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London Symphony Living Music

Thursday 12 November 2015 7.30pm Barbican Hall

BEETHOVEN’S FIFTH SYMPHONY

Beethoven Symphony No 5 INTERVAL Strauss Death and Transfiguration London’s Symphony Orchestra Strauss Closing Scene from ‘’ Nikolaj Znaider conductor

Concert finishes approx 9.40pm

Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

Generously supported by Ivan Piercy 2 Welcome 12 November 2015

Welcome Living Music Kathryn McDowell In Brief

Welcome to this evening’s LSO concert at the Barbican. APPLICATIONS OPEN FOR THE 2016 We are delighted to be joined by Nikolaj Znaider, PANUFNIK COMPOSERS SCHEME a multi-talented musician who has a long history of working with the Orchestra as a soloist and, The LSO Panufnik Composers Scheme is an exciting increasingly in recent seasons, as a conductor. It is initiative offering six emerging composers each year in this latter role that he is with us tonight. the opportunity to write for and work with a world- class symphony orchestra. Nikolaj Znaider opens the programme with Beethoven’s monumental Fifth Symphony, before taking the We are now accepting applications for the 2016 Orchestra on a journey into the afterlife with Strauss’ scheme. The programme begins in February 2016 Death and Transfiguration, followed by the closing and culminates with a public workshop in April 2017. scene from ’ final Capriccio, For more details on the scheme and how to apply, in which we are joined by soprano Soile Isokoski. please visit the LSO website.

We are particularly grateful to Ivan Piercy for his lso.co.uk/composing generous support of tonight’s performance. I would also like to thank our media partner BBC Radio 3, who broadcast this evening’s concert live. CHRISTMAS DISCOUNTS ON LSO LIVE

I hope you enjoy the concert, and can join us again Throughout November and December, LSO Live is next Thursday, when conductor running a series of special Christmas offers, including conducts the Ravel Concerto in G major, with hand-picked bundles of CDs and discounted digital soloist Hélène Grimaud, alongside orchestral works downloads. Offers currently include ’s by Janácˇek and Dvorˇák. Brahms cycle and Sir ’ three Haydn recordings, with more being added every Friday. Visit our website for more information.

lsolive.lso.co.uk

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

The LSO offers great benefits for groups of 10+ including 20% discount on standard tickets. At tonight’s concert, we are delighted to welcome: Esther Stewart & Friends St Ignatius College

lso.co.uk/groups London Symphony Orchestra Season 2015/16

2016 Highlights

PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE DAPHNIS AND CHLOE SHAKESPEARE 400: LSO ARTIST PORTRAIT: AN ICON OF LITERATURE LEIF OVE ANDSNES

Sat 9 & Sun 10 Jan 2016 Wed 13 Jan 2016 Tue 16 Feb 2016 Sun 8 May 2016 Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande Ravel Le tombeau de Couperin Mendelssohn Mozart Piano Concerto No 20 (semi-staged performance) Dutilleux L’arbre des songes * A Midsummer Night’s Dream Delage Four Hindu Poems with Sir Thu 12 May 2016 Sir conductor Dutilleux Métaboles conductor Schumann Piano Concerto † Peter Sellars director Ravel Daphnis and Chloe – Ben Zamora lighting design Suite No 2 Thu 25 Feb 2016 Fri 10 Jun 2016 Strauss Works by Sibelius, Beethoven, Produced by the LSO and the Barbican. Sir Simon Rattle conductor with Gianandrea Noseda Debussy and Chopin

Part of the LSO 2015/16 Season and Leonidas Kavakos violin * conductor † Concert supported by Baker & McKenzie LLP Barbican Presents. Susan Gritton soprano Sun 28 Feb 2016 Berlioz Romeo & Juliet – Suite with Gianandrea Noseda lso.co.uk conductor 020 7638 8891 4 Programme Notes 12 November 2015

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) Symphony No 5 in C minor Op 67 (1807–08)

