London Symphony OrchestraLiving Music

London’s Symphony Orchestra

Wednesday 10 June 2015 7.30pm Barbican Hall

LSO INTERNATIONAL VIOLIN FESTIVAL

André Previn Violin Concerto (‘Anne-Sophie’) INTERVAL Rachmaninov Symphony No 2

André Previn conductor Anne-Sophie Mutter violin

Concert finishes approx 9.45pm

The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds CBE

Concert supported by Baker & McKenzie LLP

International Violin Festival Media Partner

Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

Welcome Kathryn McDowell

Living Music In Brief

It is a pleasure to welcome the LSO’s Conductor Laureate André Previn back to the Barbican stage tonight. Having first conducted the Orchestra in 1967 André Previn has been one of the LSO’s most frequent collaborators ever since. From 1968 to 1979 he was the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor, during which time he brought the Orchestra to the masses through the BBC broadcast André Previn’s Music Night. Tonight he conducts a programme featuring two works which hold a special significance for him.

The first half of the concert sees the Orchestra joined by German virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter. Together they perform Previn’s First Violin Concerto, written for and dedicated to the soloist.

In the second half, André Previn and the Orchestra explore Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2 – a work with which he has long been associated, and of which he is considered one of the world’s finest interpreters.

I would like to thank Baker & McKenzie for their support of this evening’s concert and continuing commitment to the LSO, and BBC Radio 3, who broadcast the performance live. Thank you also to Jonathan Moulds and our media partner The Strad for their support of the International Violin Festival.

Please join us again on 14 June, when Bernard Haitink conducts the LSO in Mahler’s First Symphony, and Alina Ibragimova performs Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 3 in G major.

Kathryn McDowell CBE DL Managing Director

BAFTA TV AWARD: WORLD WAR I REMEMBERED FROM THE BATTLEFIELD

An event that featured a collaboration between the LSO and the Berlin Philharmonic has won a BAFTA Award. Members of the two orchestras, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, were brought together to record the music played at the St Symphorien Military Cemetery in Belgium in August 2014. The event, which also featured members of the London Symphony Chorus and LSO Choral Director Simon Halsey, took place 100 years after the declaration of World War I, and was broadcast worldwide.

A WARM WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS

The LSO offers great benefits for groups of ten or more, including 20% discount on standard tickets, a dedicated group booking phone-line, priority booking and, for larger groups, free hot drinks and the chance to meet LSO musicians at private interval receptions. Tonight, we are delighted to welcome:

The Gerrards Cross Community Association British Emunah Entertains Hertford U3A Jac Travel Adele Friedland & Friends

lso.co.uk/groups

2 Welcome 10 June 2015

2916MAR_LSO_May15.indd 1 18/05/2015 16:45:53

Conductor Laureate

London Symphony Orchestra

Honorary Guest Conductor

NHK Symphony Orchestra

4 Artist Biographies 10 June 2015

Conductor, composer and pianist André Previn has received a number of awards and honours for his outstanding musical accomplishments, including both the Austrian and German Cross of Merit, and the Glenn Gould Prize. He is the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Kennedy Center, the London Symphony Orchestra, Gramophone, Classic FM, and this year was honoured with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy. He has also received several Grammy awards for recordings, including the CD of his Violin Concerto ‘Anne-Sophie’ and Bernstein’s Serenade featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter together with the Boston and London Symphony orchestras.

A regular guest with the world’s major orchestras, both in concert and on recordings, André Previn frequently works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic. In addition, he has held chief artistic posts with such orchestras as the Houston Symphony, London Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. In 2012, André Previn was appointed Honorary Guest Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

As a pianist, André Previn enjoys recording and performing song recitals, chamber music and jazz. He has given recitals with Renée Fleming at Lincoln Center and with Barbara Bonney at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He regularly gives chamber music concerts with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lynn Harrell, as well as with members of the Boston Symphony and London Symphony orchestras, and the Vienna Philharmonic.

