London Philharmonic Orchestra 20 April 2016 concert programme

Concert programme2015/16 London Seasonlpo.org.uk

Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor VLADIMIR JUROWSKI supported by the Tsukanov Family FoundationPrincipal Guest Conductor ANDRÉS OROZCO-ESTRADALeader pIETER SChOEMAN supported by Neil WestreichComposer in Residence MAgNUS LINDbERgPatron hRh ThE DUKE OF KENT Kg

Chief Executive and Artistic Director TIMOThY WALKER AM

Contents

2 Welcome Orchestra news 3 On stage tonight4 About the Orchestra5 Leader: Pieter Schoeman6 Vladimir Jurowski7 Javier Perianes8 Programme notes11 Recommended recordings12 Next concerts13 LPO 2016/17 season14 Sound Futures donors15 Supporters16 LPO administration

The timings shown are not precise and are given only as a guide.

CONCERT PRESENTED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival hallWednesday 20 April 2016 | 7.30pm

Dukas La Péri (19’)

Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5 (Egyptian)* (29’)

Interval (20’)

honegger Pacific 231 (6’)

Debussy Images (35’)

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Javier perianes piano

This concert is being broadcast live by the BBC on Radio 3 Live In Concert – live concerts every day of the week. Listen online in HD Sound for 30 days at bbc.co.uk/radio3

* Generously supported by an anonymous donor

2 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

Welcome

Welcome to Southbank Centre

We hope you enjoy your visit. We have a Duty Manager available at all times. If you have any queries please ask any member of staff for assistance.

Eating, drinking and shopping? Southbank Centre shops and restaurants include Foyles, EAT, Giraffe, Strada, YO! Sushi, wagamama, Le Pain Quotidien, Las Iguanas, ping pong, Canteen, Caffè Vergnano 1882, Skylon, Feng Sushi and Topolski, as well as cafes, restaurants and shops inside Royal Festival Hall.

If you wish to get in touch with us following your visit please contact the Visitor Experience Team at Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX, phone 020 7960 4250, or email [email protected]

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery are closed for essential refurbishment until 2018. During this period, our resident orchestras are performing in venues including St John's Smith Square. Find out more at southbankcentre.co.uk/sjss

A few points to note for your comfort and enjoyment:

phOTOgRAphY is not allowed in the auditorium.

LATECOMERS will only be admitted to the auditorium if there is a suitable break in the performance.

RECORDINg is not permitted in the auditorium without the prior consent of Southbank Centre. Southbank Centre reserves the right to confiscate video or sound equipment and hold it in safekeeping until the performance has ended.

MObILES, pAgERS AND WATChES should be switched off before the performance begins.

Orchestra news

Foyle Future Firsts 2016/17: applications now openThe London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Foyle Future Firsts programme bridges the transition between college and the professional platform for up to 16 outstanding young musicians each year. It is designed to nurture and develop talented orchestral players, forming the base for future orchestral appointments to the London Philharmonic Orchestra and other world-class orchestras and ensembles. Applications for the 2016/17 programme are now open: for more details visit lpo.org.uk/futurefirsts or contact Lucy Sims on 020 7840 4203 or [email protected]. The deadline for applications is 11 May 2016.

LpO at the 2016 bbC proms This year’s line-up for the BBC Proms season has been revealed, and we’re delighted that this summer the LPO will give two Proms performances at the Royal Albert Hall. On Sunday 24 July our concert will open with the world premiere of a new work by the LPO’s Composer in Residence Magnus Lindberg. The second half is devoted to Beethoven’s epic Symphony No. 9 (Choral) under Vladimir Jurowski with the London Philharmonic Choir. The following evening, Monday 25 July, we’ll give a semi-staged concert performance of Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville alongside soloists from this summer’s Glyndebourne production together with the Glyndebourne Chorus, conducted by Enrique Mazzola. Booking for all Proms concerts opens on Saturday 7 May: visit bbc.co.uk/proms or call the Royal Albert Hall Ticket Office on 0845 401 5040.

Team LpO On Sunday 10 July 2016 a team of LPO musicians, staff and supporters will be taking part in the Vitality British 10k London Run in aid of the Orchestra’s schools concerts, BrightSparks. All money raised will allow over 12,000 young people from our South London communities and further afield to attend one of our live schools concerts, many for the very first time.

Join Team LPO to run alongside our musicians in support of a great cause. We hope that each participant will commit to raising a minimum of £250. The LPO will provide support for your fundraising endeavours. To get up and running please contact Helen Yang on 020 7840 4225 or [email protected]

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 3

On stage tonight

The London Philharmonic Orchestra also acknowledges the following chair supporters whose player is not present at this concert: David & Victoria Graham Fuller

First ViolinsPieter Schoeman* Leader

Chair supported by Neil Westreich

Vesselin Gellev Sub-LeaderIlyoung Chae

Chair supported by an anonymous donor

Ji-Hyun LeeChair supported by Eric Tomsett

Katalin VarnagyChair supported by Sonja Drexler

Catherine CraigThomas EisnerMartin Höhmann

Chair supported by The Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust

Geoffrey LynnChair supported by Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp

Robert PoolSarah StreatfeildYang ZhangRebecca ShorrockAmanda SmithCaroline FrenkelNilufar Alimaksumova

Second ViolinsAndrew Storey PrincipalLorenzo Gentili-TedeschiFiona HighamNynke HijlkemaJoseph MaherMarie-Anne MairesseAshley StevensRobin WilsonHelena NichollsSioni WilliamsHarry KerrAlison StrangeElizabeth BaldeyZhanna Proskurova