1 ALLEGRO CON BRIO Where did it come from? Well, Beethoven was a 2 ANDANTE CON MOTO revolutionary of course, but he was one who worked 3 ALLEGRO within an established tradition, and who was subject 4 ALLEGRO to his fair share of influences. Several of these come together in the Fifth Symphony. One was Mozart, PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER Time and familiarity, those old enemies of innovation, with whom he shared a special feeling for the LINDSAY KEMP is a senior have conspired to mellow the impact of Beethoven’s expressive power of C minor (both men composed producer for BBC Radio 3, including Fifth on the modern ear. This most famous of some of their most emotional and personal works programming lunchtime concerts classical orchestral pieces has often been in danger in that key); another was the large-scale, open- at and LSO St Luke’s, of acquiring, from frequent repetition, a cosiness heartedly bombastic music composed for the public Artistic Director of the London and a friendliness that can dull its surprises, soften celebrations of Revolutionary France (that Le Sueur Festival of Baroque Music, its blows. Yet this is the same work which caused had himself been a leading composer of such music and a regular contributor to the French composer Jean-Francois Le Sueur to be lends a peculiar irony to his reaction to the work); Gramophone magazine. so bowled over when he first heard it in 1828 that, and a third was Haydn, his teacher, who time and on reaching afterwards for his hat, he could not find time again had shown in his string quartets and his head. His pupil Berlioz (to whom we owe this symphonies how to construct whole movements anecdote) visited him the next day to be told by an from small but highly pregnant thematic cells. impressed but evidently disturbed Le Sueur that ‘that sort of music should not be written’. FIRST MOVEMENT This last influence is undoubtedly at its most potent Clearly, whatever the Fifth Symphony was to its in the Fifth’s highly dramatic first movement, totally earliest audiences, it was not comfortable. Those dominated as it is by the urgent four-note motif with who took their seats in Vienna’s which it opens. Not that it sounds in any way like The 22 DECEMBER 1808 concert on 22 December 1808 for the concert in which the Haydn. The music here is astonishingly terse, pared at the Theater an der Wien is widely work was first performed would doubtless have down to the melodic minimum, and the second considered the most significant of had some idea what to expect. Anyone who had theme is quickly upon us: a relaxed expansion of Beethoven’s career. He composed already heard his Third Symphony, the ‘Eroica’, the main motif on horns, answered by a reassuring all eight works on the programme, or indeed the ‘Pastoral’ Symphony that was also embrace from the and woodwind. Yet it is and the evening saw the world premiered earlier in the same concert, would have this consolatory theme which, after a belligerently premieres of no fewer than four of known that Beethoven had greatly expanded the combative development section (in which the music them: Symphonies Nos 5 and 6, the timescale of the symphonic form, raised its level of is at one stage reduced to a stark dialogue of chords Choral Fantasy, and the Fourth Piano seriousness and expressive weight, and brought to it between wind and strings, as if two exhausted Concerto with Beethoven himself an increasingly theatrical, even narrative strain. But warriors were pausing for breath), reappears on the piano. Owing to increasing few can have been prepared for the brusque, almost in swirling, nightmarish transformation in the hearing difficulties, this was visceral assault this unique work was to make on movement’s long and turbulent coda. Beethoven’s final public appearance their senses. as a soloist. lso.co.uk Programme Notes 5