André Previn has enjoyed a number of successes as a composer. His first opera, A Streetcar Named Desire, was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque. His Cello Concerto performed by Daniel Müller-Schott and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra received its premiere in Leipzig in 2011.

His Double Concerto for Violin and Double Bass for Anne-Sophie Mutter and Roman Patkoló was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 2007, and his Harp Concerto was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony and premiered in 2008. His work Owls was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2008; his second opera, Brief Encounter, commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, premiered in 2009 and was released by Deutsche Grammophon in spring 2011. His Double Concerto for Violin and Viola, written for Anne-Sophie Mutter and Yuri Bashmet, received its premiere in 2009. Ms Mutter also premiered André Previn‘s second Violin Concerto in 2012 and his Second Violin Sonata in December 2013 in New York.

For his 80th birthday celebrations in 2009, Carnegie Hall presented four concerts which showcased the diversity of his career. Highlights of the past seasons included performances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and a tour of Japan with the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

André Previn records for Deutsche Grammophon. His music is published by G Schirmer Inc and Chester Music Ltd.

‘One of the most successful and versatile musicians of the past 50 years.’ Sinfini Music

André Previn KBE Conductor / Composer

lso.co.uk LSO International Violin Festival 5

Coming soon LSO International Violin Festival

020 7638 8891 lso.co.uk/violinfestival

ALINA IBRAGIMOVA

Sun 14 Jun 2015 7.30pm

Mozart Violin Concerto No 3

Mahler Symphony No 1 (‘Titan’)

Bernard Haitink conductor

Alina Ibragimova violin

JOSHUA BELL

Sun 28 Jun 2015 7.30pm

Sibelius Violin Concerto

Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

Pablo Heras-Casado conductor

Joshua Bell violin

THE STRAD SUNDAY

Sun 28 Jun 2015

Photographic Exhibition

3–5.30pm, Fountain Room

Panel Discussion: Making

Instrument Lessons Fun for Kids

6pm, Barbican Hall

Free entry, no ticket required

BBC RADIO 3

LUNCHTIME CONCERTS

James Ehnes

Thu 11 Jun 2015 1pm, LSO St Luke’s

Veronika Eberle

Thu 18 Jun 2015 1pm, LSO St Luke’s

Nicola Benedetti

Thu 25 Jun 2015 1pm, LSO St Luke’s

The LSO International Violin Festival is generously supported by Jonathan Moulds CBE

Alina Ibragimova is one of the most richly talented and expressive of violinists.

The Guardian

International Violin Festival Media Partner

6 Programme Notes 10 June 2015

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PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER

GEORGE HALL

MODERATO

CADENZA – SLOWLY

ANDANTE (FROM A TRAIN IN GERMANY)

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER VIOLIN

Few violin concertos are named after their first performers, but André Previn’s was conceived for, dedicated to and written specifically to highlight the talents of tonight’s soloist, who gave the work its premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (who commissioned it) in 2002. In fact, that was the year in which she and Previn married; and though they have subsequently divorced they continue to maintain the most positive of friendships and the closest of professional relationships. Previn has said of Anne-Sophie, ‘I don’t know a better violinist or musician. She has immense imagination, and her technique is flawless. From a technical standpoint there are certain things she particularly likes, and I was able to give her something that she enjoys performing’.

As well she might. As a leading conductor – not least in his long relationship with the LSO – and a musician who first attracted attention with his arrangements of Hollywood film scores, as well as his own original examples, Previn has garnered a huge store of knowledge of how the orchestra works, and his writing for it in this piece

is remarkably astute as well as translucent and consistently effective. Likewise, he puts the soloist through her paces in a solo part that calls on the widest range of skills and techniques, yet all of them infallibly work on the instrument. The result is a beautifully written piece.

