Thu 23 Jun programme - London Symphony Orchestra
Thu 23 Jun programme - London Symphony Orchestra
Thu 23 Jun programme - London Symphony Orchestra
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Bernard Haitink © Clive Barda<br />
<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />
Living Music<br />
Resident at the Barbican<br />
Roman Simovic leader<br />
<strong>Thu</strong>rsday <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011 7.30pm<br />
Barbican Hall<br />
Ravel Mother Goose Ballet<br />
INTERVAL<br />
Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream<br />
Bernard Haitink conductor<br />
Sarah-Jane Brandon soprano<br />
Daniela Lehner mezzo-soprano<br />
Sir Thomas Allen narrator<br />
Eltham College Choir<br />
Concert ends approx 9.40pm<br />
Recommended by Classic FM<br />
Download it<br />
LSO <strong>programme</strong>s are now available to<br />
download from two days before each concert<br />
lso.co.uk/<strong>programme</strong>s<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 1 6/20/2011 11:50:02 AM
Welcome News<br />
Welcome to the final LSO concert of the 2010/11 season at the<br />
Barbican. It is a pleasure to welcome Bernard Haitink and tonight’s<br />
soloists, soprano Sarah-Jane Brandon, mezzo-soprano Daniela Lehner,<br />
narrator Sir Thomas Allen and the trebles of Eltham College Choir.<br />
I hope you enjoy tonight’s performance and that you can join us for our<br />
concert in the City of <strong>London</strong> Festival on Tuesday 28 <strong>Jun</strong>e at St Paul’s<br />
Cathedral, and the LSO Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on <strong>Thu</strong>rsday <strong>23</strong><br />
August and Sunday 4 September. We look forward to welcoming you<br />
all back to the Barbican for the start of the 2011/12 season with Valery<br />
Gergiev conducting an all-Tchaikovsky gala <strong>programme</strong> featuring the<br />
winners of the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition.<br />
Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for<br />
your continued support of the LSO this season. In times of reductions<br />
in public funding it is ever more important that the LSO is able to<br />
generate income from many different sources. Your commitment<br />
to our music-making is deeply appreciated and I hope that we can<br />
continue to count on your support.<br />
Wishing you an enjoyable summer.<br />
Kathryn McDowell<br />
LSO Managing Director<br />
2 Welcome & News<br />
Inside Out: Free lunchtime music outside LSO St Luke’s<br />
Enjoy a picnic and free music on the sunny lawns of LSO St Luke’s<br />
from 1pm on selected Fridays. On Friday 15 July we round off this<br />
lunchtime series with Voice Trio, a female a capella group performing<br />
secular and sacred music from the medieval chants by Hildegard<br />
of Bingen to 20th-century European folk songs. Also, join Inside Out<br />
artists Randolph Matthews and Byron Johnston at the Whitecross<br />
Street Party on Sunday 24 July performing a highly creative fusion<br />
of Spanish acoustic guitar and African soul.<br />
lso.co.uk/insideout<br />
Released this month on LSO Live: Sir Colin Davis’ The Seasons<br />
Earlier this month, LSO Live released Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten<br />
recorded live at the Barbican with Sir Colin Davis last year. Of Die<br />
Jahreszeiten, Classical Review says: ‘Davis’ affection is palpable<br />
at every turn of this handsomely balanced reading. The <strong>London</strong><br />
<strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong> plays beautifully for him … the soloists are<br />
also strong, especially the pure-voiced soprano Miah Persson’.<br />
Find out more and buy your copy at lso.co.uk/lsolive<br />
Coming up at LSO St Luke’s<br />
It might be the end of our 2010/11 season here at the Barbican but<br />
there’s lots going on over the summer at LSO St Luke’s. On Saturday<br />
2 July, LSO Principals join the UK’s most promising young woodwind<br />
musicians for a concert showcasing their work at the end of the<br />
week-long LSO Academy, while on <strong>Thu</strong>rsday 7 July we welcome Indian<br />
violinist Kala Ramnath and composer Max de Wardener as part of<br />
the UBS Soundscapes: Eclectica series. Then on Monday 18 July the<br />
LSO St Luke’s Community Choir gives a concert which celebrates<br />
LSO St Luke’s and the surrounding area, and finally, the Fusion<br />
<strong>Orchestra</strong> and Digital Technology Group join forces on Saturday<br />
31 July to give a concert of genre-defying collaborations.<br />
lso.co.uk/lsostlukes<br />
Kathryn McDowell © Camilla Panufnik<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 2 6/20/2011 11:50:02 AM
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)<br />
Mother Goose Ballet (1910 orch 1912)<br />
1 Prelude and Spinning-Wheel Dance<br />
2 Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane<br />
3 Tom <strong>Thu</strong>mb<br />
4 The Plain Girl, Empress of the Pagodas<br />
5 Conversations Between Beauty and the Beast<br />
6 The Fairy Garden<br />
Generally, composers pen a ballet first and then the suites follow.<br />
Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé is a classic example, but with Mother Goose<br />
the process worked initially in reverse. Inspired by the illustrations<br />
to a fairytale book, between 1908 and 1910 he wrote for the two<br />
children of his friends Ida and Cipa Godebski a sequence of pieces<br />
for piano duet – quite easy to play but not beginners’ music, so that<br />
Mimi and Jean who gave the public premiere in 1911 at the ages of<br />
six and seven must have been exceptional. The impresario Jacques<br />
Rouche, soon to become a long-serving director of the Paris Opera,<br />
was responsible for bringing about Ravel’s ballet version. He had<br />
been trying to get French composers to match the current Paris<br />
successes of Stravinsky’s new scores with the Ballets Russes, but<br />
Ravel – who was already working on Daphnis et Chloé for the same<br />
company – offered instead to make a ballet from his new duets. He<br />
added a prelude, introductory scene and linking music, with a scenario<br />
that began and ended with ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and presented the<br />
other stories as her dreams. It was premiered with some success at<br />
the Théâtre des Arts in January 1912. Just five months later Daphnis<br />
followed at the Châtelet, inevitably overshadowing it, and Ravel duly<br />
published an orchestral version of the suite which remains more<br />
often performed.<br />
It’s quite a feat to devise insertions in pre-existing music that sound<br />
as though they were there all along. Ravel was perceptive enough<br />
