London Symphony Orchestra Living Music Sunday 17 January 2016 7pm Barbican Hall PABLO HERAS-CASADO Tchaikovsky The Tempest: Fantasy Overture London’s Symphony Orchestra Elgar Cello Concerto INTERVAL Dvorˇák Symphony No 7 Pablo Heras-Casado conductor Alisa Weilerstein cello Concert finishes approx 9.15pm 2 Welcome 17 January 2016 Welcome Living Music Kathryn McDowell In Brief Welcome to this evening’s LSO concert. We are JACK MAXWELL JP, 1925–2015 delighted that Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado returns to the LSO to conduct a programme featuring The LSO was saddened to learn of the death of Jack a work by Tchaikovsky inspired by Shakespeare, 400 Maxwell in December. Jack, together with his wife years after the great playwright’s death, Elgar’s Cello Pamela, had been a patron of the LSO since the Concerto and Dvorˇák’s Seventh Symphony. early 1970s and endowed the chair of the Principal Second Violin. For the Elgar Concerto, our soloist is the American cellist Alisa Weilerstein, who makes her debut Jack joined the LSO Advisory Council in 1971 and with the Orchestra this evening. Alisa is rapidly later became a Trustee. He was always concerned establishing a strong reputation as one of the leading for the welfare of the players and to this end founded cellists of her generation and in 2011 was awarded the LSO Musicians Welfare Fund in 1977. On many the prestigious MacArthur Genius Grant. occasions Jack and Pamela funded celebratory dinners for the members of the Orchestra and administration I would like to take this opportunity to thank our which would never have taken place without their media partner Classic FM, who recommended generosity. In 2001 Jack stood down as a Trustee. To tonight’s concert to their listeners. thank him for his support over so many years, the LSO appointed him an Honorary Member of the Orchestra. I hope you enjoy the performance and can join us again for our next concert. On Thursday 21 January we will be joined by conductor François-Xavier Roth A WARM WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS for the first instalment of his ‘After Romanticism’ series, exploring music composed on the cusp of The LSO offers great benefits for groups of 10+, modernity with works by Wagner, Berg and Mahler. including 20% discount on standard tickets. Tonight we are delighted to welcome: Hertford U3A Renaissance Tours Old Bexley Music Society Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Ann Parrish & Friends Managing Director Robina Frosinini & Friends Marina Comas-Castineira & Friends lso.co.uk/groups London Symphony Orchestra Living Music Shakespeare 400 His words come to life in music PROGRAMME NOTE AUTHOR LINDSAY KEMP is a senior producer for BBC Radio 3, including ‘Gianandreaprogramming lunchtime Noseda concerts fromwhipped LSO St Luke’s, up Artistic a demonic Director storm.’ of the Lufthansa Festival of BaroqueThe Independent Music, and a regular contributor to Gramophone magazine. A MIDSUMMER MACBETH, RICHARD III & FAMILY CONCERT: BBC RADIO 3 NIGHT’S DREAM ROMEO AND JULIET PLAY ON, SHAKESPEARE! LUNCHTIME CONCERTS Tue 16 Feb 7.30pm Thu 25 Feb 7.30pm Sun 7 Feb 2.30pm Thu 21 Jan 1pm, LSO St Luke’s Mendelssohn Symphony No 1; Smetana Richard III Shakespeare needs the help of Puck James Gilchrist & Anna Tilbrook A Midsummer Night’s Dream Liszt Piano Concerto No 2 and the LSO to get over his writer’s Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet block. With music by Mendelssohn, Thu 28 Jan 1pm, LSO St Luke’s Sir John Eliot Gardiner conductor Strauss Macbeth Prokofiev, Walton, Sibelius and BBC Singers & David Hill Monteverdi Choir Shostakovich Actors from the Guildhall School Gianandrea Noseda conductor Simon Trpcˇeski piano LSO DISCOVERY DAY: BERLIOZ AND SHAKESPEARE ROMEO AND JULIET shakespeare400.org Sun 28 Feb 10am–5pm Sun 28 Feb 7pm Barbican & LSO St Luke’s Shostakovich Violin Concerto No 2 Watch a morning rehearsal with Berlioz Romeo and Juliet – Suite Gianandrea Noseda before spending the afternoon exploring lso.co.uk Gianandrea Noseda conductor Berlioz and Shakespeare with guest Janine Jansen violin speaker Julian Rushton 020 7638 8891 4 Programme Notes 17 January 2016 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93) The Tempest: Fantasy Overture Op 18 (1873) PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER Tchaikovsky’s first Shakespearean orchestral fantasy, For the next few months, Tchaikovsky was busy with GERARD MCBURNEY divides Romeo and Juliet (1869), established the composer other things. But on 19 August 1873, while staying on his time between composing and as a leader of Russian music in his time. The idea the remote country estate of a friend, he sat down arranging, teaching, writing and had originally (and generously) been suggested by to work, and completed a draft in just eleven days. broadcasting, especially on the another composer, Balakirev, who concocted an Even he was impressed