It is also a piece with important associations for the composer. Like Anne-Sophie Mutter, Previn is German by birth, but he and his family had to leave the country in 1939 because of Nazi oppression of the Jews. In November 1999, he called his manager, Ronald Wilford, to wish him a happy birthday, telling him that he was phoning from a train in Germany. Wilford pondered this for some days before suggesting to Previn that his new piece should in some way reflect his journey through the country where he was born and lived in for 10 years. The idea eventually bore fruit in the concerto’s finale, which is a set of variations Previn based on a particular German children’s song suggested by Mutter: ‘Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär’ und auch zwei Flügel hätt, flög ich zu dir’, which in English means, ‘If I were a little bird and had two wings, I’d fly to you’. The nostalgic intention of the music is also noted in Previn’s quotation at the start of the movement of these words from T S Eliot’s Little Gidding, the last of his Four Quartets:

‘We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.’

André Previn (b 1930) Violin Concerto (‘Anne-Sophie’) (2001)

‘I don’t know a better violinist or musician. She has immense imagination, and her technique is flawless.’

André Previn on Anne-Sophie Mutter

ANDRÉ PREVIN:

THE VERSATILE MUSICIAN

André Previn is often described

as the world’s most versatile

musician, and for good reason.

Over the course of his multi-

faceted career he has excelled

in almost every possible musical

endeavour – from early experience

as an Oscar-winning film

composer, to work as conductor

with many of the world’s finest

orchestras, his virtuosity as a

classical and jazz pianist, and of

course a steady output of fine

classical concert works including

two operas and a musical. He is

truly the musician’s musician.

lso.co.uk Programme Notes 7

FIRST MOVEMENT In the opening movement the soloist floats her radiant lyricism over a luminously scored background. The delicate refinement of the orchestral textures is masterly, recalling a particularly lush violin concerto of the previous century, that by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Like the rest of the concerto, this movement – actually the shortest of the three – is finely crafted. Slow music alternates with fast and more vigorous passages, and the close is lively and enthusiastic.

SECOND MOVEMENT The official slow movement actually begins with the concerto’s cadenza – an unusual structural procedure – with the soloist’s rhapsodic writing possessing an anguished quality. This soulful music is interrupted by a faster, scherzo-like middle section before a return to the original tempo and a more introverted mood.

THIRD MOVEMENT The finale is the longest movement of the three, often marked by jocularity and simplicity, though other sections are pensive or feisty, even driven. Towards the end comes a clear statement of the theme, and the concerto ends with a mist of memories and a long held note on the solo violin.

INTERVAL – 20 minutes

There are bars on all levels of the Concert Hall; ice cream

can be bought at the stands on Stalls and Circle level.

The Barbican shop will also be open.

Why not tweet us your thoughts on the first half of the

performance @londonsymphony, or come and talk to

LSO staff at the Information Desk on the Circle level?

London Symphony Orchestra

ACROSS LONDON THIS SUMMER

CITY OF LONDON FESTIVAL Wed 24 Jun 2015 8pm, St Paul’s Cathedral Supported by Mizuho International PLC

Haydn The Creation

Edward Gardner conductor Sarah Tynan soprano Robert Murray tenor Neal Davies bass London Symphony Chorus Simon Halsey chorus director

lso.co.uk | 020 7638 8891

BBC PROMS Tue 28 Jul 2015 7pm, Royal Albert Hall

Prokofiev Piano Concertos Nos 1–5

Valery Gergiev conductor Daniil Trifonov piano Sergei Babayan piano Alexei Volodin piano

bbc.co.uk/proms | 0845 401 5045

ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD

(1897–1957)

As a child Korngold was one of the

most gifted prodigy composers

that there has ever been. Mahler

acclaimed him a genius when he was

just nine years old; he was hailed as

‘the new Mozart’ by Ernest Newman

and admired by Richard Strauss and

Puccini. In the early 30s he emigrated

to Hollywood to escape the Nazis,

and for the next decade dedicated

himself solely to composing for

film. Indeed, his pioneering work in

this medium was so influential and

successful that it overshadowed

his mainstream achievements,

and contributed to his subsequent

post-war neglect. In recent years

Korngold’s concert music has seen

somewhat of a revival with works

such as his Violin Concerto (1945)

and his opera Die tote Stadt (1920)

gathering popularity with audiences.

