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9 Oct programme - London Symphony Orchestra

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Sunday 9 and Tuesday 11 <strong>Oct</strong>ober 2011 7.30pm<br />

Barbican Hall<br />

Britten War Requiem<br />

Gianandrea Noseda conductor<br />

Sabina Cvilak soprano<br />

Ian Bostridge tenor<br />

Simon Keenlyside baritone<br />

<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Chorus<br />

Eltham College Choir Trebles<br />

Gianandrea Noseda © Sussie Ahlburg, Sabina Cvilak © Marjan Laznik<br />

Simon Keenlyside © Uwe Arens, Ian Bostridge © Ben Ealovega<br />

<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />

Living Music<br />

There will be no interval during tonight’s performance<br />

Concert ends approx 9.10pm


Welcome News<br />

Welcome to the Barbican where, in anticipation of the Britten<br />

centenary celebrations in 2013, we are delighted to present two<br />

performances of the composer’s War Requiem conducted by<br />

Gianandrea Noseda and featuring an outstanding line-up of solo<br />

singers alongside the LSO.<br />

This seminal work was first performed in Coventry Cathedral almost<br />

50 years ago, in 1962, to mark the building’s reconsecration after the<br />

original 14th-century structure was destroyed in World War II. Since<br />

then it has become a central part of the concert hall repertoire.<br />

It is a pleasure to welcome back to direct these performances<br />

Gianandrea Noseda (last with the LSO at the Barbican in <strong>Oct</strong>ober<br />

2010), a conductor with a particularly glowing reputation in the opera<br />

world. Joining him on stage are soprano Sabina Cvilak, baritone Simon<br />

Keenlyside and tenor Ian Bostridge. In a recently published feature<br />

article in The Guardian, Ian Bostridge wrote that ‘The Requiem is<br />

a masterpiece of the deepest emotional and moral depth‘ and a<br />

‘contraption of musical ingenuity’; in today’s volatile world it is as<br />

relevant now as it ever was.<br />

Kathryn McDowell<br />

LSO Managing Director<br />

Mahler <strong>Symphony</strong> No 9: ‘Outstanding Recording’<br />

We were delighted to hear that our LSO Live recording of Mahler’s<br />

Ninth <strong>Symphony</strong>, conducted by Valery Gergiev, was given the<br />

International Record Review’s Outstanding Recording award:<br />

‘Nothing can detract from the excellence of this disc:<br />

it is quite outstanding in every respect’<br />

The recording can be purchased online from the LSO website<br />

for £8.99.<br />

lso.co.uk/lsolive<br />

On tour in New York<br />

Later this month, the <strong>Orchestra</strong> will give three concerts at the<br />

Lincoln Center in New York, where it holds a residency. As well as<br />

performing tonight’s War Requiem <strong>programme</strong>, Sir Colin Davis will join<br />

the <strong>Orchestra</strong> for a reprise of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (greatly<br />

received at this year’s BBC Proms) and LSO favourite Nikolaj Znaider<br />

will take centre stage for the Sibelius Violin Concerto. Don’t forget to<br />

check the tour blog for all the latest from backstage!<br />

lso.co.uk/whatson<br />

lsoontour.wordpress.com<br />

Keep your finger on the Pulse with our Student Scheme<br />

The LSO is constantly striving to bring high quality music to as wide<br />

an audience as possible. One of the ways we do this is through<br />

our Student Ambassador Scheme, Pulse, an initiative which has<br />

already brought thousands of young adults closer to the LSO.<br />

Visit the webpage below to read all about it and download an<br />

information pack. A very warm welcome to all students attending<br />

the 11 <strong>Oct</strong>ober concert, one of a selection of designated Student<br />

Nights this season. We hope you enjoy it – be sure to drop us an<br />

email to let us know how you got on.<br />

lso.co.uk/pulse<br />

2 Welcome & News Kathryn McDowell © Camilla Panufnik


Benjamin Britten (1913–76)<br />

Composer Profile<br />

‘Composing is like driving down a foggy road<br />

toward a house. Slowly you see more details<br />

of the house – the colour of the slates and<br />

bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes<br />

are the bricks and the mortar.’<br />

Benjamin Britten<br />

Benjamin Britten received his first piano lessons from his mother,<br />

a prominent member of the Lowestoft Choral Society who also<br />

encouraged her son’s earliest efforts at composition. In 1924 he<br />

heard Frank Bridge’s tone-poem The Sea and began to study<br />

composition with him three years later. After leaving Gresham’s<br />

School, Holt, in 1930 he gained a scholarship to the Royal College<br />

of Music. Here he studied composition with John Ireland and piano<br />

with Arthur Benjamin. Britten attracted wide attention when he<br />

conducted the premiere of his ‘Simple’ <strong>Symphony</strong> in 1934. He worked<br />

for the GPO Film Unit and various theatre companies, collaborating<br />

with such writers as W H Auden and Christopher lsherwood.<br />

The first performance of his opera Peter Grimes on 7 June 1945<br />

opened the way for a series of magnificent stage works mainly<br />

conceived for the English Opera Group. In June 1948 Britten<br />

founded the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, for which<br />

he subsequently wrote many new works. By the mid-1950s he was<br />

generally regarded as the leading British composer, helped by the<br />

international success of operas such as Albert Herring, Billy Budd<br />

and The Turn of the Screw. One of his greatest masterpieces,<br />

the War Requiem, was first performed on 30 May 1962 for the<br />

festival of consecration of St Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry:<br />

its anti-war message reflecting the composer’s pacifist beliefs.<br />

A remarkably prolific composer, Britten completed works in almost<br />

every genre and for a wide range of musical abilities, from those<br />

of schoolchildren and amateur singers to such artists as Mstislav<br />

Rostropovich, Julian Bream and Peter Pears.<br />

Composer Profile © Andrew Stewart<br />

Music’s better shared!<br />

There’s never been a better time to bring all your friends to an LSO concert.<br />

Groups of 10+ receive a 20% discount on all tickets, plus a host of<br />

additional benefits. Call the dedicated Group Booking Line on 020 7382 7211<br />

visit lso.co.uk/groups or email groups@barbican.org.uk<br />

On Sunday 9 <strong>Oct</strong>ober we welcome the Embassy of Slovenia, Mr A Mosley<br />

and friends and Ilsipario Musicale (Milan), and on Tuesday 11 <strong>Oct</strong>ober<br />

we welcome The Leys School (Cambridge), Latymer Upper School<br />

(Hammersmith) and Mr D Stewart and friends.<br />

Programme Notes<br />

3


Benjamin Britten<br />

War Requiem Op 66<br />

1 Requiem aeternam<br />

2 Dies Irae<br />

3 Offertorium<br />

4 Sanctus<br />

5 Agnus Dei<br />

6 Libera me<br />

Sabina Cvilak soprano<br />

Ian Bostridge tenor<br />

Simon Keenlyside baritone<br />

Although opera was to dominate Britten’s output subsequent to the<br />

success of Peter Grimes in 1945, the desire to write a major oratoriolike<br />

work had long been in his mind. In 1958 he was invited to write<br />

a work to celebrate the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral, destroyed<br />

by bombing in 1941; and although he was given the choice of using a<br />

sacred or secular text, he soon decided that it would take the form of<br />

a Requiem. The decision to intersperse the text of the Requiem with<br />

poems by Wilfred Owen, who was killed in action one week before<br />

the end of World War I, was made soon after and they determined<br />

the character of the War Requiem, whose first performance took<br />

place on 30 May 1962.<br />

Britten had set Owen’s poem The Kind Ghosts in his Nocturne of 1958.<br />

Although one of Owen’s late poems, it has little of the darkness of<br />

most of his war poetry, and Britten’s setting is eloquent but restrained.<br />

It gives little indication of the way he would use Owen as counterpoint<br />

to the Requiem Mass, interleaving the poems and the Latin text with<br />

dramatic and often ironical effect, and contrasting the full orchestra<br />

with a chamber group which accompanies only the songs. ‘These<br />

magnificent poems’, Britten wrote to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau,<br />

baritone solo in the first performance, ‘full of the hate of destruction,<br />

are a kind of commentary on the Mass … They will need singing with<br />

the utmost beauty, intensity and sincerity’.<br />

This ‘commentary on the Mass’ begins halfway through the first of<br />

the Requiem’s six movements. The solemn intoning of ‘Requiem<br />

aeternam’, with its dark bell-ridden textures, is interrupted first by the<br />

brightness of the boys’ chorus, and then by the first of Owen’s poems,<br />

4 Programme Notes<br />

sung by the tenor. ‘Eternal rest’ is the chorus’ plea, to be met by<br />

the fierceness of ‘What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?’.<br />