to realise that the five pieces already had a strong character and<br />
a cohesion that would be undermined by, in effect, competing<br />
with them. For his new material he concentrated on lightness and<br />
deftness, and brought off a small masterpiece of perfect timing within<br />
the larger masterpiece of his fairytale portrayals. The delicacy of touch<br />
for key moments – the pricked finger, the transformation of beast into<br />
prince, the hint of musical exoticism for the pagoda scene, the wonder<br />
of reawakening – is constant. Though never a parent, Ravel knew<br />
what made children tick and could share their imaginative worlds in<br />
a way that touches adult listeners with its truth. The title of the work<br />
comes from Charles Perrault’s 1697 volume which first contained the<br />
‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Tom <strong>Thu</strong>mb’ stories. ‘Laideronette’ (The Plain<br />
Girl, Empress of the Pagodas), a story that failed to cross the Channel,<br />
was written by a contemporary, and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ the<br />
following century.<br />
Programme note © Robert Maycock<br />
Robert Maycock writes about music for The Independent and<br />
magazines from BBC Music to Songlines, with special interests in<br />
French, contemporary and world music. His book, Glass: A Portrait,<br />
was published by Sanctuary in 2002.<br />
INTERVAL: 20 minutes<br />
Programme Notes<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 3 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM<br />
3
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47)<br />
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture & Incidental Music (1826 & 1842)<br />
1 Overture<br />
2 Scherzo<br />
3 March of the Fairies<br />
4 Song with chorus: ‘Ye spotted snakes’<br />
5 Andante<br />
6 Intermezzo<br />
7 Nocturne<br />
8 Andante<br />
9 Wedding March<br />
10 Allegro comodo<br />
11 Funeral March<br />
12 A Dance of Clowns<br />
13 Allegro vivace<br />
14 Finale<br />
Sarah-Jane Brandon soprano<br />
Daniela Lehner mezzo-soprano<br />
Sir Thomas Allen narrator<br />
Eltham College Choir<br />
Mendelssohn’s extraordinary early activity as a composer – twelve<br />
string symphonies, six operas, the astounding Octet for strings and<br />
much else besides by the time he was 16 – went hand in hand with<br />
a cultured upbringing that left him well versed in matters literary<br />
and artistic. In addition to his musical activities he wrote poems,<br />
painted and drew, while his parents’ home in Berlin was one of<br />
Germany’s most active intellectual salons, where concerts, theatrical<br />
performances and literary readings were frequent and guests<br />
included scientists, philosophers, actors, writers and musicians.<br />
Felix found much inspiration in these experiences, and in the summer<br />
of 1826, while still only 17, was moved to compose an overture based<br />
on Shakespeare’s enchanted comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream.<br />
As originally conceived, the Overture is better described as a<br />
tone poem; it was not written to precede a performance of the<br />
play, and dutifully – though brilliantly – it includes within its sonata<br />
form structure clear representations of the fairies, the confidence<br />
and urbanity of Duke Theseus’ court, the yearning of the lovers<br />
4 Programme Notes<br />
in the wood and the rusticity of the ‘rude mechanicals’ complete<br />
with Bottom’s asinine braying. The work is also punctuated by<br />
reappearances of the four chords of the opening bars, which descend<br />
on the music at key moments, changing the mood like a spell.<br />
Mendelssohn’s overture was first performed in Stettin in April 1827,<br />
and quickly became one of his most popular pieces. In 1842, however,<br />
he was commissioned by the King of Prussia to provide incidental<br />
music for a production of the play, to be preceded by the overture;<br />
Mendelssohn obliged, and his complete score, consisting of songs,<br />
entr’actes and various other little snippets, was heard for the first time<br />
in Potsdam, October 1843.<br />
Remarkably, Mendelssohn seems to have had no trouble in re-creating<br />
the atmosphere of his teenage masterpiece 16 years on. That much<br />
is evident in the Scherzo, which, if a little earthier (perhaps even more<br />
sinister) than the fairy music of the Overture, clearly inhabits the<br />
same world; ‘A Dance of Clowns’, postlude to the Rude Mechanicals’<br />
play, even borrows some of the Overture’s music. Elsewhere, the<br />
Intermezzo moves from a Schumannesque depiction of the emotional<br />
turmoil of the lovers lost in the wood to the clumping arrival of Bottom<br />
and his colleagues; the Nocturne welcomes Puck’s magical righting<br />
of the night’s errors and misunderstandings in one of Mendelssohn’s<br />
greatest melodies; two fairies prepare the bower for Titania’s slumber<br />
in a Song with Chorus; a solemn Funeral March marks the demise of<br />
the Mechanicals’ stage lovers Pyramus and Thisbe; and the marriage<br />
of Theseus and Hippolyta is celebrated in what has become the most<br />
ubiquitous Wedding March ever written.<br />
Programme note © Lindsay Kemp<br />
Lindsay Kemp is a producer for BBC Radio 3, Artistic Director of the<br />
Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music and an Artistic Advisor<br />
to the York Early Music Festival and Arts Council England; he also<br />
writes regularly for Gramophone magazine, amongst others.<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 4 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)<br />
Composer Profile<br />
Although born in a rural Basque village, Maurice Ravel was raised<br />
in Paris and was accepted as a preparatory piano student at the<br />
Conservatoire in 1889. When a full-time student, Ravel was introduced<br />
in 1893 to Chabrier, whom he regarded as ‘the most profoundly<br />
personal, the most French of our composers’. Around this time Ravel<br />
also met, and was influenced by, Erik Satie. In the decade following his<br />
graduation in 1895, Ravel scored a notable hit with Pavane pour une<br />
infante défunte for piano (later orchestrated). Even so his works were<br />
rejected several times by the backward-looking judges of the Prix<br />
de Rome for not satisfying the demands of academic counterpoint.<br />
In the early years of the 20th century he completed many outstanding<br />
works, including the evocative Miroirs for piano and his first opera,<br />
L’heure espagnole.<br />
In 1909 Ravel was invited to write a large-scale work for Serge<br />