London Symphony OrchestraLondon’s Music

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lso.co.uk LSO International Violin Festival 9

Artist Focus Anne-Sophie Mutter

PROGRAMME NOTE AUTHOR

LINDSAY KEMP is a senior

producer for BBC Radio 3, including

programming lunchtime concerts

from LSO St Luke’s, Artistic Director

of the Lufthansa Festival of

Baroque Music, and a regular

contributor to Gramophone magazine.

MOVEMENT ONE

MOVEMENT TWO

MOVEMENT THREE

NAME NAME INSTRUMENT

Programme note body.

If note goes over a spread.

Last paragraph.

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Anne-Sophie Mutter owns and plays the 1710 ‘Lord Dunn-Raven’ Stradivarius, named after the Irish politician Windham Wyndham-Quin, fourth Earl of Dunn-Raven. The violin is said to have once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte, and was crafted during Stradivari’s so-called ‘golden period’.

Describing the ‘Lord Dunn-Raven’, Mutter praises the sound of the instrument. ‘A Stradivari is always special as a piece of sublime craftsmanship,’ she says, ‘but what sets these instruments apart is their capacity to carry even the softest of pianissimos to the very last row of any hall. I particularly love the unlimited scope of colours my violin is able to show, as well as the tiger-like roaring G-string’.

In the last decade of her 25-year relationship with the instrument, she has noticed an increased sensitivity to climate change. ‘It is becoming difficult to find a violin that is reliably dispositioned,’ she told The Strad in December 2013. ‘But that makes it exciting. When it sounds good, it is a particular joy.’

Anne-Sophie treats her instrument like a work of fine art. ‘I feel a great responsibility to pass it on in a perfect condition to the next generation,’ she says.

André’s wonderful Violin Concerto No 1 was given to me in March 2001. It was actually a sort of engagement present, so beyond the splendour of its musical content it has a very special personal place in my heart.

I could not be happier, more honoured, or more humbled to have received such a tremendous piece of music. It is truly one of the most sublime violin concertos written in the last century.

LSO INTERNATIONAL VIOLIN

FESTIVAL: FIND OUT MORE

Get to know the soloists in the

LSO International Violin Festival

and find out more about their

instruments on our website,

featuring in-depth profiles,

interviews, live-streamed artist

conversations and more.

lso.co.uk/violinfestival

10 Programme Notes 10 June 2015

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Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943) Symphony No 2 in E minor Op 27 (1907)

LARGO – ALLEGRO MODERATO

ALLEGRO MOLTO

ADAGIO

ALLEGRO VIVACE

Following the performances in January 1906 of his two one-act operas, The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini, Rachmaninov next turned to composing an opera on Maeterlinck’s Monna Vanna, but this ran into difficulties and remains a fragment. Then in February 1907 he wrote to a friend about a rumour in the Russian press: ‘It’s true, I have composed a symphony. It’s only ready in rough. I finished it a month ago, and immediately put it aside. It was a severe worry to me, and I am not going to think about it any more. But I am mystified how the newspapers got onto it’. He was bound to be wary of announcing a new symphony, for the only performance of his First Symphony, in 1897, had been a disaster.

Rachmaninov conducted the first performance of the Second Symphony in St Petersburg on 26 January 1908, and in Moscow a week later. He went on to conduct it several times in both Europe and the US over the next six years, but never conducted it after leaving Russia in 1918, and unfortunately never had the chance to record it.