The chorus respond with a final ‘Kyrie’, which struggles towards a<br />

major chord – a gesture which will be repeated twice in the course<br />

of the work, but which offers little comfort.<br />

The Dies Irae is by some way the longest part of the War Requiem,<br />

and the most complex. Beginning with distant fanfares which sound<br />

as if they come from the battlefield, the chorus gradually builds<br />

until the fanfares break out with frightening force: the day of wrath<br />

is clearly a military action. As the violence dies away, the chamber<br />

orchestra takes up the music of the fanfares as the baritone solo<br />

intones ‘Bugles sang, saddening the evening air’. Now the soprano<br />

soloist enters for the first time: she is set apart from the other soloists<br />

by only singing the Latin text, here ‘Liber scriptus’ – the book which<br />

sets out the day of judgement, while the chorus respond as those<br />

who are judged.<br />

With ironic detachment both male soloists sing cheerily of death<br />

as ‘old chum … No soldier’s paid to kick against his powers’.<br />

The Latin text resumes with the gentle overlapping entries of the<br />

‘Recordare’, the women of the chorus, followed by the men’s<br />

aggressive ‘Confutatis maledictis’, spilling over into the baritone’s<br />

bitter portrayal of the ‘Great gun, towering towards Heaven, about<br />

to curse’. For the first time the main orchestra joins the chamber<br />

orchestra, with trumpet fanfares eventually bringing back a powerful<br />

reprise of the Dies Irae music.<br />

The transformation of the chorus’ forceful rhythms into the gentle<br />

lilt of the Lachrymae, in which the soprano joins, is masterly. And now<br />

Britten intersperses the words of the Requiem with the poignant<br />

verses of ‘Move him into the sun’, the final words bringing back<br />

the tolling bells of the opening and the second appearance of the<br />

chorus’ Kyrie music that ended the first part, here set to the words<br />

‘Dona eis requiem’.<br />

Three shorter parts follow. First the Offertorium, with the brightness<br />

of the boys’ chorus followed by the chorus, with what seems on the<br />

face of it an almost academic fugue setting of ‘Quam olim Abrahae’.


But the ‘promise to Abraham’ ushers in the most chilling of the Owen<br />

settings, where the two soloists tell the story of Abraham and Isaac.<br />

Here, for the voice of God, Britten quotes from his own setting of the<br />

story in his Second Canticle; but where in the bible story Abraham<br />

sacrifices a ram instead of his son, here ‘the old man would not<br />

so, but slew his son, – And half the seed of Europe one by one.’<br />

The mood is frighteningly ironic, and as the final phrase stutters<br />

into silence, the boys’ chorus is distantly heard; finally the chorus<br />

repeats the ‘Quam olim Abrahae’ fugue, almost in a whisper.<br />

‘These magnificent poems’,<br />

Britten wrote to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau,<br />

baritone solo in the first performance,<br />

‘full of the hate of destruction, are a<br />

kind of commentary on the Mass …<br />

They will need singing with the<br />

utmost beauty, intensity and sincerity’.<br />

The Sanctus is perhaps the most conventional of the Requiem settings,<br />

with its declamatory soprano solo, triumphant brass fanfares for the<br />

Hosanna, and the measured tread of the Benedictus. So the spare<br />

textures of the baritone’s ‘After the blast of lightning from the East’<br />

contrast all the more strongly, and end this fourth part in darkness.<br />

The gentle and touching Agnus Dei is the quiet centre of the work,<br />

and here soprano, chorus and tenor soloist are united, as the rising<br />

and falling melody provides both the setting for the Latin text and the<br />

accompaniment to the tenor’s ‘One ever hangs where shelled roads<br />

part’, the roadside image of Christ uniting the two. For the only time<br />

in the work the soloist sings the final words in Latin, ‘Dona nobis<br />

pacem’ (give us peace).<br />

The final part brings both the longest concerted passage of choral<br />

and orchestral music, and by far the longest of the Owen settings,<br />

‘Strange Meeting’. The Libera me begins with muffled percussion<br />

in what Britten calls a march – almost a funeral march to begin with,<br />

but constantly accelerating until with what seems like inevitability<br />

the music of the Dies Irae returns, presaging a terrifying climax.<br />

Slowly dying away until only a sustained minor chord is left we enter<br />

Owen’s ‘profound dull tunnel’ where two enemy soldiers confront<br />

each other in death. Britten chose to omit several of Owen’s lines,<br />

including ‘I knew we stood in Hell’, perhaps because, after the<br />

reconciliation of the two soldiers and their final words, ‘Let us sleep<br />

now’, it would have contradicted the In paradisum of the boys’ chorus,<br />

in which all the forces quietly join. But there is to be no real resolution,<br />

as for the final time bells toll and the chorus ends the Requiem with<br />

its hushed and ambiguous refrain.<br />

Programme Note © Colin Matthews<br />

Colin Matthews was Associate Composer with the LSO from<br />

1992–99 and now acts as Composition Director for the<br />

LSO’s Panufnik Young Composers Scheme.<br />

Gianandrea Noseda returns<br />

Thu 21 Jun 7.30pm<br />

Beethoven <strong>Symphony</strong> No 5<br />

Gianandrea Noseda conductor<br />

Sponsored by BAT, Recommended by Classic FM<br />

<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />

Living Music<br />

Tickets £10 to £35<br />

lso.co.uk<br />

Programme Notes<br />

5


Benjamin Britten<br />

War Requiem Op 66 – Libretto<br />

‘My subject is War, and the pity of War.<br />

The Poetry is in the pity. All a poet can do today is warn.’<br />

Wilfred Owen<br />

1 Requiem aeternam<br />

Chorus<br />

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:<br />

et lux perpetua luceat eis.<br />

Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord:<br />

and let light eternal shine upon them.<br />

Boys<br />

Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion; et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem;<br />

exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet.<br />

Thou, O God, art praised in Sion; and unto Thee shall the vow<br />

be performed in Jerusalem; Thou who hearest the prayer,<br />

unto Thee shall all flesh come.<br />

Chorus<br />

Requiem …<br />

Rest …<br />

Tenor solo<br />

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?<br />

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.<br />

Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle<br />

Can patter out their hasty orisons.<br />

No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,<br />

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,<br />

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;<br />

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.<br />

What candles may be held to speed them all?<br />

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes<br />

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.<br />

The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;<br />

6 Libretto<br />

Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,<br />

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.<br />

Chorus<br />

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.<br />

Lord have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us.<br />

Lord have mercy upon us.<br />

2 Dies irae<br />

Chorus<br />

Dies irae, dies illa,<br />

Solvet saeclum in favilla:<br />

Teste David cum Sibylla.<br />

Quantus tremor est futurus,<br />

Quando judex est venturus,<br />

Cuncta stricte discussurus!<br />

Tuba mirum spargens sonum<br />

Per sepulcra regionum,<br />

Coget omnes ante thronum.<br />

Mors stupebit et natura,<br />

Cum resurget creatura,<br />

Judicanti responsura.<br />

Day of wrath and doom impending,<br />

Heaven and earth in ashes ending!<br />

David’s words with Sibyl’s blending!<br />

Oh, what fear man’s bosom rendeth<br />

When from heaven the Judge descendeth,<br />

on whose sentence all dependeth!<br />

Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth,<br />

through earth’s sepulchres it ringeth,<br />

all before the throne it bringeth,<br />

Death is struck and nature quaking,<br />

all creation is awaking,<br />

to its judge an answer making.