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, completing the score to Daphnis et Chloé<br />
three years later. At this time he also met Igor Stravinsky and first<br />
heard the expressionist works of Arnold Schoenberg. During World<br />
War I, he enlisted with the motor transport corps, and returned<br />
to composition slowly after 1918, completing La valse for Diaghilev<br />
and beginning work on his second opera, L’enfant et les sortilèges.<br />
From 1932 until his death, he suffered from the progressive effects of<br />
Pick’s Disease and was unable to compose. His emotional expression<br />
is most powerful in his imaginative interpretations of the unaffected<br />
worlds of childhood and animals, and in exotic tales. Spain also<br />
influenced the composer’s creative personality through his mother’s<br />
Basque inheritance, together with his liking for the formal elegance of<br />
18th-century French art and music.<br />
Felix Mendelssohn (1805–47)<br />
Composer Profile<br />
Mendelssohn was the grandson of the Enlightenment philosopher<br />
Moses Mendelssohn and son of an influential German banker.<br />
Born into a privileged, upper middle-class family, as a boy he was<br />
encouraged to study the piano, taught to draw by his mother and<br />
became an accomplished linguist and classical scholar. In 1819 he<br />
began composition studies with Karl Friedrich Zelter. His family’s<br />
wealth allowed their home in Berlin to become a refuge for scholars,<br />
artists, writers and musicians. The philosopher Hegel and scientist<br />
Humboldt were among regular visitors, and members of the Court<br />
<strong>Orchestra</strong> and eminent soloists were available to perform the latest<br />
works by Felix or his older sister Fanny Young. Mendelssohn’s twelve<br />
string symphonies were first heard in the intimate setting of his<br />
father’s salon.<br />
Mendelssohn’s maturity as a composer was marked by his Octet<br />
(1825) and concert overture to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s<br />
Dream (1826). In 1829 Mendelssohn revived Bach’s St Matthew<br />
Passion exactly a hundred years after its first performance. Soon after,<br />
a trip to <strong>London</strong> and the Scottish highlands and islands inspired the<br />
overture, The Hebrides. In 1830 he travelled to Italy at the suggestion<br />
of Goethe and whilst in Rome started his so-called Scottish and Italian<br />
Symphonies. In 1835 he was appointed conductor of the Leipzig<br />
Gewandhaus, greatly expanding its repertoire with early music and<br />
works of his own, including the E minor Violin Concerto. Two years<br />
later he married Cecile Jeanrenaud and in 1843 he founded the Leipzig<br />
Conservatory. His magnificent biblical oratorio, Elijah, commissioned<br />
for and first performed at the 1846 Birmingham Musical Festival, soon<br />
gained a place alongside Handel’s Messiah in the affections of British<br />
choral societies and their audiences. He died in Leipzig in 1847.<br />
Composer Profiles @ Andrew Stewart<br />
Andrew Stewart is a freelance music journalist and writer.<br />
He is the author of The LSO at 90, and contributes to a wide<br />
variety of specialist classical music publications.<br />
Programme Notes<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 5 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM<br />
5
6<br />
Felix Mendelssohn<br />
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Libretto<br />
1 Overture<br />
Narrator (Titania)<br />
If you will patiently dance in our round<br />
And see our moonlight revels, go with us.<br />
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.<br />
2 Scherzo<br />
Narrator (Fairy)<br />
Over hill, over dale<br />
Thorough bush, thorough briar,<br />
Over park, over pale,<br />
Thorough flood, thorough fire;<br />
I do wander everywhere<br />
Swifter than the moones sphere;<br />
And I serve the fairy queen,<br />
To dew her orbs upon the green.<br />
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;<br />
In their gold coats spots you see.<br />
Those be rubies, fairy favours;<br />
In those freckles live their savours.<br />
Narrator (Fairy)<br />
I must go seek some dewdrops here,<br />
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.<br />
3 March of the Fairies<br />
Narrator (Fairy)<br />
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone.<br />
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.<br />
Libretto<br />
4 Song with chorus: ‘Ye spotted snakes’<br />
Narrator (Titania)<br />
Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;<br />
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence –<br />
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,<br />
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,<br />
To make my small elves coats, and some keep back<br />
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders<br />
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep.<br />
Then to your offices, and let me rest.<br />
First Fairy<br />
You spotted snakes, with double tongue,<br />
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;<br />
Newts, and blindworms, do no wrong;<br />
Come not near our fairy queen,<br />
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong,<br />
Come not near our fairy queen,<br />
Come not near our fairy queen.<br />
Hence away! Hence away!<br />
You spotted snakes with double tongue,<br />
Thorny hedgehogs be not seen,<br />
Hence away! Hence away!<br />
First Fairy, Second Fairy, Chorus of Fairies<br />
Philomel, with melody,<br />
Sing in our sweet la lullaby<br />
La lullaby lullaby,<br />
Lullaby lullaby,<br />
Never harm, nor spell nor charm,<br />
Come our lovely lady nigh.<br />
So, so good night<br />
So, so good night with la lullaby!<br />
So, so good night,<br />
So, so good night with la lullaby.<br />
So good night, so good night,<br />
Good night, good night with la lullaby!<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 6 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM
Second Fairy<br />
Weaving spiders, come not here:<br />
Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence:<br />
Beetles black, approach not near,<br />
Worm, nor snail, do no offence,<br />
Beetles black, approach not near,<br />
Worm, nor snail, do no offence,<br />
Worm, nor snail, do no offence.<br />
Hence away! Hence away!<br />
First Fairy<br />
Hence away!<br />
Second Fairy<br />
Hence away!<br />
First Fairy<br />
Hence away!<br />
Second Fairy<br />
Weaving spiders, come not here:<br />
Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence:<br />
First Fairy<br />
Hence away!<br />
Second Fairy<br />
Hence away!<br />
First Fairy<br />
Hence away!<br />
First and Second Fairy<br />
Hence away!<br />
First Fairy, Second Fairy, Fairy Chorus<br />
