London Philharmonic Orchestra 23 September 2015 Concert Programme

Concert programme2015/16 London Seasonlpo.org.uk

Winner of the RPS Music Award for Ensemble

Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor VLADIMIR JUROWSKI*Leader PIEtER SchOEMAn†Composer in Residence MAgnUS LInDbERgPatron hRh thE DUKE OF KEnt Kg

Chief Executive and Artistic Director tIMOthY WALKER AM

contents

2 Welcome3 On stage tonight 4 About the Orchestra5 Leader: Pieter Schoeman 6 Vladimir Jurowski7 Conducting Mahler's Seventh Symphony8 Programme notes13 Future LPO concerts at RFH14 Sound Futures donors15 Supporters16 LPO administration

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

* supported by the Tsukanov Family Foundation † supported by Neil Westreich

CONCERT PRESENTED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Southbank centre’s Royal Festival hallWednesday 23 September 2015 | 7.30pm

Mahler Symphony No. 7 (84')

Vladimir Jurowski conductor

Please note there is no Interval during this performance

This evening's concert is dedicated to Yvonne Pegler

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, Concrete, Feng Sushi and Topolski, as well as cafes, restaurants and shops inside Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery.

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.

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.

London Philharmonic Orchestra2015/16 season

Welcome to the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall for the first concert of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's 2015/16 London series. This season we present a huge range of works from epic symphonies by Mahler, Beethoven and Bruckner to choral masterpieces including Szymanowski's Stabat Mater and Brahms's A German Requiem. In 2016 we showcase the diverse range of classical works inspired by Shakespeare as part of Shakespeare400, the festival marking the 400th anniversary of the great wordsmith's death. But we start with Mahler's Symphony No. 7 described as the 'Mount Everest' of symphonies by the Orchestra's Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, Vladimir Jurowski, who discusses his relationship with the symphonist's music on page 7.

For more details of our season, visit our website, at lpo.org.uk/performances or call 020 7840 4242 to request a copy of our 2015/16 brochure. You can find a taster of some highlights here:lpo.org.uk/whats-on/season15-16

Yvonne PeglerThis evening's concert is dedicated to our most loyal audience member, Yvonne Pegler, who sadly passed away in July after a short illness. Yvonne was first introduced to the Royal Festival Hall in 1951, aged 13, when her father's firm supplied the stage curtains before the Hall's grand opening. She began to attend concerts alone after school, and over the years continued to attend around five concerts a week, including almost every single London Philharmonic Orchestra concert, occupying her favourite seat at the front of the stalls, and always dressed elegantly for the occasion. Well loved by the LPO's players and staff, she also became an 'honorary member' of Southbank Centre's production team, whose backstage offices she would frequent on concert nights. She will be greatly missed but warmly remembered.

lpo.org.uk/performances

lpo.org.uk/performances

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 3

On stage tonight

First ViolinsPieter Schoeman* Leader

Chair supported by Neil Westreich

Vesselin Gellev Sub-Leader

Ilyoung ChaeChair 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

Sarah StreatfeildYang ZhangGrace LeeRebecca ShorrockGalina TanneyCaroline FrenkelKate Cole

Second ViolinsVictoria Sayles

Guest PrincipalKate Birchall

Chair supported by David & Victoria Graham Fuller

Nancy ElanLorenzo Gentili-TedeschiFiona HighamNynke HijlkemaJoseph MaherMarie-Anne MairesseAshley StevensDean WilliamsonHelena NichollsSioni WilliamsHarry KerrJohn DickinsonFloortje GerritsenJudith Castro

ViolasPrzemyslaw Pujanek

Guest PrincipalCyrille Mercier Robert DuncanGregory AronovichKatharine LeekSusanne MartensBenedetto PollaniLaura VallejoNaomi HoltDaniel CornfordMartin FennSarah MalcolmRebecca CarringtonStanislav Popov

cellosKristina Blaumane

PrincipalChair supported by Bianca and Stuart Roden

Pei-Jee Ng Co-PrincipalFrancis BucknallLaura DonoghueSantiago Carvalho†David LaleElisabeth Wiklander

