Presented by THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA as part of THE REST IS NOISE I SSU E 1 OF 4
JA NUA RY— FEB RUA RY 2013
FRE E
ALL THE MAKINGS OF A SCANDAL SHOCKING NEW WORK CAUSES VIOLENT UNREST
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
IEW ED T HROU G H T H E
crinoline and candles of Downton Abbey, the first part of the 20th century can appear like an endless sepia summer. But in historian Philipp Blom’s recent book The Vertigo Years, quite the opposite is the case. ‘Then, as now, the feeling of living in an accelerating world, of speeding into the unknown, was overwhelming.’ Our nostalgic idea of a prewar idyll would have startled most people living at the time. You only need look at how audiences responded to the music of the age to see that the belle époque was far from belle. In concert halls and theatres across Europe, people voted with their hands, feet and voices. Stamping and boos greeted Mahler’s symphonies, while daily columns debated the concurrent rush of provocative new operas. C ONTIN U ED ON PAGE 10
PULLING DOWN THE FAÇADES Unforgiving portrait of modern life • PAGE
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ELGAR: FAME AND EMPIRE Patriotism, or unwelcome imperialism? • PAGE 6
SIBELIUS: NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE Despair results in chilling masterpiece • PAGE 7
COMPOSING IN THE CONSUMERIST AGE Ravel: genius, sell-out or perfect blend of both? • PAGE 8
THE RIOT OF SPRING STRAVINSKY’S THE RITE OF SPRING: The premiere prompted ‘barbaric responses’ from Paris audiences in 1913
The London Philharmonic Orchestra launches its 2013 concert series, as part of Southbank Centre’s year-long festival The Rest Is Noise (SEE PAGE 2 FOR DETAILS). lpo.org.uk/therestisnoise
Premiere performance descends into chaos • PAGE 10
LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
WELCOME TO THE 20TH CENTURY A ROLLERCOASTER RIDE FROM ROMANTICISM TO POP CULTURE
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n 2007 Alex Ross published his first book The Rest Is Noise. Subtitled Listening to the Twentieth Century, Ross’s book tells the story of 20th-century music within its historical context, exploring how the events and ideas of the 20th century shaped the art that was created, and vice versa. Why did musicians write what they did? Why did the world react the way it did? Why, in some cases, were they silenced? Throughout 2013, the London Philharmonic Orchestra appears as the major orchestral partner in Southbank Centre’s year-long, multi-art-form festival The Rest Is Noise. Inspired by Ross’s book, The Rest Is Noise festival looks at the key works of the 20th century through a wide lens, taking in the political happenings, social movements, cultural climates and personal stories that gave rise to these inspiring and sometimes controversial pieces of music. The LPO is thrilled to provide the backbone for this exciting festival programme with a year-long series of concerts taking us from Romanticism and Expressionism through Nationalism, cabaret, jazz, Minimalism, electronic music and pop culture. We’ll explore music of hope, fear, war, peace, protest, liberation, celebration and experimentation in a live soundtrack to the 20th century and we hope you’ll join us along the way for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
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SPECIAL OFFER FOR FIRST-TIMERS!
If you’re new to the LPO, you’ll receive 50% off a second ticket when purchasing your first full-price ticket to one of our The Rest Is Noise concerts. Tickets start at £9.
New to all this? Try out your first concert with us and bring a friend with you for half price.
To book, call the LPO Box Office on 020 7840 4242 (Mon-Fri, 10am–5pm) and quote ‘The Centurion’.
