbing, complex PROGRAMME NOTE WRITERS Sunday 11 March 2018 7pm well, his Othello can be a shocking masterpieces comes one of the enduringly Barbican Hall discovery. Here we find that popular treasures of the violin repertoire: Alison Bullock is a freelance writer and this generous-hearted, warmly melodic Bruch’s First Violin Concerto. Abundantly music consultant whose interests range SCHUMANN & BERLIOZ composer also had his dark side. This tuneful, ingeniously constructed, it was from Machaut to Messiaen and beyond. compact, gripping psychological thriller Bruch’s crowning success, one he was A former editor for the New Grove Dictionary Schumann Overture: Genoveva takes us inside the mind of Shakespeare’s never able to repeat. It may be his only of Music and the LSO, she is now based in Berlioz Les nuits d’été Othello, struggling with conflicting feelings great work, but that doesn’t make it Oslo, Norway. Schumann Symphony No 2 of love and murderous jealousy. At first any less impressive – or loveable. lyrically tender, it soon turns anguished, Wendy Thomson studied at the Royal Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor then eerily obsessive, finally climaxing in College of Music, before taking an Ann Hallenberg mezzo-soprano rage and despair. Hearing Othello is like MMus in musicology at King’s College, experiencing a disturbingly powerful opera London. In addition to writing about without voices, compressed into just a music she is Executive Director of Classic Thursday 19 & 26 April 2018 7.30pm quarter of an hour. Arts Productions, a major supplier of Barbican Hall independent programmes to BBC Radio. Elgar’s Second Symphony will also surprise HELEN GRIME WORLD PREMIERE those who know this composer from Stephen Johnson is the author of Bruckner his ‘Enigma’ Variations and Pomp and Remembered (Faber) and Mahler: His Life Helen Grime Woven Space * Circumstance Marches. ‘I have written out and Music (Naxos). He also contributes (world premiere) my soul’, Elgar told a friend – and what a regularly to BBC Music Magazine and The Mahler Symphony No 9 complicated soul that turns out to be. Yes, Guardian, and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, there’s noble aspiration, beguiling humour Radio 4 and the World Service. Sir Simon Rattle conductor and lush pastoral beauty, but Elgar also talked of a ‘malign influence’ that stalks through Andrew Stewart is a freelance music * Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the the first movement, and which returns with journalist and writer. He is the author LSO by the Barbican terrifying power at the climax of the third. of The LSO at 90, and contributes to One early critic even heard ‘pessimism and a wide variety of specialist classical 26 April generously supported by Baker McKenzie rebellion’ in this music. Did Elgar inwardly music publications. sense the oncoming catastrophe of World War I, just three years in the future? There are many possible interpretations. lso.co.uk/whatson Tonight’s Concert 3 Antonín Dvořák Overture: Othello Op 93 1892 / note by Alison Bullock hen Antonín Dvořák was invited anger (‘Othello murders her at the height to America in 1892, to take up of his wrath’), remorse (‘he considers the position of Director of the his dreadful crime’) and the final, tragic new National Conservatory of Music in outcome (‘he kills himself’). New York, it was final proof (if proof were needed) of his reputation as one of the most Dvořák probably intended to paint a musical important living composers in the western picture of the ill-fated lovers, and the world. Shortly after his arrival in New York, overture is full of little references, both he conducted a concert that included a new from within the work and from other pieces work, a trilogy entitled Nature, Life and Love, (such as Dvořák’s own Requiem). But the comprising the overtures In Nature’s Realm composer was in severe doubt as to whether (Op 91), Carnival (Op 92) and Othello (Op 93). the work should carry the title Othello, These three works are interconnected by and considered such alternatives as ‘The Othello with Desdemona by Christian Köhler (1859) the main musical theme that first appears Tragic Overture’ or even ‘Eroica’. In the end, in In Nature’s Realm, but while Carnival has though, he came down on the side of the • WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO become known as a separate piece, the other most evocative of the alternatives – for even two works are much less known, and they are though Dvořák’s autograph notations were Shakespeare’s tragedy is based on the story handkerchief that served as the ‘proof’ of rarely played as a set. Dvořák’s intention with never intended for publication, we can use Un Capitano Moro (A Moorish Captain) Desdemona’s affair was planted. Iago kills the three overtures was to depict the three the title to conjure up our own story for the written by Italian Renaissance poet Cinthio his wife Emilia for revealing his plan, and is great themes of the trilogy’s title; the theme overture, which, however one looks at it, is around 1565. The play tells the story of left to be punished by the Venetian state. of love is treated in the final piece, Othello. absolutely one of Dvořák’s most brilliant, Othello, a general of the Venetian army, who Tormented by guilt, Othello kills himself. expressive orchestral works. • has secretly married Desdemona, daughter Dvořák was well acquainted with of senator Brabantio. The senator disowns The play was first performed on 1 November Shakespeare’s tragedy •, and made his daughter after learning of their union, 1604 at Whitehall Palace in London and has reference in his manuscript to particular and Othello is ordered to sail for Cyprus, gone on to enjoy an extensive performance scenes from the play. However, these accompanied by his wife and some of his men. history as well as numerous operatic, film annotations indicate that his intention Through ruses planted by the jealous and literary adaptations – notably the 1995 was probably not to retell the entire play, ensign Iago, Othello becomes suspicious of film starring Laurence Fishburn, Irène Jacob but to use its references to create a more Desdemona, believing that she has been and Kenneth Branagh.