Philomel, with melody<br />
Sing in our sweet la lullaby,<br />
La lullaby lullaby lullaby lullaby,<br />
Never harm, nor spell nor charm,<br />
Come our lovely lady nigh.<br />
So, so good night,<br />
So, so good night with la lullaby!<br />
So, so good night,<br />
So, so good night with la lullaby,<br />
So good night with la lullaby,<br />
So good night,<br />
Good night with la lullaby,<br />
Good night, good night<br />
With la lullaby!<br />
First Fairy<br />
Hence away! Now all is well:<br />
One, aloof, stand sentinel.<br />
5 Andante<br />
Narrator (Oberon)<br />
What thou seest, when thou dost wake,<br />
Do it for thy true love take;<br />
Love, and languish for his sake!<br />
Be it ounce, or car, or bear,<br />
Pard, or boar, with bristled hair,<br />
In thy eye that shall appear<br />
When thou wak’st, it is thy dear;<br />
Wake, when some vile thing is near.<br />
Narrator (Puck)<br />
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw<br />
All the power this charm doth owe:<br />
When thou wak’st, let love forbid<br />
Sleep his seat on thy eye-lid<br />
So awake, when I am gone;<br />
For I must now to Oberon.<br />
Narrator (Hermia)<br />
Hermia awakes in the woods…<br />
Help me Lysander, help me! Do thy best<br />
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!<br />
Ay me, for pity, what a dream was here!<br />
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.<br />
Libretto<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 7 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM<br />
7
Me thought a serpent ate my heart away,<br />
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.<br />
Lysander! What, removed? Lysander! Lord!<br />
What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?<br />
Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear.<br />
Speak of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.<br />
No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh:<br />
Either death or you I’ll find immediately.<br />
6 Intermezzo<br />
(Hermia seeks Lysander, and loses herself in the wood.)<br />
Narrator (Puck)<br />
What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here,<br />
So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?<br />
What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor;<br />
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.<br />
On the ground<br />
Sleep sound.<br />
I’ll apply<br />
To your eye,<br />
Gentle lover, remedy.<br />
When thou wak’st<br />
Thou tak’st<br />
True delight<br />
In the sight<br />
Of thy former lady’s eye:<br />
And the country proverb known,<br />
That every man should take his own.<br />
In your waking shall be shown:<br />
Jack shall have Jill;<br />
Naught shall go ill;<br />
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.<br />
8 Libretto<br />
7 Nocturne<br />
(Instrumental)<br />
8 Andante<br />
Narrator (Oberon)<br />
May all to Athens back again repair,<br />
And think no more of this night’s accidents<br />
But as fierce vexation of a dream,<br />
But first I will release the Fairy Queen.<br />
Be, as thou wast wont to be;<br />
See, as thou wast wont to see:<br />
Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower<br />
Hath such force and blessed power.<br />
Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen!<br />
Narrator (Oberon / Titania)<br />
Titania, music call;…<br />
Music, ho, music!<br />
Such as charmeth sleep!<br />
Sound, music!<br />
And will tomorrow midnight solemnly<br />
Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly<br />
And bless it to all fair prosperity.<br />
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be<br />
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.<br />
Narrator (Oberon)<br />
Then my Queen, in silence sad<br />
Trip we after night’s shade.<br />
We the globe can compass soon,<br />
Swifter than the wand’ring moon.<br />
Narrator<br />
Enter Theseus and all his Train.<br />
Narrator (Theseus)<br />
Go, bid the huntsmen<br />
Wake the lovers with their horns.<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 8 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM
Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.<br />
Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love<br />
Accompany your hearts! Away, with us to Athens! Three and three,<br />
We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.<br />
9 Wedding March<br />
Narrator (Theseus)<br />
Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have,<br />
To wear away this long age of three hours<br />
Between our after-supper and bedtime?<br />
Where is our usual manager of mirth?<br />
What revels are in hand?<br />
Go, bring the players in; and take your places, ladies.<br />
10 Allegro comodo<br />
Narrator (Prologue)<br />
Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;<br />
But wonder on, till truth makes all things plain,<br />
Narrator (Prologue)<br />
Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,<br />
And finds his trusty Thisby’s mantle slain;<br />
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,<br />
He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.<br />
And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,<br />
His dagger drew, and died.<br />
11 Funeral March<br />
Narrator (Bottom / Theseus)<br />
Will it please you to see the Epilogue,<br />
Or to hear a Bergomask dance?<br />
Let your Epilogue alone. But come, your Bergomask!<br />
12 A Dance of Clowns<br />
Narrator (Theseus)<br />
The iron tongue of midnight hath told me twelve.<br />
Lovers, to bed; ‘tis almost fairy time.<br />
I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn<br />
As much as we this night have overwatched.<br />
This palpable gross play hath well beguiled<br />
The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.<br />
A fortnight hold we this solemnity<br />
In nightly revels and new jollity.<br />
13 Allegro vivace<br />
Narrator (Puck)<br />
Now the hungry lion roars,<br />
And the wolf behowls the moon;<br />
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,<br />
All with weary task fordone.<br />
Now the wasted brands do glow,<br />
Whilst the screech owl, screeching loud,<br />
Puts the wretch that lies in woe<br />
In remembrance of a shroud.<br />
Now it is the time of night<br />
That the graves, all gaping wide,<br />
Every one lets forth his sprite,<br />
In the churchway paths to glide;<br />
And we fairies, that do run<br />
By the triple Hecate’s team<br />
From the presence of the sun,<br />
Following darkness like a dream,<br />
Now are frolic. Not a mouse<br />
Shall disturb this hallowed house.<br />
I am sent, with broom, before,<br />
To sweep the dust behind the door.<br />