BEETHOVEN on LSO LIVE SECOND MOVEMENT movement (almost unremittingly loud, by the way, There is more than a hint of Haydn’s influence, too, and reinforced for the purpose by Beethoven with Beethoven in the slow second movement, which has the overall , piccolo and ) is not even Symphonies shape of one of his favourite forms, the ‘double diverted by the brief, perhaps mocking reappearance Nos 1–9 variation set’ in which two themes are varied in about halfway through of the third movement’s main alternation, often in successively diminishing note theme, now gloriously overcome. conductor values. Beethoven’s themes are both in A-flat major, but the second – rather march-like despite being FINALE ‘A towering achievement.’ in triple time – soon modulates unexpectedly to Whether one experiences the Fifth Symphony as The Times C major, where it acquires an extra grandeur and, a journey from darkness to light, a depiction of incidentally, provides a brief foretaste of the mood adversity overcome, or as an emergence from ‘This is the Beethoven set for our of the finale. At the end of this particular movement, some sort of underworld, there is no doubt that time.’ however, it is the more graceful first theme which it has an effect on the listener that goes beyond Chicago Tribune wins the day. the appreciation of its musical and formal niceties. Beethoven himself has left little clue as to what the lsolive.lso.co.uk THIRD MOVEMENT symphony is ‘about’, save for a possibly apocryphal Beethoven does not call the third movement a remark to his friend Schindler about the first movement: ‘scherzo’, though in form and function it is one. But ‘thus Fate knocks at the door’. Yet we know that if there is humour here, it is of a grim cast and beset he thought of many of his instrumental works in by uncertainty. When a sturdier theme emerges, it is programmatic terms; whether or not we as listeners brief and troubled, dominated by a balefully intoned can guess these programmes correctly, the fact that horn-call transformation of the four-note motif in his greatest symphonies we sense them with such from the first movement. The mood lightens in the ease and general uniformity is proof of his success. It scurryingly fugal major-key ‘trio’ section, but at its was with this realisation of the genre’s extramusical reappearance the first theme, played pizzicato and potential that Beethoven was to set the tone for the pianissimo, takes on a stealthy, nocturnal character, next 100 years of symphonic writing. before leading us to the most celebrated passage in the whole symphony. Here, over held string notes and sinister tappings from the , wisps of the first theme are heard, leading us for the moment we know not where. INTERVAL – 20 minutes Gradually the excitement rises, as with the sense of There are bars on all levels of the Concert Hall; ice cream something seen approaching from a distance, until can be bought at the stands on Stalls and Circle level. with a last sudden rush we find ourselves propelled into the blazingly triumphal C major of the finale. It is Why not tweet us your thoughts on the first half of the one of the most upliftingly theatrical moments in all performance @londonsymphony, or come and talk to music, and the unequivocal joyfulness of the ensuing LSO staff at the Information Desk on the Circle level? 6 Composer Profiles 12 November 2015

Ludwig van Beethoven Richard Strauss Composer Profile Composer Profile

Beethoven showed early musical Richard Strauss was born in promise, yet reacted against in 1864, the son of Franz his father’s attempts to train Strauss, a brilliant horn player in him as a child prodigy. The boy the Munich court orchestra; it is pianist attracted the support therefore perhaps not surprising of the Prince-Archbishop, who that some of the composer’s supported his studies with leading most striking writing is for the musicians at the Bonn court. By . Strauss had his first the early 1780s he had completed piano lessons when he was four, his first compositions, all of producing his first composition which were for keyboard. With two years later, but he did not the decline of his alcoholic father, attend a music academy. His Ludwig became the family bread- formal education ended at Munich winner as a musician at court. University, although he continued with his musical training at the Encouraged by his employer, same time. the Prince-Archbishop Maximilian Franz, Beethoven travelled to Vienna to study with Joseph Haydn. The younger composer fell out Following the first public performances of his work, he received a with his renowned mentor when the latter discovered he was secretly commission from Hans von Bülow in 1882 and two years later was taking lessons from several other teachers. Although Maximilian Franz appointed Bülow’s Assistant Musical Director at the Meiningen Court withdrew payments for Beethoven’s Viennese education, the talented Orchestra, the beginning of a career in which Strauss was to conduct musician had already attracted support from some of the city’s many of the world’s great , in addition to holding positions at wealthiest arts patrons. His public performances in 1795 were well opera houses in Munich, Weimar, Berlin and Vienna. While at Munich, received, and he shrewdly negotiated a contract with Artaria & Co, he married the singer , for whom he wrote many of his the largest music publisher in Vienna. He was soon able to devote greatest songs. his time to composition or the performance of his own works. Strauss’ legacy is to be found in his and his magnificent In 1800 he began to complain of deafness, but despite suffering symphonic poems. Scores such as Till Eulenspiegel, Also Sprach the distress and pain of tinnitus, chronic stomach ailments and an Zarathustra, and demonstrate his supreme embittered legal case for the guardianship of his nephew, he created mastery of orchestration; the thoroughly modern operas and a series of remarkable new works, including the Missa solemnis and , with their Freudian themes and atonal scoring, are landmarks his late symphonies and piano sonatas. It is thought that around in the development of 20th­­-century music, and the neo-Classical 10,000 people followed his funeral procession on 29 March 1827. His ­ has become one of the most popular operas posthumous reputation developed to influence successive generations of the century. Strauss spent his last years in self-imposed exile in of composers and other artists inspired by the heroic aspects of Switzerland, waiting to be officially cleared of complicity in the Nazi Beethoven’s character and the profound humanity of his music. regime. He died at Garmisch Partenkirchen in 1949, shortly after his widely celebrated 85th birthday. Composer Profiles © Andrew Stewart lso.co.uk Programme Notes 7

