London Philharmonic Orchestra 2018/19 season brochure by London Philharmonic Orchestra

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2018/19 CONCERT SEASON

AT SOUTHBANK CENTREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL

HIGHLIGHTS 2018

September

October

November

December

FUNharmonics

Thomas Adès launches the new season, conducting his evocative piano concerto In Seven Days with soloist Kirill Gerstein, performed alongside Lutosławski’s Third Symphony.

Alondra de la Parra makes her Royal Festival Hall debut with the Orchestra conducting popular Russian favourites – Glinka, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

Vladimir Jurowski is joined by a stellar cast for Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress as part of Changing Faces: Stravinsky’s Journey.

The year ends with a rare opportunity to hear Berio’s kaleidoscopic Sinfonia under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski.

In October the Orchestra presents the animated film and live orchestral soundtrack to Julia Donaldson’s acclaimed picture book The Highway Rat, suitable for all the family.

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WELCOME TO OUR 2018/19 SEASON

This season we resume our year-long series Changing Faces: Stravinsky’s Journey, delving into the composer’s pioneering and provocative works from the 1940s onwards. We pay tribute to his extraordinary legacy, focusing on the latter stages of his life in exile in Hollywood.

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In 2019 – continuing our annual themed series – we celebrate the music of Britain in our festival Isle of Noises. Not only will we explore a range of British music from Purcell to the present day, but we’ll also highlight key works by composers with interesting British connections, including music by Handel and Haydn.

January

February

March

April

May

The launch of our festival of British music, Isle of Noises, includes the world premiere of Helen Grime’s Percussion Concerto performed by Colin Currie with Marin Alsop on the podium.

Flamboyant pianist Javier Perianes joins the LPO to present the full cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos across two concerts.

Vladimir Jurowski leads the Orchestra and London Philharmonic Choir in a performance of Haydn’s uplifting oratorio The Seasons.

Edward Gardner returns to conduct the Orchestra in an evocative programme of French masterpieces by Debussy, Ravel and Saint-Saëns.

Violinist Janine Jansen makes a welcome return for a performance of Brahms’s Violin Concerto.

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A selection of this season’s concerts will be broadcast by ‘Radio 3 in Concert’, and available for 30 days after broadcast via the Radio 3 website and the BBC iPlayer Radio app. Radio 3 is streamed in HD sound online.

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HIGHLIGHTS 2019

To complement our annual summer seasons at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, we are delighted to bring a variety of opera to Royal Festival Hall this season: Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Vladimir Jurowski conducts Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and brings us the second instalment of our Ring Cycle – Die Walküre – with a stellar cast of singers. We also welcome the acclaimed tenor Juan Diego Flórez for what promises to be an unforgettable evening of popular operatic arias, and

we are also pleased to welcome back Opera Rara to jointly present Puccini’s first opera, Le Villi. We are proud of our reputation for commissioning and sharing new music, and this season is no different. We give premieres of works by some of today’s most exciting living composers including Magnus Lindberg, Pascal Dusapin, Arne Gieshoff, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Helen Grime and Anders Hillborg. We are joined by many major guest artists this season including Mitsuko Uchida, Edward Gardner, Thomas Adès, Janine Jansen, Benjamin Grosvenor, Alondra de la Parra, Mark Padmore, Colin Currie and Stuart Skelton, and we also welcome the exciting young pianist Javier Perianes, who joins us for two evenings to perform the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos. Do join us and experience the sheer wonder of orchestral music.

Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director 01

Behind the Baton Look out for our Behind the Baton series of free pre-concert discussions, in which a variety of our regular and guest conductors give us personal insights into the pieces in their concert programmes.

‘I AM AN INVENTOR OF MUSIC.’