Baritone solo<br />

Bugles sang, saddening the evening air,<br />

And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.<br />

Voices of boys were by the river-side.<br />

Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.<br />

The shadow of the morrow weighed on men.<br />

Voices of old despondency resigned,<br />

Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept.<br />

Soprano solo and semi-chorus<br />

Liber scriptus proferetur,<br />

In quo totum continetur,<br />

Unde mundus judicetur.<br />

Judex ergo cum sedebit<br />

Quidquid latet apparebit:<br />

Nil inultum remanebit.<br />

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?<br />

Quem patronum rogaturus?<br />

Cum vix justus sit securus.<br />

Rex tremendae majestatis,<br />

Qui salvandos salvas gratis,<br />

Salve me, fons pietatis.<br />

Lo! the book exactly worded,<br />

wherein all hath been recorded;<br />

thence shall judgement be awarded.<br />

When the judge his seat attaineth,<br />

and each hidden deed arraigneth,<br />

nothing unavenged remaineth.<br />

What shall I, frail man, be pleading?<br />

Who for me be interceding,<br />

when the just are mercy needing?<br />

King of majesty tremendous,<br />

who dost free salvation send us.<br />

Fount of pity, then befriend us!<br />

Tenor and baritone solos<br />

Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death;<br />

Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,<br />

Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.<br />

We’ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, –<br />

Our eyes wept, but our courage didn’t writhe.<br />

He’s spat at us with bullets and he’s coughed<br />

Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft;<br />

We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.<br />

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!<br />

We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.<br />

No soldier’s paid to kick against his powers.<br />

We laughed, knowing that better men would come,<br />

And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags<br />

He wars on Death – for Life; not men – for flags.<br />

Chorus<br />

Recordare Jesu pie,<br />

Quod sum causa tuae viae:<br />

Ne me perdes illa die.<br />

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:<br />

Redemisti crucem passus:<br />

Tantus labor non sit cassus.<br />

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:<br />

Culpa rubet vultus meus:<br />

Supplicanti parce Deus.<br />

Qui Mariam absolvisti,<br />

Et latronem exaudisti,<br />

Mihi quoque spem dedisti.<br />

Inter oves locum praesta,<br />

Et ab haedis me sequestra,<br />

Statuens in parte dextra.<br />

Confutatis maledictis,<br />

Flammis acribus addictis,<br />

Voca me cum benedictis.<br />

Oro supplex et acclinis,<br />

Cor contritum quasi cinis:<br />

Gere curam mei finis.<br />

Libretto<br />

7


Think, kind Jesus – my salvation<br />

caused Thy wondrous incarnation;<br />

leave me not to reprobation.<br />

Faint and weary Thou hast sought me;<br />

on the cross of suffering bought me;<br />

shall such grace be vainly brought me?<br />

Guilty, now pour my moaning,<br />

all my shame with anguish owning;<br />

spare, O God, Thy suppliant groaning!<br />

Through the sinful Mary shriven,<br />

through the dying thief forgiven,<br />

Thou to me a hope hast given.<br />

With Thy sheep a place provide me,<br />

from the goats afar divide me,<br />

to Thy right hand do Thou guide me.<br />

When the wicked are confounded,<br />

doomed to flames of woe unbounded,<br />

call me, with Thy saints surrounded.<br />

Low I kneel with heart-submission;<br />

see, like ashes, my contrition!<br />

Help me in my last condition!<br />

Baritone solo<br />

Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,<br />

Great gun towering toward Heaven, about to curse;<br />

Reach at that arrogance which needs thy harm,<br />

And beat it down before its sins grow worse;<br />

But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,<br />

May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!<br />

8 Libretto<br />

Soprano solo and chorus<br />

Dies irae …<br />

Day of wrath …<br />

Lacrimosa dies illa,<br />

Qua resurget ex favilla<br />

Judicandus homo reus:<br />

Huic ergo parce Deus.<br />

Ah! that day of tears and mourning!<br />

From the dust of earth returning,<br />

Man for judgement must prepare him:<br />

Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!<br />

Tenor solo<br />

Move him into the sun –<br />

Gently its touch awoke him once,<br />

At home, whispering of fields unsown.<br />

Always it woke him, even in France,<br />

Until this morning and this snow.<br />

If anything might rouse him now<br />

The kind old sun will know.<br />

Think how it wakes the seeds, –<br />

Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.<br />

Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,<br />

Full-nerved – still warm – too hard to stir?<br />

Was it for this the clay grew tall? –<br />

O what made fatuous sunbeams toil<br />

To break earth’s sleep at all?<br />

Soprano and chorus<br />

Lacrimosa …<br />

Ah! That day of tears …<br />

Chorus<br />

Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen.<br />

Lord, all-pitying, Jesu blest, grant them rest. Amen.