Chair supported by The Viney Family

Sue Sutherley Susanna RiddellGeorge HoultSibylle HentschelPhilip Taylor

Double bassesKevin Rundell* PrincipalTim GibbsLaurence LovelleGeorge PenistonSebastian PennarThomas WalleyLowri MorganCharlotte KerbegianLaura MurphyAntonia Bakewell

FlutesKatie Bedford

Guest PrincipalSue Thomas*

Chair supported by Victoria Robey OBE

Jose Zalba-SmithClare Childs

PiccolosStewart McIlwham*

PrincipalChair supported by Friends of the Orchestra

Clare Childs

OboesIan Hardwick* PrincipalAlice MundayIlid Jones

cor AnglaisSue Böhling* Principal

clarinetsRobert Hill* PrincipalEmily MeredithJames Maltby

bass clarinetPaul Richards Principal

E-flat clarinetThomas Watmough Principal

bassoonsJonathan Davies

Guest PrincipalGareth NewmanEmma Harding

contrabassoonSimon Estell Principal

hornsDavid Pyatt* Principal

Chair supported by Simon Robey

Martin HobbsMark Vines Co-PrincipalGareth MollisonDuncan Fuller

trumpetsNicholas Betts PrincipalAnne McAneney*

Chair supported by Geoff & Meg Mann

John MacDomnic Daniel Newell

trombonesMark Templeton* Principal

Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton

Matthew Lewis

bass tromboneLyndon Meredith Principal

EuphoniumDavid Whitehouse

tubaLee Tsarmaklis* Principal

timpaniSimon Carrington* Principal

PercussionAndrew Barclay* Principal

Chair supported by Andrew Davenport

Henry Baldwin Co-PrincipalChair supported by Jon Claydon

Keith MillarKaren HuttJames BowerRichard Horne

harpsRachel Masters* Principal Lucy Haslar

MandolinNigel Woodhouse

guitarForbes Henderson

Assistant conductor Gad Kadosh

* Holds a professorial appointment in London

† Chevalier of the Brazilian Order of Rio Branco

Meet our members: lpo.org.uk/players

chair Supporters: The London Philharmonic Orchestra also acknowledges the following chair supporter whose player is not present at this concert: Laurence Watt


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 year 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 works by Alexander Raskatov and Marc-André Dalbavie.

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

‘It was one of those unforgettable evenings where everything and everyone performed beautifully [with] an extraordinary performance by the London Philharmonic ... The ovation should have been standing.’Andrew Collins, The News, March 2015


Western orchestra. Touring remains a large part of 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, 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 80 releases available on CD and to download. Recent additions include Vaughan Williams’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 conducted by Stanisław Skrowaczewski and Messiaen’s Des Canyons Aux Étoiles.

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 on Facebook and Twitter.

Find out more and get involved!

lpo.org.uk

facebook.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra

twitter.com/LPOrchestra

youtube.com/londonphilharmonic7

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.


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

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. Future highlights include his Bayerische Staatsoper debut with Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel.

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

As well as return visits to leading US orchestras and his debut at the Salzburg Easter Festival at the helm of the Staatskapelle Dresden, 2015/16 season highlights also include bringing together the London Philharmonic Orchestra and State Academic Symphony of Russia to perform Schoenberg's Gurrelieder at the Moscow Rostropovich Festival.

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. He also holds the titles of Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Artistic Director of the Russian State Academic Symphony Orchestra. 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.

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;

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

bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007w97r


There was only one skill, it seems, with which Mahler’s contemporaries were unwilling to credit him, and which he confessed, sadly, to the teenage Bruno Walter in 1894: ‘Do you not know that I am really a composer?’

In Mahler’s lifetime (and for a long time afterwards) most musicians would have echoed Richard Strauss’s assessment: ‘As for Mahler, he’s not really a composer at all – he’s simply a very great conductor’. It’s easy to laugh now, when no one would seriously question why a conductor of Vladimir Jurowski’s stature would open the new LPO season with Mahler’s Seventh Symphony.

