19 November programme - London Symphony Orchestra

Valery Gergiev © Gautier Deblonde
London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music
Resident at the Barbican
Roman Simovic leader
Friday 19 November 2010 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Rodion Shchedrin Piano Concerto No 4 (‘Sharp Keys’)
INTERVAL
Mahler Symphony No 1 (‘Titan’)
Valery Gergiev conductor
Olli Mustonen piano
Concert ends approx 9.25pm
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Welcome News
A warm welcome to the Barbican for this evening’s LSO concert which
is dedicated to Maurice Murphy, the LSO’s extraordinary, and much
loved, Principal Trumpet from 1977–2007.
Tonight, LSO Principal Conductor Valery Gergiev returns to continue
his exploration of the music of fellow Russian Rodion Shchedrin.
We presented Piano Concerto No 5 in September in the LSO’s
season opening concert, and tonight we welcome Finnish pianist
Olli Mustonen to perform the Piano Concerto No 4 (‘Sharp Keys’).
In 2011 Gergiev turns to the music of two more of his countrymen,
Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. He begins a year-long Tchaikovsky
symphonies cycle with the LSO on 18 January, pairing these with
Shostakovich violin concertos performed by the young Armenian
violinist Sergey Khachatryan making his debut with the LSO, and with
Leonidas Kavakos, making a welcome return in March.
Tomorrow morning the LSO and Gergiev leave on tour to Japan for a
fortnight, where they will perform programmes of Mahler and Sibelius
in Tokyo, Osaka and a number of other cities. I hope you can join us
for the Orchestra’s return to the Barbican on 5 December when we
see a different side to Mahler.
Tonight’s concert features Mahler’s First Symphony – an appropriate
tribute to Maurice Murphy’s memorable performances with the LSO,
and to the great tradition of British brass playing which he championed.
Kathryn McDowell LSO Managing Director
2 Welcome & News
Donatella Flick Conducting Competition – 2010 winner
Congratulations to Clemens Schuldt, winner of the 2010 final of the
Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, held at the Barbican on
4 November. As a key part of his prize, 27-year-old German conductor
Clemens will become Assistant Conductor of the LSO for the next two
years. He was awarded the prize by HRH The Duke of Kent, Donatella
Flick and a distinguished international jury. In the final, he conducted
the LSO in Johann Strauss’s Overture to Die Fledermaus and Wagner’s
Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde.
www.conducting.org
LSO String Experience Scheme
Congratulations also to the 20 young string players who have been
selected from recent auditions to take part in the 2010/11 LSO
String Experience Scheme. The Scheme enables string students
from London music conservatoires to gain professional experience
by playing in rehearsals and concerts with the LSO. Participants are
treated as professional ‘extra’ players and are paid for their work in
line with LSO section players. We are very grateful to the Musicians
Benevolent Fund and to Charles and Pascale Clark for their generous
support of the Scheme.
lso.co.uk/stringexperience
Music’s better shared!
There’s never been a better time to bring all your friends to
an LSO concert. Groups of 10+ receive a 20% discount on
all tickets, plus a host of additional benefits.
Call the dedicated Group Booking line on 020 7382 7211,
visit lso.co.uk/groups or email groups@barbican.org.uk
The LSO is delighted to welcome the following groups tonight:
Gerrards Cross Community Association
King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford
Mariinsky Theatre Trust
MAURICE
MURPHY
1935–2010
LSO Principal Trumpet: 1977–2007
A tribute by LSO Chairman
Lennox Mackenzie
Maurice Murphy was a truly extraordinary
and wonderful man who inspired us all.
He inspired us not only when he put his beloved trumpet to his lips
to create that pure, thrilling and golden sound that we all know and love;
but he inspired us also with his very inner being, displaying generosity
of spirit, care, and love to one and all. Maurice was in short a musical
giant, a loving family man, a true gem and everyone’s hero. He was
also extremely modest, often saying ‘I’m just another trumpet player –
I’ve been very lucky’. Well, I think everyone who has met Maurice has
been lucky, to have known this great, humble and special man.
Maurice was born in London, however, four years later war broke
out and the family returned to the North of England. There were
many brass bands in the area, so Maurice used to say it was just
‘natural’ that he took up the instrument, which he did when he
was six. He played with his Dad in the West Stanley Salvation Army
Band in County Durham, and by twelve he had won the All Britain
Cornet Championships.