All sympathetic listeners agree that the Second Symphony contains the very best of Rachmaninov. Deliberately paced and rhythmically flexible, it is above all propelled by the wonderfully fertile melody of which he was such a master. The orchestral sound is full and rich, but unlike such contemporaries as Strauss and Mahler, Rachmaninov is relatively modest in his orchestral demands. He is also rather un-Russian in his approach to the orchestration. Instead of the unmixed colour favoured by so many

of his countrymen from Glinka to Shostakovich, Rachmaninov deals in varied shades and combinations, producing a full, sonorous orchestral blend, with horns and low woodwind (particularly in the melancholy cor anglais and bass clarinet) supporting the middle of the texture, and the tuba doubling the long-held bass notes that frequently underpin the music.

The slow introduction begins with an entire group of motto themes heard one after the other: the initial unison phrase on cellos and basses, ominous brass and wind chords, and the phrase passed from first to second violins. This introduction, as well as being a rich mine of thematic material, also announces the scale of what follows.

FIRST MOVEMENT The E minor Allegro moderato emerges organically from the introduction. Its yearning first theme is a carried forward with the same sequential techniques that characterise the introduction, but the quicker tempo gives the music a more positive, striving character. The second theme, beginning and ending in G major, is not designed to contrast strongly with the first, but rather to continue its melodic narrative into a different and lighter-sounding tonal area. The turbulent development, fragmenting motives from the introduction and the first subject, spills over into the reprise of the first subject, which then leads to the movement’s most intense climax, with echoes of the music that described the infernal whirlwind in Francesca da Rimini. The return of the second theme marks the first appearance of E major, suggesting a major-key conclusion to the movement; but as the tempo quickens for the coda, the music darkens again and ends in a stormy E minor.

PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER

ANDREW HUTH is a musician,

writer and translator who writes

extensively on French, Russian and

Eastern European music.

The premiere of Rachmaninov’s

FIRST SYMPHONY in 1897 can

only be described as an unmitigated

disaster. Chief among the many

reasons for its initial failure was

lack of proper rehearsal and the

poor performance of conductor

Alexander Glazunov (who many in

the audience claimed was blind

drunk during the performance). The

unanimous unfavourable reception of

the symphony sent Rachmaninov into

an extended psychological collapse

and a three-year period of writer’s

block, broken only by the completion

of the Second Piano Concerto in

1900. Despite its initial failure, the

First Symphony is now considered to

be amongst Rachmaninov’s greatest

achievements, and is widely regarded

as a masterpiece.

lso.co.uk Programme Notes 11

SECOND MOVEMENT Although there is a great deal of activity in the Allegro moderato, its deliberate pacing and generally slow rate of harmonic change does not make it a truly fast movement. The quick A minor Scherzo therefore follows in second, rather than in third place. It is one of Rachmaninov’s most vigorous movements, rhythmically incisive and clear in design. The main horn theme is not only the source of the scampering contrapuntal ideas in the central section, but towards the end of the movement declares its own derivation from the sinister wind chords in the symphony’s first bars. The music dies away in an ominous murmur.

THIRD MOVEMENT The Adagio turns from A minor vigour to A major lyricism. Its opening phrase, rising on violins, comes again from the world of Francesca da Rimini, this time its ecstatic love duet. It is one of the three main melodic elements in the movement, the others being the rapt clarinet solo which follows immediately, and the third being the motto violin phrase from the symphony’s introduction. The presentation, and then the subtle combination of these three elements, is vocal throughout, and sustained by a rich variety of accompaniment figures.

FINALE The breadth of scale is sustained in the finale, which is so balanced that reminiscences of the preceding movements are accommodated without losing momentum. It begins in proud, boisterous style, and this is how the symphony will eventually end. In the course of the movement, however, there is room for many shades of feeling and also for one of the very biggest of Rachmaninov’s ‘big tunes’, given at each of its two appearances to massed strings.

Sergei Rachmaninov Composer Profile

‘Melody is music,’ wrote Rachmaninov, ‘the basis of music as a whole, since a perfect melody implies and calls into being its own harmonic design.’ The Russian composer, pianist and conductor’s passion for melody was central to his work, clearly heard in his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, a brilliant and diverse set of variations on a tune by the great 19th-century violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini.