CHANGING FACES: STRAVINSKY’S JOURNEY

Igor Stravinsky

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Part 2 September–December 2018 Vladimir Jurowski Artistic Director

And of course, hear him strike sparks off music old and new, as he comes up against Beethoven and Berio, Thomas Adès and Magnus Lindberg: still inspiring, still confronting, always unmistakably himself. ‘New music?’ asked Duke Ellington. ‘Hell, there’s been no new music since Stravinsky.’ Half a century after his death, his journey continues: as daring – and as life-affirming – as ever. lpo.org.uk/stravinsky

Wednesday 26 September 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Stravinsky Symphony in Three Movements Thomas Adès In Seven Days* Lutosławski Symphony No. 3** Thomas Adès conductor Kirill Gerstein piano There’s a special dynamic when a composer conducts – as if their music is being created afresh. Thomas Adès has one of his own pieces at the centre of this fascinating evening: the ‘concerto for piano’ that he created in 2008, and which The New York Times called ‘wondrously strange and somehow elemental’. The brilliant Kirill Gerstein helps him bring it to life tonight, throwing new light on two definitive 20th-century classics – Lutosławski’s grand, glittering Third Symphony and Stravinsky running off the leash amidst the glamour of 1940s Los Angeles.

Kirill Gerstein

Savour the crackling energy and pitch-black humour of his opera The Rake’s Progress – a collaboration with WH Auden that turns Hogarth’s engravings into a wickedly modern morality tale. Speed through jet-age Hollywood in his high-powered, chrome-plated Symphony in 02 Three Movements, and witness

legends forged anew in his ballet for Balanchine, Orpheus. Follow him from America to Venice, hear him mourn his old drinking companion Aldous Huxley and – in a decade when the Beatles topped the charts and Frank Sinatra asked for Stravinsky’s autograph – witness him confront his own mortality, in music that feels timeless but never stops sounding modern.

Igor Stravinsky, composer, New York, January 8, 1959 Photograph by Richard Avedon © The Richard Avedon Foundation

Igor Stravinsky wasn’t just a great composer: he was a 20th-century superstar. The first part of Changing Faces: Stravinsky’s Journey took him from the twilight of Imperial Russia to Hollywood in wartime. Now the journey continues: into the atomic age and the 1960s, a decade that turned western society – and its music – upside down. And again we find Stravinsky one step ahead of the crowd, simultaneously a living classic and a fearless iconoclast, writing music that challenges, provokes and startles even today.

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ADÈS CONDUCTS IN SEVEN DAYS

SEPTEMBER

CHANGING FACES: STRAVINSKY’S JOURNEY

*Supported by Resonate. Resonate is a PRS Foundation initiative in partnership with the Association of British Orchestras, BBC Radio 3 and Boltini Trust.

**Organised in collaboration with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music Programme.

‘@LPORCHESTRA I THINK THAT WAS THE MOST EXCITING CONCERT I’VE BEEN TO FOR A LONG TIME!’

Saturday 29 September 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

CHANGING FACES: STRAVINSKY’S JOURNEY

Audience member

Vladimir Jurowski conductor

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Mitsuko Uchida piano Dame Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano Stuart Skelton tenor

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1 Mitsuko Uchida 2 Dame Sarah Connolly

The Greek myths are as ancient as the art of music itself – and every bit as powerful. Orpheus tamed Hell with music; they say his melodies could make even rocks and trees dance. Prometheus dared to steal fire from the Gods, and gave mankind the gift of creativity. Tonight, Stravinsky and Beethoven – two of music’s most revolutionary geniuses – tackle these legends head-on, transforming myth into dance in two startlingly original ballet scores. Vladimir Jurowski conducts these rare full performances, as Stravinsky’s Journey takes a delightful, distinctive and dazzlingly original turn.

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

Series discounts Page 54

Concert generously supported by Victoria Robey OBE.

Saturday 6 October 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Beethoven The Creatures of Prometheus Stravinsky Orpheus

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 27, K595 Mahler Das Lied von der Erde

Gustav Mahler’s last word was ‘Mozart’, but he’d already said his farewells in music, and nowhere more movingly than in Das Lied von der Erde: six impassioned songs that distil every last drop of life’s sorrow and sweetness. Some say it’s the greatest symphony he never wrote; and with soloists of the calibre of Dame Sarah Connolly and Stuart Skelton, Vladimir Jurowski will drive straight for its heart. With its mixture of sunshine and shadow, Mozart’s own final piano concerto makes a wonderfully appropriate upbeat. No living pianist plays this music with more poetry than Mitsuko Uchida.