Jurowski feels a modern presence in the score of the Seventh: Mahler himself. ‘He’s like your eternal conducting teacher, peeping over your shoulder, telling you what to do and particularly what not to do. Some people find that un-nerving. I find it extremely helpful’.

Mahler's Seventh is a hell of a piece, one of the longest and hardest in the whole of symphonic repertory of all times, a true musical Mount Everest testing all performers' stamina, technical and musical qualities. Vladimir Jurowski

But there’s more to that relationship than just notes on a page. With its solos for mandolin, guitar and euphonium, its dizzying moodswings and the two magical, twilit intermezzos that Mahler called Nachtmusik, the Seventh is probably the most ambiguous of all Mahler’s symphonies. ‘Part of the appeal and beauty of the symphony is its imperfection’ says Jurowski. ‘At the same time, I personally feel that the first movement is one of the best symphonic movements ever written by Mahler. He likes to play with

the various musical styles of the past, but he does so with an ironic smile. It’s very much music of the 20th century.’

And, of course the 21st, where irony is everyone’s second language. If we’ve all finally accepted that Gustav Mahler was, above all, a great composer, we’re only just starting to appreciate what he has to say. ‘You can’t drive your car or have a conversation with Mahler playing in the background,’ says Jurowski. ‘Mahler demands your whole being, and compels you to listen. Sometimes you’ll go through the whole scope of emotions, including some very unpleasant ones. I think this is the mystery of the man – that even 100 years after his death, he still manages to remain incredibly alive and even controversial.’

Conducting Mahler's Seventh Symphony

Vladimir Jurowski tells Richard Bratby about his love of Mahler

Extract taken from Mahler the Teacher by Richard Bratby printed in the recently published Autumn/Winter 2015 edition of Tune In, our free bi-season magazine. Copies are available at the Information Desk in the foyer or phone the LPO office on 020 7840 4200 to receive one in the post. Also available digitally:lpo.org.uk/explore/news/

Quote from an interview with Rolls Royce.

http://lpo.org.uk/explore/news/


Mahler's timeLindsay Kemp explores why Mahler Symphonies are appreciated more today than during the composer's own lifetime.

Programme notes

Mahler’s symphonies are not just giants of the concert repertoire, they are supreme statements of human achievement in art. These are works any self-respecting orchestra needs to have in its repertoire, and which are popular with audiences too. But it was not always so. For the first 50 to 70 years of their existence (they were composed between 1884 and 1911, the year of Mahler’s death) they were widely denigrated as the overblown and eccentric final throes of late Romanticism. In the age first of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, and later Stockhausen and Boulez, musical opinion was suspicious of music conceived on such a lavish scale and with such apparently self-indulgent autobiographical content. ‘Absolute music’ was the more desirable goal, and Mahler’s searing emotionalism was scorned and banished to the margins.

His flame was kept alive during this period thanks to the advocacy of certain conductors – including his protégés Bruno Walter in Vienna and later America, and Willem Mengelberg in Holland – yet his symphonies failed to win a wider presence in the concert hall. At the Proms, for instance, there were only eleven Mahler symphony performances before the 1960s, and six of those were of No. 4. Assessments such as that of Vaughan Williams – that Mahler was a ‘tolerable imitation of a composer’ – were common. In the last half-century, however, the change in fortune could hardly have been more complete. To take the Proms again as an example, there have been over 160 Mahler symphony performances since 1962, with five in the most recent season alone. Recordings and radio have of course been largely responsible by creating fuller access, but that alone would not have been enough if the music had not proved in itself to be of massive and lasting greatness.