Although the young Sergei’s father squandered much of the family inheritance, he at first invested wisely in his son’s musical education. In 1882 the boy received a scholarship to study at the St Petersburg Conservatory, but further disasters at home hindered his progress and he moved to study at the Moscow Conservatory. Here he proved an outstanding piano pupil and began to study composition. Rachmaninov’s early works reveal his debt to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, although he rapidly forged a personal, richly lyrical musical language, clearly expressed in his Prelude in C-sharp minor for Piano of 1892.

His First Symphony of 1897 was savaged by the critics, which caused the composer’s confidence to evaporate. In desperation he sought help from Dr Nikolai Dahl, whose hypnotherapy sessions restored Rachmaninov’s self-belief and gave him the will to complete his Second Piano Concerto, widely known through its later use as the soundtrack for the classic film Brief Encounter. Thereafter, his creative imagination ran free to produce a string of unashamedly romantic works divorced from newer musical trends. He left Russia shortly before the October Revolution in 1917, touring as pianist and conductor and buying properties in Europe and the United States.

Composer Profile © Andrew Stewart

André Previn and the LSO Half a century of music-making

12 André Previn 10 June 2015

LSO Conductor Laureate André Previn is a man of many talents.

Since 1966 he’s worked on numerous projects with the LSO, including 120 recording sessions, tours to all corners of the world, and even a TV show – André Previn’s Music Night – that ran on the BBC from 1971–78. He was LSO Principal Conductor from 1968 to 1979, but he’s also a Grammy and Academy Award-winning composer and a talented pianist, who can even conduct his beloved Mozart concertos right from the bench. There are simply too many things to mention, but here are some highlights from the last 50 years with André …

1969–72

Cycle of Vaughan Williams’

symphonies and orchestral works

1971

Collaboration with

Ravi Shankar on

his Sitar Concerto,

an LSO commission

1973

The LSO is the first British Orchestra to

perform at the Salzburg Festival, under Previn

1974

Featured soloist for two Mozart Piano

Concertos conducted by Sir Adrian Boult

1975/7

Due to the success

of his television

show André Previn’s

Music Night, the BBC

release two LPs of

music from the series

1971

Tour to Russia and Asia, conducting the LSO’s first

performances in the USSR alongside Benjamin Britten.

1967

LSO and UK conducting debut on

16 Feb at the Royal Festival Hall in

a programme of Mozart and Walton

1968 First concert as Principal Conductor,

a Gala in aid of the LSO Trust

1969

First US Tour to Illinois and Florida as part of

the Orchestra’s residency at the Daytona Festival

1972

Two-day session for Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast

(pictured above with Walton), beginning on the

day of Walton’s 70th birthday with the composer

himself in attendance at the sessions

1971

First session featuring his own music, a film score for Blind Terror

(See No Evil), which sadly ended up not being used or released.

Later that year Previn then records his Guitar Concerto with the

LSO and John Williams, which was released in 1973.

1971

Previn (billed as ‘Andrew Preview’) and the LSO appear on

the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special to perform Grieg’s

Piano Concerto with Eric Morecambe as the bemused soloist

1960s / 1970s

lso.co.uk André Previn 13

1979

Ends eleven-year tenure

as LSO Principal Conductor

on 1 July with a concert

of Debussy and Shostakovich

1982

First appearance at the

Barbican Centre, a lecture-

concert with excerpts

from Shostakovich’s

Symphony No 10

1996

Awarded honorary Knighthood

for services to music

2000

First recording on LSO Live,

Brahms’ German Requiem

2002

Premiere performances of Previn’s

Violin Concerto (‘Anne-Sophie’) with

Anne-Sophie Mutter in Germany and UK

2005

75th Birthday Celebrations

with three concerts at

the Barbican, featuring Previn

as conductor with soloists

Anne-Sophie Mutter, Renée

Fleming, Jean-Yves Thibaudet

and Tim Hugh among others.