DIVINE FIRE

OCTOBER

SEPTEMBER

UCHIDA PLAYS MOZART

Beethoven and Stravinsky were both musical pioneers during their lifetimes. Music writer Philip Clark and composer Christopher Fox compare and contrast these two hugely influential personalities.

Vladimir Jurowski

LIFE, DEATH AND SHAMELESS EXCESS

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Wednesday 10 October 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Sibelius Pohjola’s Daughter Dvorˇák Piano Concerto Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

Saturday 13 October 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Poulenc Stabat Mater Orff Carmina Burana

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Jérémie Rhorer conductor Louise Alder soprano Toby Spence tenor Simon Keenlyside baritone London Philharmonic Choir Tiffin Boys’ Choir

Karina Canellakis conductor Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano

‘THANK YOU @LPORCHESTRA FOR A TERRIFIC CONCERT AT THE #RFH TONIGHT. A WONDERFULLY IMAGINATIVE PROGRAMME, BRILLIANTLY PLAYED.’

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Audience member

1 Simon Keenlyside 2 Toby Spence

Karina Canellakis

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Exiled from his beloved Hungary, Béla Bartók was lonely, impoverished and critically ill. His response? The mightiest shout of joy in all 20th-century music. His Concerto for Orchestra isn’t just a showpiece for an orchestra at the top of its game; it’s a celebration of the human spirit. It tells a compelling story – just like Sibelius’s musical retelling of an ancient Finnish legend, and Dvorˇák’s radiant, hugely underrated Piano Concerto: a red-blooded romance for orchestra and a pianist with poetry in their fingers. Pierre-Laurent Aimard loves it; and with Karina Canellakis, winner of the 2016 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, on the podium, this should dance as well as sing.

OCTOBER

CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA

Sex, drink and roasted swans: the medieval monks who wrote the words to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana certainly knew how to enjoy themselves. There’s nothing – repeat, nothing – sacred about Orff’s outrageous (and unmistakably secular) choral showstopper; just terrific melodies, unstoppable energy and some thoroughly bad behaviour. It’s the climax of this showcase concert for the London Philharmonic Choir. But the evening begins with the heartfelt Stabat Mater that the former bad boy of French music composed after the death of a close friend – and after discovering a spirituality, he said, that ‘smells of orange blossom or jasmine’.

ENVELOPED

MAHLERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S

DA S L I E D VON D E R E R D E

SATURDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 2018 See page 04

FRENCH FANCIES

Friday 19 October 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Glinka Overture, Ruslan and Ludmilla Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 Alondra de la Parra conductor Benjamin Grosvenor piano There’s a good reason why Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is one of the world’s favourite classics. Like any true classic, it always sounds new – and in the hands of a pianist as insightful and skilled as the young British superstar Benjamin Grosvenor, it will never have sounded fresher. Conductor Alondra de la Parra will bring her signature verve to an all-Russian programme that begins with Glinka’s firecracker of an overture, and ends in the triumph of Tchaikovsky’s unashamedly autobiographical Fifth Symphony: music that the composer wanted to be played ‘with passion and desire’.

Berlioz Roman Carnival Overture Canteloube Songs of the Auvergne Bizet Symphony in C Gershwin An American in Paris

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Enrique Mazzola conductor Anna Caterina Antonacci soprano ‘Shepherdess, if you love me, come soothe my pain’. Joseph Canteloube took the old songs of rural France and uncovered their tender soul. His ravishing Songs of the Auvergne are the warm, sensuous heart of a whole evening of French delights, from Berlioz’s whirling celebration of the carnival spirit to the youthful zest of the teenage Bizet’s ebullient Symphony in C. Anna Caterina Antonacci (‘an exceptional artist’ – The Guardian) sings, and Enrique Mazzola gives an irresistible swing to Gershwin’s An American in Paris. Seen the show? Now enjoy the jazz-infused masterpiece that inspired it, in full orchestral Technicolor.