@LPOrchestra, #therestisnoise facebook.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra For the full The Rest Is Noise programme including talks, films, debates and other performances, and for extra online content visit: southbankcentre.co.uk/therestisnoise
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‘The Rest Is Noise chronicles not only the artists themselves but also the politicians, dictators, millionaire patrons and CEOs who tried to control what music was written; the intellectuals who attempted to adjudicate style; the writers, painters, dancers and filmmakers who provided companionship on lonely roads of exploration; the audiences who variously revelled in, reviled, or ignored what composers were doing; the revolutions, hot and cold wars, waves of emigration, and deeper social transformations that reshaped the landscape in which composers worked.’ Alex Ross Author of The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
PULLING DOWN THE FAÇADES
WHAT THEY SAID REVOLTING
‘I am a man of middle life, who has devoted upward of twenty years to the practice of a profession that necessitates, in the treatment of nervous and mental diseases, a daily intimacy with degenerates … I say after deliberation, and a familiarity with the emotional productions of Oscar Wilde and Richard Strauss, that Salome is a detailed and explicit exposition of the most horrible, disgusting, revolting and unmentionable features of degeneracy (using the word now in its customary social, sexual significance) that I have ever heard, read of, or imagined … That which it depicts is naught else than the motive of the indescribable acts of Jack the Ripper.’ Letter to The New York Times after a performance of Salome at the Met in 1934 (source: The Rest Is Noise, 2007)
WHAT WE SAY LPO SAYS ...
‘Richard Strauss was a friend of my great-grandfather Hugo Eisner. They would play the German card game ‘Skat’ together — I don’t know who won! His son, Fritz Eisner met my grandmother at a concert in Berlin that Richard Strauss was conducting. She had attended the first performance of Der Rosenkavalier earlier in 1910. Since then the famous trio at the end of this opera has always been played at Eisner funerals. Earlier this year I got to play Der Rosenkavalier at the Bavarian State Opera for the first time in my life. I therefore feel a very close personal link with Strauss’s music and am greatly looking forward to the concert on 19 January.’ Tom Eisner, First Violin, LPO, 2012
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CONTROVERSIAL ARTIST COLLECTIVE PRESENTS AN UNFORGIVING PORTRAIT OF MODERN LIFE
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N 4 NOVEMBER 1899 , the Viennese publisher Franz Deuticke issued a radical new book. It was called Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams). But despite its publication date, the first edition of Sigmund Freud’s polemic was marked ‘1900’. Written in the 19th century, its message evidently belonged to an entirely new era. Diving beneath the surface of human behaviour, Freud provided a searching gospel for the age. But he was not alone in piercing through society’s façades, both physical and metaphorical. Alongside Freud, artists clamoured to do the same: architects such as Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner proclaimed
the end of ornament; Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele stretched sinews and images of intense copulation across their canvases; while Franz Wedekind’s decidedly frank play Spring Awakening shocked a generation. Music was not going to miss out on these exciting cultural forays. The Bavarian-born composer Richard Strauss was one of the foremost figures in Central European music at the time. His songs embraced the psychosexual poetry of his peers, while his 1896 tone-poem Also sprach Zarathustra was inspired by Nietzsche’s tract about man in a godless world. Clearly uninhibited by conventional ideas about what music could or should express,
‘The only person who can help poor Schoenberg now is a psychiatrist ...’ – R Strauss
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Strauss unleashed his opera Salome onto an unsuspecting world in 1905. Setting Oscar Wilde’s sex-thirsty biblical drama, Strauss painted with a defiantly flamboyant brush. The opera was a monster hit, even if Kaiser Wilhelm II felt it would get the composer into a lot of trouble. So bold was its subject matter in fact – depicting the gory death of John the Baptist – that the conservative Viennese establishment barred Strauss’s score from the stage. In Graz, however, things were slightly more liberal and the opera made its way over the Austrian border on 16 May 1906. Anyone who was anyone was there to greet it. Puccini travelled up from Italy, while Mahler – the ‘House God’ of Viennese musicians – led a faction from the capital, including controversial expressionist Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils. Even a young Adolf Hitler was rumoured to have been in the audience. But however audacious Strauss’s opera seemed on that balmy May evening, the crowd that had gathered contained even more radical en-
ergies. For all the bravura of Strauss’s music, Mahler was embroiled on an unfolding series of symphonies riven with violent crises of faith, innocently prophetic of the century that was to follow. His final works, including Das Lied von der Erde, are a slow broken retreat into silence. Schoenberg initially immersed himself in that heady post-Romantic world, with acolytes such as Anton Webern following suit with his diaphanous Im Sommerwind. But more serious thoughts were at hand. Schoenberg hurled his generation into an expressionistic vortex, from which his Five Orchestral Pieces emerged. This handful of musical postcards was written in 1909, the same year as the apprehensive monodrama Erwartung and a cycle of songs to poems by the contemporary poet Stefan George. Teetering on atonality – music without an obvious key or harmonic structure – this music opened up a landscape beyond Strauss and Mahler. Schoenberg’s musical colleagues immediately embraced this burning new soundworld
LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
WORLD EVENTS FROM THE PERIOD QUEEN VICTORIA DIES On 22 January 1901 Queen Victoria died at the age of 82. Her 63-year reign remains the longest in British history and saw great expansion of the British Empire. The death of her husband Albert in 1862 caused her to retreat from the public eye in the latter years of her life and she was buried next to her husband in Frogmore Mausoleum, Windsor on 2 February 1901.
RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR ENDS The Russo-Japanese War came to an end on 5 September 1905 with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in New Hampshire, USA. Japan emerged victorious, marking the beginning of an unsteady time in Russian political history, with revolution just around the corner.
BELLY DANCE PERFORMER: Fritzi Schaffer in a c.1910 production of Salome
but it was promptly rejected by a conformist polloi, desperately clinging to former façades. But, as Freud had shown right at the beginning of the century, it is what lurks beneath that really counts.
WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS BEFORE?
You may not immediately recognise the name, but you’ll surely recognise the first few notes of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra as the soundtrack to that famous opening sequence of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. And Strauss isn’t the only musician to be inspired by Oscar Wilde’s Salome, either. The play has also inspired Nick Cave’s play of the same name, written as part of his King Ink collection, Pete Doherty’s song ‘Salome’ and The Smashing Pumpkins’ video for their track ‘Stand Inside Your Love’.
‘I am sorry that Strauss composed this Salome. Normally I’m very keen on him, but this is going to do him a lot of damage.’ – Kaiser Wilhelm II
‘Thanks to that damage I was able to build my villa in Garmisch!’ – R Strauss
SAT 19 JAN, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL R Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra R Strauss Four Early Songs, Op. 33 R Strauss Notturno, Op. 44 No. 1 R Strauss Dance of the Seven Veils & Final Scene from Salome Vladimir Jurowski conductor Karita Mattila soprano Thomas Hampson baritone Generously supported by the Sharp Family.
FREE PRE-CONCERT DISCUSSION 6.15–6.45PM, ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
An introductory look at the LPO’s The Rest Is Noise series.
WED 23 JAN, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Webern Im Sommerwind Schoenberg Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16 Mahler Das Lied von der Erde Sir Mark Elder conductor Lilli Paasikivi mezzo soprano Paul Groves tenor Generously supported by Barrie and Emmanuel Roman
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PICASSO INTRODUCES CUBISM The year 1907 marked the beginning of a new age in the visual arts: Cubism. Pablo Picasso’s oil painting 'Les Demoiselles d’Avignon' is generally regarded as one of the first Cubist works, focusing on irregular, geometric shapes, paving the way for a new era in the visual arts.
FIRST COMMERCIAL MIDDLE-EASTERN OIL FIELD ESTABLISHED Gold and oil tycoon William Knox D’Arcy became a multimillionaire overnight when his team set up the first commercial Middle Eastern oil field in 1908. It was the largest known oil field in the world at the time and enabled the establishment of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later known as British Petroleum.
INVENTION OF PLASTIC In 1907, the chemist Leo Baekeland invented the first synthetic plastic, naming it Bakelite. His invention was entirely synthetic, much less flammable than previous cellulose-based plastics, more durable and easier to produce.
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LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
WHAT THEY SAID ARCHETYPAL BRITON
‘The impulse to turn out such things as Land of Hope and Glory, the Imperial March, the Coronation Ode and the regrettable final chorus of Caractacus was an integral part of the make-up of this man, a representative, even an archetypal Briton of the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign’ Sir Arnold Bax, Farewell My Youth and Other Writings, 1943
MUSIC IN THE AIR
‘My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require.’ Sir Edward Elgar, 1905
ELGAR: FAME AND EMPIRE A CELEBRATION OF PATRIOTISM, OR UNWELCOME IMPERIALISM?