Libretto<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 9 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM<br />
9
14 Finale<br />
Choir of Fairies<br />
Through this house give glimmering light,<br />
By the dead and drowsy fire,<br />
Ev’ry elf, and fairy sprite,<br />
Hop as light as bird from brier;<br />
And this ditty, after me,<br />
Sing and dance it trippingly.<br />
First, rehearse this song by rote:<br />
To each word a warbling note,<br />
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,<br />
Will we sing and bless this place.<br />
Thro’ this house give glim’ring light,<br />
By the dead and drowsy fire,<br />
Ev’ry elf and fairy sprite<br />
Hop as light as bird from brier.<br />
And this ditty, and this ditty,<br />
And this ditty, after me,<br />
Sing and dance it trippingly, etc.<br />
And this ditty, and this ditty,<br />
And this ditty, and this ditty, after me,<br />
Sing and dance it trippingly, etc.<br />
First Fairy<br />
First, rehearse the song by rote:<br />
To each word a warbling note,<br />
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,<br />
Will we sing and bless this place.<br />
Tutti<br />
Will we sing and bless this place.<br />
First Fairy<br />
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,<br />
We will sing and bless this place, etc.<br />
10 Libretto<br />
Tutti<br />
Thro’ this house give glim’ring light,<br />
By the dead and drowsy fire:<br />
Ev’ry elf and fairy sprite,<br />
Hop as light as bird from brier.<br />
And this ditty, after me,<br />
Sing and dance it trippingly,<br />
Sing and dance it, sing and dance it,<br />
Sing and dance it, sing and dance it!<br />
Oberon<br />
Now, until the break of day,<br />
Through this house each fairy stray.<br />
To the best bride bed will we,<br />
Which by us shall blessed be;<br />
And the issue, there create;<br />
Ever shall be fortunate.<br />
So shall all the couple three<br />
Ever true in loving be;<br />
And the blots of nature’s hand<br />
Shall not in their issue stand;<br />
Never mole, hare-lip, nor soar,<br />
Nor mark prodigious, such as are<br />
Despised in nativity,<br />
Shall upon their children be.<br />
With this field dew consecrate,<br />
Ever fairy take his gait!<br />
And each several chamber bless,<br />
Through this palace, with sweet peace:<br />
And the owner of it blest<br />
Ever shall it in safety rest.<br />
Trip away;<br />
Make no stay;<br />
Meet me all by break of day.<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 10 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM
Tutti<br />
Trip away; make no stay;<br />
Meet him all by break of day.<br />
Narrator (Puck)<br />
If we shadows have offended,<br />
Think but this and all is mended –<br />
That you have but slumb’red here<br />
While these visions did appear.<br />
And this weak and idle theme,<br />
No more yielding but a dream,<br />
Gentles, do not reprehend.<br />
If you pardon, we will mend.<br />
And, as I am honest Puck,<br />
If we have unearned luck<br />
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,<br />
We will make amends, ‘ere long:<br />
Else the Puck a liar call.<br />
So, good night unto you all.<br />
Give me your hands, if we be friends,<br />
And Robin shall restore amends.<br />
Performance edition of the Mendelssohn adapted and edited by Ara Guzelimian<br />
Box Office<br />
020 7638 8891 (bkg fee)<br />
lso.co.uk (reduced bkg fee)<br />
<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />
Living Music<br />
Opera and Choral Highlights<br />
Season 2011/12<br />
Sun 9 & Tue 11 Oct 2011 7.30pm<br />
Britten War Requiem<br />
Gianandrea Noseda conductor<br />
Fri 4 Nov 2011 7.30pm<br />
Honegger Joan of Arc at the Stake (concert performance)<br />
Marin Alsop conductor<br />
Sun 6 Nov 2011 7.30pm<br />
Einhorn Voices of Light<br />
Marin Alsop conductor<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> 19 & Sat 21 Apr 2012 7.30pm<br />
Weber Der Freischütz (concert performance)<br />
Sir Colin Davis conductor<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> 19 Apr<br />
Libretto<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 11 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM<br />
11
Bernard Haitink<br />
Conductor<br />
‘There is no safer pair of hands in<br />
this music than Bernard Haitink.’<br />
The Independent, <strong>Jun</strong> 2011<br />
With an international conducting career<br />
that has spanned more than five decades,<br />
Amsterdam-born Bernard Haitink is one of<br />
today’s most celebrated conductors.<br />
Principal Conductor of the Chicago<br />
<strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong> from 2006–2010, he<br />
was for more than 25 years music director<br />
of the Royal Concertgebouw <strong>Orchestra</strong>.<br />
In addition, Bernard Haitink has previously<br />
held posts as music director of the Dresden<br />
Staatskapelle, the Royal Opera, Covent<br />
Garden, Glyndebourne Festival Opera,<br />
and the <strong>London</strong> Philharmonic <strong>Orchestra</strong>.<br />
He is Conductor Laureate of the Royal<br />
Concertgebouw <strong>Orchestra</strong> and Conductor<br />
Emeritus of the Boston <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>,<br />
and has made frequent guest appearances<br />
with most of the world’s leading orchestras.<br />
In the 2010/11 season, Bernard Haitink<br />
conducted the opening concerts of the<br />
Royal Concertgebouw <strong>Orchestra</strong>’s season<br />
in Amsterdam, followed by performances<br />
of Tristan und Isolde at Zürich Opera.<br />
He began a Brahms Cycle with the Chamber<br />
<strong>Orchestra</strong> of Europe at the Lucerne Piano<br />
Festival in November 2010 which continued<br />
in this year’s Lucerne Easter and Summer<br />
festivals. Further concerts with the COE<br />
this season included Beethoven cycles<br />
at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and<br />
the Salle Pleyel, Paris. Other highlights of<br />
2010/11 included concerts with the Berlin<br />
Philharmonic, <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong> of the<br />
Bayerischer Rundfunk, LSO and Chicago<br />
<strong>Symphony</strong>.<br />
Bernard Haitink has recorded widely<br />
for Philips, Decca and EMI with the<br />
Concertgebouw <strong>Orchestra</strong>, the Berlin and<br />
Vienna Philharmonic <strong>Orchestra</strong>s and the<br />
Boston <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>. His discography<br />
includes many opera recordings with the<br />
Royal Opera, Glyndebourne, the Bavarian<br />
Radio <strong>Orchestra</strong> and Dresden Staatskapelle.<br />
He has recorded extensively with the<br />
<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong> for LSO Live<br />
(the complete Brahms and Beethoven<br />