ViolasBenjamin Roskams

Guest PrincipalCyrille Mercier Co-PrincipalRobert DuncanGregory AronovichKatharine LeekSusanne MartensBenedetto PollaniEmmanuella ReiterLaura VallejoIsabel PereiraDaniel CornfordSarah Malcolm

CellosKristina Blaumane Principal

Chair supported by Bianca and Stuart Roden

Pei-Jee Ng Co-PrincipalFrancis BucknallSantiago Carvalho†David LaleGregory WalmsleyElisabeth Wiklander

Chair supported by The Viney Family

Sue Sutherley Susanna RiddellDavid Bucknall

Double bassesKevin Rundell* PrincipalColin ParisGeorge Peniston Laurence LovelleLowri MorganHelen RowlandsCharlotte KerbegianBen Wolstenholme

FlutesJuliette Bausor

Guest PrincipalSue Thomas*

Chair supported by Victoria Robey OBE

Ian MullinStewart McIlwham*

piccolosStewart McIlwham*

PrincipalChair supported by Friends of the Orchestra

Ian Mullin

OboesIan Hardwick* PrincipalJennifer Brittlebank

Oboe d’Amore Alice Munday

Cor AnglaisSue Böhling* Principal

Chair supported by Dr Barry Grimaldi

ClarinetsRobert Hill* PrincipalThomas Watmough

Sub-PrincipalEmily Meredith

bass ClarinetPaul Richards Principal

bassoonsGareth Newman Principal Emma HardingStuart Russell

ContrabassoonSimon Estell Principal

hornsDavid Pyatt* Principal

Chair supported by Simon Robey

John Ryan* PrincipalChair supported by Laurence Watt

Martin HobbsMark Vines Co-PrincipalGareth Mollison

TrumpetsPaul Beniston* PrincipalAnne McAneney*

Chair supported by Geoff & Meg Mann

David HiltonToby Street

TrombonesMark Templeton* Principal

Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton

David Whitehouse

bass TromboneLyndon Meredith Principal

TubaLee Tsarmaklis* Principal

TimpaniSimon Carrington* Principal

percussionAndrew Barclay* Principal

Chair supported by Andrew Davenport

Henry Baldwin Co-PrincipalChair supported by Jon Claydon

Keith MillarJames BowerIgnacio MolinsBarnaby Archer

harpsRachel Masters* Principal Lucy Haslar

CelesteCatherine Edwards

Assistant ConductorTim Murray

* Holds a professorial appointment in London

† Chevalier of the Brazilian Order of Rio Branco


London Philharmonic Orchestra

Recognised today as one of the finest orchestras on the international stage, the London Philharmonic Orchestra balances a long and distinguished history with a reputation as one of the UK’s most forward-looking ensembles. As well as its performances in the concert hall, the Orchestra also records film and video game soundtracks, releases CDs on its own record label, and reaches thousands of people every year through activities for families, schools and community groups.

The Orchestra was founded by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1932. It has since been headed by many of the world’s greatest conductors including Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. Vladimir Jurowski is currently the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, appointed in 2007. Andrés Orozco-Estrada took up the position of Principal Guest Conductor in September 2015. Magnus Lindberg is the Orchestra’s current Composer in Residence.

The Orchestra is resident at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London, where it gives over 30 concerts each season. Throughout 2014/15 the Orchestra gave a series of concerts entitled Rachmaninoff: Inside Out, a festival exploring the composer’s major

orchestral masterpieces. 2015/16 is a strong season for singers, with performances by Toby Spence and Anne Sofie von Otter amongst others; Sibelius enjoys 150th anniversary celebrations; distinguished visiting conductors include Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Vasily Petrenko, with Robin Ticciati returning after his debut in 2015; and in 2016 the LPO joins many of London’s other leading cultural institutions in Shakespeare400, celebrating the Bard’s legacy 400 years since his death. The Orchestra continues its commitment to new music with premieres of commissions including Magnus Lindberg’s Second Violin Concerto and Alexander Raskatov’s Green Mass.

Outside London, the Orchestra has flourishing residencies in Brighton and Eastbourne, and performs regularly around the UK. Each summer the Orchestra takes up its annual residency at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in the Sussex countryside, where it has been Resident Symphony Orchestra for over 50 years. The Orchestra also tours internationally, performing to sell-out audiences worldwide. In 1956 it became the first British orchestra to appear in Soviet Russia and in 1973 made the first ever visit to China by a Western orchestra. Touring remains a large part of

Richard Fairman, Financial Times, September 2015

Jurowski and the LPO can stand alongside the top international orchestras with pride.


the Orchestra’s life: highlights of the 2015/16 season include visits to Mexico City as part of the UK Mexico Year of Culture, Spain, Germany, the Canary Islands, Belgium, a return to the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and the Orchestra’s premiere at La Scala, Milan.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has recorded the soundtracks to numerous blockbuster films, from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to Lawrence of Arabia, East is East, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Thor: The Dark World. It also broadcasts regularly on television and radio, and in 2005 established its own record label. There are now over 90 releases available on CD and to download. Recent additions include Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3 and 10 Songs under Vladimir Jurowski, and a second volume of works by the Orchestra's former Composer in Residence, Julian Anderson.

In summer 2012 the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed as part of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames, and was also chosen to record all the world’s national anthems for the London 2012 Olympics. In 2013 it was the winner of the RPS Music Award for Ensemble.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians through an energetic programme of activities for young people. Highlights include the BrightSparks schools’ concerts and FUNharmonics family concerts; the Young Composers Programme; and the Foyle Future Firsts orchestral training programme for outstanding young players. Its work at the forefront of digital engagement and social media has enabled the Orchestra to reach even more people worldwide: all its recordings are available to download from iTunes and, as well as a YouTube channel and regular podcast series, the Orchestra has a lively presence across social media.

lpo.org.uk

facebook.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra

twitter.com/LpOrchestra

youtube.com/londonphilharmonic7

instagram.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra

Pieter Schoemanleader

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Pieter Schoeman was appointed Leader of the LPO in 2008, having previously been Co-Leader since 2002.