Series discounts Page 54

Contemporaries Subscription Series

Behind the Baton 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

‘UTTERLY EXTRAORDINARY. ONE OF THE MOST AWESOME THINGS, IN THE LITERAL SENSE, THAT I’VE EVER HEARD. MIND BLOWN AND GOB THOROUGHLY SMACKED!’

Alondra de la Parra

Join Alondra de la Parra as she discusses her career to date and her approach to the music of these three Russian composers. Free event © Martin Sigmund

Audience member

Wednesday 24 October 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

OCTOBER

MOSCOW NIGHTS

Enrique Mazzola

Rossini Petite messe solennelle

1 Kenneth Tarver 2 Elizabeth Watts

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Stravinsky The Rake’s Progress Vladimir Jurowski conductor Allan Clayton Tom Rakewell Miah Persson Anne Trulove Matthew Rose Nick Shadow Patricia Bardon Baba the Turk Clive Bayley Father Trulove Kim Begley Sellem Marie McLaughlin Mother Goose London Voices

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Saturday 3 November 2018 7.00pm Royal Festival Hall Please note start time Sung in English

As part of Changing Faces: Stravinsky’s Journey, we showcase one of the masterpieces of 20th-century operatic repertoire. Our artistic team share their thoughts on The Rake’s Progress.

Audience member

Gustavo Gimeno conductor Elizabeth Watts soprano Sara Mingardo contralto Kenneth Tarver tenor Luca Pisaroni bass-baritone London Philharmonic Choir Gioachino Rossini was a good Catholic, but he was also a showman. ‘Oh Lord’ he prayed, ‘Thou knowest well that I was born to write comic opera.’ So when he came to write his ‘Solemn Mass’, he couldn’t help filling it with cheerful rhythms, brilliant operatic solos and tune after irresistibly hummable tune. Sacred music doesn’t get any more entertaining than this, and as a former assistant to opera expert Claudio Abbado, Gustavo Gimeno understands it from the inside. He’s brought with him a hand-picked team of star soloists who share his love for Rossini; the result should positively sparkle.

Free pre-concert event 5.45pm – 6.15pm Royal Festival Hall

THE RAKE’S PROGRESS

NOVEMBER

‘MAYBE THE BEST PERFORMANCE I’VE EVER SEEN, PERIOD. ALL HAIL THE @LPORCHESTRA!’

1 Matthew Rose 2 Patricia Bardon

Saturday 27 October 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

CHANGING FACES: STRAVINSKY’S JOURNEY

OCTOBER

LITTLE SOLEMN MASS

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For The Rake’s Progress Stravinsky joined forces with WH Auden to create a very modern morality tale from the seedy underbelly of Hogarth’s London. Tom Rakewell is a single man in possession of a good fortune, and we all know how that ends … don’t we? Outrageous, uproarious and laced with pitch-black humour, professional stagings are still relatively rare: so with Vladimir Jurowski conducting an unbeatable cast, this one-off concert performance makes an offer you’d be mad to refuse. Concert generously supported by Victoria Robey OBE.

Series discounts Page 54

Wednesday 7 November 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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CHANGING FACES: STRAVINSKY’S JOURNEY

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Klein Partita for Strings Schulhoff Concerto for String Quartet and Wind Orchestra* Martinu° Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra* Janácˇek Sinfonietta

Saturday 10 November 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Debussy Berceuse héroïque Magnus Lindberg Triumph to Exist (world premiere)* Stravinsky Requiem Canticles Janácˇek The Eternal Gospel

Series discounts Page 54

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Soloists to be announced London Philharmonic Choir

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Borodin Quartet* London Philharmonic Orchestra Fourteen trumpets line up across the stage: Janácˇek’s Sinfonietta might have started as a colourful portrait of his hometown of Brno, but it goes out in a blaze of raw, untamed glory. No recording can ever do it justice – you need to feel the air shake as Janácˇek’s huge orchestra gives a resounding shout of triumph. But the 20th century had darker things in store for Czech composers. Tonight, Vladimir Jurowski enlists one of the world’s great string quartets to tell two musical stories of exile, renewal and defiance in the face of unthinkable crimes. Music to stir body and soul.