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) Death and Transfiguration Op 24 (1889–90)

We tend to think of the late 19th century as an era of The musical storyline is easy to follow. The quietly emotional repression – an age when children were to be pulsing rhythms at the opening suggest the uneven beat of the failing heart, or the throbbing beat ‘seen and not heard’ and polite conversation steered clear of deathly fever. The hero’s struggles with death of any subject that had the remotest connection with sex. can be heard in the explosive, agitated Allegro that follows. Calmer, sweetly sad music clearly represents nostalgic memories of childhood and PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER But there were subjects that late 19th-century youth. Then the struggles begin again, with the STEPHEN JOHNSON is the author Europeans approached far more readily than we quietly pulsing rhythm from the opening now blaring of Bruckner Remembered (Faber). do: death, for instance. It is hard to imagine a young threateningly on trombones. The moment of death is He also contributes regularly to BBC artist today following up his or her first big public unmistakable: a sweeping upward glissando ending Music Magazine and , success with a work about the experiences of a in hush, with only a pianissimo low C sustained in and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 dying man. But that’s exactly what the 25-year-old the depths of the orchestra. Then an aspiring theme (Discovering Music), BBC Radio 4 Richard Strauss did. Having scored a huge hit with heard earlier rises slowly and majestically, leading to and the BBC World Service. his tone poem Don Juan, he set to work almost the grand affirmation of the coda – the vision of the immediately on a successor entitled Tod und soul’s fulfilment in ‘eternal space’. Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration). Don Juan had ended with the death of its hero; now, in Death ‘It’s a funny thing Alice. and Transfiguration, Strauss set out to depict the Dying is just as I composed thoughts and feelings of a man struggling with, and finally yielding to, death. Its first performance, in June it in Tod und Verklärung.’ 1891, was another triumph for Strauss. For decades it was to remain one of his most popular works. Nearly 60 years after he wrote Death and Transfiguration, the elderly Richard Strauss was to Given that Strauss was a young man when he quote this slow aspiring motif in the last of his Four wrote Death and Transfiguration – an ambitious Last Songs – a tribute to the power of his youthful young man, moreover, with everything to live for vision? It seems so. On his deathbed, the following – its urgency and vividness is striking. Significantly, year, Strauss told his daughter-in-law: ‘Dying is just Strauss makes the unnamed hero of his musical as I composed it in Tod und Verklärung’. narrative an ‘idealist’, racked by memories of childhood, youthful loves, and worst of all, by the sense that he has failed to fulfil his ideals. But after death comes ‘transfiguration’, in which the soul ‘finds gloriously achieved in eternal space those things which could not be achieved here below’. 8 Programme Notes 12 November 2015

Richard Strauss Closing Scene from ‘Capriccio’ (1940–41)

SOILE ISOKOSKI SOPRANO It is decided that the two men should put aside their differences and work together on an opera on this PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER Strauss knew that Capriccio was to be his last opera. very theme, whose ending is to be decided by the STEPHEN JOHNSON The conductor , who helped create Countess herself. Capriccio’s moonlit final scene the libretto and who gave the work’s premiere in begins with an exquisite long horn solo (is music 1942, tried hard to persuade Strauss to compose a beginning to win the contest?). Then the Major successor, but his reply was conclusive: ‘One can Domo enters to inform Madeleine that Olivier will be only leave one testament.’ So the fact that Capriccio waiting for her in the library the following morning represents Strauss’ farewell to the stage, after a to receive her decision. Some deliciously protracted staggering 50-year career of composing operas, equivocation follows as Madeleine sings the Olivier- makes his choice of subject all the more significant. Flamand sonnet to herself. Eventually she asks her At its heart is a question that is as old as opera own reflection in the mirror: ‘Can you help me find itself: in this strange, hybrid art form, which is more the ending for their opera – one that is not trivial?’ important, the words or the music? As a composer The words provide no answer, but as the Countess Strauss had experienced a few power struggles leaves she hums the melody of the sonnet to herself himself over this issue, particularly with his long-term – wordlessly, the music tells us the answer. collaborator, the brilliant and acutely temperamental HUGO VON HOFFMANSTHAL writer Hugo von Hoffmansthal, so this was more (1874–1929) was an Austrian than high-minded aesthetic speculation – it was novelist, playwright and librettist. also personal. He met Richard Strauss in 1900 and subsequently wrote the libretti for six Strauss described Capriccio as a ‘conversation of the composer’s operas: Elektra, piece for music’, which cleverly avoids coming Der Rosenkavalier, auf , down on one side or the other. The decision is left to , Die ägyptische the opera’s central character, the widowed French Helena and . Countess Madeleine. It is quickly clear that this is pre-Revolutionary France: the ‘old world’ – and by implication possibly the old Germany too, long before the advent of the Third Reich, with which Strauss initially flirted but came increasingly to loathe. The struggle for artistic supremacy is personified by the poet Olivier and the composer Flamand, who has seriously rankled Olivier by setting his newly composed sonnet to music. But this is a personal contest too: both men are in love with the Countess. She is drawn to them both, but which to choose? lso.co.uk Text 9