Born in South Africa, he made his solo debut aged 10 with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. He studied with Jack de Wet in South Africa, winning

numerous competitions including the 1984 World Youth Concerto Competition in the US. In 1987 he was offered the Heifetz Chair of Music scholarship to study with Eduard Schmieder in Los Angeles and in 1991 his talent was spotted by Pinchas Zukerman, who recommended that he move to New York to study with Sylvia Rosenberg. In 1994 he became her teaching assistant at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Pieter has performed worldwide as a soloist and recitalist in such famous halls as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Moscow's Rachmaninov Hall, Capella Hall in St Petersburg, Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. As a chamber musician he regularly performs at London's prestigious Wigmore Hall.

As a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Pieter has performed Arvo Pärt's Double Concerto with Boris Garlitsky, Brahms's Double Concerto with Kristina Blaumane, and Britten's Double Concerto with Alexander Zemtsov, which was recorded and released on the Orchestra's own record label to great critical acclaim. He has recorded numerous violin solos with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos, Opera Rara, Naxos, X5, the BBC and for American film and television, and led the Orchestra in its soundtrack recordings for The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In 1995 Pieter became Co-Leader of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice. Since then he has appeared frequently as Guest Leader with the Barcelona, Bordeaux, Lyon, Baltimore and BBC symphony orchestras, and the Rotterdam and BBC Philharmonic orchestras. He is a Professor of Violin at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. Pieter's chair in the London Philharmonic Orchestra is supported by Neil Westreich.

Jurowski and the LPO can stand alongside the top international orchestras with pride.


Vladimir Jurowskiconductor

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Jurowski seems to have reached the magic state when he can summon a packed house to hear anything he conducts with the LPO, however unfamiliar.

Geoff Brown, The Arts Desk, February 2015

One of today’s most sought-after conductors, acclaimed worldwide for his incisive musicianship and adventurous artistic commitment, Vladimir Jurowski was born in Moscow and studied at the Music Academies of Dresden and Berlin. In 1995 he made his international debut at the Wexford Festival conducting Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night, and the same year saw his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Nabucco.

Vladimir Jurowski was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2003, becoming Principal Conductor in 2007. In October 2015 he was appointed the next Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rundfunk-sinfonieorchester Berlin, a position he will take up in September 2017, and also accepted the honorary position of Artistic Director of the Enescu International Festival in Bucharest, also from 2017. He has previously held the positions of First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997–2001), Principal Guest Conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (2000–03), Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra (2005–09), and Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (2001–13).

He is a regular guest with many leading orchestras in both Europe and North America, including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; The Philadelphia Orchestra; The Cleveland Orchestra; the Boston, San Francisco and Chicago symphony orchestras; and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden and Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

In 2007 Vladimir was a guest on BBC Radio 4's flagship programme Desert Island Discs. Discover his eight records of choice here: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007w97r

His opera engagements have included Rigoletto, Jenůfa, The Queen of Spades, Hansel and Gretel and Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Parsifal and Wozzeck at Welsh National Opera; War and Peace at the Opéra national de Paris; Eugene Onegin at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan; Ruslan and Ludmila at the Bolshoi Theatre; Moses und Aron at Komische and Iolanta and Die Teufel von Loudun at Semperoper Dresden, and numerous operas at Glyndebourne including Otello, Macbeth, Falstaff, Tristan und Isolde, Don Giovanni, The Cunning Little Vixen, Peter Eötvös’s Love and Other Demons, and Ariadne auf Naxos. The Glyndebourne production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, led by Vladimir Jurowski with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Glyndebourne Chorus won the 2015 BBC Music Magazine Opera Award.

During the performance we are all 'in the same boat', so since conductors are meant to be silent during the concert, a friendly encouraging look in the right moment is very helpful, almost as helpful as good conducting technique (the latter being rather obligatory). Vladimir Jurowski on engaging players during a performance


Javier Perianespiano

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The performance of the night belonged to the young Spanish pianist Javier Perianes, whose playing of Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Piano Concerto was a tour de force of flamboyance and fun ... The audience, quite rightly, went nuts.

Herald Scotland, December 2014

Awarded the National Music Prize by the Ministry of Culture of Spain in 2012, Javier Perianes has been described as ‘a pianist of impeccable and refined tastes, blessed with a warmth of touch’ (The Telegraph). His flourishing international career spans five continents, taking him to some of the world’s most prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall in New York; Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall and Barbican in London; Salle Pleyel and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris; Berlin’s Philharmonie; the Musikverein in Vienna; the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, St Petersburg’s Philharmonic Hall; the Great Hall at the Moscow Conservatory; and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He has appeared at festivals such as Lucerne, La Roque d’Anthéron, Grafenegg, San Sebastián, Granada and Ravinia.

Invited by many of the world’s leading conductors, Perianes has worked with respected colleagues such as Daniel Barenboim, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Daniel Harding, Yuri Temirkanov, Juanjo Mena, Pablo Heras-Casado, Josep Pons, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Robin Ticciati, Thomas Dausgaard and Vasily Petrenko.