PATRIOTIC ENTHUSIASM
‘Among many non-musical Britons and most foreigners, he has the reputation of being little more than a jingoistic tub-thumper, a manifestation of the worst aspects of late Victorian and Edwardian bombast.’ Bernard Porter, Elgar and Empire, 2001
WHAT WE SAY LPO SAYS ...
‘For me, The Dream of Gerontius under the baton of Sir Mark Elder, and alongside such a wonderful cast of singers, really is the dream team for this piece. It should provide a truly moving evening exploring this intensely sincere work by Edward Elgar — not to be missed.’ Geoffrey Lynn, First Violin, LPO, 2012
HEAR IT FIRST! Preview these pieces, and explore more online content at lpo.org.uk/ therestisnoise
EMPIRE DAY 1938: Cheering children wave Union Jacks
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RG UA BLY
BR ITAIN ’ S
most famous composer – he even graced our £20 notes for three years from 2007 – Edward Elgar’s works permeate the public consciousness. From Land of Hope and Glory being sung at the Proms and football matches alike, to his ‘Nimrod’ Variation which has featured in films as diverse as Australia and The Boat that Rocked, people all over the world know of his music and associate some of it with a quintessential sense of ‘Britishness’. Written during the rise and peak of the British Empire, El-
gar’s compositions have often been interpreted with a sense of patriotism and Imperialism which can at times work well with the public consciousness while at other times make us feel uncomfortable and awkward. Elgar wrote a number of pieces for public celebration of the monarchy which have since been used at times of national celebration and pride – from the Royal Wedding in 2011 to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. However, these and other works have left many people, both in Britain and abroad, with the impression that Elgar
‘has the reputation of being little more than a jingoistic tubthumper’. Works written within the context of the rule of Queen Victoria and the rise of the British Empire can’t help but have been influenced by the national consciousness of the day, and while The Dream of Gerontius isn’t as explicitly patriotic as some of Elgar’s other works, it is still tinged with the ‘idea of Empire as a vehicle for struggle and sacrifice’. Indeed, the story behind the setting of Gerontius revolves around one of the greatest 'heroes' of the Empire, General Gordon of Khartoum, whose annotated copy of the text was reproduced in the Midlands and given to Elgar on his wedding day. While this debate around Elgar’s perceived nationalism has divided critics and audiences alike, the fact remains that his works span a broad range of purposes and compositional tones. The Dream of Gerontius, with its choral power and heartfelt passion, was one of the works that proved Elgar’s weight as a composer – an opinion shared by Richard Strauss, who, after hearing the work, thought of Elgar as ‘the first English progressivist’.
Elgar’s music has permeated the British consciousness through its use in many public events, from Land of Hope and Glory being sung at the Last Night of the Proms and football matches alike, to his Enigma Variations being performed during the Olympics Opening Ceremony, and his Serenade for Strings being played during the Royal Wedding ceremony in 2011.
SAT 26 JAN, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Elgar The Dream of Gerontius Sir Mark Elder conductor Sarah Connolly mezzo soprano Paul Groves tenor Brindley Sherratt bass London Philharmonic Choir Choir of Clare College, Cambridge BOOK NOW
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‘England for the English – hands off! There’s nothing apologetic about me.’ – Elgar
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WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS BEFORE?
lpo.org.uk/therestisnoise
LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
WORLD EVENTS FROM THE PERIOD NEW TECHNOLOGY BROADCASTS OPERA TO THE NATION 1910 saw the first public radio broadcast when a live transmission from New York’s Metropolitan Opera House took place. Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci formed the programme, marking the start of public radio broadcasts for years to come.
JEAN SIBELIUS: ‘I still go on composing but I feel very much alone. There is so much in the music of the present day that I cannot accept.’
SIBELIUS: NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE COMPOSER’S PERSONAL DESPAIR RESULTS IN CHILLING MASTERPIECE T T HE HEIGH T O F H I S
frustration, Jean Sibelius created his most enduring and moving music. The composer’s dream of becoming a virtuoso violinist was dashed when he failed an audition for the Vienna Philharmonic, but that only added to the thrust and inspiration
behind his resplendent Violin Concerto, a testament in music to the virtuoso Sibelius never was. At his deepest depths of despair, diagnosed with cancer and fighting off debts, Sibelius created his Fourth Symphony, perhaps his most stark, evocative, chilling and moving.