3 Offertorium<br />

Boys<br />

Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas<br />

omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni,<br />

et de profundo lacu: libera eas de ore leonis,<br />

ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum.<br />

O Lord Jesus Christ, King of Glory, deliver the souls of<br />

all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from<br />

the depths of the pit: deliver them from the lion’s mouth,<br />

that hell devour them not, that they fall not into darkness.<br />

Chorus<br />

Sed signifer sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in<br />

lucem sanctam: quam olim Abrahae promisisti,<br />

et semini ejus.<br />

But let the standard-bearer Saint Michael bring them<br />

into the holy light: which, of old, Thou didst promise unto<br />

Abraham and his seed.<br />

Tenor and baritone solos<br />

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,<br />

And took the fire with him, and a knife.<br />

And as they sojourned both of them together,<br />

Isaac the first-born spake and said, ‘My Father,<br />

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,<br />

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?’<br />

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,<br />

And builded parapets and trenches there,<br />

And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.<br />

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,<br />

Saying, ‘Lay not thy hand upon the lad,<br />

Neither do anything to him. Behold,<br />

A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;<br />

Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.’<br />

But the old man would not so, but slew his son, –<br />

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.<br />

Boys<br />

Hostias et preces tibi Domine laudis offerimus: tu<br />

suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam<br />

facimus: fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam.<br />

We offer unto Thee, O Lord, sacrifices of prayer and<br />

praise: do thou receive them for the souls of those<br />

whose memory we this day recall: make them,<br />

O Lord, to pass from death unto life.<br />

Chorus<br />

Quam olim Abrahae …<br />

Which, of old, Thou didst promise …<br />

4 Sanctus<br />

Soprano solo and chorus<br />

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth.<br />

Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.<br />

Hosanna in excelsis. Sanctus …<br />

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.<br />

Hosanna in excelsis. Sanctus …<br />

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.<br />

Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory:<br />

Glory be to Thee. O Lord most high. Holy …<br />

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.<br />

Glory be to Thee, O Lord most high. Holy …<br />

Baritone solo<br />

After the blast of lightning from the East,<br />

The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne;<br />

After the drums of Time have rolled and ceased.<br />

And by the bronze west long retreat is blown,<br />

Shall life renew these bodies? Of a truth<br />

All death will He annul, all tears assuage? –<br />

Fill the void veins of Life again with youth,<br />

And wash, with an immortal water, Age?<br />

Libretto<br />

9


When I do ask white Age he saith not so:<br />

‘My head hangs weighed with snow’.<br />

And when I hearken to the Earth, she saith:<br />

‘My fiery heart shrinks, aching. It is death.<br />

Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified.<br />

Nor my titanic tears, the sea, be dried’.<br />

5 Agnus Dei<br />

Tenor solo<br />

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.<br />

In this war He too lost a limb,<br />

But His disciples hide apart;<br />

And now the Soldiers bear with Him.<br />

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,<br />

And in their faces there is pride<br />

That they were flesh-marked by the Beast<br />

By whom the gentle Christ’s denied.<br />

The scribes on all the people shove<br />

And bawl allegiance to the state,<br />

But they who love the greater love<br />

Lay down their life; they do not hate.<br />

Chorus<br />

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona eis<br />

requiem. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi:<br />

dona eis requiem sempiternam.<br />

O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,<br />

grant them rest. O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins<br />

of the world, grant them eternal rest.<br />

Tenor solo<br />

Dona nobis pacem.<br />

Grant us Thy peace.<br />

10 Libretto<br />

6 Libera me<br />

Soprano solo and chorus<br />

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa<br />

tremenda: quando coeli movendi sunt et terra:<br />

dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.<br />

Tremens factus sum ego et timeo, dum discussio<br />

venerit, atque ventura ira. Dies illa, dies irae,<br />

calamitatis et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde.<br />

Libera me, Domine …<br />

Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal, in that fearful<br />

day: when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken:<br />

when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire. I am in<br />

fear and trembling till the sifting be upon us, and the<br />

wrath to come. O that day, that day of wrath, of calamity<br />

and misery, a great day and exceeding bitter. Deliver me, O Lord …<br />

Tenor and baritone solos<br />

It seemed that out of battle I escaped<br />

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped<br />

Through granites which titanic wars had groined.<br />

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,<br />

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.<br />

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared<br />

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,<br />

Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.<br />

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.<br />

‘Strange friend,’ I said, ‘here is no cause to mourn’,<br />

‘None’, said the other, ‘save the undone years,<br />

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,<br />

Was my Iife also; I went hunting wild<br />

After the wildest beauty in the world,


For by my glee might many men have laughed,<br />

And of my weeping something had been left,<br />

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,<br />

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.<br />

Now men will go content with what we spoiled,<br />

Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.<br />

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,<br />

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.<br />

‘Miss we the march of this retreating world<br />

Into vain citadels that are not walled.<br />

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels<br />

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells.<br />

‘Even from wells we sunk too deep for war,<br />

Even the sweetest wells that ever were.<br />

‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend.<br />

I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned<br />

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.<br />

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.<br />

Let us sleep now …’<br />

Boys, soprano solo and chorus<br />

In paradisum deducant te Angeli: in tuo adventu<br />

suscipiant te Martyres, et perducant te in civitatem<br />

sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus Angelorum te<br />

suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam<br />

habeas requiem.<br />

Into Paradise may the Angels lead thee: at thy coming<br />

may the Martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy<br />

city Jerusalem. May the Choir of Angels receive thee, and<br />

with Lazarus, once poor, mayest thou have eternal rest.<br />

Boys<br />

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:<br />

et lux perpetua luceat eis.<br />

Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord:<br />

and let light eternal shine upon them.<br />

Chorus<br />

Requiescant in pace. Amen.<br />

May they rest in peace. Amen.<br />

Reprinted by permission of Harold Owen and Chatto and Windus Ltd<br />

English text of Requiem Mass according to the English Missal<br />

Copyright 1961 by Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd<br />

Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.<br />

LSO Watch, Listen & Learn<br />

Are you part of a choir?<br />

<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />

Living Music<br />

Would you like to sit in on Marin Alsop rehearsing<br />

the <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Chorus ahead of her<br />

Joan of Arc Weekend in November?<br />

Email choral@lso.co.uk<br />

or call Fabienne Morris on 020 7382 2522<br />

to find out more about this exclusive opportunity<br />

Libretto<br />

11


Gianandrea Noseda<br />

Conductor<br />

‘Noseda gave the orchestra<br />

its head when necessary and<br />

they made a jubilant noise …<br />

obviously enjoying themselves<br />

under his leadership.’<br />

Seen and Heard on Noseda and the LSO,<br />

May 2008<br />

Gianandrea Noseda serves as Music Director<br />

of the Teatro Regio Torino, Chief Guest<br />

Conductor of the Israel Philharmonic and<br />

Conductor Laureate of the BBC Philharmonic<br />

in Manchester. Since 2001 he has been<br />

Artistic Director of the Stresa Festival, and<br />

was appointed Victor de Sabata Guest<br />

Conductor with the Pittsburgh <strong>Symphony</strong><br />

<strong>Orchestra</strong>. Noseda became the first<br />

foreign Principal Guest Conductor at the<br />

Mariinsky Theatre in 1997 and has been the<br />

Principal Guest Conductor of the Rotterdam<br />

Philharmonic and of the <strong>Orchestra</strong> Sinfonica<br />

Nazionale della RAI.<br />

Noseda regularly conducts many of the<br />

leading orchestras including the Chicago<br />

<strong>Symphony</strong>, New York Philharmonic, <strong>London</strong><br />

<strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>, Philadelphia <strong>Orchestra</strong>,<br />

Swedish Radio <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>, Oslo<br />

Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Frankfurt Radio<br />

<strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>, Orchestre National<br />

de France, Orchestre de Paris and the NHK<br />

<strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>. In future seasons<br />

he will make his debut with the Cleveland<br />

<strong>Orchestra</strong> and LA Philharmonic.<br />

As Music Director of the Teatro Regio<br />

Torino, Noseda has conducted many opera<br />

productions including Salome directed by<br />

Robert Carsen, Massenet’s Thaïs (available<br />

on Arthaus DVD), Verdi’s La traviata directed<br />

by Laurent Pelly and Mussorgsky’s Boris<br />

Godunov directed by Andrei Konchalovsky<br />

(Opus Arte DVD). In summer 2010 he led<br />

the Teatro Regio forces in their first ever<br />

residency in Japan and China and in May<br />

2011 he toured them in Spain and at the<br />

Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris.<br />

Noseda’s privileged relationship with the<br />

Metropolitan Opera began in 2002 with<br />

Prokofiev’s War and Peace and has continued<br />

to this day with La forza del destino (2006),<br />

Un ballo in maschera (2007) and with new<br />

productions of Il trovatore (2009) and La<br />

traviata (2010). In June 2011 he conducted<br />

Lucia di Lammermoor on the Met’s Japan tour.<br />

Noseda’s intense collaboration with the<br />

BBC Philharmonic continues with studio<br />

recordings, subscription concerts at The<br />

Bridgewater Hall and annual appearances at<br />

the BBC Proms in <strong>London</strong>. Live performances<br />

of Beethoven’s complete symphonies from<br />

The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester by the BBC<br />

Philharmonic conducted by Noseda in 2005<br />

attracted the historical figure of 1.4 million<br />

download requests in a BBC trial which<br />

was offered as part of BBC Radio 3’s The<br />

Beethoven Experience.<br />

An exclusive Chandos artist since 2002,<br />

his discography includes Prokofiev, Karlowitz,<br />

Dvorˇák, Smetana, Shostakovich, Liszt’s<br />

Symphonic works, Rachmaninov (the operas<br />

and the symphonies), Mahler and Bartók.<br />

An extensive survey of the music of the<br />

Italian composers of the 20th century has<br />

included Respighi, Dallapiccola, Wolf-Ferrari<br />

(Diapason d’or in France) and Casella.<br />

He has also recorded for Deutsche<br />

Grammophon conducting the Vienna<br />

Philharmonic <strong>Orchestra</strong> in Anna Netrebko’s<br />

debut album and the Teatro Regio Torino<br />

<strong>Orchestra</strong> for a Mozart album featuring<br />

Ildebrando D’Arcangelo.<br />

Gianandrea Noseda is closely involved with<br />

the next generation of musicians through his<br />

tireless work with youth orchestras such as<br />

the <strong>Orchestra</strong> of the Royal College of Music<br />

in <strong>London</strong>, National Youth <strong>Orchestra</strong> of Great<br />