His 2015/16 season includes concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic, Chicago and Boston symphony orchestras, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonkünstler-Orchester, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Orchestra of St. Luke’s (Carnegie Hall), as well as a month-long tour of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Last season Perianes’s concerto highlights featured several prestigious debuts including with the Orchestre de Paris and the Washington National, San Francisco and BBC Scottish symphony orchestras. He also returned to the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo.

Recent and forthcoming recitals include performances in Madrid, Barcelona, Leipzig, St Petersburg, Paris, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Marseille and Hong Kong. Regular chamber music partners include violist Tabea Zimmermann and the Quiroga Quartet.

Perianes records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi. His most recent album, recorded with the Quiroga Quartet, pairs the Granados and Turina Quintets for the first time. Previous releases for the label include a live recording of Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo, and a selection of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. Songs without Words, a selection of piano works by Mendelssohn released in November 2014, has received unanimous critical praise. Other releases include Schubert’s Impromptus and Klavierstücke, Manuel Blasco de Nebra’s keyboard sonatas, Mompou’s Música callada, ...les sons et les parfums which focuses on works by Chopin and Debussy, and Moto perpetuo, a selection of Beethoven’s sonatas. Perianes’s recording of Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain and selected solo works received a Latin Grammy Nomination.

javierperianes.com


Programme notes

Paris has always loved scandals, and between 1908 and 1913 Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes served them up on an annual basis. Diaghilev hired the greatest artists of his day to produce dazzling spectacles: Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois and Paul Poiret were part of his creative team, and later collaborators would include Picasso, Matisse and Coco Chanel. His aim was to astonish, and in the years before 1914 that meant exoticism: the heady, richly coloured thrills of the savage, the sensuous and the oriental.

Paul Dukas understood his brief when, in 1911, he wrote his score for the ballet La Péri. According to Persian myth, a Peri is a fallen angel; a beautiful, mystical being equally capable of great good or great evil. In the ballet, Iskender (Alexander the Great) travels to an enchanted garden at the ends of the earth to steal immortality – in the form of a bejewelled lotus – from a ravishing Peri. At first, he succeeds: whereupon the Peri turns the full force of her seductive power upon him to win it back.

La périPaulDukas

1865–1935

Dukas rings up the curtain with a suitably barbaric fanfare, and then paints the garden in muted, glinting shades, before introducing Iskender (a poised fanfare) and the Peri (a languishing melody for cor anglais) and launching them on their long, gorgeous dance of love and death. He called his score a poème dansé, and unless you’re forming your own mental images, it’s not really complete. Léon Bakst had already designed some sumptuous (and revealing) costumes for the ballet when, in May 1911, after a row with the prima ballerina Natalia Trouhanova, Diaghilev dropped the production.

Undaunted, she staged her own rival ‘Concerts de Danse N. Trouhanova’ the following year, and finally danced the role of the Peri – in direct competition with Diaghilev. Paris relished the scandal; and only a few whispered the still juicier morsel that Trouhanova was rumoured to be Dukas’s lover. Let the music have the last word on that …

When the railway from Paris to Lille opened in June 1846, it was to the sound of music: Berlioz’s specially commissioned Chant des chemins de fer (Song of the Railway). Within two decades, rails stretched from Paris to the Mediterranean and into Switzerland and Spain. Artists of all nations began to gravitate towards the French capital, just as French artists – attracted since the time of Molière by the remote and exotic – could now discover wondrous new worlds for the price of a ticket on a train or a liner.

‘I wish to sail away on the boat cradled in the harbour’, sang the poet Arthur Leclère. ‘To sail away

to the isles of flowers … to see Damascus and the cities of Persia…’ For composers like Dukas in La Péri, the promise of the exotic was enough. Saint-Saëns went further and actually incorporated the sounds of his cruise to Egypt into his Fifth Piano Concerto. Honegger, in the 20th century, heard poetry in the very machines that made travel possible. But in his Images, Claude Debussy dispenses with physical travel altogether, and evokes the soul of a Spain he never actually saw. For the creative imagination, travelling hopefully can sometimes be better than to arrive.

Speedread


CamilleSaint-Saëns

1835–1921

piano Concerto No. 5 in F, Op. 103 (Egyptian)

Javier perianes piano

1 Allegro animato2 Andante – Allegretto tranquillo quasi andantino – Andante3 Molto allegro

In his younger days Saint-Saëns was widely viewed as a member of the avant-garde – one critic went so far as to brand him an ‘anarchist’. The deliciously sinister Danse Macabre (familiar to many today as the theme music to the TV series Jonathan Creek) has long been a ‘light’ orchestral favourite, but at an early performance in 1875 it was booed and hissed. By the end of his long life, however, Saint-Saëns’s public profile had changed to that of the arch-traditionalist: impassioned, sometimes waspish defender of French music against the dangerous innovations of Debussy and Stravinsky.

This is the image of Saint-Saëns that seems to have stuck – to his detriment. Certainly if you put the first and last movements of the Fifth Piano Concerto (1896) beside Debussy’s almost contemporary Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Saint-Saëns does seem backward-looking in comparison – an accomplished preserver of established forms rather than a creator of new ones. But the central Andante is another matter. Here there are clear echoes of the Javanese gamelan music that had so excited Debussy at the Paris Exposition in 1889. There are also some extraordinary bell-like widely spaced piano chords which seem to have lodged in the memory of another rising young French modernist, Maurice Ravel. A movement like this is hardly the product of an incurious or hide-bound musical imagination. After the first performance of the Concerto one critic wrote, ‘Never have we heard a work more colourful or gripping; it is from Rubens, from Raphael, from Michelangelo, for one finds in it fantasy, grace and power’.