Closing Scene from ‘Capriccio’: Text

Seit dem Sonett sind sie unzertrennlich. Flamand wird ein wenig enttäuscht Tomorrow morning at eleven! It is a disaster. Since that sonnet they are sein, statt meiner Herrn Olivier in der Bibliothek zu finden. Und ich? inseparable. Flamand will be a little disappointed to find my Monsieur Olivier Den Schluss der Oper soll ich bestimmen, soll – wählen, – entscheiden? Sind in the library instead of me. And I? The ending of the opera … es die Worte, die mein Herz bewegen, oder sind es die Töne, die I must determine it, I must choose, – decide? Is it the words that move my stärker sprechen? heart, or is it the music that speaks more strongly?

Kein andres, das mir so im Herzen loht, Nothing else flames so in my heart, Nein Schöne, nichts auf dieser ganzen Erde, No, Lady, nothing is there on earth’s whole face, Kein andres, das ich so wie dich begehrte, Nothing else that I could sigh for as for you, Und käm’ von Venus mir ein Angebot. In vain would Venus herself come down to grant my will. Dein Auge beut mir himmlisch-süsse Not, What joy, what pain your gentle eye bestows,

Und wenn ein Aufschlag alle Qual vermehrte, And if a glance should heighten all that pain, Ein andrer Wonne mir und Lust gewährte, The next restore my fondest hope and bliss entire, Zwei Schläge sind dann Leben oder Tod. Two glances signify then life or death.

Vergebliches Müh’n, die beiden zu trennen. In eins verschmolzen sind Worte Fruitless effort to separate the two. Words and Music are und Töne – zu einem Neuen verbunden. Geheimnis der Stunde. Eine Kunst fused into one – bound in a new synthesis. Secret of the durch die andere erlöst! hour – one art redeemed by the other!

Und trüg’ ich’s fünfmalhunderttausend Jahre, And, though I lived five hundred thousand years, Erhielte ausser dir‘ du Wunderbare, Save you, miraculous fair, there could not be Kein andres Wesen über mich Gewalt. Another creature hold sway over me.

Durch neue Adern müsst’ mein Blut ich giessen, Through fresh veins I must needs let flow my blood, In meinen, voll von dir zum Überfliessen, My own with you are filled to overflowing, Fänd’ neue Liebe weder Raum noch Halt. And new love then could find not room nor pause.

Ihre Liebe schlägt mir entgegen, zart gewoben aus Versen und Klängen. Their love enfolds me, tenderly woven out of verses and Soll ich dieses Gewebe zerreissen? Bin ich nicht selbst in ihm schon sounds. Shall I destroy this fabric? Am I myself not already woven into it? verschlungen? Entscheiden für einen? Für Flamand, die grosse Seele mit den Decide for one? For Flamand, the great spirit with the beautiful eyes – for schönen Augen – für Olivier, den starken Geist, den leidenschaftlichen Mann? Olivier, the powerful mind, the passionate man?

Nun, liebe Madeleine, was sagt dein Herz? Du wirst geliebt und kannst dich Now, dear Madeleine, what says your heart? You are loved, but whom do nicht schenken. Du fandest es süss, schwach zu sein – Du wolltest mit der you love now? You found it sweet not to know – you sought to make a pact Liebe paktieren, nun stehst du selbst in Flammen und kannst dich nicht with love, and now you yourself are in flames and cannot save yourself! In retten! Wählst du den einen – verlierst du den andern! Verliert man nicht choosing the one you will lose the other! Does one not always lose, when immer, wenn man gewinnt? one wins?