Kathryn McDowell © Camilla Panufnik Maurice Murphy 3

Maurice Murphy remembered
Maurice became Principal Cornet with the Fairey Aviation Band and
subsequently received the top job, the highest accolade in the Brass
Band world – Principal Cornet of the Black Dyke Mills Band. His time
there is still remembered with huge affection and admiration, and his
presence remains in Northern brass band folklore and legend.
He started playing with the local orchestras
including the Hallé, the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic and the BBC Northern (now the
BBC Philharmonic), and also enjoyed gigs in
theatres and dance bands. Yorkshire choral
societies used to stagger their traditional
Christmas performances of Handel’s Messiah
so that Maurice could play ‘The Trumpet Shall
Sound’ in all of them.
Maurice with his father Billy
front second and third from right He joined the BBC Northern and stayed with
Crookhall Band, Oct 1951
them for 16 years, ignoring various attempts
to lure him down to London. Eventually, he accepted a trip to Mexico
with the LSO and was often spotted wandering the Mexico City streets
wearing a sombrero. Consequently he was offered the position of
Principal Trumpet of the LSO which he accepted, little realising that his
first engagement with the Orchestra as a member would bring him
worldwide acclaim and international stardom.
John Williams was in town and the LSO was recording the music
for Star Wars. Maurice was cast straight into ‘Opening Titles’ with
its heroic, diamond-sharp fanfares and blistering top Cs. He stamped
his very own imprint and sound on the music, which still takes your
breath away over three decades later, and instantly he gained
legendary status. John Williams, ‘The Governor’ as Maurice called
him, was over the moon with the performance and returned for
many more films with Maurice’s sound very much in mind as he
put pen to paper. Maurice alone was responsible for Hollywood
bringing major film scores to be recorded here in Britain, benefiting
thousands of UK musicians.
Maurice was a totally natural player. He would amaze his colleagues
by walking onto the stage without having warmed up or played a note,
and produce an immaculate Mahler Fifth Symphony. He also had the
unique ability to lift the Orchestra single-handedly and to stimulate it
to greater things. Sir Colin Davis remembers an especially exhausted
LSO playing Sibelius on a Russian tour: ‘We needed a lift from
somewhere’, he said, ‘I looked at Maurice who gave me a big smile,
picked up the LSO and made me a present of it’.
But the part of Maurice’s make-up I shall always remember him most
for was his care and concern for his fellow man. He loved, protected
and cared for his section like no other.
On one occasion we were in Chicago and there was an icy blizzard
blowing. Outside Symphony Hall a tuba player was busking. Maurice
was concerned for the player, thinking he could do himself some
harm, so a spontaneous collection was made from the brass players
and as Maurice was not in the first half he was despatched to give
the tuba player the money. The next time we saw Maurice was at the
interval, his leg and foot heavily bandaged, limping and walking with a
stick! He had handed over the money and then had promptly slipped
over in the icy snow. For the rest of the tour the trumpet section took
it in turns to push Maurice around in a wheelchair, but the cold tuba
player enjoyed his early finish in the warm.
Maurice loved American tours but nowhere more so than Daytona
Beach. The golf courses are sensational there and Maurice had
designed the trumpet box intended to carry his instruments around
the world with space for his golf clubs. It was a joy to watch Maurice
in his element sweetly striking his golf ball far down the fairway.
When Maurice was present, there was always humour and lots of
jokes. We were rehearsing one day in Daytona and all of a sudden
the lights went out and the hall was plunged into darkness. It all went
quiet and Maurice’s voice was heard saying ‘Bad play stops light’.
Maurice thrilled us at the LSO for 30 glorious years and was much
in demand in the freelance world too, where he absolutely loved to
join trumpeters from the jazz and light music world, making many
close friendships.
When the time came for Maurice to retire, nobody wished for that
to happen. It was premature. We all loved him and he was playing
as well as ever, if not better. So every year for seven years he was
asked to stay for another year, with the unanimous backing of the
Orchestra members.