It was a trip to Egypt at the beginning of 1896 that got Saint-Saëns’s imagination working so vividly. He later referred to the Fifth Concerto as ‘a kind of voyage in the East’. Saint-Saëns’s experiences seem to have had no direct musical effect on the first movement (Allegro animato), though it is possible – as one admirer suggested at the time – that the beguiling freshness of this music reflects the rejuvenating effects of the composer’s Egyptian holiday. While the movement lives up to its marking ‘animato’ (‘animated’), it is very much melody-led with little dramatic confrontation between soloist and orchestra, marking it out strongly from the conventional 19th-century romantic concerto manner.

Then comes the remarkable Andante, at first suggesting Spain rather than the Middle East, but soon after this comes a more piquantly flavoured melody in the piano’s left hand against harp-like ripples in the right. Saint-Saëns tells us this was based on his memory of hearing a Nubian love song sung by a Nile boatman. Later the piano’s delicate evocation of gamelan music is subtly underlined by quiet strokes on a gong (an unusual guest in a 19th-century piano concerto), and the castanet-like figures in the piano after that are said to have been inspired by the croaking of Nile frogs. The journey continues in the finale. Saint-Saëns described it as expressing ‘the joy of a sea crossing, a joy that not everyone shares’. The throb of ship’s engines might be alluded to in the piano’s opening figures – otherwise the exhilaration of this music is unmistakable.

Programme note © Stephen Johnson

Interval – 20 minutesAn announcement will be made five minutes before the end of the interval.


Programme notes continued

Railwaymen classify steam locomotives by their wheels. A locomotive known as a Pacific has wheels in the configuration 4-6-2: described on continental Europe as 2-3-1. But if this is already making you feel uncomfortably like you’re clutching a notebook at the end of a platform, you just need to know that on the French railways, a Pacific 231 would be one of the largest, fastest and most powerful passenger steam locomotives. (The Flying Scotsman is a Pacific – so is Gordon in the Thomas the Tank Engine books). And in the work of the Futurist painters of the 1920s, the speeding steam locomotive was the ultimate symbol of modernity.

That’s the basic idea behind the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger’s Pacific 231 (1923) – a musical study in mechanical rhythm, power and velocity, dedicated to the conductor Ernest Ansermet and one of three ‘mouvements symphoniques’ that include the equally famous Rugby (1928). Honegger was proud to be called

a railway enthusiast: ‘I have always loved locomotives passionately’, he explained. ‘For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses.’ ‘I am like a steam engine’, he confessed in his autobiography I Am A Composer. ‘I need to be stoked up.’

And few composers have so precisely captured both the sounds of a steam locomotive gathering speed – the hissing, the slow acceleration, the metallic clanks, the bark from the chimney and the rhythm of wheels on rails – and the headlong physical sensation of a huge mass of steel, fire and water at speed. It’s a bravura piece of orchestration by a composer who knew his trains, and it’s probably Honegger’s best-known work (it currently features on the Swiss 20-Franc banknote). But like those Futurist paintings, it’s also a thrilling creative response to a new age: powerful, economical, and in the best sense, poetic.

Arthurhonegger

1892–1955

pacific 231

piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Simon Trpčeski piano

1 Allegro ma non tanto2 Intermezzo: Adagio –3 Finale: Alla breve

Images

1 Gigues2 Ibéria: Par les rues et par les chemins Les parfums de la nuit – Le matin d’un jour de fête3 Rondes de printemps

ClaudeDebussy

1862–1918

‘Gather impressions’, said Claude Debussy to his stepson Raoul Bardac, ‘but don’t be in a hurry to write them down.’ He first began thinking about a set of works to be entitled Images as early as 1901; by July 1903, when he sent his first Images – a set of three piano pieces – to his publisher Fromont, a much more

expansive vision was taking shape in his imagination. He told Fromont that there would be four sets of Images in total, each comprising three pieces. The third set would be for ‘two pianos or orchestra’ and its three movements would be entitled Ibéria, Gigues tristes and Rondes. It would be 1912 before he’d complete


his plan. By then Ibéria had become a triptych in its own right, the central panel of Debussy’s single largest purely orchestral work – although Ibéria and Rondes de printemps were premiered in separate concerts in 1910, with Gigues following only in January 1913.

Debussy was always attracted to the visual arts and in 1916 told Emile Vuillermoz that ‘You do me a great honour by calling me a student of Claude Monet.’ But the idea that his music simply reproduced pictures in sound is misleading. ‘I tried to make “something else” of them’, he wrote of Images, ‘to create, in some manner, realities – what imbeciles call “impressionism’”, a term used very inaccurately, especially by art critics’. In short, Debussy is trying to evoke not memories or replicas of the sensations created by certain images and ideas – but the actual sensations themselves. As Mendelssohn almost put it, this music that deals with feelings that aren’t too vague for words – but too precise.

Everything about Images works towards that end, from the expansive form, shaped as a journey towards and then away from the mysterious central ‘Les parfums de la nuit’, to the subtlety of the orchestration: Debussy calls for – amongst other things – celeste, castanets and (in Gigues) oboe d’amore. Gigues took Debussy longest to complete, and as it emerges from silence, it immediately creates the air of emotional ambiguity that colours each of the Images. The gigue, after all, is a cheerful dance, and one of the melodies Debussy uses is the Northumbrian folk-song ‘The Keel Row’. But these Gigues tristes suggest an emotion between gaiety and tears.