1992

Following an eight-year

gap, Previn returns to the

studio for Shostakovich’s

Symphony No 8

1992

Becomes LSO

Conductor Laureate

1999

Celebrates 70th Birthday

with two concerts of

Beethoven, Britten,

Mozart, Strauss and

Vaughan Williams

1978

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour,

a play by Sir Tom Stoppard for

actors and Orchestra written for

the LSO with music composed

by Previn, starring Jim Broadbent,

Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Patrick Stewart,

David Suchet and Thelma Whiteley

1980s 1990s 2000s

14 Artist Biographies 10 June 2015

Born in Rheinfelden in Baden, Anne-Sophie Mutter’s international career began at the 1976 Lucerne Festival. One year later, she performed at the Salzburg Whitsun Concerts under Herbert von Karajan’s baton. She now gives concerts in all the world’s important music centres – focusing equally on the performance of traditional compositions and on the future of music: so far she has given world premieres of 22 works composed by a number of the leading composers of today.

The 2014/15 season features concerts in Asia, Europe and North America, and reflects Anne-Sophie’s musical versatility. As Carnegie Hall’s 2014/15 Perspectives Artist she presents her interpretations of traditional and contemporary compositions at the legendary Isaac Stern Auditorium. She also undertakes the third tour with The Mutter Virtuosi, the ensemble of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, this time through North America.

Together with Yefim Bronfman and Lynn Harrell, she forms a touring chamber music trio. In Berlin, she performs classical music in nightclubs as part of the popular Yellow Lounge series. A recital tour with Lambert Orkis concludes Anne-Sophie Mutter’s 2014/15 concert season.

For her numerous recordings, Anne-Sophie Mutter has received four Grammys, nine Echo Classic Awards, the German Recording Award, the Record Academy Prize, the Grand Prix du Disque and the International Phono Award.

For her 35-year stage anniversary in 2011, Deutsche Grammophon released a comprehensive box set with all of the artist’s DG recordings, extensive documentary material and as-yet unpublished rarities.

At the same time, an album of first recordings of pieces dedicated to the violinist by Wolfgang Rihm, Sebastian Currier and Krzysztof Penderecki appeared. In October 2013 Anne-Sophie Mutter presented her first recording of the Dvorák Violin Concerto with conductor Manfred Honeck and the Berlin Philharmonic. In May 2014 a double CD with recordings by Mutter and Orkis followed, commemorating the 25th anniversary of their collaboration: The Silver Album featuring the first recordings of Penderecki’s La Follia and Previn’s Violin Sonata No 2. The live recording of her club performance in May 2015, Anne-Sophie Mutter – Live from the Yellow Lounge, will be released in August on CD and Blu-ray disc. This is the first live recording of a Yellow Lounge event ever.

In 2008 she founded the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation: the goal of the foundation’s work is to provide further support for an elite group of rising young artists worldwide, to which end the violinist had already founded the Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation in 1997.

Anne-Sophie Mutter also takes a keen interest in alleviating medical and social problems of our times. She supports various causes through regular benefit concerts. In June 2015 her next benefit concert will be in aid of the Hanna and Paul Gräb Foundation.

In January 2015, Anne-Sophie Mutter was named an Honorary Fellow at Oxford University’s Keble College. Among her many accolades she has been awarded the German Grand Order of Merit, the French Medal of the Legion of Honour, the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, and the International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.

Anne-Sophie Mutter Violin

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LSO STRING EXPERIENCE SCHEME

Established in 1992, the LSO String Experience Scheme enables young string players at the start of their professional careers to gain work experience by playing in rehearsals and concerts with the LSO. The scheme auditions students from the London music conservatoires, and 15 students per year are selected to participate. The musicians are treated as professional ’extra’ players (additional to LSO members) and receive fees for their work in line with LSO section players.