Vladimir Jurowski

Behind the Baton 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

Borodin Quartet

In their first performance of the year, our new cohort of Foyle Future Firsts present a chamber programme inspired by the themes of the LPO’s season.

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

THE ETERNAL FLAME

NOVEMBER

LIFE OUT OF DEATH

‘THE SINGING SHONE AND THE ORCHESTRA PLAYED WITH FIRE AND LUSTRE ... VLADIMIR JUROWSKI, IN HIS ELEMENT WITH BLOCKBUSTER REPERTOIRE FROM 20TH-CENTURY EUROPE, CONDUCTED WITH CUSTOMARY PANACHE.’

Join Magnus Lindberg as he discusses his new work for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1, continuing the musical tradition of reflection and remembrance. Free event

One hundred years after WW1’s guns fell silent, we hear four composers’ surveys of a world in turmoil: and they might not be what you expect. Debussy broods on sacrifice, while Janácˇek stares boldly into the flames of a vision that’s both apocalyptic and transcendent. And then, as the shockwaves grow calmer, Stravinsky contemplates mortality with open eyes and piercing intelligence – while Finland’s Magnus Lindberg contributes something completely new, at a moment when all of Europe pauses to remember. Vladimir Jurowski conducts a concert that throws a very personal light on a dark century. *Triumph to Exist is co-commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and 14-18 NOW: WW1 Centenary Art Commissions (with support from the National Lottery through Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund, and from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport), the Gulbenkian Orchestra and the Orchestra National de Lille.

The Times, September 2017

WEDNESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2018 See page 03

SATURDAY 6 OCTOBER 2018 See page 05

S T E P INTO

SATURDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2018 See page 13

SATURDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2018 See page 15

TH E

GLAMOUR

SATURDAY 8 DECEMBER 2018 See page 23

S T R AV I N S K Y â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S

LOS ANGELES

Wednesday 14 November 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Messiaen Hymne Gounod Concerto for Pedal Piano* Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

Wednesday 21 November 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Series discounts Page 54

Bizet L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1 Verdi Ballet music from Macbeth Puccini Le Villi

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Oleg Caetani conductor Roberto Prosseda pedal piano Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique began as a story of unrequited love. It became: well, the name says it all, really – a sprawling, opium-fuelled phantasmagoria filled with guillotines, witchcraft and star-crossed romance, and scored for a supersized orchestra that’ll leave your ears tingling for days. But then this concert is all about extremes: from the lush, iridescent spirituality of Messiaen’s Hymne to a piano concerto like no other. Gounod wrote this delightful one-off for a grand piano equipped with the pedals of an organ: in the hands (and feet) of pedal-piano virtuoso Roberto Prosseda it will look as extraordinary as it sounds.

PUCCINI’S LE VILLI

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NOVEMBER

FANTASTIQUE!

‘INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCE TONIGHT BY THE @LPORCHESTRA. STILL SPEECHLESS.’

1 Oleg Caetani 2 Roberto Prosseda 1

Audience member

*Supported by Palazetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française.

Sir Mark Elder conductor Ermonela Jaho soprano Fabio Sartori tenor Luca Salsi baritone Opera Rara Chorus Before Turandot and Tosca, there was Le Villi. Puccini’s first opera is a sumptuous supernatural melodrama: a story of seasons, spirits and a love stronger than death – and as you’d expect from Puccini, it’s bursting with glorious melodies. The fabulous Ermonela Jaho heads an all-Italian cast in this rare concert performance, the first hearing in 120 years for Puccini’s original 1884 version. And under the direction of one of our finest living opera conductors, Sir Mark Elder, it should be a revelation. Emotionally charged music by Bizet and Verdi launches an evening of opera at its most intoxicating. Experience it live.