symphonies) and with the Chicago <strong>Symphony</strong><br />
on their ‘Resound’ label. Bernard Haitink’s<br />
recording of Janáček’s Jenufa with the Royal<br />
Opera received a Grammy Award for best<br />
opera recording in 2004, and his Shostakovich<br />
<strong>Symphony</strong> No 4 recording with the Chicago<br />
<strong>Symphony</strong> was awarded a Grammy for Best<br />
<strong>Orchestra</strong>l Performance of 2008.<br />
Bernard Haitink has received many<br />
international awards in recognition of his<br />
services to music, including an honorary<br />
Knighthood and the Companion of Honour<br />
in the United Kingdom, and the House Order<br />
of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands.<br />
He was named Musical America’s Musician<br />
of the Year for 2007.<br />
Bernard Haitink in 2011/12 season<br />
Sun 10 <strong>Jun</strong> 2012 7.30pm<br />
Purcell Chacony in G minor<br />
Mozart Piano Concerto No 20<br />
Schubert <strong>Symphony</strong> No 9 (‘The Great’)<br />
with Maria João Pires piano<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> 14 <strong>Jun</strong> 2012 7.30pm<br />
Purcell arr Steven Stucky<br />
Funeral Music for Queen Mary<br />
Mozart Piano Concerto No <strong>23</strong><br />
Bruckner <strong>Symphony</strong> No 7<br />
with Maria João Pires piano<br />
Tickets from £10<br />
Choose your own seats online at<br />
lso.co.uk or call 020 7638 8891<br />
12 The Artists Bernard Haitink © Clive Barda<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 12 6/20/2011 11:50:04 AM
Sarah-Jane Brandon<br />
Soprano<br />
Winner of the 2009 Kathleen Ferrier<br />
Competition, soprano Sarah-Jane<br />
Brandon studied at the Royal<br />
College of Music.<br />
Already in demand on the concert<br />
platform, recent highlights have<br />
included Mozart’s Requiem with<br />
the CBSO and Andris Nelsons,<br />
Mahler’s <strong>Symphony</strong> No 4 with<br />
the RLPO and Vasily Petrenko and<br />
Elijah with the LPO and Kurt Masur. Her forthcoming appearances<br />
include Mahler’s <strong>Symphony</strong> No 4 with the BBC <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />
and Sylvain Cambreling, Berg’s Sieben frühe Lieder with the CBSO<br />
and Edward Gardner, Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the LPO and Yannick<br />
Nézet-Séguin, Aminta in concert performances of Il Re Pastore with<br />
the Classical Opera Company and Ian Page and Crobyle in Thais at<br />
this year’s Edinburgh Festival with the RSNO and Sir Andrew Davis.<br />
Her recital appearances include the Musée d’Orsay and Birmingham’s<br />
Barber Institute with Simon Lepper, the Wigmore Hall and the Buxton<br />
and Oxford Lieder Festivals with Gary Matthewman, the Meads Music<br />
Festival with James Baillieu and Trinity College Cambridge, and the<br />
Leeds Lieder Festival with Malcolm Martineau.<br />
Sarah-Jane is one of the featured young artists at this year’s Salzburg<br />
Festival and she will make her debut at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin in<br />
May next year as Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen.<br />
Daniela Lehner © Elisabeth Blanchet<br />
Daniela Lehner<br />
Mezzo-soprano<br />
Austrian mezzo-soprano Daniela<br />
Lehner studied in Vienna, Salzburg<br />
and <strong>London</strong>. She received various<br />
scholarships and prizes, including<br />
a Georg Solti Scholarship and<br />
First Prize in the Marilyn Horne<br />
Foundation Competition. Daniela<br />
was also a recipient of the Borletti-<br />
Buitoni Trust Award and was a BBC<br />
Radio 3 New Generation Artist.<br />
Recent engagements include Zemlinsky’s Maeterlinck Lieder with the<br />
BBCNOW under Kazushi Ono, Ramiro’s La finta giardiniera with the<br />
Academy of Ancient Music under Richard Egarr in <strong>London</strong> and Paris,<br />
Mozart’s Requiem under Sir Colin Davis in Barcelona and with the<br />
BBC Philharmonic and Bournemouth <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>, and<br />
Zarzuela arias and Spanish songs with the BBCSO.<br />
A committed recitalist, Daniela has appeared at the Carnegie Hall,<br />
Philharmonie Berlin, Wigmore Hall, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, De Singel<br />
Antwerp, Kölner Philharmonie, as well as the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham,<br />
City of <strong>London</strong>, Oxford Lieder, Danube and Schleswig-Holstein Musik<br />
Festivals. She has worked with leading pianists such as Mitsuko<br />
Uchida, Graham Johnson and Roger Vignoles, and has recently<br />
participated in Graham Johnson’s CD Schumann Complete Songs<br />
for Hyperion Records.<br />
In the 2011/12 season Daniela will make her role debut as Idamante<br />
in Mozart Idomeneo at Grange Park Opera, Dvorˇák’s Stabat Mater<br />
with the BBC Philharmonic and Beethoven Missa Solemnis with the<br />
Monteverdi Choir under Sir John Eliot Gardiner.<br />
The Artists<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 13 6/20/2011 11:50:04 AM<br />
13
Sir Thomas Allen<br />
Narrator<br />
Thomas Allen is an established<br />
artist of all the great opera houses.<br />
He has been particularly acclaimed<br />
for his Billy Budd, Pelléas, Eugene<br />
Onegin, Ulisse and Beckmesser,<br />
as well as the great Mozart roles<br />
of Count Almaviva, Don Alfonso,<br />
Papageno and, of course, Don<br />
Giovanni. His recent engagements<br />
have included the title role in Gianni<br />
Schicchi at the Los Angeles opera, at the Spoleto Festival and at The<br />
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Other recent roles have included<br />
Music Master (Ariadne auf Naxos), Peter (Hänsel und Gretel), Faninal<br />
(Der Rosenkavalier), Prosdocimo (Il turco in Italia) and Don Alfonso at<br />
the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus),<br />
Don Alfonso and Ulisse at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich; Eisenstein<br />
at the Glyndebourne Festival; Don Alfonso at the Lyric Opera of<br />
Chicago, at the Dallas Opera, and at the Salzburg Easter and Summer<br />
Festivals; and Beckmesser (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Don<br />
Alfonso, Music Master and Faninal at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.<br />
Engagements this season and beyond include Don Alfonso and<br />
Peter at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Music Master at the<br />
Metropolitan Opera, Prosdocimo at Los Angeles Opera, his debut<br />
at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and directing engagements with<br />
Scottish Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.<br />
Equally renowned on the concert platform, he appears in recital<br />
