Sunday 20 May 2018 7–8.30pm Barbican Hall LSO SEASON CONCERT MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS Beethoven Missa Solemnis MISSA No interval Michael Tilson Thomas conductor Camilla Tilling soprano Sasha Cooke mezzo-soprano Toby Spence tenor Luca Pisaroni bass-baritone London Symphony Chorus Simon Halsey chorus director Gavin Carr guest chorus director SOLEMNIS London Symphony Orchestra Recorded for broadcast on Wednesday 23 May by BBC Radio 3 Welcome LSO News Online and Luca Pisaroni and Sasha Cooke, both ‘THIS IS RATTLE’ WINS RPS AWARD LIVE STREAMS making their LSO debuts this evening. The LSO has been awarded the Royal Our concert on Sunday 24 June 2018 will Many thanks to our media partners, Philharmonic Society’s Music Award in the be streamed live for free on Medici.tv, as the BBC Radio 3, who are recording this Concert Series and Festivals category for LSO’s Principal Guest Conductor Gianandrea performance for broadcast on September’s ‘This is Rattle’ celebrations – Noseda conducts Shostakovich's Symphony Wednesday 23 May. ten days of concerts, films, exhibitions, No 10 live from the Barbican Hall. It will and performances by our community and also be broadcast live on the LSO’s YouTube I hope you enjoy the concert and that you education groups, to welcome Sir Simon channel: youtube.com/lso can join us again soon. We explore more Rattle as Music Director of the LSO. Visit Beethoven at our penultimate concert of royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk to find A warm welcome to tonight’s LSO concert the season on Sunday 3 June as Yefim out more and view the full list of winners. PANUFNIK COMMISSIONS ANNOUNCED at the Barbican. This evening we are Bronfman performs Beethoven’s Third delighted to be joined by Michael Tilson Piano Concerto, conducted by Principal Every year since 2009, the LSO Panufnik Thomas, the LSO’s Conductor Laureate, Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda, BMW CLASSICS IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE Composers Scheme has commissioned two for the second of two concerts at the alongside Ravel’s Rhapsodie espagnole of its six participating composers to create Barbican this season. and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The LSO and Sir Simon Rattle will perform short works for performance in the LSO’s a free open-air concert in Trafalgar Square on main Barbican season. We are delighted to Following an all-Sibelius programme earlier Sunday 1 July, alongside 50 young musicians announce that James Hoyle and Sophya in the week, we now join forces with the from the LSO On Track programme and Polevaya receive five- and ten-minute London Symphony Chorus for the majestic musicians from the Guildhall School. commissions respectively. Their pieces will creation to which Beethoven dedicated four The concert is free, no ticket required; be performed in the LSO’s 2019/20 season. years of his life – the Missa Solemnis. This Kathryn McDowell CBE DL visit lso.co.uk/bmwclassics for details. Visit lso.co.uk/news for more information. is a work with which MTT has a great affinity Managing Director and has conducted many times over the course of his career. WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS We are also pleased to welcome an We are delighted to welcome: Read our news, watch videos and more impressive cast of soloists: familiar faces Wheaton College, Adele Friedland & Friends, • lso.co.uk/news Camilla Tilling and Toby Spence, who join us BYU London Centre, The Grand Tour, and • youtube.com/lso once more following performances with the the Gerrards Cross Community Association. • lso.co.uk/blog LSO at the Barbican in recent seasons; 2 Welcome 20 May 2018 Tonight’s Concert / by Lindsay Kemp Coming Up Missa Solemnis is a Mass written That’s a lot for one well-worn liturgical Sunday 3 June 2018 7pm Thursday 5 July 2018 7.30pm for a ceremonial occasion, and text to address, but Beethoven here proves Barbican Hall Barbican Hall Beethoven had one in mind himself the composer who above all can be when he began work on the second of his counted on to rise to the task. PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION LSO ON TRACK AT 10 two settings of the Mass, intended for the enthronement of his friend Archduke Ravel Rhapsodie espagnole John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine Rudolph as Archbishop of Olmütz. PROGRAMME NOTE WRITERS Beethoven Piano Concerto No 3 Kirsty Devaney Urban Nature (world premiere) It soon got too big for that, however, Mussorgsky arr Ravel Beethoven Finale from Symphony No 7 and was not completed in time, but in the Lindsay Kemp is a senior producer for Pictures at an Exhibition Márquez Danzón No 2 end became a huge concert Mass with a BBC Radio 3, including programming James Moriarty Beat Goes On (world premiere) relevance and message that reached far Lunchtime Concerts from LSO St Luke’s, Gianandrea Noseda conductor Howard Moody beyond one day in 1820. Beethoven ended Artistic Director of the Baroque at the Edge Yefim Bronfman piano Chaconne for Sydney Moxon (world premiere) up taking four years to write it, and came festival, and a regular contributor to see it as perhaps his greatest creation, to Gramophone magazine. Recommended by Classic FM Elim Chan conductor a worthy descendant of the great choral Howard Moody conductor works of Handel and Haydn. Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Rachel Leach presenter journalist and writer. He is the author Sunday 24 June 2018 7pm LSO On Track Young Musicians Yet this is more than just a giant statement of The LSO at 90, and contributes to Barbican Hall East London Secondary School of technique; it is a masterpiece in which a wide variety of specialist classical young musicians Beethoven examined those areas of faith music publications. NOSEDA'S SHOSTAKOVICH Guildhall School Musicians that mattered to him most, producing (in the words of tonight’s conductor) a ‘spiritual Shostakovich Violin Concerto No 1 Recommended by Classic FM guidebook’ in which, ‘as in a cathedral, Shostakovich Symphony No 10 different chapels are dedicated to different Elim Chan's appearance with the LSO spiritual territories. Some are majestic, Gianandrea Noseda conductor is generously supported by Reignwood some intimate, some symphonic or even Nicola Benedetti violin operatic.’ Not only that; Michael Tilson LSO On Track is a partnership between the LSO and Barking & Dagenham Community Music Service; Bird College; Thomas also maintains that Beethoven Generously supported by Reignwood Royal Greenwich Music Hub; Hackney Music Service; found in it an opportunity ‘to explore and Havering Music School; Lewisham Music Service; Newham reflect on the nature of time itself, on the Music; Redbridge Music Service; Tower Hamlets Arts and contrast between the fleeting time of Music Education Service; and Waltham Forest Music Service. human life and the vastness of divine time’. Tonight’s Concert 3 Ludwig van Beethoven Missa Solemnis Op 123 1819–23 / note by Lindsay Kemp 1 Kyrie The first, composed in 1807, was a of Olmütz in Moravia (now Olomouc in the took a further three years to finish it, 2 Gloria commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II Czech Republic). The inspiration was thus during which time he not only worked on 3 Credo for a work to continue the series of new a personal as well as religious one, and there completing the symphony and the variations, 4 Sanctus Masses that annually celebrated the name- are signs that the composer was genuinely but also composed the not insubstantial 5 Agnus Dei day of the Prince’s wife, a task that had excited by the thought of producing a Mass music of the last three piano sonatas. been carried out on six previous occasions on a scale worthy of a great cathedral space. The first complete performance took place e think of Beethoven so much by Haydn, with joyous results. ‘The day in which a High Mass composed by in April 1824 in St Petersburg, organised by as an artist with a rare ability Beethoven’s Russian patron Prince Nikolai to celebrate the strength and — Galitzin, but although three movements nobility of the human spirit that it is easy ‘The day in which a High Mass composed by me will be performed from it were heard a month later in a concert to forget he was a religious man. Raised in in Vienna at which the main attraction was an atmosphere of Enlightenment-influenced, during the ceremonies solemnised for Your Imperial Highness will the premiere of the Ninth Symphony, it was tolerant Catholicism, he was a firm believer, be the most glorious day of my life.’ never performed complete in that city while though one with little time for organised — Beethoven was alive. religious observance. For Beethoven, the Creator was the omnipotent but benevolent Ludwig van Beethoven, writing to Archduke Rudolph If this protracted genesis suggests that figure described in Schiller’s words in the Beethoven’s interest in the Missa Solemnis finale of the Ninth Symphony – ‘above the Beethoven’s surprisingly restrained effort me will be performed during the ceremonies meandered once the initial impulse had canopy of the stars there must dwell a dear was not liked (‘but my dear Beethoven, what solemnised for Your Imperial Highness will passed, that is certainly not borne out by Father’ – and when he prayed to this God it is this you have done now?’ was the Prince’s be the most glorious day of my life’, he wrote the music. This is a work on a monumental was on a one-to-one basis, with no need for recorded response), and indeed the Mass in to Rudolph in June 1819, two months after scale, even for a composer who had already the intermediary of the church.