At his final retirement party – and there were many – Maurice was
asked to say a few words. ‘I hate making speeches’, he said, ‘I’d rather
play another Mahler Five’. He intimated he found the travelling harder
and said, ‘Anyway, I thought I would award myself with the DCM
before someone else does’. DCM? ‘Don’t Come Monday’. Little did
Maurice realise that a real award was on the way, a most deserved
MBE in recognition of services to music.
Maurice was never happier than when being with his wife Shirley
and their family, his son Martin and his wife Helen and their son Sam.
It was earlier this year that Maurice and Shirley celebrated their
golden wedding anniversary.
Maurice has touched us all. His memory will live with us forever.
Lennox Mackenzie
Maurice Murphy
1935 Born in Hammersmith
1941 Began studying the cornet
1947 Became All England Juvenile Solo Champion
1956–61 Solo Cornet with Black Dyke Mills Band
1961–76 Principal Trumpet with the BBC Northern
Feb 77 Joined the London Symphony Orchestra as Principal Trumpet
Mar 77 LSO recorded Star Wars with Maurice Murphy playing solo
trumpet on his first day with the Orchestra
Jun 07 Retired from the LSO
2008 Received the Honorary Award of the International Trumpet
Guild, ‘given to those who have made extraordinary
contributions to the art of trumpet playing’
2010 Awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List
4 Maurice Murphy
Photos © Clive Barda, Robert Hill, Anthony Haas
Maurice Murphy 5

Rodion Shchedrin (b 1932)
Piano Concerto No 4 (‘Sharp Keys’) (1991)
1 Sostenuto cantabile – Allegretto – Sostenuto
2 ‘Russian Chimes’ – Allegro
Olli Mustonen piano
Since Prokofiev and Shostakovich the number of front-rank
composers who could also claim to be first-rate concert pianists has
dwindled remarkably, and of the remaining few, hardly any have made
piano music as strong a feature of their output as Rodion Shchedrin.
Trained as a composer under Yuri Shaporin and as a pianist under
Yakov Flier, he has composed six piano concertos to date, as well as
a substantial body of solo piano works.
In this area Shchedrin has generally shown more affinity for
Prokofiev than for Shostakovich, especially in the concertos, which
at least initially were marked by vivid colours, forceful energy and
total absence of self-doubt. His First Piano Concerto, for instance,
a graduation piece from 1954, was an extrovert romp that could have
been designed as a tribute to Prokofiev, who had died the previous
year. Twelve years later, the Second Concerto retained that influence,
alongside a playful indulgence in twelve-note techniques. However,
nearly 20 years separate the first three piano concertos, all of which
Shchedrin premiered and recorded with himself as soloist, from the
last three (No 3 was composed in 1973, No 4 in 1991 to a commission
from the Steinway Foundation). In this second phase, exhibitionism
gives way to a more private, exploratory tone.
According to the composer, ‘The entire [Fourth Piano Concerto] is
in the sharp keys; there is not a single flat in the score’. This is true,
though the ‘sharp keys’ are rarely heard in anything approaching
their pure form. Rather, the first movement, for instance, is poised
somewhere on the arc between A, E, and B majors. Shchedrin’s
explanation for his compositional conceit is somewhat curious:
‘This is both a conscious self-limitation (my own form of minimalism)
and at the same time a wish to create the richest possible acoustic
atmosphere for my piano soloist – one saturated with overtones’.
Why he should consider sharp keys to contain more overtones than
flat ones remains a mystery.
6 Programme Notes
The first movement is dominated by the piano’s rhapsodic roulades,
reminiscent of the trance-like slow movement of Michael Tippett’s
Piano Concerto. A brief spiky dialogue and a soliloquising transition
lead into a central Allegretto that develops into an episode of
toccata-like brilliance, interspersed with more martial figures (marked
‘fanfare-like’). A dismissive downward flourish on the piano concludes
the movement, at the same time as providing the material for the
second movement, headed ‘Russian Chimes’.
Here Shchedrin’s explanation is entirely pertinent: ‘I wanted to include
… the ‘alphabet’ of Ancient Russian change-ringing … Here I have
in mind the ringing of holidays, celebratory, paschal, what in Russian
is so appropriately called by the wonderful word blagovest – Glad
Tidings’. It is in this movement, too, that he realises his intent to make
‘full use of the extreme registers of the piano … so especially bright
and ringing in the Steinway’. The increasingly manic tintinnabulations
eventually give way to a return of the Sostenuto cantabile mood from
the first movement, albeit now carrying a calm version of the ‘Chimes’
theme. The piano then offers a musing postscript before the orchestra
joins in to give the concerto an applause-inviting send-off.
