The Young Debussy
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Sunday 21 January 2018 7–9pm Barbican Hall LSO SEASON CONCERT THE YOUNG DEBUSSY Wagner Overture: Tannhäuser Lalo Cello Concerto Interval Debussy Première Suite d’Orchestre DEBUSSY (UK premiere) Massenet Le Cid – Suite François-Xavier Roth conductor Edgar Moreau cello Recommended by Classic FM Broadcast live in 60 countries on Mezzo Live HD Welcome LSO News On Our Blog I would like to take this opportunity to THE LSO’S 2018/19 SEASON BEHIND THE SCENES: WHY IS A GREEN thank our media partners: Classic FM, ROOM CALLED A GREEN ROOM? who have recommended tonight’s concert Details of the LSO’s 2018/19 season will to their listeners, and Mezzo, who are be announced on Tuesday 23 January, with Why are performers’ rooms in a venue called broadcasting this performance live in 60 public booking open from Friday 2 February. green rooms? We look further into this countries on Mezzo Live HD. Visit lso.co.uk/201819season to find out surprisingly difficult question. what’s in store. I hope that you enjoy tonight’s concert and that you can join us again soon. MEET DAVID ELTON, François-Xavier Roth continues our THE 15TH DONATELLA FLICK OUR NEW PRINCIPAL TRUMPET Debussy series on 25 January, with four LSO CONDUCTING COMPETITION A warm welcome to tonight’s LSO concert. of the composer’s renowned symphonic We get to know our newest member of the This evening is the first of three programmes works, joined by pianist Cédric Tiberghien. Applications are now open for the Trumpet section, who comes to the LSO which journey through Debussy’s life and François-Xavier Roth has also been a great 15th Donatella Flick LSO Conducting from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. work, in the year that marks the centenary supporter of the LSO’s schemes for emerging Competition, closing on Friday 20 April of his death. We begin by exploring some composers for the past decade, and returns 2018. The Competition is open to conductors Read our blog, watch videos and more of Debussy’s greatest inspirations alongside to work with this year’s participants in the aged 30 or under who are citizens of the • youtube.com/lso the UK premiere of one of the his earliest Panufnik Composers Workshops on 18 March. 28 countries with full membership of the • lso.co.uk/blog orchestral compositions, which was European Union, plus those in Norway, previously thought lost. From Friday 9 February we also embark on Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. a parallel Debussy BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS We are delighted that this series will be Concert series at LSO St Luke’s, exploring For the first time the final round of the led by François-Xavier Roth, who began his the composer’s chamber music. Competition, in which three finalists will This evening we are delighted to welcome: tenure as LSO Principal Guest Conductor conduct the LSO at the Barbican competing Wens Travel in September 2017. With his expertise in for a £15,000 prize on 22 November, will Gerrards Cross Community Association Debussy’s music, we greatly anticipate the be streamed live on medici.tv. For more choice of programmes and the insight he information visit lso.co.uk/news. Read our news online will bring to this fascinating music. It is also • lso.co.uk/news a pleasure to welcome cellist Edgar Moreau Kathryn McDowell CBE DL who makes his LSO debut tonight, and who Managing Director at the age of 23 is a rising star. 2 Welcome 21 January 2018 Tonight’s Concert / by François-Xavier Roth Spring 2018: Elgar, Mahler & Helen Grime ith 2018 being 100 years since PROGRAMME NOTE WRITERS Thursday 8 February 2018 7.30pm Thursday 19 & 26 April 2018 7.30pm the death of Debussy I wanted to Barbican Hall Barbican Hall celebrate this major figure, whom Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and many people believe was the first to really translator who writes extensively on French, SIR MARK ELDER HELEN GRIME WORLD PREMIERE advance modern music. I thought it would be Russian and Eastern European music. great to have three programmes that guide us Janáček Schluck und Jau Helen Grime Woven Space * through Debussy’s music, from his influences Wendy Thompson studied at the Bartók Piano Concerto No 3 (world premiere) through to those whom he influenced. Royal College of Music and King’s College, Elgar Symphony No 1 Mahler Symphony No 9 London. In addition to writing about I started with Debussy’s roots. There’s no music she is Executive Director of Classic Sir Mark Elder conductor Sir Simon Rattle conductor doubt that he was influenced by French Arts Productions, a major supplier of Francesco Piemontesi piano traditionalists, like Édouard Lalo. As a programmes to BBC Radio. * Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the young