‘My new symphony stands out as a complete protest against the compositions of today. Nothing – absolutely nothing – of the circus about it.’ – Sibelius
WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS BEFORE?
The sounds of Sibelius’s earlier work Finlandia is used in the soundtracks for both Die Hard: With a Vengeance and The Hunt for Red October soundtracks. Debussy’s compositions are used in film and television a lot, one of the most popular pieces being his piano work Clair De Lune, which has been heard in Twilight, Skins, Atonement, The Darjeeling Limited, Ocean’s Eleven ...
lpo.org.uk/therestisnoise
HEAR IT FIRST! Preview these pieces at lpo.org.uk/ therestisnoise
FRI 01 FEB, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Debussy Ibéria (from Images pour orchestre) Sibelius Violin Concerto Sibelius Symphony No. 4 Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Henning Kraggerud violin JTI Friday Series
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GEORGE V CROWNED KING OF UNITED KINGDOM George V succeeded his father to the throne and became King of the United Kingdom on 6 May 1910, before being crowned on 22 June 1911. He was, all in all, a well-respected King, particularly during the First World War when he visited the front in France numerous times.
REVOLUTION IN CHINA Political upheaval arose in 1911/12 as revolution struck in China. The Qing Dynasty was overthrown, making way for a new Chinese republic under a provisional government. A provisional constitution was drawn up in 1912, with the government eventually relocating to Beijing in April that year.
MAJOR SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH In 1911, Ernest Rutherford discovered that the atom was not a uniform solid as previously thought, but instead consisted of empty space and a tiny nucleus. Widely regarded as Rutherford’s most important discovery, it was to change the face of physics and science for the foreseeable future.
THE TITANIC SINKS At 11.40pm on 14 April 1912, the Titanic defied its previously perceived 'unsinkable' status by hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. Of the 2,200 passengers aboard the ship, just over 1,500 died, leaving only around 700 survivors. It remains one of the worst disasters in maritime history.
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LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
WHAT WE SAY LPO SAYS ...
‘Respighi’s music may be less well known than others, but his evocative music is really original, and I am pleased we are programming his Fountains of Rome (9 Feb), an imaginative gem. In the same concert, we are also performing some Ravel, whose lush impressionism is always a joyful indulgence for harpists.’ Rachel Masters, Harp, LPO, 2012
EXPLOSIVE COLOURS
‘In a sense, Ravel’s music split the difference between his parents’ worlds – his mother’s memories of a folkish past, his father’s dreams of a mechanized future .... Ravel put his Spanish-Basque heritage proudly on display in the orchestral suite Rapsodie espagnole, first heard in 1908. The Rapsodie calls to mind the explosive colours of Fauvist painting, especially the early work of Matisse.’ Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise, 2007
MUSICAL IMPRESSIONISM
‘When the need amongst composers in France emerged to find their own voice – their own French identity – Impressionism really provided them with a way forward. When they started considering how the Impressionist artists manipulated colour, in order to create 'colourscapes', they translated that idea of colour into sound, creating out of their music references to weather effects and landscapes, seen through and shaped through musical sound. So when you hear works by Ravel, such as Une barque sur l’océan, (A boat on the ocean), you really do get that sense of the swell of the ocean, the sense of the boat moving across the water – all of that is captured by Ravel in sound, whereas Monet is doing that in colour.’ MaryAnne Stevens, Royal Academy of Arts, 2012
COMPOSING IN THE AGE OF CONSUMERISM RAVEL: GENIUS, SELL-OUT OR THE PERFECT BLEND OF BOTH?