In association with Opera Rara

1 Sir Mark Elder 2 Ermonela Jaho

Wednesday 28 November 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Enescu Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 Pascal Dusapin At Swim-Two-Birds (UK premiere)* Martinu° Symphony No. 4 Ravel La valse

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

Viktoria Mullova

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Friday 30 November 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Series discounts Page 54 1 Andrés Orozco-Estrada 2 Ray Chen

Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Viktoria Mullova violin Matthew Barley cello

Blacher Orchestral Variations on a Theme by Paganini Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 Liadov Kikimora Liadov The Enchanted Lake Liadov Baba Yaga Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel) Pictures at an Exhibition Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Ray Chen violin

*Commissioned by BBC Radio 4’s zaterdagmatinee series in The Concertgebouw Amsterdam, London Philharmonic Orchestra (with generous support from Diaphonique, a Franco-British contemporary music fund supported by the Institut Français, the Bureau export de la musique, the British Council and Ministère de la Culture et de la communication), Gewandhausorchester and Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk © 1 Werner Kmetitsch © 2 Tom Doms

French composer Pascal Dusapin is the first to admit that it’d be crazy to try and re-tell Flann O’Brien’s novel At Swim-Two-Birds in music. Instead, fascinated by the book’s ‘formal and narrative extravagance’, he’s written a double concerto like no other, wildly eccentric and inspired by the larger-than-life musical personalities of soloists Viktoria Mullova and Matthew Barley. Don’t miss one of the premieres of the year: and discover, too, Enescu’s postcard from the Carpathian Mountains and the exuberant, life-affirming symphony that Bohuslav Martinu˚ wrote in the new world – before conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada goes over the edge with Ravel’s deliriously decadent La valse.

NOVEMBER

DANCING ON THE EDGE

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In Pictures at an Exhibition, Mussorgsky created a whole magical world: a place deep in the Russian imagination, where bells toll, gnomes and witches lurk in the shadows, and chicks dance in their shells. And then Maurice Ravel drenched it in orchestral colour. LPO Principal Guest Conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada has made it the glittering finale of a concert that begins with a surprisingly bluesy take on a familiar tune and takes in another fairytale from Old Russia, as well as probably the world’s favourite violin concerto. You’ll have heard Bruch’s First Violin Concerto before – but not the way Ray Chen plays it.

Wednesday 5 December 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

‘THERE WAS CLARITY AND FOCUS TO JUROWSKI’S INTERPRETATION, AND HE GUIDED US ROUND THIS VAST SCORE WITH AN UNERRING SENSE OF DIRECTION ... BRILLIANTLY JUDGED.’

CHANGING FACES: STRAVINSKY’S JOURNEY

Saturday 8 December 2018 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

The Times, October 2017

Weber Overture, Der Freischütz Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Bruckner Symphony No. 2 (1877 revised version) Vladimir Jurowski conductor Alena Baeva violin

Vladimir Jurowski conductor The Swingles London Philharmonic Choir

Series discounts Page 54

1 Vladimir Jurowski 2 The Swingles 1

Series discounts Page 54

Alena Baeva

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Stravinsky Variations (Aldous Huxley in Memoriam) Stravinsky Threni Stravinsky Tango Berio Sinfonia

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‘Truly spectacular’ was how The Arts Desk described Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO’s performance of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony in 2017, going on to hail ‘a performance of conviction, power and compelling insight from start to end’. Now Jurowski’s exploration of Bruckner’s symphonic universe includes a re-examination of the Second Symphony, music of mountainous grandeur interspersed with a quiet poetry that goes straight to the heart. Weber opens the concert deep in the German forests, and then Jurowski and the award-winning young Russian virtuoso Alena Baeva share Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. They could have been born to play this sweetest of all Russian masterpieces for violin and orchestra.