Wherein does that greatness lie? Well, part of Mahler’s achievement was to take the idea of the programmatic symphony and infuse it with the intense expressiveness of Wagner. The ‘programmes’ for his symphonies were more emotional trajectories than spelt-out narratives – and Mahler did not consider

them to be vital to the listener’s appreciation any more than Beethoven or Berlioz had before him – but their presence strengthens the music’s sense of direction and provides a way of binding together the disparate elements in symphonies lasting an hour or more. Mahler also extended the symphony’s communicative range by introducing into it song and song melody, with all the lyrical and textual enhancements that implies; and he developed pragmatic new movement schemes and took an adventurous approach to harmony and key relationships, often ending a symphony in a different key to the one in which it had started.

A symphony must be like the world, it must embrace everything. Gustav Mahler to Jean Sibelius

What probably contributes most immediately to Mahler’s popularity today, however, is not so much its progressive features as that same subjective emotionalism for which he was originally condemned, and which finds realisation in symphonies of grand scale, vivid orchestration, ardent lyricism, probing harmony and vitalising counterpoint. His style is unique, unmistakable and fearlessly eclectic. Yearning romantic melodies jostle with Austrian folk-tunes, bugle calls and sounds from nature; vulgarity and distortion rub shoulders with warmth and beauty; and movements of monumental gravity, gut-wrenching terror or heaven-storming joy sit side-by-side with miniatures of exquisite tenderness and intimacy. The result is music that speaks to the open-minded listener with unfiltered power and directness. Over a century after they were written, the vagaries of musical fashion have fallen away and we are at the point where in Mahler’s music, as the conductor Lorin Maazel has put it, ‘we feel its moments of ecstatic rapture and catastrophic loss as if they were our own.’ ‘My time will come,’ Mahler once said. We are well and truly in it.

© Lindsay Kemp


Programme notes

The Seventh is the least well-known of Mahler’s symphonies, yet every bar is stamped with his extraordinary personality. Unusual for Mahler in having no background programme, it nevertheless contains music of typically wide-ranging expressive resource, from the dour strength of the opening to the riotous jubilation of the finale, with the intense

pictorial delicacy of the two Nachtmusik movements and the spine-tingling atmospherics of the central Scherzo lying in between. Sophisticated, extravagant and brilliantly scored, no wonder it was described by the late writer and critic Michael Kennedy as ‘Mahler’s most glamorous symphony’.

Speedread

The Seventh is the only one of Mahler’s symphonies that seems to offer no clues to the existence or nature of an underlying psychological programme. No mention here of the ‘titanic struggle against life and destiny fought by a superman’ (as there had been for the Second ‘Resurrection’ Symphony), or of a hero ‘on whom fall three blows of fate’ (for the Sixth), and no revealing quotations from his songs either. Mahler himself was often ambivalent about the relevance of such programmes anyway, but for many they have nevertheless made helpful starting-points for ideas of the ‘meanings’ of his symphonies. For the Seventh, however, all we have are a few short descriptions of what seem little more than aural inspirations for certain passages or themes, titbits which do not appear to add up to any kind of overall trajectory, whether psychological or dramatic. The puzzling mercurialness, some would say disconnectedness, of the music itself can appear to reinforce this, and as a result the work

has attracted to itself the reputation among Mahler’s symphonies of being the ‘problematic’ one.

‘Problematic’ may of course just be another way of saying that the Seventh is simply different from the others, but if that is the case the best way to overcome it is to listen with different ears. One who did that right from the start was the composer Arnold Schoenberg, 14 years younger than Mahler but already the figurehead of the so-called Second Viennese School of composers that was to have such a profound influence on the development of 20th-century music. He had had his doubts about the autobiographical baggage of Mahler’s earlier symphonies, but after hearing the Seventh he was hooked, writing to the composer of its ‘perfect repose based on artistic harmony; something that set me in motion without simply upsetting my centre of gravity and leaving me to my fate; that drew me calmly and pleasingly into its orbit … I felt so many

Symphony no. 7

1 Langsam (Adagio) – Allegro con fuoco2 Nachtmusik [Night music]: Allegro moderato 3 Scherzo: Schattenhaft [Shadowy]4 Nachtmusik [Night music]: Andante amoroso5 Rondo-Finale: Allegro ordinario