M
AUR IC E R AV E L WAS
his own harshest critic. He called Bolero ‘a masterpiece without any music in it’ and responded to others’ disparaging comments saying, ‘doesn’t it ever occur to those people that I can be “artificial” by nature?’ But despite his caddish remarks, few composers match Ravel’s evocations of time and place. Manuel de Falla brilliantly conjures the spirit of his native Andalusia in Nights in the Gardens of Spain, but no more successfully than Ravel’s non-native attempts in the Pavane pour
une infant défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) or his Rapsodie espagnole. Seeing an imagined rather than an actual Spain, Ravel captures the elusiveness of the Iberian idyll. By perfecting rhythms and orchestrations, Ravel bottles and packages gestures into one consummate ornament, the perfect composer for a consumerist age. Experiencing Ravel’s music is like drifting through a luxurious but efficient department store: a tissue-wrapped habanera here, the scent of orange blossom there, all the time cut through with a detached note
of acid. Stravinsky called Ravel a ‘Swiss watchmaker’; the Frenchman’s music was far too mechanical. Indeed, Ravel liked to surround himself with automated toys and trinkets in his home to the south-west of Paris. But Stravinsky’s criticism provides the unwitting key to Ravel’s success. For all the innate spirit of home in Falla’s music or Respighi’s heartfelt homage to the eternal city in the Fountains of Rome, Ravel’s distillation of scent and sentiment has truly pinpoint precision. Heartfelt art or searing artifice? The choice is yours.
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Ravel’s lush, evocative music is perfect for film soundtracks, and has been used in films as diverse as The Royal Tenenbaums, An Education and Biutiful. Most recently, his Pavane pour une infant défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess), with its instantly recognisable melody, was used in The Dark Knight Rises.
SAT 09 FEB, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Respighi Fountains of Rome Falla Nights in the Garden of Spain Respighi Il tramonto Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte Ravel Rapsodie espagnole Enrique Mazzola conductor Javier Perianes piano Maria Luigia Borsi soprano
HEAR IT FIRST! Preview these pieces at lpo.org.uk/ therestisnoise
WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS BEFORE?
BOOK NOW ART OR ARTIFICE? What effect does mass production and rising consumerism have on the arts?
lpo.org.uk/therestisnoise
Tickets from £9 lpo.org.uk | 020 7840 4242
LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
HAVE YOUR SOCKS BLOWN OFF BY RANKS OF MASSED BRASS PLAYERS! Hear the supersonic LPO in full flight and try out your best flapper moves as we perform selections of our favourite pieces from the 1920s, including Gershwin’s Girl Crazy, and Shostakovich’s Tea for Two. We have a range of musical activities planned around the concert, so join us at the Royal Festival Hall for a rip-roaring day of music-making for all to enjoy.
Treat your Valentine to an evening of some of the most romantic sounds of the 20th century. Be swept away by two of the most iconic and heart-stopping works by that renowned Russian Romantic, Serge Rachmaninoff, as his heart-on-sleeve music is brought to life by the starry-eyed conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
SUN 10 FEB, 12PM—1PM
FRI 15 FEB, 7.30PM
Janácek ˇ Sinfonietta Shostakovich Tea for Two Gershwin Girl Crazy Honegger Pacific 231 Respighi The Pines of Rome
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
Stuart Stratford conductor CBeebies’ Chris Jarvis presenter Supported by the Jennifer & Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Simon Trpceski piano ˇ JTI Friday Series. In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation
FREE PRE-CONCERT PERFORMANCE 6–6.45PM, ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
FREE ACTIVITIES 10AM–2PM, ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
Pianist Dimitri Mayboroda performs Rachmaninoff’s Piano Sonata No. 1.
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Child tickets from £5 lpo.org.uk | 020 7840 4242
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Tickets from £9 lpo.org.uk | 020 7840 4242
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LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
WHAT THEY SAID VIOLENT ALTERCATION
‘One literally could not, throughout the whole performance, hear the sound of music. Our attention was constantly distracted by a man in the box next to us flourishing his cane, and finally in a violent altercation with an enthusiast in the box next to him, his cane came down and smashed the opera hat the other had just put on in defiance. It was all incredibly fierce.’ Gertrude Stein, 1913
FASHIONABLE AUDIENCE
‘There, for the expert eye, were all the makings of a scandal. A fashionable audience in décolletage, outfitted in pearls, egret headdresses, plumes of ostrich; and, side by side with the tails and feathers, the jackets, headbands, and showy rags of that race of aesthetes who randomly acclaim the new in order to express their hatred of the loges … a thousand nuances of snobbery, super-snobbery, countersnobbery …’ Jean Cocteau, 1913
WHAT WE SAY LPO SAYS ...