Britain and the <strong>Orchestra</strong> Giovanile Italiana.<br />

In summer 2010 he toured with the European<br />

Union Youth <strong>Orchestra</strong> throughout Europe.<br />

Gianandrea Noseda holds the honour<br />

of Cavaliere Ufficiale al Merito della<br />

Repubblica Italiana.<br />

12 The Artists Gianandrea Noseda © Sussie Ahlburg


Sabina Cvilak<br />

Soprano<br />

Sabina Cvilak is quickly becoming<br />

one of the world’s leading lyric<br />

sopranos, enjoying an international<br />

career in opera and concert. Her US<br />

debut as Mimì in La bohème at the<br />

Washington Opera (2008) reviewed<br />

by the Met Weekly, ‘Soprano Sabina<br />

Cvilak brings real pathos and<br />

presence to her Mimì and she is<br />

one of the best sopranos to grace<br />

the WNO in seasons’, was such a triumph that it brought her back to<br />

Washington to play Micaela in a new production of Bizet’s Carmen,<br />

and as Liù in a new production of Puccini’s Turandot the season after.<br />

She has worked with such eminent conductors as Bruno Aprea,<br />

Marco Armiliato, Semyon Bychkov, Placido Domingo, Mikko Franck,<br />

Daniel Harding, Marek Janowski, Fabio Luisi, George Pehlivanian,<br />

Peter Schneider, Emmanuel Villaume, Ralf Weikert, Keri-Lynn Willson<br />

and Simone Young.<br />

Her recent engagements have included La bohème (playing Mimì) at<br />

the Opera de Palma de Mallorca, at the Finnish National Opera and in<br />

Koeln, Otello (playing Desdemona) and Così fan tutte (playing Fiordiligi)<br />

at the Palm Beach Opera, Smetana’s The Bartered Bride (playing<br />

Marenka) in Valencia and Carmen (playing Micaela) in Pamplona,<br />

Beethoven’s <strong>Symphony</strong> No 9 with the Royal Scottish National<br />

<strong>Orchestra</strong> of Glasgow and War Requiem at the Festival de<br />

St Denis in Paris.<br />

Sabina Cvilak was born in Maribor (Slovenia) and graduated in<br />

Ljubljana where she studied with Annemarie Zeller and Kurt Widmer.<br />

Sabina Cvilak © Marjan Laznik, Ian Bostridge © Ben Ealovega<br />

Ian Bostridge<br />

Tenor<br />

Ian Bostridge was a post-doctoral<br />

fellow in history at Corpus Christi<br />

College, Oxford, before embarking<br />

on a full-time career as a singer.<br />

His international recital career<br />

includes the world’s major<br />

concert halls and the Edinburgh,<br />

Munich, Vienna, Aldeburgh and<br />

Schubertiade Festivals, including<br />

artistic residencies at the Vienna<br />

Konzerthaus, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Barbican, Carnegie<br />

Hall, the Luxembourg Philharmonie and the Wigmore Hall.<br />

In opera he has sung Tamino and Jupiter in Semele and Aschenbach<br />

in Death in Venice at English National Opera, Quint in The Turn of the<br />

Screw, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Caliban in The Tempest for<br />

the Royal Opera, Don Ottavio in Vienna and Nerone in L’Incoronazione<br />

di Poppea, Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress, Male Chorus in<br />

The Rape of Lucretia in Munich and Aschenbach in Britten’s Death<br />

in Venice in Brussels and Luxembourg.<br />

His many award-winning recordings include Schubert with Graham<br />

Johnson (Gramophone Award 1996); Tom Rakewell with Sir John<br />

Eliot Gardiner (Grammy Award 1999); Schumann with Julius Drake<br />

(Gramophone Award 1998), The Turn of the Screw with Daniel Harding<br />

(Gramophone Award 2003) and Billy Budd (Grammy Award 2010).<br />

His concert engagements include the Berlin Philharmonic,<br />

Vienna Philharmonic, Chicago <strong>Symphony</strong>, Boston <strong>Symphony</strong>,<br />

BBC <strong>Symphony</strong>, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw,<br />

New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic <strong>Orchestra</strong>s<br />

under such conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Colin<br />

Davis, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim and James Levine.<br />

In January 2010 he sang the world premiere of Henze’s Opfergang<br />

with the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome under Antonio Pappano.<br />

In 2001 he was elected an honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College,<br />

Oxford. He was created a CBE in the 2004 New Year’s Honours.<br />

The Artists<br />

13


Simon Keenlyside<br />

Baritone<br />

Simon Keenlyside was born in<br />

<strong>London</strong>. He made his operatic<br />

debut with Hamburg State Opera<br />

as Count Almaviva in Mozart’s The<br />

Marriage of Figaro and has since<br />

sung an extensive repertoire with<br />

the world’s major opera companies<br />

and festivals. He won an Olivier<br />

Award in 2006 for both the title-role<br />

in Billy Budd for English National<br />

Opera and Winston in Lorin Maazel’s 1984 for the Royal Opera. His<br />

future operatic plans include Posa in La Traviata, Renato in Verdi’s<br />

Un ballo in maschera, the title roles in Rigoletto and Wozzeck, and<br />

Germont Père in La Traviata at the Vienna State Opera; the title roles<br />

in Eugene Onegin, Wozzeck and Don Giovanni at the Bayerische<br />

Staatsoper, Munich; Macbeth at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; and the<br />

roles of Germont Père, Eugene Onegin, Wozzeck, Count Almaviva<br />

and Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House.<br />

Simon enjoys extensive concert work under the baton of many leading<br />

conductors, appearing with the Chamber <strong>Orchestra</strong> of Europe, the<br />

Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, the City of Birmingham and<br />

<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>s, the Cleveland and Boston <strong>Symphony</strong><br />

<strong>Orchestra</strong>s, and the Philharmonia <strong>Orchestra</strong>. A renowned recitalist,<br />

Simon appears regularly in the world’s great recital venues, and has<br />

recorded four recital discs with Malcolm Martineau, of Schubert,<br />

Strauss, Brahms, and most recently, an English song disc to be released<br />

this autumn, as well as a disc of Schumann Lieder with Graham<br />

Johnson. He has also recorded Des Knaben Wunderhorn under Simon<br />

Rattle, the title role in Don Giovanni under Claudio Abbado, Carmina<br />

Burana under Christian Thielemann, Marcello in La Bohème under<br />

Riccardo Chailly, the title role in Billy Budd under Richard Hickox and<br />

Papageno in The Magic Flute under Charles Mackerras.<br />

In 2007 he was given the ECHO Klassik award for Male Singer of the<br />

Year, and in 2011, he was honoured with Musical America’s Vocalist<br />

of the Year Award. Simon was made a CBE in 2003.<br />

14 The Artists<br />

Eltham College Choir<br />

Trebles<br />

Under the direction of Alastair<br />

Tighe, the Eltham College Trebles<br />

are drawn from the Junior and<br />

Senior Schools of Eltham College<br />

in South <strong>London</strong>. Eltham College<br />

is an independent boys’ day<br />

school, with a co-educational sixth<br />

form, and was founded in 1842.<br />

The College excels academically<br />

and has an extensive extracurricular<br />

<strong>programme</strong>, with music and music-making at the heart<br />

of the College’s endeavours. The College Trebles are one of over 30<br />

ensembles which rehearse and perform regularly both at the College<br />

and elsewhere.<br />

Recently Eltham’s musicians have been heard at the Barbican,<br />

Royal Festival Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, Cadogan Hall, St John’s,<br />