Programme note © David Fanning
David Fanning is Professor of Music at the University of Manchester.
He is an expert on Shostakovich, Nielsen and Soviet music. He is
also a reviewer for the Daily Telegraph, Gramophone Magazine and
BBC Radio 3.
INTERVAL: 20 minutes
Rodion Shchedrin (b 1932)
The Man
The generation of Soviet composers after Shostakovich produced
charismatic and exotic figures such as Galina Ustvolskaya,
Alfred Schnittke and Sofiya Gubaydulina, whose music was initially
controversial but then gained cult status. At the other end of the
stylistic spectrum it featured highly gifted craftsmen such as
Boris Tishchenko, Boris Tchaikovsky and Mieczysław Weinberg, all
of whom worked more or less within the parameters laid down by
Shostakovich and were highly respected in their heyday but gradually
fell from favour.
Somewhere in between we can locate Rodion Shchedrin – an
individualist with a broader and more consistent appeal, who could
turn himself chameleon-like to virtuoso pranks or to profound
philosophical reflection, to Socialist Realist opera or to folkloristic
Concertos for Orchestra (a particular speciality), to technically solid
Preludes and Fugues, to jazz, and, when he chose, even to twelvenote
constructivism.
Trained at the Moscow Conservatoire in the 1950s, as a composer
under Yuri Shaporin and as a pianist under Yakov Flier in the early
years of the Post-Stalinist Thaw, Shchedrin was one of
the first to speak out against the constraints of
musical life in the Soviet Union. He went on to play
a significant administrative role in the country’s
musical life, heading the Russian Union of Composers
from 1973 to 1990. Married since 1958 to the star
Soviet ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, he established a
significant power-base from which he was able to promote
not only his own music but also that of others – such as
Schnittke, whose notorious First Symphony received its
sensational premiere only thanks to Shchedrin’s support.
An unashamed eclectic, and suspicious of dogma from
either the arch-modernist or arch-traditionalist wings of
Soviet music, Shchedrin occupied a not always comfortable
position, both in his pronouncements and in his creative
work. With one foot in the national-traditional camp and the
other in that of the internationalist-progressives, he was
tagged with the unkind but not unfair label of the USSR’s
Rodion Shchedrin © www.lebrecht.co.uk
‘official modernist’. From 1992 he established a second home in
Munich, but he still enjoyed official favour in post-Soviet Russia,
adding steadily to his already impressive roster of prizes.
Shchedrin has summed up his artistic credo as follows: ‘I continue to
be convinced that the decisive factor for each composition is intuition.
As soon as composers relinquish their trust in this intuition and rely in
its place on musical ‘religions’ such as serialism, aleatoric composition,
minimalism or other methods, things become problematic.’
Programme Notes
7

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
Symphony No 1 in D major (‘Titan’) (1884–88, rev 1893–96)
1 Langsam. Schleppend [Slow. Dragging] – Immer sehr gemächlich
[Always at a very leisurely pace]
2 Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell [With strong movement,
but not too fast] – Trio: Recht gemächlich [Quite leisurely] –
Tempo primo
3 Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen [Solemn and
measured, without dragging]
4 Stürmisch bewegt [Stormy]
When Gustav Mahler began his First Symphony in 1884, ‘modern
music’ meant Wagner, while the standard by which new symphonies
were judged was that of Brahms, the arch ‘classical-romantic’.
In a Brahmsian symphony there was little room for Wagnerian
lush harmonies, or sensational new orchestral colours. In fact the
orchestral forces Brahms employed were basically the same as those
used by Beethoven and Schubert in their symphonies, three-quarters
of a century earlier.