in the UK, throughout Europe, in Australia and America, and has<br />
appeared with the world’s great orchestras and conductors. Much of<br />
his repertoire has been extensively recorded with such distinguished<br />
names as Solti, Levine, Marriner, Haitink, Rattle, Sawallisch and Muti.<br />
In the New Year’s Honours of 1989 he was conferred a Commander of<br />
the British Empire and, in the 1999 Queen’s Birthday Honours, he was<br />
made a Knight Bachelor.<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 <strong>Jun</strong>ior 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 of<br />
the College’s endeavours. The College Trebles are one of over thirty<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, Royal<br />
Festival Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, Cadogan Hall, St John’s, Smith Square,<br />
Blackheath Halls, Eltham Palace and the Old Royal Naval College,<br />
Greenwich. The Trebles have recently 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 />
<strong>Orchestra</strong>’s residency in <strong>London</strong> earlier this year. They will be making<br />
their debut at the BBC Proms this summer in a performance of<br />
Havergal Brian’s Gothic <strong>Symphony</strong>.<br />
Sir Thomas Allen © Sussie Ahlberg<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 14 6/20/2011 11:50:05 AM
On stage<br />
First Violins<br />
Roman Simovic Leader<br />
Carmine Lauri<br />
Tomo Keller<br />
Nicholas Wright<br />
Nigel Broadbent<br />
Ginette Decuyper<br />
Jörg Hammann<br />
Elizabeth Pigram<br />
Harriet Rayfield<br />
Colin Renwick<br />
Ian Rhodes<br />
Sylvain Vasseur<br />
Rhys Watkins<br />
David Worswick<br />
Second Violins<br />
David Alberman<br />
Thomas Norris<br />
Sarah Quinn<br />
Miya Vaisanen<br />
Matthew Gardner<br />
Belinda McFarlane<br />
Iwona Muszynska<br />
Philip Nolte<br />
Andrew Pollock<br />
Louise Shackelton<br />
Jan Regulski<br />
Eleanor Fagg<br />
Violas<br />
Gillianne Haddow<br />
Malcolm Johnston<br />
Regina Beukes<br />
German Clavijo<br />
Lander Echevarria<br />
Richard Holttum<br />
Robert Turner<br />
Natasha Wright<br />
Ellen Blythe<br />
Alistair Scahill<br />
Cellos<br />
Rebecca Gilliver<br />
Alastair Blayden<br />
Jennifer Brown<br />
Mary Bergin<br />
Noel Bradshaw<br />
Daniel Gardner<br />
Hilary Jones<br />
Amanda Truelove<br />
Double Basses<br />
Rinat Ibragimov<br />
Colin Paris<br />
Nicholas Worters<br />
Patrick Laurence<br />
Matthew Gibson<br />
Thomas Goodman<br />
Flutes<br />
Gareth Davies<br />
Julian Sperry<br />
Piccolo<br />
Sharon Williams<br />
Oboes<br />
Nora Cismondi<br />
Rosie Staniforth<br />
Cor Anglais<br />
Christine Pendrill<br />
Clarinet<br />
Chris Richards<br />
Chi-Yu Mo<br />
Bassoons<br />
Rachel Gough<br />
Joost Bosdijk<br />
Contra Bassoon<br />
Dominic Morgan<br />
Horns<br />
David Pyatt<br />
Angela Barnes<br />
Brendan Thomas<br />
Trumpets<br />
Philip Cobb<br />
Gerald Ruddock<br />
Huw Morgan<br />
Trombones<br />
Dudley Bright<br />
Katy Jones<br />
Bass Trombone<br />
Paul Milner<br />
Tuba<br />
Patrick Harrild<br />
Timpani<br />
Nigel Thomas<br />
Percussion<br />
Neil Percy<br />
David Jackson<br />
Antoine Bedewi<br />
Christopher Thomas<br />
Harp<br />
Bryn Lewis<br />
Celeste<br />
John Alley<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 LSO String Experience<br />
Scheme is generously<br />
supported by the Musicians<br />
Benevolent Fund and Charles<br />
and Pascale Clark.<br />
List correct at time of<br />
going to press<br />
See page xv for <strong>London</strong><br />
<strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong> members<br />
Editor Edward Appleyard<br />
edward.appleyard@lso.co.uk<br />
Print<br />
Cantate 020 7622 3401<br />
Advertising<br />
Cabbell Ltd 020 8971 8450<br />
The <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 15 6/20/2011 11:50:05 AM<br />
15
2010/11<br />
in your words<br />
From the opening concert last September when Valery Gergiev began his exploration of<br />
Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin, to the beginnings of his retrospective of Tchaikovsky<br />
symphonies, alongside last week’s highly memorable Bruckner performances with Bernard<br />
Haitink, to Sir Mark Elder’s Elgar The Kingdom, not to mention the UBS Soundscapes: Artist<br />
Portrait with violinist Viktoria Mullova, Sir Colin Davis and Mitsuko Uchida at the start of their<br />
Beethoven piano concertos cycle, and Sir Simon Rattle’s long-awaited return to <strong>London</strong><br />
performing Messiaen and Bruckner, the LSO has had an exciting year. There’s almost too<br />
much to mention, but here it is in the words of those who took the time to listen to what<br />
we had to say.<br />
Thank you. We very much hope you will join us next season.<br />
Kathryn McDowell<br />
LSO Managing Director<br />
16 In Your Words<br />
It was a 198-mile round trip from<br />
Suffolk, worth it just to hear Andrew<br />
Marriner’s first note in the Strauss.<br />
Thank you to all LSO players and<br />
Maestro Gergiev for yet another<br />
unforgettable evening.<br />
Alison Allen (audience email) on<br />
19 Nov 10: Gergiev – Shchedrin / Mahler<br />
After Kavakos’ phenomenal playing on<br />
<strong>Thu</strong>rsday 24th I saw something I’d never seen<br />
before. The audience didn’t dash out for their<br />
interval drinks and the orchestra applauded.<br />
I’ve seen genteel tapping of bows on desks<br />
before but never musicians applauding<br />
another. He took five calls and then an encore.<br />
I was so privileged to be there as I don’t<br />
think I’ll ever witness such playing again.<br />
Elizabeth Owen (audience email) on<br />
24 Mar 11: Gergiev – Shostakovich / Tchaikovsky<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 16 6/20/2011 11:50:06 AM
This was, in fact, more Sir Colin’s performance than Znaider’s; the sounds<br />
that he produced from your orchestra (as he did in the recent recording)<br />
were remarkable. If I hear a greater performance in the future, I shall<br />
consider myself truly blessed. Please thank all your musicians, and<br />
especially Sir Colin, for a very<br />
memorable evening.<br />
Robin Self (audience email) on 10 Nov 10:<br />
Sir Colin Davis – Elgar / Mendelssohn<br />
I’d never heard The Kingdom before. What<br />
a wonderful piece. The total involvement of<br />
the LSO, the Chorus and a spellbinding solo<br />
quartet had me on the edge of my seat. Mark<br />
Elder is one of our very finest conductors<br />
and how deeply he feels this music. It was a<br />
perfect way to spend a Sunday evening!<br />
Alfred Bradley (audience email) on<br />
30 Jan 11: Elder – Elgar<br />
Listening to @londonsymphony<br />
recording of Mahler 2 with<br />
Gergiev. The very recording<br />