‘The Rite of Spring is always especially challenging for a bassoonist – playing the opening solo, sitting in the middle of this huge orchestra ... Beginning this amazing piece alone is an experience that is impossible to fully prepare for … The pregnant silence into which one has to launch a solo right at the top of the instrument can be quite daunting – but after the opening you can (relatively speaking) relax and enjoy the unique colours and rhythms of this seminal work.’ Gareth Newman, Bassoon, LPO, 2012
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A NEW BREED OF BALLERINAS : Controversial work The Rite of Spring depicts the tribal sacrifice of a young maiden to the Slavonic Sun God.
THE RIOT OF PREMIERE PERFORMANCE DESCENDS INTO CHAOS CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE
N
OTHING, HOWEVER,
was as ferocious as the reaction to the cultural events of 1913. In Vienna on 31 March, music by Webern, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Berg and Mahler spurred a ‘Skandalkonzert’ interrupted by fights between seemingly respectable members of society. On 29 May, however, the Parisians trumped their Austrian counterparts entirely with an even more barbaric response to Stravinsky’s new ballet The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky was the great white hope of Russian music and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes
company alike. With The Firebird and its successor Petrushka, he had moved away from dance’s formal 19th-century roots, tapping a more primeval spirit. Stravinsky’s kaleidoscopic
orchestrations and use of local colour within his scores wowed a Paris hungry for eastern exoticism. But, with his next ballet, Stravinsky took an incautious leap into the primeval heart of Russia. The Rite of
‘The dancers trembled, shook, shivered, stamped; jumped crudely and ferociously, circled the stage in wild khorovods’ – Lynn Garafola, ballet historian The Rest Is Noise, 2007
lpo.org.uk/therestisnoise
Spring depicts the tribal sacrifice of a young maiden to the Slavonic Sun God. Answering his subject, Stravinsky wrote a truly feral score, with stamping dissonances and whinnying orchestral yawps. Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography was no less radical, though the company’s over-worked dancers and an ill-disciplined orchestra struggled to tame this feral beast. When a scandal-hungry audience was added to the fray, it unleashed the perfect storm. The day before the opening night, critics, fellow dancers and musicians gathered for a dress rehearsal, greeting the piece with genuine if somewhat bemused interest.
LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA / THE REST IS NOISE / PART 1 (JAN–FEB 2013)
‘Howls of discontent went up from the boxes, where the wealthiest onlookers sat. Immediately, the aesthetes in the balconies and the standing room howled back. There were overtones of class warfare in the proceedings. The combative composer Florent Schmitt was heard to yell either “Shut up, bitches of the seizième!” or “Down with the whores of the seizième!”’ – Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise, 2007
SPRING DANCERS UNABLE TO HEAR ORCHESTRA The crowd for the official opening, however, was made up of subscribers and ill-informed but wealthy society gogetters, ‘grown-up children’, according to the composer Florent Schmitt, who were ‘unable to see, hear or feel for themselves.’ The barracking began before even a note had been played. Stravinsky and Diaghilev’s supporters immediately made matters worse by lobbing retorts. The noise grew to an indescribable racket, punches flew and, soon enough, the dancers were totally unable to hear the orchestra above the din. Nijinsky barked orders from a chair in the wings, while Stravinsky left his seat in the
stalls, puce with anger. Whether this fracas was a glorified PR stunt – one that may even have been dreamt up by Diaghilev – or a genuine reaction, the world was clearly not ready for such a savage work. Like the dusty dukes and
WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS BEFORE?
Part of The Rite of Spring was used in the soundtrack to Disney’s famous animated film Fantasia.
dowagers of our wistful costume dramas, the Parisians of 1913 preferred the poise and propriety of what had gone before. With hindsight, we now know that even more violent acts were lurking around the corner.