As for Ibéria – well, Debussy spent exactly one day in Spain in his entire life (he witnessed a bullfight in the Basque resort of San Sebastián and was back across the border in France that evening). To Spain’s greatest 20th-century composer Manuel de Falla, that was immaterial. ‘Claude Debussy wrote Spanish music without knowing Spain, that is to say without knowing the land of Spain, which is a different matter. Debussy knew Spain from his reading, from pictures, from songs, and from dances with songs danced by true Spanish dancers.’ The idea of streets cloaked in shade, or ablaze with light, of half-heard dance rhythms and scented air, were enough to inspire Debussy. ‘Par les rues et par les chemins’ is a whirl of such impressions; ‘Les parfums de la nuit’ takes us deep into the poetic imagination (Ravel was ‘moved

to tears’ at the premiere), before the scene gradually starts to lighten and fill with the colours and sounds of ‘Le matin d’un jour de fête’. Debussy was proud of the transition – ‘it sounds like it wasn’t even written’.

The Rondes de printemps quotes two old French folk-songs: ‘Nous n’irons plus au bois’ and ‘Do, do l’enfant do’. But their provenance is as beside the point here as the ‘authenticity’ of Debussy’s Spain. ‘I am getting to believe more and more that music in its essence is not a thing that can be poured into a rigorous and traditional mould’, he told his publisher. ‘It is made of colours and pulses. All the rest is a fraud …’ What matters in this music is the glinting light, the quietly rising breezes, and the horns’ great, sensuous surges of tone as Debussy floods his orchestra with warmth, sunlight and the spirit of renewal.

Dukas, Honegger and Debussy programme notes and Speedread © Richard Bratby

Recommended recordings of tonight’s works

Many of our recommended recordings, where available, are on sale this evening at the Foyles stand in the Royal Festival Hall foyer.

Dukas: La peri Czech Philharmonic Orchestra | Antonio de Almeida [Supraphon]

Saint-Saëns: piano Concerto No. 5 Pascal Rogé | Montreal Symphony Orchestra | Charles Dutoit [Decca]

honegger: pacific 231 Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse | Michel Plasson [Deutsche Grammophon]

Debussy: Images Cleveland Orchestra | Pierre Boulez [Deutsche Grammophon]


Saturday 30 April | 7.30pm

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 4 R Strauss An Alpine Symphony

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Alexey Zuev piano

Saturday 23 April | 7.30pmShAKESpEARE400: ANNIVERSARY gALA CONCERT

Scenes from: Verdi Otello Tchaikovsky Hamlet Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music britten A Midsummer Night’s Dream Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s

Dream berlioz Roméo et Juliette prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Thomas Adès The Tempest Walton Henry V Verdi Falstaff

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Simon Callow director London philharmonic Orchestra The glyndebourne Chorus Trinity boys Choir For full list of soloists visit lpo.org.uk

Concert generously supported by Victoria Robey OBE and members of the Shakespeare400 Syndicate

Final concerts this season at Royal Festival Hall

Unless stated, tickets £9–£39 (premium seats £65) 23 April tickets £12–£48 (premium seats £75)

London philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office: 020 7840 4242 Monday–Friday 10.00am–5.00pm lpo.org.uk Transaction fees: £1.75 online, £2.75 telephone.

Sunday 5 June | 12.00 noonFUNhARMONICS FAMILY CONCERT

Lose yourself in the woods with the LPO and Globe Education in this special musical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Expect enchantment and confusion, and a bit of silliness along the way, told through a magical mix of words and music. Recommended for ages 6–11.

Children £5–£9 | Adults £10–£18


MUSIC IS OUR WORLD.2016/17 Concert Season at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Highlights include:

— Belief and Beyond Belief, a year-long festival with Southbank Centre exploring what makes us human in the 21st century, offering the opportunity for personal exploration of belief through meaning, science, death, ideology and society. In partnership with Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Vladimir Jurowski

— Sibelius expert Osmo Vänskä presents a Symphony Cycle pairing Sibelius’s symphonies with concertos by British composers

— Soloists including Anne-Sofie Mutter, Nicola Benedetti, Julian Bliss, Steven Isserlis, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Hilary Hahn

Great choral works including Haydn’s The Creation, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Mozart’s Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Choral)

Book now lpo.org.uk 020 7840 4242Season discounts of up to 30% available

LPO Programme Ad.indd 1 31/03/2016 15:03:08


Sound FutureS donorS

We are grateful to the following donors for their generous contributions to our Sound Futures campaign. Thanks to their support, we successfully raised £1 million by 30 April 2015 which has now been matched pound for pound by Arts Council England through a Catalyst Endowment grant. This has enabled us to create a £2 million endowment fund supporting special artistic projects, creative programming and education work with key venue partners including our Southbank Centre home. Supporters listed below donated £500 or over. For a full list of those who have given to this campaign please visit lpo.org.uk/soundfutures.

Masur CircleArts Council EnglandDunard FundVictoria Robey OBEEmmanuel & Barrie RomanThe Underwood Trust

Welser-Möst CircleWilliam & Alex de Winton John Ireland Charitable TrustThe Tsukanov Family FoundationNeil Westreich

Tennstedt CircleValentina & Dmitry Aksenov Richard BuxtonThe Candide TrustMichael & Elena KroupeevKirby Laing FoundationMr & Mrs MakharinskyAlexey & Anastasia ReznikovichSimon RobeyBianca & Stuart RodenSimon & Vero TurnerThe late Mr K Twyman

Solti patronsAgeas John & Manon AntoniazziGabor Beyer, through BTO

Management Consulting AGJon ClaydonMrs Mina Goodman & Miss

Suzanne GoodmanRoddy & April GowThe Jeniffer & Jonathan Harris

Charitable Trust Mr James R.D. KornerChristoph Ladanyi & Dr Sophia

Ladanyi-CzerninRobert Markwick & Kasia RobinskiThe Maurice Marks Charitable TrustMr Paris Natar