So for audiences brought up on Brahms, hearing Mahler’s First
Symphony would have been like stepping into a new world. The
opening can still surprise even today: one note, an A, is spread
through almost the entire range of the string section, topped with
ghostly violin harmonics. Other unusual colours follow: distant
trumpet fanfares, high clarinet cuckoo-calls, a plaintive cor anglais,
the bell-like bass notes of the harp. All this would have been startlingly
new in Mahler’s time. And there’s nothing tentative or experimental
about this symphonic debut: at 24, Mahler knows precisely the sound
he wants, and precisely how to get it.
Still, there’s much more to Mahler’s First Symphony than innovative
orchestral colours and effects. When the symphony was first
performed it had a title, ‘Titan’ – taken from the once-famous novel by
the German romantic writer Jean Paul (the pen name of Johann Paul
Richter). For Richter the ‘Titan’, the true genius, is a ‘Heaven-Stormer’
(Himmelsstürmer) an obsessive, almost recklessly passionate idealist.
The idea appealed strongly to Mahler, but so too did Richter’s vividly
poetic descriptions of nature. For the premiere, Mahler set out his
version of the Titan theme in an explanatory programme note, which
told how the symphony progressed from ‘the awakening of nature
at early dawn’, through youthful happiness and love, to the sardonic
gloom of the funeral march, and then to the finale, subtitled ‘From
Inferno to Paradise’. And it was clear that Mahler’s interest in Richter’s
theme was more than literary. Behind the symphony, he hinted to
friends, was the memory of a love affair that had ended, painfully, at
about the time he began work on the symphony.
But Mahler soon began to lose faith in programmes. ‘I would like it
stressed that the symphony is greater than the love affair it is based
on’, he wrote. ‘The real affair became the reason for, but by no means
the true meaning of, the work.’ In later life he could be blunt: when
someone raised the subject at an evening drinks party, Mahler is
said to have leapt to his feet and shouted, ‘Perish all programmes!’
But for most listeners, music that is so passionate, dramatic and so
full of the sounds of nature can’t be fully explained in the detached
terms of ‘pure’ musical analysis. Fortunately the First Symphony is
full of pointers to possible meanings beyond the notes. The main
theme of the first movement – heard on cellos and basses after the
slow, intensely atmospheric ‘dawn’ introduction – is taken from the
second of Mahler’s four Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (‘Songs
of a Wayfarer’), written as a ‘memorial’ to his affair with the singer
Johanna Richter (no relation of the novelist, but the name connection
is striking). In the song, a young man, jilted in love, sets out on a
beautiful spring morning, hoping that nature will help his own heart
to heal. For most of the first movement, Mahler seems to share the
young man’s hope. The ending seems cheerful enough. But at the
heart of the movement comes a darkly mysterious passage, echoing
the ‘dawn’ introduction, but adding sinister new sounds: the low, quiet
growl of a tuba, ominous drum-beats, and a repeated sighing figure
for cellos. For a moment, the music seems to echo the final words
of the song: ‘So will my joy blossom too? No, no; it will never, never
bloom again’.
Dance music dominates the second movement, especially the robust,
earthy vigour of the Ländler (the country cousin of the sophisticated
urban Waltz). There are hints here of another, earlier song, Hans und
Grete, in which gawky young Hans finds a sweetheart at a village
dance – all innocent happiness. But the slower, more reflective Trio
brings more adult expression: nostalgia and, later, sarcasm (shrill high
woodwind). The third movement is in complete contrast. This is an
eerie, sardonic funeral march, partly inspired by a painting by Jacques
Callot, ‘The Huntsman’s Funeral’, in which a procession of animals
carry the hunter to his grave. One by one, the orchestral instruments
enter quietly, playing a famous old nursery tune, Frère Jacques –
which sounds like another interesting name connection, except
that Austrians like Mahler would have known the tune to the words
‘Brother Martin, are you sleeping?’ At the heart of this movement,
Mahler makes a lengthy quotation from the last of the Lieder eines
fahrenden Gesellen. The song tells in soft, gentle tones of how a
young man, stricken with grief at the loss of the girl he loves, finds
consolation in the thought of death. This is the dark heart of the
First Symphony.
But this is not the end of the story. In the finale Mahler strives
onward – in the words of the discarded programme, ‘From Inferno
to Paradise’. At first all is turbulence, but when the storm has died
down, strings present an ardent, slower melody – unmistakably a love
theme. There’s a brief memory of the first movement’s ‘dawn’ music,
then the struggle begins again. Eventually massed horns introduce
a new, radiantly hopeful theme, strongly reminiscent of ‘And he shall
reign’ from Handel’s Messiah. More reminiscences and still more
heroic struggles follow, until dark introspection is finally overcome,
and the symphony ends in jubilation. Mahler’s hero has survived to
live, and love, another day.