which made me fall in love<br />
with classical music.<br />
MahlerMad (twitter)<br />
Quite possibly the best<br />
bassoon section on earth.<br />
ProperDiscord (twitter)<br />
If I had to give this concert stars out of five I would be<br />
forced to give it . The LSO last night was<br />
simply the best orchestra in the world.<br />
Henry Lamprecht (facebook) on Mon 7 Mar: Rattle – Messiaen / Bruckner<br />
TOTALLY UNBELIEVABLE<br />
Jonvox (twitter)<br />
In Your Words<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> <strong>Jun</strong>e 2011.indd 17 6/20/2011 11:50:07 AM<br />
17
2010/11<br />
in the press<br />
Gergiev instinctively knows how<br />
this music breathes, he knows how<br />
to catch it on the wing, so to speak,<br />
to take the sound away and achieve<br />
that airiness and balletic poise that<br />
can be so elusive.<br />
Edward Seckerson (The Independent) on<br />
12 & 15 May 11: Gergiev – Shostakovich /<br />
Tchaikovsky<br />
Genuinely special.<br />
George Hall (The Guardian) on<br />
16 Jan 11: Previn – Strauss / Vaughan Williams<br />
18 In Your Words<br />
The centrepiece of Colin Davis’ latest<br />
LSO concert was a performance of the<br />
Four Last Songs that was at once<br />
magisterial and at times almost<br />
intolerably moving.<br />
Tim Ashley (The Guardian) on<br />
20 Mar 11: Sir Colin Davis – Stravinsky /<br />
Strauss / Beethoven<br />
There’s nothing on the classical music circuit that quite<br />
compares to the full Valery Gergiev experience.<br />
Neil Fisher (The Times) on<br />
2 & 3 Mar 11: Gergiev – Mahler<br />
BLAZING yet never over the top.<br />
Zachary Woolfe (The New York Times) on<br />
27 Feb 11: Gergiev – Mahler (Avery Fisher Hall)<br />
The LSO rattled, thundered and charged along<br />
to her precise beat.<br />
Neil Fisher (The Times) on 3 Apr 11: Zhang – Prokofiev<br />
Colin Davis, the<br />
[LSO’s] lion in winter,<br />
is a passionate<br />
champion…<br />
Neil Fisher (The Times) on<br />
5 Oct 11: Sir Colin Davis – Mendelssohn / Elgar<br />
The LSO playing was<br />
top notch.<br />
Martin Kettle (The Guardian) on<br />
7 Mar 11: Rattle – Messiaen / Bruckner<br />
The vigour of Gergiev’s<br />
interpretation, all darting flashes<br />
of colour and contrast, was<br />
immensely appealing, and the<br />
finesse and panache of the playing<br />
were second to none. Very fine.<br />
Tim Ashley (The Guardian) on<br />
<strong>23</strong> & 24 Mar 11: Gergiev – Shostakovich /<br />
Tchaikovsky<br />
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LSO On Tour<br />
This summer<br />
LSO takes up its residency in Aix-en-Provence<br />
In July, the <strong>Orchestra</strong> begins a month long residency in southern<br />
France at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, performing Mozart’s<br />
La clemenza di Tito with Sir Colin Davis and Verdi’s La traviata<br />
with Louis Langrée, alongside three other concert performances.<br />
Central to the residency is a ground-breaking LSO Discovery<br />
Community Opera project – a creative collaboration which will<br />
bring together LSO musicians with the diverse communities of<br />
Marseille and Aix, including Slam poet teenagers, an Arabic Choir<br />
and Video Artists to develop their own response to Mozart’s opera –<br />
a work he wrote in just 18 days.<br />
Canada’s Black Creek Summer Festival<br />
For the first time in a number of years, the LSO will be performing<br />
three concerts in Canada as part of the Black Creek Summer Festival.<br />
Between 27 and 30 August, Lorin Maazel will conduct works by<br />
Beethoven, Copland, Gershwin, Mussorgsky and more.<br />
Closer to home...<br />
Tue 28 <strong>Jun</strong> 8pm, St Paul’s Cathedral<br />
The <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong>’s esteemed leader Gordan Nikolitch<br />
opens this concert, as part of the City of <strong>London</strong> Festival, with Bach’s<br />
Partita No 2 for solo violin, before being joined by his LSO colleagues<br />
and the virtuoso Tenebrae choir in Fauré’s Requiem.<br />
And finally, at the BBC Proms this Summer…<br />
<strong>Thu</strong> <strong>23</strong> Aug 7.30pm, Royal Albert Hall<br />
Prom 52 – Valery Gergiev presents Prokofiev’s <strong>Symphony</strong> No 1 & 5,<br />
along with Henri Dutilleux’ L’arbre des songes and Slava’s Fanfare.<br />
Sun 4 Sep 7pm, Royal Albert Hall<br />
Prom 67 – Sir Colin Davis conducts Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.<br />
To keep up-to-date with where we are over summer, visit:<br />
lso.co.uk/lsoontour<br />
LSO On Tour<br />
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19
Season 2011/12 Highlights<br />
Valery Gergiev: Tchaikovsky and<br />
Stravinsky<br />
Whether your taste is for Stravinsky ballets<br />
or Tchaikovsky symphonies, Valery Gergiev<br />
brings together some of the most inspiring<br />
pieces ever written for orchestra. In the<br />
first part of the season he completes his<br />
Tchaikovsky Symphonies cycle with<br />
Symphonies 4, 5 and 6 (‘Pathétique’), and<br />
in May 2012 he starts a two-year exploration<br />
of Stravinsky.<br />
Eleven concerts conducted by Gergiev:<br />
21 Sep, 25 Sep, 24 Nov, 27 Nov, 30 Nov, 21 Feb,<br />
<strong>23</strong> Feb, 11 May, 13 May, 15 May and 15 Jul<br />
20 Season 2011/12<br />
UBS Soundscapes: LSO Artist Portrait<br />
Anne-Sophie Mutter<br />
German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter,<br />
subject of the LSO’s Artist Portrait this<br />
season, is one of the most striking violinists<br />
of her generation: a true pioneer in<br />
championing the work of contemporary<br />
composers, commissioning new violin music<br />
from the leading composers of our time and<br />
devising special violin projects.<br />
Four concerts with Anne-Sophie Mutter:<br />
27 Nov, 30 Nov, 19 Feb and 20 Feb<br />
<strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> <strong>Orchestra</strong><br />
Living Music<br />
Sir Colin Davis: Beethoven Piano<br />
Concertos and Nielsen Symphonies<br />
Beethoven’s piano concertos are among the<br />
great favourites of the repertoire and the rollcall<br />
of soloists who are identified with these<br />
works is a history of performance in our time.<br />
Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida continues<br />
to explore their beauty with the LSO and<br />
Sir Colin Davis. Her interpretations of the<br />
Beethoven concertos complement Sir Colin’s<br />
acclaimed cycle of Nielsen symphonies which<br />
he completes in December 2011.<br />
Beethoven and Nielsen concerts with Sir Colin:<br />
2 & 4 Oct; 4 & 6 Dec; 11 & 13 Dec<br />
Box Office 020 7638 8891<br />
lso.co.uk/seasonguide<br />
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