The Rothschild FoundationTom & Phillis SharpeThe Viney Family

haitink patronsMark & Elizabeth AdamsDr Christopher AldrenMrs Pauline BaumgartnerLady Jane BerrillMr Frederick BrittendenDavid & Yi Yao BuckleyMr Clive ButlerGill & Garf CollinsMr John H CookMr Alistair CorbettBruno de KegelGeorgy DjaparidzeDavid EllenChristopher Fraser OBE & Lisa FraserDavid & Victoria Graham FullerGoldman Sachs InternationalMr Gavin GrahamMoya GreeneMrs Dorothy HambletonTony & Susie HayesMalcolm HerringCatherine Høgel & Ben MardleMrs Philip KanRehmet Kassim-Lakha de MorixeRose & Dudley LeighLady Roslyn Marion LyonsMiss Jeanette MartinDuncan Matthews QCDiana & Allan Morgenthau

Charitable TrustDr Karen MortonMr Roger PhillimoreRuth RattenburyThe Reed FoundationThe Rind FoundationSir Bernard RixDavid Ross & Line Forestier (Canada)

Carolina & Martin SchwabDr Brian SmithLady Valerie SoltiMr & Mrs G SteinDr Peter StephensonMiss Anne StoddartTFS Loans LimitedLady Marina Vaizey Jenny WatsonGuy & Utti Whittaker

pritchard DonorsRalph & Elizabeth Aldwinckle Mrs Arlene BeareMr Patrick & Mrs Joan BennerMr Conrad BlakeyDr Anthony BucklandPaul CollinsAlastair CrawfordMr Derek B. GrayMr Roger GreenwoodThe HA.SH FoundationDarren & Jennifer Holmes Honeymead Arts TrustMr Geoffrey KirkhamDrs Frank & Gek LimPeter MaceMr & Mrs David MalpasDr David McGibneyMichael & Patricia McLaren-TurnerMr & Mrs Andrew NeillMr Christopher QuereeThe Rosalyn & Nicholas Springer

Charitable TrustTimothy Walker AMChristopher WilliamsPeter Wilson SmithMr Anthony Yolland

and all other donors who wish to remain anonymous


The generosity of our Sponsors, Corporate Members, supporters and donors is gratefully acknowledged:

Corporate Members

Silver: Accenture BerenbergCarter-Ruck French Chamber of Commerce We are AD

bronze: Appleyard & Trew LLPBTO Management Consulting AGCharles Russell SpeechlysLazardRusso-British Chamber of Commerce Willis Towers Watson

preferred partners Corinthia Hotel London Heineken Lindt & Sprüngli LtdSipsmith Steinway Villa Maria

In-kind SponsorGoogle Inc

Trusts and Foundations Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation Axis Foundation The Bernarr Rainbow Trust The Boltini TrustBorletti-Buitoni TrustThe Candide Trust Cockayne – Grants for the Arts The D’Oyly Carte Charitable TrustDunard FundThe Equitable Charitable Trust The Foyle Foundation The Goldsmiths’ CompanyLucille Graham TrustThe Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris

Charitable TrustHelp Musicians UK The Idlewild Trust Kirby Laing Foundation The Leverhulme Trust The London Community Foundation London Stock Exchange Group FoundationLord and Lady Lurgan Trust Marsh Christian TrustAdam Mickiewicz Institute

The Peter Minet TrustThe Ann and Frederick O’Brien

Charitable TrustOffice for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of

the Embassy of Spain in LondonThe Austin and Hope Pilkington Trust The Stanley Picker Trust The Radcliffe TrustRivers Foundation The R K Charitable TrustRVW Trust Schroder Charity TrustSerge Rachmaninoff Foundation The David Solomons Charitable Trust Souter Charitable Trust The John Thaw FoundationThe Tillett Trust UK Friends of the Felix-Mendelssohn-

Bartholdy-Foundation The Viney FamilyGarfield Weston FoundationThe Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust

and all others who wish to remain anonymous

We would like to acknowledge the generous support of the following Thomas beecham group patrons, principal benefactors and benefactors:

Thomas beecham group

The Tsukanov Family Foundation

Neil Westreich

William and Alex de Winton Dr Barry Grimaldi Mrs Philip Kan* Simon Robey Victoria Robey OBE Bianca & Stuart Roden Laurence Watt

Anonymous Jon Claydon Garf & Gill Collins* Andrew Davenport Mrs Sonja Drexler David & Victoria Graham Fuller The Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust Mr & Mrs Makharinsky Geoff & Meg Mann Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp Julian & Gill Simmonds* Eric Tomsett The Viney Family

John & Manon Antoniazzi Jane Attias David Goldstone CBE LLB FRICS John & Angela Kessler Guy & Utti Whittaker

* BrightSparks Patrons: instead of supporting a chair in the Orchestra, these donors have chosen to support our series of schools’ concerts.

principal benefactorsMark & Elizabeth AdamsDavid & Yi Yao BuckleyDesmond & Ruth CecilMr John H CookMr Bruno de KegelDavid EllenMr Daniel GoldsteinDrs Frank & Gek LimPeter MacDonald EggersDr Eva Lotta & Mr Thierry SciardMr & Mrs David Malpas Virginia SlaymakerMr & Mrs G SteinMr & Mrs John C TuckerMr & Mrs John & Susi UnderwoodGrenville & Krysia WilliamsMr Anthony Yolland

benefactorsMr Geoffrey BatemanMrs A BeareMs Molly BorthwickDavid & Patricia BuckMrs Alan CarringtonMr & Mrs Stewart CohenMr Alistair CorbettMr Timothy Fancourt QCMr Richard FernyhoughMr Gavin Graham Roger GreenwoodWim and Jackie Hautekiet-ClareTony & Susan HayesMr Daniel Heaf and Ms Amanda HillMichael & Christine HenryMalcolm HerringJ. Douglas Home