Programme note © Stephen Johnson
Stephen Johnson is the author of Bruckner Remembered (Faber).
He also contributes regularly to the BBC Music Magazine and
The Guardian, and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 (Discovering Music),
Radio 4 and the World Service.
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
Composer Profile
Gustav Mahler’s early experiences of music were influenced by the
military bands and folk singers who passed by his father’s inn in
the small town of Iglau (the German name for Jihlava in what is now
the Czech Republic). Besides learning many of their tunes, he also
received formal piano lessons from local musicians and gave his first
recital in 1870. Five years later, he applied for a place at the Vienna
Conservatory where he studied piano, harmony and composition.
After graduation, Mahler supported himself by teaching music and
also completed his first important composition, Das klagende Lied.
He accepted a succession of conducting posts in Kassel, Prague,
Leipzig and Budapest; and the Hamburg State Theatre, where he
served as First Conductor from 1891–97. For the next ten years,
Mahler was Resident Conductor and then Director of the prestigious
Vienna Hofoper.
The demands of both opera conducting and administration meant
that Mahler could only devote the summer months to composition.
Working in the Austrian countryside he completed nine symphonies,
richly Romantic in idiom, often monumental in scale and extraordinarily
eclectic in their range of musical references and styles. He also
composed a series of eloquent, often poignant songs, many themes
from which were reworked in his symphonic scores. An anti-Semitic
campaign against Mahler in the Viennese press threatened his
position at the Hofoper, and in 1907 he accepted an invitation to
become Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and later the
New York Philharmonic. In 1911 he contracted a bacterial infection
and returned to Vienna. When he died a few months before his 51st
birthday, Mahler had just completed part of his Tenth Symphony and
was still working on sketches for other movements.
Profile © Andrew Stewart
8 Programme Notes Programme Notes 9

Valery Gergiev
Conductor
Principal Conductor of the London Symphony
Orchestra since January 2007, Valery Gergiev
performs regularly with the LSO at the
Barbican, at the Proms and at the Edinburgh
Festival, as well as regular tours of Europe,
North America and Asia. During the 2010/11
season he will lead them in appearances in
Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan and
the USA.
Valery Gergiev is Artistic and General
Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, founder
and Artistic Director of the Stars of the
White Nights Festival and New Horizons
Festival in St Petersburg, the Moscow Easter
Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, the
Mikkeli International Festival, and the Red
Sea Festival in Eilat, Israel. He succeeded
Sir Georg Solti as conductor of the World
Orchestra for Peace in 1998 and leads them
this season in concerts in Abu Dhabi.
His inspired leadership of the Mariinsky
Theatre since 1988 has taken the Mariinsky
ensembles to 45 countries and has brought
universal acclaim to this legendary institution,
now in its 227th season. Having opened a
new concert hall in St Petersburg in 2006,
Maestro Gergiev looks forward to the opening
of the new Mariinsky Opera House in the
summer of 2012.
Born in Moscow, Valery Gergiev studied
conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad
Conservatory. Aged 24 he won the Herbert
von Karajan Conductors’ Competition in
Berlin and made his Mariinsky Opera debut
one year later in 1978 conducting Prokofiev’s
War and Peace. In 2003 he led St Petersburg’s
300th anniversary celebrations, and opened
the Carnegie Hall season with the Mariinsky
Orchestra, the first Russian conductor to do
so since Tchaikovsky conducted the Hall’s
inaugural concert in 1891.
Now a regular figure in all the world’s major
concert halls, he will lead the LSO and
the Mariinsky Orchestra in a symphonic
Centennial Mahler Cycle in New York in the
2010/11 season. He has led several cycles in
New York including Shostakovich, Stravinsky,
Prokofiev, Berlioz and Richard Wagner’s Ring.
He has also introduced audiences to several
rarely-performed Russian operas.