Smith Square, Blackheath Halls, Eltham Palace and the Old Royal Naval<br />

College, Greenwich. The Trebles have performed and recorded with<br />

the <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong> and <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Chorus,<br />

under the direction of Valery Gergiev and Sir Colin Davis. They have<br />

also performed in Basel and Paris with the Mariinsky <strong>Orchestra</strong> and<br />

Chorus under the direction of Valery Gergiev, and performed with<br />

the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle during the<br />

orchestra’s residency in <strong>London</strong> earlier this year. They made their<br />

debut at the BBC Proms this summer in a performance of Havergal<br />

Brian’s Gothic <strong>Symphony</strong>.<br />

Simon Keenlyside © Uwe Arens


LSO Pulse<br />

Student Scheme – Welcome<br />

Welcome students…<br />

To the first LSO Pulse concert of the year! With seven successful<br />

seasons under our belt we are looking forward to another great<br />

year of student concerts, receptions, socialising, Aftershock<br />

(our classical club night) and finally, free drinks.<br />

LSO Pulse is a student scheme offering £6 tickets for selected LSO<br />

performances, which can be acquired through the convenience of<br />

your mobile phone (because we at LSO Pulse realise that daytime TV<br />

can be surprisingly time-consuming). By signing up, you will receive<br />

a unique pin code that will enable you to start purchasing student<br />

tickets for you and your chums. We also offer all our students the<br />

opportunity to become ambassadors, and work with the <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />

to promote LSO concerts and events in their university or college.<br />

In return for hard work, we give rewards to those who sell the most<br />

tickets including LSO Live downloads, Barbican vouchers, chances<br />

to meet soloists and conductors, a trip to Paris to watch the LSO<br />

perform, plus lots of general love/affection.<br />

So this 2011/12 season, for the bargain price of just £6, you could be<br />

transported (not literally) to 19th century Germany with performances<br />

showcasing the likes of Beethoven, Wagner, Strauss or another of<br />

those serious German Romantic types. Alternatively, if Russia’s more<br />

your thing, this season will not disappoint as Gergiev continues his<br />

thrilling celebration of Tchaikovsky – everyone’s favourite sugar<br />

plum fairy. And let us not forget February’s American extravaganza,<br />

featuring Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, Ellington’s swinging Harlem<br />

and music by Bernstein who wrote West Side Story.<br />

Just to reiterate, all of this is available to you for just £6 a ticket<br />

so please be sure to check for details of upcoming events on<br />

our website and Facebook pages. But for now, let me wish you<br />

a wonderful evening here at the Barbican!<br />

Stephanie Ramplin<br />

LSO Marketing Intern, administrator of LSO Pulse<br />

Like us on facebook<br />

bit.ly/pulsefacebook<br />

LSO Pulse<br />

15


LSO Pulse<br />

Student Programme Notes<br />

Britten’s War Requiem<br />

‘I hope it’ll make people think a bit’<br />

The year was 1962. The Cold War continued to rage as Soviets<br />

and Americans went head to head over the Cuban Missile Crisis,<br />

threatening nuclear conflicts that would affect the lives of people<br />

across the world. Fifties icon Marilyn Monroe was immortalised in<br />

print by artist Andy Warhol after her untimely death, following an<br />

alleged suicidal drug overdose. Exploding onto the popular music<br />

scene, the Beatles released their first single Love Me Do to screaming<br />

hoards of fans whilst American singer Bob Dylan continued to berate<br />

the bureaucracy, channelling anti-authoritarian attitudes into old-time<br />

American folk tunes. And across cities, thousands gathered to actively<br />

protest the war in Vietnam, calling for fighting to cease.<br />

During that same year Britten conceived the subject of tonight’s<br />

concert; his monumental War Requiem which premiered on 30 May<br />

1962, commemorating the 20 million lives lost during World War II<br />

only a few decades prior. With the 60s in full swing, the memory of<br />

the War had begun to fade away as society entered a new chapter<br />

where people witnessed social change and economic growth.<br />

Packed with bitter, poetical irony and brimming with dissonant military<br />

fanfares Britten’s War Requiem brought about a sober reminder of<br />

the futile and merciless nature of the war and, by implication, the<br />

many problems still permeating contemporary society. Employing the<br />

full force of the symphony orchestra, matched by a booming chorus,<br />

Britten constructs a poignant rumination on the pity of war, using the<br />

traditional Requiem as his vessel.<br />

16 LSO Pulse<br />

Benjamin Britten:<br />

The respectable outcast<br />

The son of a dentist and amateur musician, Britten spent his early<br />

years nestled in a quiet seaside town on the coast of Suffolk playing<br />

and writing music (cue obsession with the sea). Respectable next<br />

steps were a scholarship at the Royal College of Music and career<br />

in cinematic composition where he met anti-imperialist W H Auden<br />

with whom he collaborated on several musical projects. These early<br />

left-wing political explorations later grew into full-fledged pacifism for<br />

Britten who staunchly protested violence, choosing to veto his military<br />

service during World War II on the grounds that it was morally wrong.<br />

Sometime during the 1930s Britten also met Peter Pears who was to<br />

become his lifelong partner and muse, but struggled to fit in a society<br />

that misunderstood his sexuality as well as his political beliefs. These<br />

themes have been extensively explored by scholars, many of whom<br />

suggest Britten’s music to be an ‘allegory of his suppressed political/<br />

sexual voice’ etc, whether you subscribe to this view is up to you –<br />

let us just assume for now that Britten wrote music that was<br />

‘message’ orientated.<br />

Revolutionary motivations aside, Britten’s primary focus was to write<br />

music for ‘the people’ and he achieved real success as a composer,<br />

the zenith of which was reached with his opera Peter Grimes in 1945.<br />

Britten spent the next couple of decades composing more operas<br />

which continued to explore some of his favourite themes: outcasts<br />

and the sea.<br />

At the age of 48, Britten wrote the War Requiem, celebrating the 1962<br />

opening of the newly renovated Coventry Cathedral which had been<br />

destroyed during World War II bombings. Premiering to great popular<br />

acclaim, the War Requiem was hailed as a contemporary masterpiece,<br />

and has since become one of the few classical works written since 1945<br />

to enter into the fixed repertoire. Not bad for a sea-obsessed hermit.