Ivan HurryMr Glenn HurstfieldPer JonssonMr Gerald LevinWg. Cdr. & Mrs M T Liddiard OBE JP RAFPaul & Brigitta LockMr Peter MaceMs Ulrike ManselMr Robert Markwick and Ms Kasia Robinski Mr Brian MarshAndrew T MillsDr Karen MortonMr & Mrs Andrew Neill Mr Roger Phillimore Mr James Pickford Andrew and Sarah PoppletonMr Michael PosenAlexey & Anastasia ReznikovichMr Konstantin SorokinMartin and Cheryl SouthgateMr Peter Tausig Lady Marina VaizeySimon and Charlotte WarshawHoward & Sheelagh WatsonDes & Maggie WhitelockChristopher WilliamsBill Yoe

and others who wish to remainanonymous

hon. benefactorElliott Bernerd

hon. Life MembersKenneth Goode Carol Colburn Grigor CBE Pehr G GyllenhammarMrs Jackie Rosenfeld OBE


Administration

board of DirectorsVictoria Robey OBE Chairman Stewart McIlwham* President Gareth Newman* Vice-PresidentDr Manon Antoniazzi Roger BarronRichard Brass Desmond Cecil CMG Jonathan Harris CBE FRICS Amanda Hill Dr Catherine C. Høgel Rachel Masters* George Peniston* Kevin Rundell* Natasha Tsukanova Mark Vines*Timothy Walker AM Laurence WattNeil Westreich David Whitehouse** Player-Director

Advisory CouncilVictoria Robey OBE Chairman Christopher Aldren Richard Brass David Buckley Sir Alan Collins KCVO CMG Andrew Davenport Jonathan Dawson William de Winton Cameron Doley Edward Dolman Christopher Fraser OBE Lord Hall of Birkenhead CBE Rehmet Kassim-Lakha Jamie Korner Clive Marks OBE FCA Stewart McIlwham Sir Bernard Rix Baroness ShackletonLord Sharman of Redlynch OBE Thomas Sharpe QC Julian Simmonds Barry Smith Martin SouthgateSir Philip Thomas Sir John TooleyChris VineyTimothy Walker AMElizabeth Winter

American Friends of the London philharmonic Orchestra, Inc.Jenny Ireland Co-ChairmanWilliam A. Kerr Co-ChairmanKyung-Wha Chung Xenia HanusiakAlexandra JupinJill Fine MainelliKristina McPhee David Oxenstierna Harvey M. Spear, Esq.Danny Lopez Hon. ChairmanNoel Kilkenny Hon. DirectorVictoria Robey OBE Hon. DirectorRichard Gee, Esq Of Counsel Jenifer L. Keiser, CPA,EisnerAmper LLP

Stephanie Yoshida

Chief Executive

Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director

Amy SugarmanPA to the Chief Executive / Administrative Assistant

Finance

David BurkeGeneral Manager and Finance Director

David GreensladeFinance and IT Manager

Dayse GuilhermeFinance Officer

Concert Management

Roanna Gibson Concerts Director

Graham WoodConcerts and Recordings Manager

Jenny Chadwick Tours Manager

Tamzin Aitken Glyndebourne and UK Engagements Manager

Alison JonesConcerts and Recordings Co-ordinator

Jo CotterTours Co-ordinator Orchestra personnel

Andrew CheneryOrchestra Personnel Manager

Sarah Holmes Sarah ThomasLibrarians

Christopher AldertonStage Manager

Damian Davis Transport Manager

Madeleine Ridout Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager

Education and Community

Isabella Kernot Education Director

Talia LashEducation and Community Project Manager

Lucy SimsEducation and Community Project Manager

Richard MallettEducation and Community Producer

Development

Nick JackmanDevelopment Director

Catherine Faulkner Development Events Manager

Laura Luckhurst Corporate Relations Manager

Anna Quillin Trusts and Foundations Manager

Rebecca FoggDevelopment Co-ordinator

Helen Yang Development Assistant

Kirstin PeltonenDevelopment Associate

Marketing

Kath TroutMarketing Director

Libby Northcote-GreenMarketing Manager

Rachel WilliamsPublications Manager

Samantha CleverleyBox Office Manager(Tel: 020 7840 4242)

Anna O’ConnorMarketing Co-ordinator

Natasha Berg Marketing Intern

Digital projects

Alison Atkinson Digital Projects Director

Matthew Freeman Recordings Consultant public Relations

Albion Media (Tel: 020 3077 4930) Archives

Philip StuartDiscographer

Gillian Pole Recordings Archive professional Services

Charles Russell SpeechlysSolicitors

Crowe Clark Whitehill LLPAuditors

Dr Barry GrimaldiHonorary Doctor

Mr Chris AldrenHonorary ENT Surgeon

London philharmonic Orchestra89 Albert Embankment London SE1 7TPTel: 020 7840 4200Box Office: 020 7840 4242Email: [email protected]

The London Philharmonic Orchestra Limited is a registered charity No. 238045.

Composer photographs courtesy of the Royal College of Music, London. Front cover photograph: Ilyoung Chae, First Violin © Benjamin Ealovega. Cover design/ art direction: Ross Shaw @ JMG Studio.

Printed by Cantate.

London Philharmonic Orchestra 20 April 2016 concert programme

Documents

Transcript of London Philharmonic Orchestra 20 April 2016 concert programme