Wednesday 1 May 2019 7.30–9.30pm Barbican LSO SEASON CONCERT SIR SIMON RATTLE Stravinsky Symphonies of Wind Instruments Harrison Birtwistle The Shadow of Night HARMONIE Interval John Adams Harmonielehre Sir Simon Rattle conductor 6pm Barbican Hall LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists LEHRE Free pre-concert recital Stravinsky Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet Stravinsky Suite from ‘The Soldier’s Tale’ Julia Raga Pascual clarinet Lyrit Milgram violin Ryan Drucker piano Welcome Latest News On Our Blog symphonic music of Sibelius and Mahler, and THE LSO IN LATIN AMERICA JOHN ADAMS’ HARMONIELEHRE the rich harmonic world of early Schoenberg. Composed in 1985, Harmonielehre has This May, the LSO tours to Latin America In the age of synth pop, Live Aid and become a classic in the repertoire. for the first time in the Orchestra’s history. Madonna’s Material Girl, how was a composer With concerts in Bogotá, Medellín, Lima, to write large-scale orchestral music for the Earlier tonight, students from the Guildhall Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago, concert hall? Composed in 1985, John Adams’ School performed chamber music by Sir Simon Rattle conducts performances Harmonielehre is one of the most significant Stravinsky in a short recital as part of the of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and Berlioz’s examples of a composer grappling with the LSO Platforms series. These concerts are Symphonie fantastique. Later in 2019, the idea of a symphony in the 20th century. free to attend before selected LSO season Orchestra tours to Ireland, California, Central concerts and provide a platform for the Europe and Asia. Follow us on social media ARTIST PORTRAIT: DANIIL TRIFONOV elcome to tonight’s LSO concert at musicians of the future. for behind-the-scenes updates. the Barbican. In this performance, Piano superstar Daniil tells us about his LSO Music Director Sir Simon Rattle I hope that you enjoy the concert and that facebook.com/londonsymphonyorchestra life away from the concert stage, and the draws together Stravinsky’s Symphonies of you will join us again soon. This month instagram.com/londonsymphonyorchestra experiences that made him love music: from Wind Instruments with the Orchestra’s first Sir Simon Rattle conducts two more twitter.com/londonsymphony rock and jazz to the films of Andrei Tarkovsky performance of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s concerts at the Barbican before the LSO and Scriabin’s ‘The Poem of Ecstasy’. The Shadow of Night, composed in 2001, charts new territory on its first tour to Latin and John Adams’ Harmonielehre in the America in the Orchestra’s 115-year history. Read these articles and more at second half. lso.co.uk/blog In keeping with the 2018/19 season’s theme of ‘roots and origins’, The Shadow of Night is a piece for which Harrison Birtwistle found inspiration in the music of John Dowland, a Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Renaissance composer whose works have Managing Director been influential to British composers writing in the 20th century and beyond. Completing the concert, John Adams’ Please ensure all phones are switched off. Harmonielehre pays homage to the history Photography and audio/video recording of the symphony, looking back to the great are not permitted during the performance. 2 Welcome 1 May 2019 Tonight’s Concert In Brief Sir Simon Rattle with the LSO onight’s concert opens with Romantic symphony, variously representing Thursday 20 June 7.30–9.45pm Saturday 14 September 7.30–9.30pm Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind moods of yearning, isolation and ecstasy Barbican Barbican Instruments, composed in 1920 in with the compositional processes of memory of Claude Debussy. Its name uses minimalism – slowly transforming ostinatos, LSO + GUILDHALL SCHOOL: BRUCKNER SEASON OPENING ‘symphony’ in the sense of ‘sounds together’; hypnotic rhythms and obliquely shifting the piece unfolds in short, contrasting tonality – invoking with melodic contours and Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Emily Howard Antisphere (world premiere)* sections played by different combinations orchestral climaxes of Mahler, the sparsity of Thomas Tallis Colin Matthews Violin Concerto of instruments and is scored for expanded Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony and the complex Grainger Lincolnshire Posy for Winds Walton Symphony No 1 orchestral woodwind and brass, making use harmonies of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. Bruckner Symphony No 4 of the rare alto flute and alto clarinet. Sir Simon Rattle conductor Sir Simon Rattle conductor Leila Josefowicz violin The Shadow of Night is, in Harrison PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS London Symphony Orchestra Birtwistle’s own words, ‘a slow and reflective Guildhall School Musicians *Commissioned for Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO nocturne, exploring the world of melancholy Anthony Burton is a former producer and by the Barbican as understood and celebrated by Elizabethan