Valery Gergiev’s many awards include a
Grammy, the Dmitri Shostakovich Award,
the Golden Mask Award, People’s Artist of
Russia Award, the World Economic Forum’s
Crystal Award, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize,
Netherlands’s Knight of the Order of the Dutch
Lion, Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, Valencia’s
Silver Medal, the Herbert von Karajan prize and
the French Order of the Legion of Honour.
He has recorded exclusively for Decca
(Universal Classics), and appears also on
the Philips and Deutsche Grammophon
labels. Currently recording for LSO Live, his
releases include Mahler Symphonies Nos
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8, Rachmaninov Symphony
No 2, Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet and Bartók
Bluebeard’s Castle.
His recordings on the newly formed Mariinsky
Label are Shostakovich The Nose and
Symphonies Nos 1, 2, 11 & 15, Tchaikovsky’s
1812 Overture, Rachmaninov Piano Concerto
No 3 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,
Shchedrin The Enchanted Wanderer,
Stravinsky Les Noces and Oedipus Rex,
many of which have won awards including
four Grammy nominations. The most recent
release was Wagner Parsifal (September
2010), featuring René Pape and Gary Lehman.
Valery Gergiev conducts
Tue 18 & Sun 23 Jan 7.30pm
Shostakovich Violin Concerto No 2
with Sergey Khachatryan violin
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 1
Wed 2 & Thu 3 Mar 7.30pm
Mahler Symphony No 9
Wed 23 & Thu 24 Mar 7.30pm
Rodion Shchedrin Lithuanian Saga
Shostakovich Violin Concerto No 1
with Leonidas Kavakos violin
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 2
lso.co.uk (reduced bkg fee)
020 7638 8891 (bkg fee)
Olli Mustonen
Piano
Olli Mustonen occupies a unique position
on today’s music scene. As a pianist, he
has challenged and fascinated audiences
worldwide with his brilliant technique
and startling originality. In his role as a
conductor, he founded the Helsinki Festival
Orchestra, and as a composer he forms
part of a distinguished line of musicians
whose vision is expressed as vividly in the
art of interpretation as it is in their own
compositions.
Born in Helsinki, he began studying piano,
harpsichord and composition aged five.
He subsequently studied piano with Eero
Heinonen and composition with Einojuhani
Rautavaara. As a recitalist he has since
played in all the world’s musical capitals,
including Amsterdam, Berlin, London,
New York, Tokyo and Vienna.
At the heart of both his piano playing
and conducting is his life as a composer.
Mustonen has a deeply held conviction that
each performance must have the freshness
of a first performance, so that audience and
performer alike encounter the composer as a
living contemporary. His compositions include
works for orchestra, piano concertos, nonets,
solo violin and a song cycle. His tenacious spirit
of discovery leads him to explore many areas of
repertoire beyond the established canon.
As a soloist, Mustonen has worked with many
leading international orchestras, including
the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony,
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin,
Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic,
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal
Concertgebouw, Philadelphia Orchestra,
Philharmonia Orchestra, partnering
conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy,
Daniel Barenboim, Paavo Berglund, Pierre
Boulez, Myung-Whun Chung, Charles Dutoit,
Christoph Eschenbach, Nikolaus Harnoncourt,
Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano and Jukka-Pekka
Saraste. This season, as well as this evening’s
appearance with the LSO, he also performs
as soloist with the New York Philharmonic
under Esa-Pekka Salonen, Frankfurt Radio
Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Flemish
Philharmonic.
Increasingly, Olli Mustonen is also making
his mark as a conductor. Recent highlights
include leading the Bern Symphony
Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra
and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra;
this season brings engagements with the
Staatskapelle Weimar, West Australian
Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra, with whom he
continues his complete cycle of Beethoven
piano concertos as soloist and director.
He also embarks on a recital tour of Italy
with Steven Isserlis in early 2011 and
will finish the season with a recital at the
Edinburgh Festival.
Olli Mustonen’s recording catalogue is
typically broad-ranging and distinctive.
His release on Decca of Preludes by
Shostakovich and Alkan received the Edison
Award and Gramophone Award for the Best
Instrumental Recording. In 2002 Mustonen
signed a recording contract with Ondine.