man Debussy discovered Lalo’s ballet LSO by the Barbican Namouna, and was fascinated by the new Roger Nichols has taught in British Sunday 11 February 2018 7pm possibilities that were coming through his Universities, written and presented Barbican Hall 26 April generously supported by Baker McKenzie music. Richard Wagner was also a great programmes for BBC Radio 3 and published influence, especially in the way he structured 20 books on French music. In 2007 he was SIR MARK ELDER his works and his philosophy; and finally appointed chevalier de la Légion d’honneur Jules Massenet was an extremely important for services to French culture. Dvořák Overture: Othello figure while Debussy was a student in Paris. Bruch Violin Concerto No 1 Sunday 22 April 2018 7pm Richard Langham Smith has published widely Elgar Symphony No 2 Barbican Hall By Debussy himself we will have an exciting on French music and has a particular interest discovery: the UK premiere of Première Suite. in Debussy. In 1995 he was made a chevalier Sir Mark Elder conductor TIPPETT’S THE ROSE LAKE The parts for this work were only recently de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres for services Nikolaj Znaider violin unearthed in a library in New York, and I had to French culture. He is currently Research Tippett The Rose Lake † the great privilege of premiering this piece in Professor at the Royal College of Music. Mahler comp Cooke Symphony No 10 2012 with my orchestra, Les Siècles. Although it’s clearly music by a young man, it already Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Sir Simon Rattle conductor shows some really interesting developments journalist and writer. He is the author and has some magical moments. of The LSO at 90, and contributes to † Supported by Resonate, a PRS Foundation a wide variety of specialist classical lso.co.uk/whatson initiative in partnership with the Association of Read the full article at lso.co.uk/debussy music publications. 020 7638 8891 British Orchestras, BBC Radio 3 and the Boltini Trust Tonight’s Concert 3 Richard Wagner Overture: Tannhäuser 1845 / note by Andrew Huth n Wagner’s imagination, the when the minstrels are invited to sing • TANNHÄUSER THE MINNESINGER • RICHARD WAGNER IN PROFILE combination of medieval German of the true nature of love. Tannhäuser legends that makes up the story scandalises everyone by his praise of Venus, of Tannhäuser • became a symbol of the and is commanded to join a band of pilgrims eternal battle between the life of the senses and seek forgiveness for his sins in Rome. and the life of the spirit. The opera also He returns in the third act, unforgiven, provides a vivid picture of the 30-year-old and is about to return to Venus, feeling composer absorbing the operatic styles himself cursed by man and God, but is of the present and past, and looking far finally and miraculously redeemed at the into the future. There are many features point of death by the pure love of the that reflect the sort of spectacular French Landgrave’s daughter. Grand Opera that Wagner would later condemn out of hand: a ballet, an elaborate Begun in 1843 and completed in 1845, Tannhäuser (c 1200–70) was a Minnesinger, Wagner was born on 22 May 1813 in Leipzig. transformation scene and imposing Tannhäuser was first performed on a German poet-musician. In the 12th and In 1829 he completed his first instrumental processions; but the essence of the opera 19 October at the Dresden Opera, where 13th centuries ‘Minnesang’ were songs that compositions, writing the libretto for his is something much more personal. Wagner had been working as an energetic recounted intrigues of courtly love, a social first opera Die Feen in 1833. In 1839 Wagner Tannhäuser himself is a complex figure, torn and enterprising conductor, and was already code of behaviour between lovers which moved from Riga to Paris to escape his within himself and at odds with his world, famous as the hugely ambitious composer emphasised values of chivalry and ‘loving creditors, living in extreme poverty. Here and his moments of overwrought suffering of Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman. Over nobly’. This romantic ideal had come to he completed Rienzi and created The Flying foreshadow the even more complex figures the following years it was subject to Germany from France and the traditions Dutchman, which established his reputation. to be found in Wagner’s later music dramas, several revisions, the most wide-ranging of the troubadours. As a Minnesinger In the 1850s, he began composing his cycle particularly Tristan and Parsifal. of which were made for its disastrous Tannhäuser travelled widely, and he is of the four Nibelung operas, also completing three performances in Paris in 1861; these suspected to have taken part in the Crusade his opera Tristan and Isolde.