Sunday 20 October 2019 7–9pm Barbican LSO SEASON CONCERT JANÁČEK & DVOŘÁK Janáček Ballad of Blaník Dvořák The Golden Spinning Wheel Interval CZECH Janáček Glagolitic Mass Kazushi Ono conductor Lucie Vagenknechtová soprano Lucie Hilscherová alto Aleš Briscein tenor Jan Martiník bass ROOTS Peter Solomon organ London Symphony Chorus Simon Halsey chorus director Broadcast live on Mezzo Live HD Welcome Latest News Janáček fuses the evocative writing of his WATCH THE LSO ON YOUTUBE WELCOME TO OUR GROUP BOOKERS tone poems with the forms and texts of the Mass, finding inspiration in the landscape The LSO’s 2019/20 season opening concert We are delighted to welcome a group from and sounds of the Moravian forests. with Sir Simon Rattle on Saturday 14 Traveliko Wioślarska, who are attending September was filmed and streamed on tonight’s concert. This concert was preceded by a Discovery the LSO’s YouTube channel on Saturday 21 Day at the Barbican and LSO St Luke’s, September, where the video is available to Please ensure all phones are switched off. featuring an open rehearsal, talks and watch back for 90 days after the premiere. Photography and audio/video recording chamber music performances by LSO The all-British programme featured the are not permitted during the performance. musicians. A warm welcome to those who world premiere of Emily Howard’s attended who also join us here tonight. Antisphere, Colin Matthews’ Violin Concerto elcome to tonight’s LSO with soloist Leila Josefowicz and Walton’s concert, which marks conductor I would like to take this opportunity to Symphony No 1. Kazushi Ono’s first appearance thank our media partner Mezzo, who with the Orchestra on the Barbican stage, are broadcasting this performance live • youtube.com/lso following on from a performance of in 80 countries on Mezzo Live HD. Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony during a tour to Aix-en-Provence in 2010. The exploration of Czech roots continues in CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF LSO LIVE the Orchestra’s next concert at the Barbican Tonight’s programme draws out the theme on Thursday 24 October, when Sir John Eliot 20 years ago the LSO became the first of folk music and culture, which runs Gardiner joins us to conduct Josef Suk’s orchestra to start its own record label, LSO throughout the season, with a focus on Second Symphony and Dvořák’s stirring Live. To celebrate, we have launched a new Czech composers Dvořák and Janáček. Cello Concerto, featuring cellist Truls Mørk. initiative to bring the themes of our 2019/20 I hope you will be able to join us. season to Apple Music via a series of artist- This evening begins with Janáček’s tone curated radio programming and playlists. poem of 1920, based on a legend of the mountain of Blaník – a story also explored in • lsolive.co.uk Smetana’s Má vlast – followed by Dvořák’s • applemusic.com/lso musical retelling of The Golden Spinning Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Wheel. After the interval, we are joined by Managing Director the London Symphony Chorus and soloists for Janáček’s glorious Glagolitic Mass, where 2 Welcome 20 October 2019 On Our Blog Contributors Coming Up DENIS MATSUEV: ‘IT IS MAGIC!’ PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Thursday 31 October 7.30pm Wednesday 13 November 6.30pm Barbican Barbican Looking forward to his performances of Alison Bullock is a freelance writer and Prokofiev’s Second and Third Piano Concertos music consultant whose interests range SHOSTAKOVICH SIXTH SYMPHONY HALF SIX FIX with the LSO this autumn, we caught up with from Machaut to Messiaen and beyond. PROKOFIEV FIFTH SYMPHONY pianist Denis Matsuev to talk about Russian Britten Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia composers, performing with Gianandrea David Nice writes and broadcasts on music, from ‘Peter Grimes’ An early-evening concert with introductions Noseda and the magic of the stage. notably for BBC Radio 3 and BBC Music Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 2 from the conductor, a relaxed atmosphere and Magazine. His book Prokofiev: From Russia Shostakovich Symphony No 6 close-ups of the Orchestra on our large screens. to the West, 1891–1935 was published by AUTUMN’S CLASSIC FM Yale University Press in 2003. Gianandrea Noseda conductor Prokofiev Symphony No 5 RECOMMENDED CONCERTS Denis Matsuev piano Jan Smaczny is a Hamilton Harty Professor Michael Tilson Thomas conductor At the LSO, we are proud to have been of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast. Sunday 10 November 7pm Classic FM’s Orchestra in the City of London A well-known writer and broadcaster, Barbican Recommended by Classic FM for over 17 years. Each season, a selection he has recently published books on the of our concerts come recommended by repertoire of the Prague Provisional MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: 50TH ANNIVERSARY Thursday 14 November 7.30pm Classic FM. This is our round-up of Classic Theatre and Dvořák’s Cello Concerto. ROMEO AND JULIET Barbican FM recommended concerts and a look at where the music sits in the LSO’s history. Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Berlioz Romeo and Juliet MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: 50TH ANNIVERSARY journalist and writer. He is the author of The TCHAIKOVSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO • lso.co.uk/more/blog LSO at 90 and contributes to a wide variety Michael Tilson Thomas conductor of specialist classical music publications. Alice Coote mezzo-soprano Michael Tilson Thomas Agnegram Nicholas Phan tenor Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Nicolas Courjal bass Prokofiev Symphony No 5 London Symphony Chorus Simon Halsey chorus director Michael Tilson Thomas conductor Guildhall School Musicians Nicola Benedetti violin Supported by LSO Patrons 6pm Barbican LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists Free pre-concert recital Coming Up 3 Leoš Janáček Ballad of Blaník 1920 note by David Nice zech independence finally arrived as a post-independence gesture of 1920 it on 28 October 1918 and it already seems an oblique take on national glory (so MÁ VLAST had a glorious soundtrack. In the typical of Janáček). In a mere eight minutes, ON LSO LIVE 19th century its chief musical proponent was the composer distils the essence of an old Smetana who, in the last two movements Czech legend in which a young peasant, of his epic symphonic cycle Má vlast (My Jira – characterised by clarinet and violas in Homeland, 1874–9), gave a musical account a restless opening theme – faints at the of a great victory, won by the freedom- sight of Mount Blaník opening up to reveal fighters in Tábor and the legendary sleeping St Wenceslas and his Hussite knights (a knights who awoke from the mountain of chorale on horns backed up mistily by two Blaník and came to the aid of their country. harps). When he recovers consciousness, the knights have exchanged swords for In his tone poem Taras Bulba, begun in ploughshares (a more radiant vision, close to 1915, Janáček took a story by Nikolai Gogol the apotheosis of Taras Bulba). Jira returns about a cossack visionary who imagined to the village, but now he is an old man, freedom for Ukraine, and paralleled it with and optimism flares up again in the final ambitions for the Czech future. There are bars of this utterly characteristic, strikingly also revolutionary strains in his opera The orchestrated and pithy masterpiece. • Sir Colin Davis conductor Excursions of Mr Brouček, which follows anti-hero Mr Brouček on a journey to the Sir Colin Davis’ recordings of Czech moon, then back in time to the heroic 15th music are prized for their strength century. At a contemporary performance, the and sensitivity. This 2005 recording author and inventor of Brouček, Svatopluk of Smetana's Má vlast is no exception Čech, appeared on stage in a blaze to ask and is a rare example of the complete ‘When will our blood revel once more in cycle being captured live in its entirety, freedom?’ here in the Barbican Hall. When independence came, peacefully, Janáček dedicated The Excursions of Mr Brouček to the noble and humane first Czech Czech landscape painter Alois Kalvoda lsolive.co.uk President, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. He did (1875–1934) depicts the forests of Janáček’s the same with the Ballad of Blaník, though homeland in this work, titled Birch Trees 4 Programme Notes 20 October 2019 Leoš Janáček in Profile 1854–1928 note by Andrew Stewart to Prague in 1874 and studied organ at Janáček’s second marriage also proved an • KAMILA STÖSSLOVÁ the Bohemian capital’s celebrated Organ unhappy match, its tensions highlighted in School, returning to Brno the following year 1917 after he fell in love, obsessively so, with Janáček met Kamila Stösslová in 1917, and and resuming his teaching and conducting Kamila Stösslová •, wife of an antiques fell in love with her despite being nearly activities. Composition studies in Leipzig dealer and 37 years the composer’s junior. 40 years her senior. His passionate feelings and Vienna (1879-80) added to Janáček’s seemed to encourage a flourishing of blossoming skills as a composer, although International recognition was underpinned musical creativity, and they entered into a he struggled to make further progress. In by the Berlin and New York premieres correspondence reaching over 700 letters, 1881 he married the 16-year-old Zdenka of Jenůfa (1924) and the overwhelming which inspired Janáček to write his String Schulzová; a few months later he helped dramatic impact of his operas Katya Quartet No 2, ‘Intimate Letters’. found the Brno Organ School, which later Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen and became the Brno Conservatory. The Makropulos Affair. Janáček’s marriage soon failed, and the The Glagolitic Mass (1927), his last opera couple were estranged. In 1887 he began From the House of the Dead (1927–8) and anáček’s father, Jiří, was cantor, work on his first opera, Šárka, although its the Second String Quartet (1928) crowned Kapellmeister and teacher, librettist subsequently refused permission Janáček’s creative Indian summer, brought to serving a number of impoverished for the unknown young composer to have a conclusion when the composer caught a chill communities in northern Moravia.