Not your average requiem<br />

Britten’s War Requiem is a work of contrasts. Secular drama plays out<br />

against a sacred Mass, soloists are pitted against the choir, and war<br />

comes face to face with its adversaries. Having been given the choice<br />

between a sacred or secular text, Britten opted for a hybrid model<br />

using the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead as a framework (Missa<br />

pro defunctis in Latin) through which he interspersed a collection of<br />

modern poems by Wilfred Owen. Written in the trenches of World<br />

War I, Owen’s poetry provides an evocative, first-hand account of a<br />

desolate war to which he fell victim. One week before fighting ceased,<br />

Owen was killed in France. His family were notified of his death one<br />

hour after peace was declared.<br />

Owen’s poetry, first appearing halfway through the Requiem aeternam<br />

(Grant them eternal rest), is rich in imagery and allusion and provides<br />

a dramatic commentary that runs throughout the Requiem. Initially,<br />

the poetry challenges the sacred text, beginning with the tenor<br />

who asks the choir: ‘What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?’.<br />

Later, the tenor and baritone adopt a different approach by<br />

sarcastically discussing the futility of their mission in a cheery jaunt<br />

about ‘old chum’ death, accompanied by the chamber orchestra.<br />

However, it is during the retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac<br />

during the Offertorium that Owen’s poetry speaks its most blunt and<br />

disturbing message. Here, the concluding lines of the poem – ‘But the<br />

old man would not so/but slew his son/And half the seed of Europe,<br />

one by one’ – tells of the leaders who sent their children off to war,<br />

summing up the chilling reality of the situation.<br />

Like Owen, Britten also makes use of a rich palette of imagery,<br />

portrayed through the combination of three separate ensembles.<br />

A lugubrious march-like passage in the lower strings sets the mood<br />

for the Requiem aeternam dominated by the tri-tone, most commonly<br />

known (thanks to a medieval monk) as the ‘devil’s interval’. Sweeping<br />

gestures in the brass recall the ominous approach of the cavalry<br />

and announce the arrival of the Dies irae (Day of wrath) building to<br />

a massive climax, bugles blaring out in full force. Snatches of snare,<br />

timpani and dissonant brass fanfare remain throughout, a constant<br />

allusion to the bayonets and bugles of Owen’s war. Following five<br />

movements of unrest, it is not until the final movement of the<br />

Requiem that all ensembles join together for the lines of Owen’s<br />

last poem, led by the tenor and baritone.<br />

When asked about his War Requiem, Britten often avoided<br />

commenting on the music but was not afraid to stress its significance,<br />

describing it as one of his ‘most important works’. Rarely choosing<br />

to discuss the musical merits of the composition, Britten remained<br />

modest in his responses, content in knowing that people had<br />

understood, as he explained to a friend, ‘the main point really’.<br />

Programme Note by Stephanie Ramplin<br />

LSO Marketing Intern, administrator of LSO Pulse<br />

Join us next time …<br />

… on Sunday 6 November when Marin Alsop conducts<br />

Richard Einhorn’s beautifully haunting score Voices of Light,<br />

accompanied by a silent film screening of Carl Dreyer’s<br />

The Passion of Joan of Arc – an emotional raw portrayal<br />

of the 15th-century heroine.<br />

Visit lso.co.uk/pulse for details<br />

Are you a student but not already<br />

a member of Pulse?<br />

Scan this QR code to join now, or text STUDENT to 60123<br />

LSO Pulse<br />

17


On stage<br />

First Violins<br />

Carmine Lauri<br />

Lennox Mackenzie<br />

Nigel Broadbent<br />

Ginette Decuyper<br />

Jörg Hammann<br />

Maxine Kwok-Adams<br />

Claire Parfitt<br />

Elizabeth Pigram<br />

Laurent Quenelle<br />

Harriet Rayfield<br />

Colin Renwick<br />

Ian Rhodes<br />

Sylvain Vasseur<br />

Rhys Watkins<br />

David Worswick<br />

Second Violins<br />

Thomas Norris<br />

Sarah Quinn<br />

Miya Vaisanen<br />

David Ballesteros<br />

Richard Blayden<br />

Matthew Gardner<br />

Philip Nolte<br />

Andrew Pollock<br />

Paul Robson<br />

Eleanor Fagg<br />

Stephen Rowlinson<br />

Julia Rumley<br />

Samantha Wickramasinghe<br />

18 The <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />

Violas<br />

Gillianne Haddow<br />

German Clavijo<br />

Anna Green<br />

Robert Turner<br />

Heather Wallington<br />

Jonathan Welch<br />

Michelle Bruil<br />

Elizabeth Butler<br />

Philip Hall<br />

Caroline O’Neill<br />

Fiona Opie<br />

Cellos<br />

Alastair Blayden<br />

Jennifer Brown<br />

Mary Bergin<br />

Noel Bradshaw<br />

Daniel Gardner<br />

Hilary Jones<br />

Minat Lyons<br />

Penny Driver<br />

Nicholas Gethin<br />

Double Basses<br />

Colin Paris<br />

Patrick Laurence<br />

Matthew Gibson<br />

Thomas Goodman<br />

Jani Pensola<br />

Nikita Naumov<br />

Simo Vaisanen<br />

Flutes<br />

Gareth Davies<br />

Patricia Moynihan<br />

Piccolo<br />

Sharon Williams<br />

Oboes<br />

Rachael Clegg<br />

Holly Randall<br />

Cor Anglais<br />

Christine Pendrill<br />

Clarinets<br />

Chris Richards<br />

Chi-Yu Mo<br />

E-flat Clarinet<br />

Chi-Yu Mo<br />

Bass Clarinet<br />

Katherine Lacy<br />

Bassoons<br />

Fany Maselli<br />

Joost Bosdijk<br />

Contra-bassoon<br />

Dominic Morgan<br />

Horns<br />

David Pyatt<br />

Angela Barnes<br />

Antonio Geremia Iezzi<br />

Jonathan Lipton<br />

Tim Ball<br />

Jeffrey Bryant<br />

Brendan Thomas<br />

Trumpets<br />

Philip Cobb<br />

Paul Mayes<br />

Gerald Ruddock<br />

Robin Totterdell<br />

Trombones<br />

Katy Jones<br />

James Maynard<br />

Bass Trombone<br />

Paul Milner<br />

Tuba<br />

Patrick Harrild<br />

Timpani<br />

Nigel Thomas<br />

Percussion<br />

Antoine Bedewi<br />

David Jackson<br />

Jeremy Cornes<br />

Benedict Hoffnung<br />

Christopher Thomas<br />

Sam Walton<br />

Piano<br />

John Alley<br />

Organ<br />

Catherine Edwards<br />

Chamber <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />

First Violin<br />

Roman Simovic Leader<br />

Second Violin<br />

Evgeny Grach<br />

Viola<br />

Edward Vanderspar<br />

Cello<br />

Rebecca Gilliver<br />

Double Bass<br />

Rinat Ibragimov<br />

Flute/Piccolo<br />

Adam Walker<br />

Oboe/Cor Anglais<br />

Juan Pechuan Ramirez<br />

Clarinet<br />

Andrew Marriner<br />

Bassoon<br />

Daniel Jemison<br />

Horn<br />

Timothy Jones<br />

Percussion<br />

Neil Percy<br />

Harp<br />

Bryn Lewis<br />

LSO String<br />

Experience Scheme<br />

Established in 1992, the<br />

LSO String Experience<br />

Scheme enables young string<br />

players at the start of their<br />

professional careers to gain<br />

work experience by playing in<br />

rehearsals and concerts with<br />

the LSO. The scheme auditions<br />

students from the <strong>London</strong><br />

music conservatoires, and 20<br />

students per year are selected<br />

to participate. The musicians<br />

are treated as professional<br />

’extra’ players (additional to<br />

LSO members) and receive<br />

fees for their work in line with<br />

LSO section players. Students<br />

of wind, brass or percussion<br />

instruments who are in their<br />

final year or on a postgraduate<br />

course at one of the <strong>London</strong><br />

conservatoires can also<br />

benefit from training with LSO<br />

musicians in a similar scheme.<br />

The Scheme is supported by:<br />

The Barbers’ Company<br />

The Carpenters’ Company<br />

Charles and Pascale Clark<br />

The Ironmongers’ Company<br />

LSO Friends<br />

Musicians Benevolent Fund<br />

The Polonsky Foundation<br />

Editor<br />

Edward Appleyard<br />

edward.appleyard@lso.co.uk<br />

Photography<br />

Mark Harrison, Kevin Leighton,<br />

Bill Robinson, Alberto Venzago,<br />

Nigel Wilkinson<br />

Print<br />

Cantate 020 7622 3401<br />

Advertising<br />

Cabbell Ltd 020 8971 8450


<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Chorus<br />

President<br />

Sir Colin Davis CH<br />

President Emeritus<br />

André Previn KBE<br />

Vice Presidents<br />

Claudio Abbado<br />

Michael Tilson Thomas<br />

Patron<br />

Simon Russell Beale<br />

Chorus Director<br />

Joseph Cullen<br />

Chairman<br />

James Warbis<br />

Accompanist<br />

Roger Sayer<br />

The <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Chorus was formed in 1966, and while maintaining<br />

special links with the <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>, has also partnered<br />

the principal UK orchestras and internationally has worked with the Berlin<br />

and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, Boston <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong> and the<br />