Ein wenig ironisch blickst du zurück? Ich will eine Antwort und nicht deinen You look back at me ironically? I want an answer and not your questioning prüfenden Blick! Du schweigst? – O, Madeleinel Madeleine! Willst du zwischen look! You do not answer? Do you want to be consumed between two fires? zwei Feuern verbrennen? Du Spiegelbild der verliebten Madeleine, kannst du You mirrored image of Madeleine in love, can you advise me, can you help me mir raten, kannst du mir helfen den Schluss zu finden für ihre Oper? Gibt es to find the ending for their opera? Is there one that is not trivial? einen, der nicht trivial ist? 10 Artist Biographies 12 November 2015

Nikolaj Znaider Conductor

Nikolaj Znaider is renowned as a brilliantly versatile Recording highlights of recent years are the musician, performing both as a virtuoso violin soloist Nielsen Concerto with and the New and as a conductor with the world’s pre-eminent York Philharmonic, Elgar Concerto in B minor orchestras. He was appointed Principal Guest with the late Sir Colin Davis and the Staatskapelle Conductor of the Mariinsky Orchestra St Petersburg Dresden, award-winning recordings of the Brahms in 2010, and was previously Principal Guest and Korngold concertos with Valery Gergiev and Conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. the , the Beethoven and Znaider enjoys a close relationship with the Mendelssohn concertos with and the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and Philharmonic, and the Prokofiev Concerto will return to conduct the orchestra in June 2016. No 2 together with the Glazunov Concerto with and the Bavarian Radio Symphony. highlights of the 2015/16 season include Znaider has also recorded the complete works appearances as guest conductor with the Danish of for violin and piano with Radio Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, . Orchestre National de France, Montreal Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Munich Znaider is passionate about supporting the next Principal Guest Conductor Philharmonic, and National Arts Centre Orchestra generation of musical talent and spent ten years Mariinsky Orchestra Ottawa. Znaider also returns to the Hallé Orchestra, as Founder and Artistic Director of the annual Nordic along with the LSO, both of which he conducts every Music Academy summer school. He is also chair season. An increasing number of orchestras now of the jury of the 10th International feature Znaider as both soloist and conductor in Violin Competition. consecutive subscription weeks, and he will spend two weeks with the Washington National Symphony Nikolaj Znaider plays the ‘Kreisler’ Guarnerius Orchestra in April 2016. ‘del Gesu’ 1741 on extended loan to him by The Royal Danish Theater through the generosity As a soloist, Znaider continues to perform regularly of the VELUX Foundation and the Knud Højgaard with the world’s leading orchestras. Highlights of Foundation. the coming season include performances with the Orchestra under the baton of Stéphane Denève, with NIKOLAJ ZNAIDER RETURNS IN 2016 , and on tour with the London Symphony Orchestra with Sir Antonio Pappano. Sun 29 May 2016 7pm In recital and chamber performance, Znaider has appeared at all the major concert halls worldwide. Beethoven Elgar Symphony No 2 This season sees him perform around Europe in cities including , Bilbao, Dublin, Sir Antonio Pappano conductor and London. Nikolaj Znaider violin lso.co.uk | 020 7638 8891 lso.co.uk Artist Biographies 11

Soile Isokoski Soprano

Soile Isokoski’s name originally means ‘the northern Isokoski’s recent engagements have included the light’ – a light that she carries to the world today title role in Strauss’ (Glyndebourne in an exceptional way. One of the most celebrated Festival Opera), Donna Elvira in Mozart’s to emerge from Finland, Isokoski studied (LA Opera), Marschallin in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier at the in Helsinki and made her (in London, Geneva, Vienna, Paris and Munich), stage debut with Finnish National Opera. She has Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues des gone on to capture audiences and critics alike Carmélites (Bayerische Staatsoper), Desdemona across the world, winning the coveted Pro-Finlandia in Verdi’s ( and Wiener medal in 2002 in honour of her notable contribution Staatsoper), Marguerite in Gounod’s in Vienna, to Finnish music. Ellen Orford in Britten’s in Dresden, and Elsa in Wagner’s in Los Angeles A regular guest of the most renowned opera houses, and Dresden. Isokoski is also a familiar face on the world’s most prestigious concert stages, working with conductors Isokoski teaches singing at the Oulu University of including Philippe Herreweghe, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Applied Sciences and she is a guest professor at Esa-Pekka Salonen, , John Eliot Gardiner, the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. She recently served Sir Colin Davis, Zubin Mehta, , as a jury member for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the Sir Simon Rattle, , Bernard Haitink, World competition and Mirjam Helin International , Valery Gergiev, Pierre Boulez, James Singing Competition. Levine, and Michael Tilson Thomas, as well as giving numerous recitals.