SAT 16 FEB, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Ravel Mother Goose Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 Stravinsky The Rite of Spring Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Leila Josefowicz violin BOOK NOW
Tickets from £9 lpo.org.uk | 020 7840 4242
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IT’LL GROW ON YOU OTHER INFAMOUS PREMIERES AND PERFORMANCES IN MUSICAL HISTORY SCHOENBERG PREMIERES, VIENNA, 1907—08
ELVIS COSTELLO AND SUICIDE, BRUSSELS, 1978
STEVE REICH, FOUR ORGANS AT CARNEGIE HALL, 1973
PAVEMENT, LOLLAPALOOZA, WEST VIRGINIA, 1995
As put by Alex Ross, ‘Nothing in the annals of musical scandal – from the first night of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring to the release of the Sex Pistols’ ‘Anarchy in the UK’ – rivals the ruckus that greeted Schoenberg early in his career.’ His First String Quartet premiered to laughter and heckles, whilst Gustav Mahler nearly came to blows trying to defend his fellow composer. Shortly afterwards, his First Chamber Symphony was greeted with ‘seat-rattling, whistle-blowing, and ostentatious walk-outs’ and the premiere of his Second Quartet was interrupted by a shouting match between two critics of varying opinion.
Not quite a riot, but Steve Reich’s Four Organs definitely provoked some interesting responses from the audience members at Carnegie Hall. Reich’s pulsating work for four electric organs and maracas apparently polarised the audience, encouraging cheers of approval from some, and howls of confusion and protest from others, including one cry of ‘Stop, I confess!’ from a particularly distraught audience member running down the concert hall aisle.
Some impatient Costello fans just couldn’t wait for the main act and didn’t take kindly to the dark, protopunk sounds of support band, Suicide. Boos and chants of ‘Elvis! Elvis!’ apparently escalated until an audience member stole the microphone from singer Alan Vega, after which the show ground to a halt and descended into a swearing match between Vega and the audience. Once Costello did take to the stage, he reportedly played a very brief, angry set before leaving early, which prompted a full-blown riot, tear gas and all.
Describing themselves afterwards as ‘the misplaced band on a failing bill’ Pavement were evidently not the best match for the Lollapalooza crowd that day, who were quick to express this by pelting the band with mud and eventually rocks, until the band finally gave up and left the stage. (Although not before a defiant rebuttal from Scott ‘Spiral Stairs’ Kannberg who mooned the crowd before storming off.)
‘He reportedly played a very brief, angry set before leaving early, which prompted a full-blown riot, tear gas and all.’ 11
IN THE NEXT ISSUE Presented by THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA as part of THE REST IS NOISE ISSUE 2 OF 4
MARCH—JUNE 2013
FREE
COMING UP... WED 20 FEB, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Anon Spirituals — a cappella ˇ Dvorák Symphony No. 9 (From the New World) Milhaud La Création du monde Varèse Amériques
FRI 22 FEB, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Ives Three Places in New England Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue Copland Piano Concerto Joplin (arr. Schuller) Treemonisha Suite JTI Friday Series
SAT 02 MAR, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Weill The Threepenny Opera
SAT 06 APR, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
CABARET, PARANOIA AND FASCISM THE MUSIC OF OPPRESSION AND WAR A NEW WORLD DISCOVERS ITS VOICE
Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms Orff Carmina Burana
SAT 27 APR, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Webern Variations, Op. 30 Berg Lulu Suite Martinu˚ Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani Bartók Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste
WED 01 MAY, 7.30PM
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 4 Tippett A Child of our Time
STAY TUNED Join our mailing list at lpo.org.uk @LPOrchestra, #therestisnoise facebook.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra For the full The Rest Is Noise programme, plus extra online content visit: southbankcentre.co.uk/therestisnoise Southbank Centre Ticket Office 0844 847 9920 • southbankcentre.co.uk
Contributors Gavin Plumley, Andrew Mellor, Libby Northcote-Green, Claire Lampon
FRI 17 MAY, 7.30PM
Editor Mia Roberts
ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
Design Cog Design
Stravinsky Jeu de cartes Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 Shostakovich Symphony No. 6
Quotes sourced from The Rest Is Noise © Alex Ross 2007 & 2009. The Rest Is Noise published by Fourth Estate in 2007 and by Harper Perennial in 2009. First published in 2007 by Farrar Straus and Giroux in the United States. Page 7 quotes from The Correspondence of Jean Sibelius and Rosa Newmarch 1906–1939, ed. Philip Ross Bullock, published by The Boydell Press in 2011. Photographs courtesy of Getty Images and Flickr Commons
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