Elgar, Bartók & Janáček
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Thursday 8 February 2018 7.30–9.40pm Barbican Hall LSO SEASON CONCERT ELGAR, BARTÓK & JANÁČEK Janáček Schluck und Jau Bartók Piano Concerto No 3 SIR MARK Interval Elgar Symphony No 1 Sir Mark Elder conductor ELDER Francesco Piemontesi piano Welcome LSO News On Our Blog In this evening’s concert we also hear THE LSO’S 2018/19 SEASON 2018 LSO PANUFNIK COMPOSERS Janáček’s theatre music for Schluck und Jau ANNOUNCED and Bartók’s romantic study of nature The LSO’s 2018/19 season is now on sale. and folk music, the Third Piano Concerto. Highlights include Music Director Sir Simon The LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme For this, we are pleased to be joined Rattle’s exploration of folk-inspired music in enables composers to experiment and by pianist Francesco Piemontesi, who his series Roots and Origins; Artist Portraits develop their orchestral writing skills. makes his debut with the Orchestra. with soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Congratulations go to Joel Järventausta, Daniil Trifonov; and eight premieres. Cassie Kinoshi, Lara Poe, Ido Romano, I hope that you enjoy tonight’s concert, and George Stevenson and Alex Tay, who that you will be able to join us again soon. Plus there’s much more to explore with join the 2018 scheme. On Sunday, you can explore Elgar’s music LSO Discovery’s free Lunchtime Concerts, A warm welcome to this evening’s LSO in greater depth at a Discovery Day, with Discovery and Singing Days, as well as concert at the Barbican. For the first in access to the morning rehearsal and an BBC Radio 3’s concerts at LSO St Luke’s. BEHIND-THE-SCENES: WHY IS A GREEN a pair of performances exploring Elgar’s afternoon of talks and chamber music at ROOM CALLED A GREEN ROOM? symphonies, we welcome a conductor LSO St Luke’s. This is followed by a free Visit lso.co.uk/201819season for full listings. who shares a long history with the LSO, pre-concert recital by musicians from the Why are performers’ rooms in a venue Sir Mark Elder. Guildhall School, before Sir Mark Elder called green rooms? We look further into returns to conduct Elgar’s Second Symphony WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS this question. Sir Mark Elder is known for his insightful on Sunday 11 February at 7pm. interpretations of Elgar’s music, and has Tonight we are delighted to welcome: previously conducted The Kingdom and Read our news, watch videos and more The Dream of Gerontius with the LSO to Royal Holloway University of London • lso.co.uk/news great acclaim. This series, however, marks Ann Parish & Friends • lso.co.uk/blog his first performances of the symphonies FIE Ltd • youtube.com/lso with the Orchestra. We begin tonight with Kathryn McDowell CBE DL the Symphony No 1 – a work first performed Managing Director by the LSO under the baton of the composer himself in 1909. 2 Welcome 8 February 2018 Tonight’s Concert / by Stephen Johnson Coming Up Janáček’s theatre music, Schluck und Jau, triumph to round it all off, but between its Sunday 18 February 2018 7pm Thursday 19 & 26 April 2018 7.30pm and Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto are both ringing statements we hear dark, turbulent Barbican Hall Barbican Hall very late works – so late, in fact, that neither emotional drama, even violence, and was fully completed when its composer died. poignant, unfulfilled longing. STRAUSS’ ALPINE SYMPHONY HELEN GRIME WORLD PREMIERE There are times when Bartók's Concerto does sound like the work of a man calmly Massive hope or lingering doubt? That’s for Helen Grime Virga Helen Grime Woven Space * facing mortality. The mellow, lyrical first the listener to decide, but even if there are Prokofiev Violin Concerto No 2 (world premiere) movement is a long way from the intense, no clear answers, the journey of discovery Strauss An Alpine Symphony Mahler Symphony No 9 thorny modernism of Bartók's inter-war charted in this remarkable symphony years, while the slow movement represents remains captivating. Daniel Harding conductor Sir Simon Rattle conductor his atmospheric ‘night music’ at its most Leonidas Kavakos violin peaceful – we may sense something of * Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the the comfort and strength the mortally ill LSO by the Barbican composer drew from nature. Sunday 11 March 2018 7pm Barbican Hall 26 April generously supported by Baker McKenzie Janáček’s Schluck und Jau, however, overflows PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER with life, like so many other creations of this SCHUMANN & BERLIOZ composer’s prodigious old age. Although Stephen Johnson is the author of Bruckner this music was composed to accompany a Remembered (Faber). He also contributes Schumann Overture: Genoveva satirical comedy by the German dramatist regularly to BBC Music Magazine and The Berlioz Les nuits d’été Sunday 22 April 2018 7pm Gerhart Hauptmann, it seems to follow its Guardian, and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 Schumann Symphony No 2 Barbican Hall own manifesto – a colossal outpouring of (Discovering Music), BBC Radio 4 and the yearning tenderness and elemental passion, BBC World Service. Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor TIPPETT’S THE ROSE LAKE culminating in thrilling affirmation. Ann Hallenberg mezzo-soprano Tippett The Rose Lake † So too does Elgar’s First Symphony – or COMPOSER PROFILE WRITER Mahler comp Cooke Symphony No 10 does it? On one level this music seems the embodiment of Edwardian England’s ‘glad Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Sir Simon Rattle conductor confident morning’, as Elgar himself called journalist and writer. He is the author it. But Elgar is a highly complicated figure, of The LSO at 90, and contributes to † Supported by Resonate, a PRS Foundation initiative both as man and artist. The symphony’s a wide variety of specialist classical lso.co.uk/whatson in partnership with the Association of British Orchestras, ‘massive hope’ first theme does return in music publications. 020 7638 8891 BBC Radio 3 and the Boltini Trust Tonight’s Concert 3 Leoš Janáček Schluck und Jau 1928 / note by Stephen Johnson 1 Andante have had no resources to spare. Yet Janáček • GERHART HAUPTMANN • JANÁČEK IN 2018/19 2 Allegretto had the kind of creative energy at 74 that would have been impressive in a man half Tuesday 18 & Wednesday 19 September 2018 chluck and Jau are the pungently his age. He agreed, and at his death on 12 Barbican Hall flavoursome nicknames of two August he had laid out detailed sketches drunken vagrants in the play of for two movements of the theatre score. Janáček Sinfonietta the same name by the German dramatist Gerhart Hauptmann •. Although Hauptmann Quite how these movements might relate Sir Simon Rattle conductor was partly inspired by Shakespeare’s to Hauptmann’s worldly naturalistic comedy comedies – particularly The Taming of the isn’t easy to say. The music’s yearning Thursday 27 & Saturday 29 June 2019 Shrew, Twelfth Night and As You Like It – tenderness and elemental passion seem to Barbican Hall this comedy of social role-reversal also have much more to do with the ‘manifesto took a hefty swipe at Prussian officialdom on love’ contained in ‘Intimate Letters’, while Janáček The Cunning Little Vixen and snobbery. the oceanic ending in D-flat major (Janáček’s (semi-staged performance, sung in Czech) favourite key) echoes the hymn to freedom In May 1928 Janáček was approached by in the closing pages of From the House of Sir Simon Rattle conductor the writer Max Brod and the conductor the Dead. Fortunately, the music, expertly Gerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist Peter Sellars director Otto Klemperer to write incidental music brought to definitive form by Janáček’s and novelist who lived from 1862 to 1946. Lucy Crowe Vixen for a new production of Hauptmann’s play. biographer Jarmil Burghauser, speaks A Nobel Laureate in the field of literature, Gerald Finley Forester The first production of Schluck und Jau, in stirringly enough for itself. • he is considered an important proponent Sophia Burgos Fox, Chocholka 1900, had been a failure, but since then of literary naturalism. Naturalism is related Peter Hoare Schoolmaster, Cock, Mosquito attitudes had changed, and Hauptmann’s to realism and emphasised the importance Willard White Badger, Parson reputation had been greatly enhanced by his of observation and the scientific method in London Symphony Chorus winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1912. the portrayal of fictional events, avoiding all Simon Halsey chorus director fantastical and supernatural influences. Ben Zamora lighting designer It’s surprising that Janáček agreed to this Nick Hillel video designer project at all. He’d only just finished his Hans Georg Lenhardt assistant director Second String Quartet, ‘Intimate Letters’, and was hard at work on the finishing stages Produced by LSO and Barbican. Part of the of his opera From the House of the Dead – LSO’s 2018/19 Season and Barbican Presents. two hugely demanding works, emotionally and intellectually – and by rights he should lso.co.uk/201819season 4 Programme Notes 8 February 2018 Leoš Janáček in Profile 1854–1928 FIND THE PERFECT GIFT In 1887 he began work on his first opera, Šarka, but Moravian folk music and popular FROM OUR NEW RANGE culture increasingly fascinated Janáček, influencing a gradual rejection of the high Romantic musical language of Šarka for a Tote Bags style that reflected his passion for Slavic languages and the musicality of his native Tea Towels tongue. He worked from 1894 to 1903 on Mugs his opera JenŮfa, which was successfully premiered in Brno in January 1904 and for the next 20 years he concentrated on works for the stage. A creative upsurge in his 60s coincided with his impassioned though platonic affair with Kamilla Stösslová, wife of an antiques dealer and 37 years the composer’s junior.