Sunday 9 June 2019 7–8.55pm Barbican LSO SEASON CONCERT SCHEHERAZADE Liam Mattison Violet from ‘Two Ladies’ (world premiere) † Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 Interval CHAN Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade Elim Chan conductor Alice Sara Ott piano † Commissioned via the Panufnik Composers & OTT Scheme, generously supported by Lady Hamlyn and The Helen Hamlyn Trust Elim Chan’s appearance with the LSO is generously supported by the Reignwood Culture Foundation Welcome Latest News For Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1, we 2019 CITY LIVERY CONCERT NEW COMMISSIONS FOR 2020/21 are delighted to welcome pianist Alice Sara Ott, who appears with us following This evening we host the 2019 City Livery George Stevenson and Joel Järventausta, her excellent BBC Radio 3 Concert series at Concert, a fi xture of the livery calendar which two composers who recently fi nished LSO St Luke’s. We look forward to working highlights the arts in the City of London and, the LSO Panufnik Scheme, have been with her on many future occasions. The in particular, the development of Culture Mile, commissioned to write new music for the concert closes with Rimsky-Korsakov’s an innovative and exciting collaboration LSO to perform in the Orchestra’s 2020/21 Scheherazade, which is also being recorded between The City of London Corporation, season at the Barbican. These commissions for the Orchestra’s interactive music the Barbican, Guildhall School of Music & support composers at a critical stage in education platform, LSO Play. Drama, the London Symphony Orchestra their careers, providing them with time, elcome to tonight’s LSO concert, and the Museum of London. resources and expertise. which takes place on the 115th I am delighted that we are joined by The Rt anniversary of the Orchestra’s fi rst Hon the Lord Mayor, Alderman Peter Estlin We are grateful to Sir Andrew and Lady Read more about the new commissions at performance on 9 June 1904. We are delighted and representatives from the City livery Parmley for their part in making this evening • lso.co.uk/news to be joined by conductor Elim Chan, who companies. I also would like to take this possible, and to The Rt Hon the Lord Mayor, since winning the 2014 Donatella Flick LSO opportunity to thank LSO Principal Partner Alderman Peter Estlin, and the liverymen Conducting Competition has continued to Reignwood Group for their generous support and women for their support, which will WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS work closely with us, directing Schools and of Elim Chan’s appearance tonight and for benefi t the Lord Mayor’s Appeal. Family Concerts, LSO Discovery Showcases their commitment to the LSO over recent Welcome to the groups attending tonight’s and a performance in Hanoi in 2019. We have years. Thanks also go to Classic FM, our concert: Adele Friedland & Friends and been delighted to watch her career develop media partner, which has recommended LSO AT THE BBC PROMS 2019 Wens Travel. with appointments at the Royal Scottish this evening’s concert to its listeners. National Orchestra and now as Chief Conductor The LSO performs Walton’s Belshazzar’s of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra. I hope that you enjoy the performance, and Feast on Tuesday 20 August at the BBC that you are able to join us again soon. Proms, with a 300-strong choir conducted This evening’s concert opens with a new work by Sir Simon Rattle. The programme also by Liam Mattison, commissioned as part includes Varèse’s Amériques – a portrait of a of the LSO’s Panufnik Composers Scheme. modern city in sound – and French composer Please ensure all phones are switched off . Since it began in 2005, the scheme has Charles Koechlin’s Les bandar-log from Photography and audio/video recording supported 87 emerging composers, work that Kathryn McDowell CBE DL The Jungle Book, completed in 1939. are not permitted during the performance. is made possible by generous support from Managing Director Lady Hamlyn and The Helen Hamlyn Trust. 2 Welcome 9 June 2019 REIGNWOOD GROUP IS PROUD TO BE PRINCIPAL PARTNER OF THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA As a global investment company, Reignwood Group is committed to responsible investing. We believe investors worldwide must respect the environment, culture and communities they operate in, preserving heritage and fostering a spirit of international co-operation and understanding. LEARN MORE AT REIGNWOOD.COM Tonight’s Concert In Brief Coming Up his evening’s concert draws stories to entertain him. She delivers a Sunday 16 June 7–8.50pm Sunday 30 June 5–6.30pm together the rich harmonic chapter every evening, promising more to Barbican Trafalgar Square language of late-Romantic the story if she is allowed to live and, after Russian music with a new work by LSO 1,000 continuous stories, is spared her life. ARTIST PORTRAIT: DANIIL TRIFONOV BMW CLASSICS Panufnik Composer Liam Mattison. Rimsky-Korsakov’s intricately descriptive music brings the