GustavMahler

1860–1911


subtleties of form …’. This was the Mahler for him, a Mahler whose creative personality was fired not by destabilising emotional confession but by mastery of symphonic form, fortifying counterpoint and searching, progressive harmony, all beating a path towards new modes of expression. ‘I have put you with the classical composers,’ he added, ‘but as one who to me is still a pioneer.’ Nor was he alone in his admiration. Hermann Scherchen was an 18-year-old viola-player when he first heard the Seventh in 1909, but would later become a great champion of musical modernism as a conductor; he remembered the occasion as ‘my first whiff of a new artistic feeling, one that marked the transition to expressionism’. Mahler began work on the Seventh Symphony in 1904 at Maiernigg, the country retreat by the shores of the Wörthersee in Southern Austria where, away from winter conducting duties at the Vienna Court Opera, he spent his summers composing. That summer’s business had in fact started with the completion of the finale of the Sixth Symphony, a movement of such

shattering tragic power that it is hardly surprising that he should have begun the Seventh almost immediately afterwards with its lightest components, the two atmospheric ‘Nachtmusiken’ that are its second and fourth movements. No more was written that summer, however, and it is possible that Mahler had no particular idea of how the rest of the symphony would take shape. When he returned to Maiernigg the following summer he continued to find progress difficult, and after a short trip to the Dolomites had also failed to shift the mental block, gloomily headed for home. Yet as he boarded a boat to cross the lake, ‘at the first stroke of the oars the theme (or rather the rhythm and character) of the introduction to the first movement came into my head – and in four weeks the first, third and fifth movements were completely done.’ The premiere took place under Mahler’s baton in Prague three years later.

The rowing anecdote is one of the few we have concerning this Symphony, but it does not tell us much about the meaning of the work itself. More significant surely is Mahler’s reported remark on that same introductory passage: ‘here Nature roars’. The opening of the Seventh has been likened to the funeral marches that open the Second and Fifth symphonies, but its baleful rumblings on winds and strings can seem more earth-tremor than dead-march, the scene presented not so much a funeral as a bleak primeval plain from which a solo tenor horn bellows like some great aurochs. During the contrapuntal unfolding of jerking rhythms and trills that follows (a Mahlerian version of a baroque overture?) the darkness gradually brightens until the music arrives at speed with a thrusting new theme (derived from the first) on horns. The music has found its energy and confidence now, and the movement will end some 20 minutes later in a burst of brusque assertiveness, though not before a central episode of distant trumpets, woodwind calls and string caresses has opened up another awed vision, this time of magical stillness and mystery.

The three central movements are shorter and more essentially atmospheric in conception, and seem to share night-time as their inspiration. The first, Nachtmusik, takes us outdoors again with horns calling to each other amid indefinable nature noises (plus, later on, cowbells), but through this there soon steps a procession of popular-style tunes and marches, a typically Mahlerian juxtaposition allegedly inspired by

Gustav Mahler with part of his Symphony No. 7 score


Rembrandt’s painting Nightwatch. If this movement has had a naggingly disquieting air, the Scherzo is more obviously threatening, full of ghostly melodic scraps, distorted waltz-shapes and flickering crescendo darts, all fleeting and untouchable, and often highlighted by unusual instrumental colourings such as tuba, contra-bassoon, double basses or solo viola. Is this a death-haunted Viennese danse macabre, or, as Erwin Stein suggested, ‘a child’s fear of the dark’? Again it is left to the listener to decide. Mahler’s marking for the second Nachtmusik, ‘Andante amoroso’, makes his intentions clear enough, though: this is a summer-night serenade of extreme delicacy, complete with tenderly swooning melodies and the sounds of mandolin and guitar, in which love and idle pleasure reign.