by his own speed. subject of contemporary Russian extremely simplified version of Shakespeare’s love- and Soviet music. story for Tchaikovsky to follow. Intriguingly, when The composer provided his own scenario for his four years later Tchaikovsky thought of writing a piece: ‘The sea. The magician Prospero sends his similar piece, the exact same process took place. obedient spirit Ariel to raise a tempest. Wreck of the ship bearing Ferdinand. The magic island. First timid VLADIMIR STASOV (1824–1906) ‘Be not afeard; the isle is full of feelings of love between Miranda and Ferdinand. was one of the most respected noises. Sounds, and sweet airs, Ariel. Caliban. The lovers give themselves to the Russian critics of his day. During his enchantments of passion. Prospero renounces his time he discovered and nurtured that give delight and hurt not.’ magic powers and leaves the island. The sea.’ many of Russia’s greatest artistic The Tempest Act II, Scene 2 talents. He was a key figure in What Tchaikovsky offers here is an elegantly simple establishing a distinctively Russian and symmetrical arch structure. The music begins aesthetic in the arts; it was his This time the suggestion came from the critic and and ends with the sea, waves rising and falling in opinion that art should not only scholar Vladimir Stasov. In January 1873, at a dinner eerie, almost disconnected chords, the presence of portray people’s lives but also show in Rimsky-Korsakov’s apartment in St Petersburg, magic signified by long horn-calls. And within this them how to live. Stasov asked Tchaikovsky what his next piece outer frame, an inner frame, a portrait of the lordly would be. Presumably Tchaikovsky answered ‘a master of the island, Prospero. As befits the old symphonic poem’, as shortly afterwards Stasov man’s priestly role, Tchaikovsky gives him a chorale- TCHAIKOVSKY ON wrote suggesting three subjects: Shakespeare’s like theme, while Ariel dances in the woodwind. The COMPOSING THE TEMPEST The Tempest, Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, and Nikolai storm, when it arrives, is short. ‘I was in a kind of exalted, blissful Gogol’s Taras Bulba. Tchaikovsky chose The Tempest. frame of mind, wandering during And within this double frame of sea and Prospero, the day alone in the woods, To start with, the two men disagreed about the the composer places the haunting and noble love- towards evening over the shape. Stasov wanted a noisy storm, for example, music for Ferdinand and Miranda, and within the immeasurable steppes, and sitting while Tchaikovsky thought he should drop the love-music, at the heart of his symphonic fantasy, at night by the open window storm and concentrate on the love-music. He also the two spirits, Ariel and Caliban. We should listening to the solemn silence … wondered about calling the work ‘Miranda’ after remember, as Tchaikovsky no doubt wanted us to, During these two weeks I wrote Shakespeare’s heroine. But eventually the two that it is to Caliban that Shakespeare gives some of The Tempest in rough without any agreed: a sea; a storm; Prospero and his magic; the most beautiful lines in the play: effort, as though moved by some the love between Ferdinand and Miranda; and the supernatural force.’ spirits, Ariel and Caliban. ‘Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears …’ lso.co.uk Composer Profiles 5 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Edward Elgar Composer Profile Composer Profile Tchaikovsky was born in Kamsko- Elgar’s father, a trained piano- Votkinsk in the Vyatka province tuner, ran a music shop in of Russia on 7 May 1840. His Worcester in the 1860s. Young father was a mining engi n eer, his Edward, the fourth of seven mother of French extraction. He children, showed musical talent began to study the piano at five, but was largely self-taught as benefiting also from the mus ical a player and composer. During instruction of his elder brother’s his early freelance career, which French governess. In 1848 the included work conducting the family moved to the imperial staff band at the County Lunatic capital, St Petersburg, where Pyotr Asylum in Powick, he suffered was enrolled at the School of many setbacks. He was forced to Jurisprudence. He overcame his continue teaching long after the grief at his mother’s death in 1854 desire to compose full-time had by composing and performing, taken hold. A picture emerges although music was to remain a of a frustrated, pessimistic man, diversion from his job – as a clerk at the Ministry of Justice – until he whose creative impulses were restrained by his circumstances and enrolled as a full-time student at the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1863. apparent lack of progress. The cantata Caractacus, commissioned by the Leeds Festival and premiered in 1898, brought the composer His First Symphony was warmly received at its St Peters­­burg premiere recognition beyond his native city.