European Union Youth <strong>Orchestra</strong>, among others.<br />

Along with regular appearances at the major <strong>London</strong> venues, the LSC<br />

tours extensively throughout Europe and has visited North America, Israel,<br />

Australia and the Far East. This season’s highlights include visits to Bonn,<br />

Paris and New York with the LSO under Sir Colin Davis and Gianandrea<br />

Noseda, and concerts with the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish <strong>Symphony</strong><br />

<strong>Orchestra</strong> and the <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>.<br />

The chorus has recorded widely, with recent releases including Haydn’s<br />

The Seasons, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast and Verdi’s Otello, and the world<br />

premiere issue of MacMillan’s St John Passion. The chorus also partners the<br />

LSO on Gergiev’s recordings of Mahler’s Symphonies Nos 2, 3 and 8, while<br />

the men of the chorus took part in the recent Gramophone award-winning<br />

recording of Götterdämmerung with the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder.<br />

In 2007, the <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Chorus established its Choral Conducting<br />

Scholarships, which enable aspiring young conductors to gain valuable<br />

experience with a large symphonic chorus. The chorus has also<br />

commissioned new works from composers such as Sir John Tavener, Sir<br />

Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Berkeley and Jonathan Dove, and took part<br />

in the world premiere of James MacMillan’s St John Passion with the LSO<br />

and Sir Colin Davis in 2008, and in the second <strong>London</strong> performance in<br />

February 2010.<br />

The <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Chorus is always interested in recruiting new<br />

members, welcoming applications from singers of all backgrounds, subject<br />

to an audition. Open Rehearsals are also being held for those who might<br />

be interested in auditioning. For further information, call Helen Lawford,<br />

Auditions Secretary, on 020 8504 0295 or visit www.lsc.org.uk.<br />

Sopranos<br />

Kerry Baker, Angel Belsey, Julia Chan, Ann Cole,<br />

Shelagh Connolly, Lucy Craig, Emma Craven, Sara Daintree,<br />

Anna Daventry, Lucy Feldman, Lorna Flowers, Eileen Fox,<br />

Sarah Hall, Jessica Harris, Carolin Harvey, Emily Hoffnung*,<br />

Kuan Hon, Gladys Hosken, Claire Hussey, Debbie Jones*,<br />

Olivia Knibbs, Helen Lawford*, Clare Lovett, Meg Makower,<br />

Alison Marshall, Margarita Matusevich, Irene McGregor,<br />

Marta Lozano Molano, Jane Morley, Jeannie Morrison,<br />

Dorothy Nesbit, Jennifer Norman, Emily Norton,<br />

Maggie Owen, Isabel Paintin, Andra Patterson,<br />

Carole Radford, Liz Reeve, Sarah Rennix, Mikiko Ridd,<br />

Chen Shwartz, Bridget Snasdell, Amanda Thomas*,<br />

Rebecca Thomson, Isobel Timms<br />

Altos<br />

Liz Boyden, Gina Broderick*, Jo Buchan*, Lizzy Campbell,<br />

Sarah Castleton, Noel Chow, Rosie Chute, Liz Cole,<br />

Janette Daines, Zoe Davis, Maggie Donnelly, Diane Dwyer,<br />

Linda Evans, Lydia Frankenburg*, Amanda Freshwater,<br />

Tina Gibbs, Yoko Harada, Valerie Hood, Jo Houston,<br />

Lis Iles, Sue Jones, Vanessa Knapp, Gilly Lawson, Sue Lee,<br />

Selena Lemalu, Belinda Liao, Anne Loveluck, Aiofe McInerney,<br />

Caroline Mustill, Alex O’Shea, Susannah Priede, Lucy Reay,<br />

Clare Rowe, Maud Saint Sardos, Lis Smith, Jane Steele,<br />

Claire Trocmé, Curzon Tussaud, Agnes Vigh, Sara Williams,<br />

Mimi Zadeh, Magdalena Ziarko<br />

Tenors<br />

David Aldred, Paul Allatt, Robin Anderson, Antoine Carrier,<br />

John Farrington, Matt Fernando, Matthew Flood,<br />

Andrew Fuller*, Simon Goldman, Stephen Hogg,<br />

Warwick Hood, Tony Instrall, John Marks, Simon Marsh,<br />

Alastair Mathews, John Moses, Malcolm Nightingale,<br />

Rhydian Peters, Mattia Romani, Peter Sedgwick,<br />

Takeshi Stokoe, Richard Street, John Streit,<br />

Anthony Stutchbury, Malcolm Taylor, Owen Toller,<br />

James Warbis*, Brad Warburton, Robert Ward*,<br />

Paul Williams-Burton<br />

Basses<br />

David Armour, Bruce Boyd, Gavin Buchan, Andy Chan,<br />

James Chute, Damian Day, Thomas Fea, Ian Fletcher,<br />

Robert French, Robert Garbolinski*, John Graham,<br />

Jean-Christophe Higgins, Robin Hall, Owen Hanmer*,<br />

Christopher Harvey, Anthony Howick, Alex Kidney*,<br />

Thomas Kohut, Gregor Kowalski*, Jonathan Kubiak,<br />

Georges Leaver, Geoffrey Newman, William Nicholson,<br />

Peter Niven, Timothy Riley, Alan Rochford, Malcolm Rowat,<br />

Nicholas Seager, Edwin Smith*, Gordon Thomson,<br />

Martin Vallas, Nicholas Weekes, Paul Wright<br />

* denotes member of Council<br />

The Chorus<br />

19


<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />

Season 2011/12<br />

Opera and Choral Highlights<br />

with Marin Alsop and Sir Colin Davis<br />

Resident at the Barbican<br />

lso.co.uk<br />

020 7638 8891<br />

Marin Alsop uncovers<br />

Joan of Arc<br />

November 2011<br />

‘Freshly startling dramatic power.’<br />

The Times<br />

<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />

Living Music<br />

Sir Colin Davis conducts<br />

Weber’s Der Freischütz<br />

April 2012<br />

‘Colin Davis, the [LSO’s] lion in<br />

winter, is a passionate champion…’<br />

Financial Times<br />

Marin Alsop conducts<br />

Fri 4 Nov 7.30pm<br />

Honegger Joan of Arc at the Stake (concert performance)<br />

Sun 6 Nov 7.30pm<br />

Richard Einhorn Voices of Light (film & music)<br />

Sir Colin Davis conducts<br />

Thu 19 & Sat 21 Apr 7.30pm<br />

Weber Der Freischütz (concert performance)<br />

with soloists Christine Brewer, Sally Matthews,<br />

Falk Struckmann and Simon O’Neill<br />

Thu 19 Apr part of UBS Soundscapes

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