Mahler ends the Symphony with another 20-minute movement, a robust Rondo-Finale in which statements of the opening trumpet and drum-led festive explosion are repeatedly interrupted by episodes of contrasted material, some of it derived from popular music and some it would seem from Mahler’s long experience as an opera conductor. The effect can be baffling at times, and some of it is frankly (one assumes deliberately) banal, but if the listener can submit to it there is a cumulative power here that makes the clamour of the final bars feel well-earned.

What has it all been about? Well few could doubt as this brilliant and intriguing 80-minute symphony scrambles to a jubilant conclusion that there has been an overall move from darkness to light. The passage of night into day has plausibly been suggested. But perhaps Mahler’s message (and legacy) here was also that a modern symphony could still stir the heart with the power of absolute music, the seamless and ineffable inter-relation of form and expression.

Programme note © Lindsay Kemp

More Mahler with the LPO at Royal Festival Hall

Wednesday 4 november 2015 7.30pmbeethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 Mahler Symphony No. 5

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Paul Lewis piano

Wednesday 25 november 2015 7.30pmDvořák Cello Concerto Mahler Symphony No. 1

Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Johannes Moser cello

tickets £9–£39 (premium seats £65)

London Philharmonic Orchestra ticket Office020 7840 4242 Monday–Friday 10.00am–5.00pm lpo.org.uk | Transaction fees: £1.75 online, £2.75 telephone.

Southbank centre ticket Office 0844 847 9920 Daily 9.00am–8.00pm southbankcentre.co.uk Transaction fees: £1.75 online, £2.75 telephone. No transaction fee for bookings made in person

Mahler Symphonies on the LPO Label

Vladimir Jurowski conducts Symphony No. 1 in D major (including 'Blumine')

LPO–0070 | £9.99

Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)

LPO–0054 | £10.99 (2 CDs)

Klaus tennstedt conductsSymphony No. 1 (with Songs of a Wayfarer)

LPO–0012 | £9.99

Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)

LPO–0044 | £10.99 (2 CDs)

Symphony No. 8

LPO–0052| £10.99 (2-CDs) (Gramophone Choice)

Symphony No. 6

LPO–0038 | £10.99 (2 CDs)

Available from lpo.org.uk/recordings, the LPO Ticket Office (020 7840 4242) and all good CD outlets

Available to download or stream online via iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and others.


Jaap van Zweden conducts Symphony No. 5

LPO–0033 | £9.99

at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Students receive best available seats for just £4 plusFREE post-concert drinks courtesy of Heineken at selected concerts throughout the year.Sign up online at www.lpo.org.uk/noise

Student & Under 26 Scheme

‘@LPOrchestra I don’t know much about classical music but I do know when I am listening to something amazing’

‘Listening to the @LPOrchestra is one of the best things to do in life’

‘London concert-goers are lucky to have concerts as creative as this’ - Financial Times

http://lpo.org.uk/recordings

http://www.lpo.org.uk/noise

at Royal Festival Hall

Saturday 26 September | 7.30pm

taneyev St John of Damascus tchaikovsky Francesca da Rimini Sibelius Symphony No. 2

Vladimir Jurowski conductor London Philharmonic choir

Saturday 3 October | 7.30pm

Oliver Knussen Scriabin Settings Sibelius Violin Concerto Scriabin Symphony No. 3 (The Divine Poem)

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Leonidas Kavakos violin

Generously supported by Victoria Robey OBE

Wednesday 14 October | 7.30pm

Krzysztof Penderecki Adagio for Strings (UK premiere)

Krzysztof Penderecki Horn Concerto ‘Winterreise’ (UK premiere)*

Krzysztof Penderecki Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima

Shostakovich Symphony No. 6

Krzysztof Penderecki conductor Radovan Vlatković horn*

Supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music Programme

* Please note change to the originally advertised repertoire and artist

Friday 23 October | 7.30pm

bizet Symphony in C Ravel Piano Concerto in G major Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 (Organ)

thierry Fischer conductor benjamin grosvenor piano James Sherlock organ*

* Please note change to the originally advertised artist

JTI FRIDAY SERIES

Wednesday 28 October | 7.30pm

beethoven Symphony No. 1 thomas Larcher Violin Concerto Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

Markus Stenz conductor Patricia Kopatchinskaja violin

Saturday 31 October | 7.30pm

bruckner Symphony No. 5 (1878 Nowak edition)

Stanisław Skrowaczewski conductor

tickets £9–£39 (premium seats £65)

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.