presenter for BBC Radio 3, now a freelance Generously supported by Baker McKenzie poets and composers’. The music sounds writer and editor. He has written programme Sunday 15 September 7–9pm characteristically modern on its surface, notes on thousands of works of all periods. Thursday 27 June 7.30–9.25pm Barbican and the inspiration of John Dowland’s ‘In Saturday 29 June 7.30–9.25pm darkness let me dwell’ can be heard in the Paul Griffiths has been a critic for nearly Barbican MESSIAEN piece’s basic musical materials: the first 40 years, including for The Times and The three notes of Dowland’s song are quoted in New Yorker, and is an authority on 20th and THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN Messiaen Éclairs sur l’Au-delà the early piccolo’s solo, and are woven into 21st-century music. Among his books are the fabric of the piece. studies of Boulez, Ligeti and Stravinsky. Janáček The Cunning Little Vixen (semi-staged) Sir Simon Rattle conductor He also writes novels and librettos. Closing the concert, John Adams’ Sir Simon Rattle conductor Supported by the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Harmonielehre is one of the most significant Peter Sellars director examples of a composer grappling with the Lucy Crowe Vixen idea of a symphony. In this work Adams Gerald Finley Forester succeeded in re-engaging with a genre he Sophia Burgos Fox, Chocholka admired without compromising his own Peter Hoare Schoolmaster, Cock, Mosquito compositional style and identity. The piece Jan Martiník Badger, Parson recreates the affective worlds of the late- Produced by LSO and Barbican Tonight’s Concert 3 Igor Stravinsky Symphonies of Wind Instruments Original 1920 version / note by Anthony Burton travinsky described his Symphonies — LA REVUE MUSICALE of Wind Instruments as ‘an austere ‘Stravinsky, the chameleon-musician, the man of a thousand-and-one styles, ritual which is unfolded in terms of • Henry Prunières founded music magazine short litanies between different groups of has bequeathed us a totally unified treasury of rhythm.’ La Revue Musicale in 1920. The magazine homogeneous instruments’. The starting- Aaron Copland published new compositions, mostly by point for its composition was the death — French composers, in eleven annual issues, of his friend Claude Debussy in 1918. The and was famous for the quality of its editing, closing chorale, arranged for piano, was The title of ‘symphonies’ does not refer Tempo III does not appear until about typesetting and illustration. published in December 1920, in a special to traditional symphonic procedures, but halfway through the piece, and is used edition of the magazine La Revue Musicale • is used in its older sense of ‘sounding chiefly in two episodes in rapidly changing The magazine also included articles about called Tombeau de Claude Debussy. But together’. The work is constructed in a series metres – the first reminiscent of the music and dance, and additionally published by the time this appeared, Stravinsky of short, intercut segments in different orgiastic dances of The Rite, the second 81 music supplements. Much of the music had already completed the parent work, tempi and colours – a highly original lighter on its feet. featured was composed specially for the dedicated ‘to the memory of Claude Achille procedure in 1920, which may have owed magazine, including works which have since Debussy.’ It was first performed in London something to the then new art of film Meanwhile the slow-crotchet version of been missed out of catalogues of composers’ the following June under Serge Koussevitzky. editing or ‘montage’, and which has had a Tempo I disappears from the mix, except complete works. Production ended in 1939 profound influence on many later composers in two short interjections of brass chords; with the events of World War II. The work is scored for enlarged orchestral (including Harrison Birtwistle). but these prove to be anticipations of the woodwind and brass sections. In its original memorial chorale, which emerges at full form, the woodwind included alto flute and There are three related tempi: Tempo II, half length to bring the work to a solemn end. • the rare alto clarinet. Stravinsky chose not as fast as Tempo I; Tempo III, twice as fast. to publish the score of this version during Tempo I has two different aspects: with a his lifetime. But in 1945, he made a radically changing quaver beat, it is associated with revised version, among other things removing an incisive bell-like figure dominated by high the alto flute and alto clarinet, and giving a clarinets; with a more regular crotchet pulse, much sharper edge to many of its attacks. it is associated with slow-moving chord This revision, published in 1947, became the progressions for the full ensemble. Tempo II standard version. But the original version brings a series of winding, Russian-sounding remained available in sets of proof parts, and melodies (reminiscent of Stravinsky’s 1913 The was preferred by several leading conductors; Rite of Spring) for small groups of woodwind, it eventually appeared in print in 2001.