Isokoski’s acclaimed discography includes Strauss’ under Marek Janowski (Gramophone Editor’s Choice Award 2002), as well as two Sibelius CDs under the baton of Leif Segerstam: with Tommi Hakala (Diapason d’Or 2008) and and Orchestral Songs (MIDEM classical award, BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award and Disc of the Year 2007). She was awarded the in 2007 and was honoured with the title of Austrian Kammersängerin in 2008. In 2011 she received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Helsinki. 12 The Orchestra 12 November 2015

London Symphony Orchestra Your views On stage Inbox

FIRST VIOLINS FLUTES Sara Gozalo Incredible day at #SoundUnbound! Highlights: Roman Simovic Leader Edward Vanderspar Gareth Davies Mark O’Keeffe @pete_moore_, @CalderQuartet & @londonsymphony Carmine Lauri Gillianne Haddow Alex Jakeman Gerald Ruddock Clare Duckworth Malcolm Johnstonl Daniel Newell playing Ravel! Nigel Broadbent Anna Bastow PICCOLO on LSO Co-Principal Peter Moore, and the LSO Sharon Williams TROMBONES Ginette Decuyper Lander Echevarria with John Adams at Sound Unbound on 1 November Gerald Gregory Julia O’Riordan Dudley Bright Jörg Hammann Robert Turner James Maynard Gordon Hunt Maxine Kwok-Adams Jonathan Welch Katie Bennington TROMBONE Franziska Willers Phenomenal performance of Claire Parfitt Elizabeth Butler Paul Milner @londonsymphony percussionists @lsostlukes: tempted to Elizabeth Pigram Richard Holttum Harriet Rayfield Nancy Johnson Jane Marshall come back tomorrow! Colin Renwick Caroline O’Neill Patrick Harrild on the LSO Percussion Ensemble concert at LSO St Luke’s Ian Rhodes Sylvain Vasseur Chris Richards TIMPANI on 30 October Rhys Watkins Tim Hugh Chi-Yu Mo Nigel Thomas David Worswick Alastair Blayden Thomas Lessels Jennifer Brown PERCUSSION Marek Rymaszewski Brutal punches & luxuriant textures SECOND VIOLINS Noel Bradshaw BASS Neil Percy at @barbicancentre with John Adams conducting Leila J & David Alberman Eve-Marie Caravassilis Katy Ayling HARPS @londonsymphony at Scheherazade.2 UK premiere. Thomas Norris Daniel Gardner BASSET HORN Bryn Lewis Sarah Quinn Hilary Jones on the LSO with John Adams and Leila Josefowicz at the Katherine Lacy Imogen Barford Miya Väisänen Amanda Truelove Barbican on 29 October Matthew Gardner Victoria Harrild Julian Gil Rodriguez Steffan Morris Rachel Gough Naoko Keatley Joost Bosdijk Allison Bazin Saw the @londonsymphony @NJPAC on Belinda McFarlane DOUBLE BASSES Saturday night. AMAZING, energetic performance! Strings – CONTRA William Melvin Nicholas Bayley Dominic Morgan you totally earned a cocktail after that one. Iwona Muszynska Colin Paris Paul Robson on the LSO with Valery Gergiev and Yefim Bronfman at the Patrick Laurence HORNS Eleanor Fagg Thomas Goodman Vittorio Schiavone New Jersey Performing Arts Center on 24 October Hazel Mulligan Joe Melvin Timothy Jones Stephen Rowlinson Jani Pensola Angela Barnes Simo Väisänen Alexander Edmundson Paul Sherma Jonathan Lipton

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 Lefever Award Silk Street [email protected] work experience by playing in rehearsals The Polonsky Foundation London and concerts with the LSO. The scheme The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust 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.