His releases on the label include Bach and
Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues; a disc
of Sibelius’s piano works; Hindemith and
Sibelius as player-conductor with the Helsinki
Festival Orchestra; Mozart violin concertos
with Pekka Kuusisto and Tapiola Sinfonietta;
a selection of Prokofiev’s piano music; and
most recently Rachmaninov Piano Sonata
No 1 and Tchaikovsky The Seasons. He has
just completed recording all the Beethoven
Piano Concertos as soloist/director with the
Tapiola Sinfonietta.
10 The Artists Valery Gergiev © Gautier Deblonde
The Artists 11

On stage
First Violins
Roman Simovic Leader
Carmine Lauri
Lennox Mackenzie
Nicholas Wright
Nigel Broadbent
Ginette Decuyper
Jörg Hammann
Michael Humphrey
Maxine Kwok-Adams
Claire Parfitt
Laurent Quenelle
Colin Renwick
Sylvain Vasseur
Hazel Mulligan
Helen Paterson
Alain Petitclerc
Second Violins
David Alberman
Thomas Norris
Sarah Quinn
Miya Ichinose
Richard Blayden
Belinda McFarlane
Iwona Muszynska
Philip Nolte
Paul Robson
Stephen Rowlinson
Caroline Frenkel
Oriana Kriszten
Roisin Walters
David Worswick
12 The Orchestra
Violas
Edward Vanderspar
Gillianne Haddow
German Clavijo
Lander Echevarria
Richard Holttum
Robert Turner
Heather Wallington
Jonathan Welch
Michelle Bruil
Caroline O’Neill
Fiona Opie
Martin Schaefer
Cellos
Rebecca Gilliver
Alastair Blayden
Jennifer Brown
Mary Bergin
Noel Bradshaw
Daniel Gardner
Hilary Jones
Minat Lyons
Amanda Truelove
Penny Driver
Double Basses
Rinat Ibragimov
Nicholas Worters
Patrick Laurence
Matthew Gibson
Thomas Goodman
Jani Pensola
Benjamin Griffiths
Nikita Naumov
Flutes
Gareth Davies
Adam Walker
Patricia Moynihan
Piccolo
Sharon Williams
Oboes
Emanuel Abbühl
Joseph Sanders
Fraser MacAulay
Cor Anglais
Christine Pendrill
Clarinets
Andrew Marriner
Chris Richards
Chi-Yu Mo
Bass Clarinet
Lorenzo Iosco
E-flat Clarinet
Chi-Yu Mo
Bassoons
Rachel Gough
Bernardo Verde
Joost Bosdijk
Contra-bassoon
Dominic Morgan
Horns
Timothy Jones
David Pyatt
Angela Barnes
Estefanía Beceiro Vazquez
Jonathan Lipton
Jeffrey Bryant
Richard Clews
Brendan Thomas
Trumpets
Philip Cobb
Nicholas Betts
Gerald Ruddock
Nigel Gomm
Offstage Trumpets
Christopher Deacon
Edward Hobart
Martin Hurrell
Trombones
Dudley Bright
Katy Jones
James Maynard
Bass Trombone
Paul Milner
Tuba
Patrick Harrild
Timpani
Antoine Bedewi
Scott Bywater
Percussion
Neil Percy
David Jackson
Tom Edwards
Harp
Bryn Lewis
LSO String
Experience Scheme
Established in 1992, the
LSO String Experience
Scheme enables young string
players at the start of their
professional careers to gain
work experience by playing in
rehearsals and concerts with
the LSO. The scheme auditions
students from the London
music conservatoires, and 20
students per year are selected
to participate. The musicians
are treated as professional
’extra’ players (additional to
LSO members) and receive
fees for their work in line with
LSO section players. Students
of wind, brass or percussion
instruments who are in their
final year or on a postgraduate
course at one of the London
conservatoires can also
benefit from training with LSO
musicians in a similar scheme.
Leah Meredith (first violin),
Mark Lee (second violin) and
Ana Córdova Andrés (double
bass) took part in rehearsals for
tonight’s concert as part of the
LSO String Experience Scheme.
The LSO String Experience
Scheme is generously
supported by the Musicians
Benevolent Fund and Charles
and Pascale Clark.
List correct at time of
going to press
See page xv for London
Symphony Orchestra members
Editor Edward Appleyard
edward.appleyard@lso.co.uk
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