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FIRST VIOLINS Roman Simovic Leader Carmine Lauri Lennox Mackenzie Clare Duckworth Nigel Broadbent Ginette Decuyper Jörg Hammann Elizabeth Pigram Claire Parfitt Harriet Rayfield Ian Rhodes Rhys Watkins David Worswick Martyn Jackson Hilary Jane Parker Alain Petitclerc

SECOND VIOLINS David Alberman Thomas Norris Sarah Quinn Richard Blayden Matthew Gardner Julian Gil Rodriguez Naoko Keatley Belinda McFarlane William Melvin Iwona Muszynska Andrew Pollock Paul Robson Ingrid Button Hazel Mulligan

VIOLAS Edward Vanderspar Gillianne Haddow Malcolm Johnston German Clavijo Lander Echevarria Robert Turner Jonathan Welch Elizabeth Butler Philip Hall Richard Holttum Francis Kefford Melanie Martin

CELLOS Tim Hugh Minat Lyons Alastair Blayden Jennifer Brown Noel Bradshaw Eve-Marie Caravassilis Daniel Gardner Hilary Jones Amanda Truelove Miwa Rosso

DOUBLE BASSES Hakan Ehren Colin Paris Nicholas Worters Patrick Laurence Matthew Gibson Thomas Goodman Joe Melvin Jani Pensola

FLUTES Gareth Davies Alex Jakeman

PICCOLO Sharon Williams

OBOES Timothy Rundle Alice Munday

COR ANGLAIS Alison Teale

CLARINETS Andrew Marriner Chi-Yu Mo

BASS CLARINET Lorenzo Iosco

BASSOONS Daniel Jemison Joost Bosdijk

CONTRA BASSOON Dominic Morgan

HORNS Timothy Jones Angela Barnes Alexander Edmundson Jonathan Lipton Andrew Budden

TRUMPETS Philip Cobb Gerald Ruddock Daniel Newell

TROMBONES Dudley Bright James Maynard

BASS TROMBONE Paul Milner

TUBA Patrick Harrild

TIMPANI Nigel Thomas

PERCUSSION Neil Percy David Jackson Benedict Hoffnung Sacha Johnson

HARP Bryn Lewis

CELESTE John Alley

Howard J Sussman It was worth travelling from the US to see and hear the LSO. I was not disappointed. We loved it. on the LSO with Valery Gergiev and Nikolaj Znaider on 12 May

David Childs @londonsymphony on scintillating form here in Trafalgar Square this evening. The place is packed! Great atmosphere, wonderful music. on BMW LSO Open Air Classics 2015 in Trafalgar Square

Jamie John Hutchings Amazing to see the crowds in Trafalgar Sq for #lsoopenair – simply amazing! on BMW LSO Open Air Classics 2015 in Trafalgar Square

16 2015/16 Season Highlights 10 June 2015

LSO Season 2015/16 Highlights Concerts at the Barbican

020 7638 8891 lso.co.uk

2015/16 SEASON OPENING with Bernard Haitink

Bruckner Symphony No 7

Tue 15 Sep 2015

Mahler Symphony No 4

Sun 20 Sep 2015

Brahms Symphony No 1

Wed 23 Sep 2015

CREATIVE GENIUSES with Sir Simon Rattle

Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande

directed by Peter Sellars

Sat 9 & Sun 10 Jan 2016

Ravel, Dutilleux and Delage

with Leonidas Kavakos

Wed 13 Jan 2016

Bruckner Symphony No 8

Thu 14 Apr 2016

MAN OF THE THEATRE with Valery Gergiev

Stravinsky The Firebird

Fri 9 Oct 2015

Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

Sun 11 Oct 2015

Bartók The Miraculous Mandarin

Sun 18 Oct 2015

SHAKESPEARE 400 with Sir John Eliot Gardiner

and Gianandrea Noseda

Mendelssohn

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Tue 16 Feb 2016

Berlioz Romeo and Juliet

Sun 28 Feb 2016

London’s Symphony Orchestra