story to life. Beethoven Overture: Egmont Dvořák Selection of Slavonic Dances Violet is the first part of Two Ladies, a larger Shostakovich Concerto No 1 for piano, trumpet Bushra El-Turk Tuqus (world premiere) * work first written by Liam Mattison in 2017. and strings Poulenc Selection from ‘Les biches – Suite’ In what Mattison describes as a ‘comic book PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Berlioz Harold in Italy * Ravel La valse journey’, Violet begins small, with quiet gestures that expand over the course of Jo Kirkbride is Chief Executive of Dunedin Gianandrea Noseda conductor Sir Simon Rattle conductor the piece’s four minutes into wide, almost Consort and a freelance writer on classical Daniil Trifonov piano London Symphony Orchestra overwhelming orchestral textures that music, whose broad roster of clients includes Philip Cobb trumpet LSO On Track Young Musicians * ultimately burst, coming to comfortable rest. the London Sinfonietta, Britten Sinfonia, Antoine Tamestit viola * Guildhall School Musicians * Aldeburgh Productions, Cheltenham Festival London Symphony Orchestra Though written in a minor key, Tchaikovsky’s and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Produced in partnership with BMW First Piano Concerto belies the anguish one Thursday 27 June 7.30–9.25pm might usually expect in favour of tripping Wendy Thompson studied at the Royal Saturday 29 June 7.30–9.25pm melodies and nervous energy, borrowing College of Music and King’s College, Barbican tunes from Ukrainian folk song and even London. In addition to writing about the Belgian singer Désirée Artôt. The piece music she is Executive Director of Classic THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN opens with a grand introduction complete Arts Productions, a major supplier of with broad horn calls, before moving to a independent programmes to BBC Radio. Janáček The Cunning Little Vixen (semi-staged) melodic nocturne-like slow movement and a vigorous, extroverted finale. Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and Sir Simon Rattle conductor translator who writes extensively on French, Peter Sellars director Inspired by the collection of Persian Russian and Eastern European music. Lucy Crowe, Gerald Finley, Sophia Burgos, Peter fairy-tales One Thousand and One Nights, Hoare, Jan Martiník, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Scheherazade tells the story of a Sultan’s Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Paulina Malefane, Anna Lapkovskaja soloists cunning wife, who in an effort to avoid journalist and writer. He is the author of The London Symphony Orchestra being executed by her husband the morning LSO at 90, and contributes to a wide variety after their wedding night, weaves elaborate of specialist classical music publications. Produced by LSO and Barbican 4 Tonight’s Concert 9 June 2019 Liam Mattison Violet from ‘Two Ladies’ (world premiere) 2017 / note by Jo Kirkbride erhaps it stems from a fondness David, His Wife and Jasper is the second in as the flutes flutter off into the distance, for musicals, or from his early a set of two works exploring what Mattison the intensity – so close to becoming experience of playing Javert in a describes as an ‘almost’ reality, each inspired overpowering – is quickly dispersed. • school production of Les Misèrables aged by literature. In this two-work set, entitled 15, but Mattison has a thing for stories. Two Ladies, Violet is heard first. His music finds the theatrical in the everyday, the scores evolving into broad Mattison does not spell out who or what is The Panufnik Composers Scheme is canvases that carry the listener along on the inspiration for Violet but there are plenty generously supported by Lady Hamlyn a wave of irresistible drama. of clues in his cartoonish score. It is, he says, and The Helen Hamlyn Trust. ‘a comic book journey between sounds and The way Mattison describes his composition intensities’, a work that starts out small process – ‘both long and short, but always and unassuming but which intensifies and incredibly involved’ – would be a fitting expands until it reaches bursting point. • PANUFNIK COMPOSERS SCHEME characterisation of his music too. We hear It begins with a swirl of percussion and the each miniature in glittering detail, even rumble of the double bass, the air tense and The Panufnik Composers Scheme offers as we are swept along by the narrative of uncertain, punctuated only by the soft call of six emerging composers each year the the whole. In turn, he too flits between a single trumpet. We hear a hint of surprise opportunity to write for the LSO. Guided working from ‘moment to moment, gesture from the marimba, a quiver of activity in by composer Colin Matthews, participants to gesture’, while allowing the music ‘to the strings, and then the escalation begins. are able to experiment over time, develop organically grow and relate to the larger Layer by layer the orchestra begins to swell, at their orchestral writing skills and build form in each moment’.