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

lpo.org.uk/soundfutures

HA.SH


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 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 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 CookDavid EllenMr Daniel GoldsteinDrs Frank & Gek LimPeter MacDonald EggersDr Eva Lotta & Mr Thierry SciardMr & Mrs David MalpasMr & Mrs G SteinMr & Mrs John C TuckerMr & Mrs John & Susi UnderwoodLady Marina VaizeyGrenville & Krysia WilliamsMr Anthony Yolland

benefactorsMr Geoffrey BatemanMrs A BeareMs Molly BorthwickDavid & Patricia BuckMrs Alan CarringtonMr & Mrs Stewart CohenMr Alistair CorbettMr Bruno de KegelMr David EdgecombeMr Timothy Fancourt QCMr Richard FernyhoughWim and Jackie Hautekiet-ClareTony & Susan HayesMichael & Christine Henry

Malcolm HerringJ. Douglas HomeIvan HurryMr Glenn HurstfieldPer JonssonMr Gerald LevinWg. Cdr. & Mrs M T Liddiard OBE JP RAFPaul & Brigitta LockMr Peter MaceMs Ulrike ManselMr Brian MarshAndrew T MillsDr Karen MortonMr & Mrs Andrew NeillMr Michael PosenAlexey & Anastasia ReznikovichMr Konstantin SorokinMartin and Cheryl SouthgateMr Peter TausigSimon and Charlotte WarshawHoward & Sheelagh WatsonDes & Maggie WhitelockChristopher WilliamsBill Yoeand others who wish to remainanonymous

hon. benefactorElliott Bernerd

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

the generosity of our Sponsors, corporate Members, supporters and donors is gratefully acknowledged:

corporate Members

Silver: Accenture BerenbergCarter-Ruck We are AD

bronze: Appleyard & Trew LLPBTO Management Consulting AGCharles Russell SpeechlysLazardLeventis Overseas

Preferred Partners Corinthia Hotel London Heineken Sipsmith Steinway Villa Maria

In-kind SponsorsGoogle IncSela / Tilley’s Sweets

trusts and Foundations Angus Allnatt Charitable 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 FoundationLucille Graham TrustThe Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris

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

The Ann and Frederick O’BrienCharitable Trust

Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs ofthe Embassy of Spain in London

The Austin and Hope Pilkington Trust The Stanley Picker Trust The Radcliffe TrustRivers Foundation The R K Charitable TrustRVW 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


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 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 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 ChungAlexandra JupinDr. Felisa B. KaplanJill Fine MainelliKristina McPhee Dr. Joseph MulvehillHarvey 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 ( job-share)

Christopher AldertonStage Manager

Damian Davis Transport Manager

Madeleine Ridout Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager

Education and community

Isabella Kernot Education Director (maternity leave)

Clare Lovett Education Director (maternity cover)

Talia LashEducation and Community Project Manager

Lucy DuffyEducation and Community Project Manager

Richard MallettEducation and Community Producer

Development

Nick JackmanDevelopment Director

Catherine Faulkner Development Events Manager

Kathryn HagemanIndividual Giving Manager

Laura Luckhurst Corporate Relations Manager

Anna Quillin Trusts and Foundations Manager

Rebecca FoggDevelopment Co-ordinator

Helen Etheridge Development Assistant

Kirstin PeltonenDevelopment Associate

Marketing

Kath TroutMarketing Director

Libby Northcote-GreenMarketing Manager

Rachel WilliamsPublications Manager (maternity leave)

Sarah BreedenPublications Manager (maternity cover)

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 Louise MillerHonorary Doctor

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.

Photographs of Mahler 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.

Documents

London Philharmonic Orchestra 23 September 2015 Concert Programme