THE SWINGLING SIXTIES

DECEMBER

JUROWSKI CONDUCTS BRUCKNER

Imagine a symphony that takes everything a symphony has been and everything a symphony could be: an orchestral showpiece that’s simultaneously a protest, a celebration, and an outrageous postmodern prank from the heart of 60s counterculture. Berio’s Sinfonia is all that and much more; and 50 years after its premiere, The Swingles – who sang in its historic first performance in 1968 – join forces with the LPO to bring it back to astonishing, psychedelic life. It’s a spectacular landmark on our Stravinsky journey, as well. Two piercing, crystal-clear musical rituals from 1958 and 1964 begin the concert – and throw open the doors of perception.

DIVE

INTO

H A N D E Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; S

WAT E R M U S I C WEDNESDAY 30 JANUARY 2019 See page 29

ISLE OF NOISES

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January–December 2019 lpo.org.uk/isleofnoises

So we’ll witness Henry Purcell re-telling a Roman tragedy for a London girls’ school, and creating the greatest of all English operas in the process. And then, barely a generation later, Handel – a German composer who took British nationality – lighting up the very river that flows past our concert hall with dazzlingly 26

Behind the Baton 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

inventive music. A rejuvenated Haydn returned from London and created an oratorio in both English and German: his joyous The Seasons was inspired by the Scottish poet James Thomson. There are rediscoveries – the deeply romantic music of Alice Mary Smith, for example. And even familiar voices can tell surprising stories: the volcanic fury of Walton’s First Symphony; the sensual passion of Bax’s Tintagel, and the tragicomic, startlingly honest self-portrait that Elgar called Falstaff. Looking ahead, there’ll be music by Britten and Adès, classic film scores and lost concertos. The isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs: as diverse, as complicated and as vital as Britain itself. They’re part of a common heritage that the LPO has always been proud to share.

Join Marin Alsop as she explores the music of tonight’s composers and shares her thoughts on the exciting future of classical music. Free event

Arne Gieshoff Burr (world premiere)* Erkki-Sven Tüür Solastalgia for piccolo and orchestra (UK premiere)** Helen Grime Percussion Concerto (world premiere)† Louis Andriessen Agamemnon (UK premiere) Anders Hillborg Concerto for Orchestra (world premiere)††

When Alex Ross, author of The Rest Is Noise, said that Britain was one of the best places in the world to make new music, this is exactly the sort of thing he was talking about. A young German composer who’s found his voice in London. A new showpiece for percussion phenomenon Colin Currie, from one of the most powerful young British talents. And the LPO’s own Principal Piccolo introduces a new concerto from Estonia, before the whole Orchestra gives the world premiere of the Concerto for Orchestra by the cult Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. Musical history in the making: you heard it here first.

**Commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, St. Louis Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestra. †Commissioned by Southbank Centre, London, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Swedish Chamber Orchestra. ††Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Göteborgs Symfoniker.

Wednesday 16 January 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Marin Alsop conductor Stewart McIlwham piccolo Colin Currie percussion

*Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra following Arne Gieshoff’s participation in the LPO Young Composers programme.

For nine decades the London Philharmonic Orchestra has been at the heart of music-making in London, in Britain and in Europe – and we know that there’s never been any one thing called ‘British music’. Throughout 2019 we’ll be taking our own look at over three centuries of music in these islands, whether made in Britain, or inspired by the energy and enthusiasm of the audiences that composers of all nations found here.

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HERE AND NOW

JANUARY

ISLE OF NOISES

This concert is in collaboration with Southbank Centre.

Marin Alsop

ISLE OF NOISES

1 Svetlana Sozdateleva 2 Stuart Skelton

Sunday 27 January 2019 4.00pm Royal Festival Hall

Please note start time Sung in German with English surtitles

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Wagner Die Walküre

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Behind the Baton 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

Tickets £60 – £15 Premium seats £80 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts not available for this performance

Please note this performance lasts 5 hours 15 minutes including one 30-minute interval and one 60-minute interval. Generously supported by members of the Orchestra’s Ring Cycle Syndicate.

1 Benjamin Appl 2 Marie-Claude Chappuis 3 Sir Roger Norrington

As a deadly storm rages through the forest, two desperate people find shelter. But higher powers watch and judge, and Siegmund and Sieglinde’s forbidden love will have consequences on a cosmic scale. A brother finds a sister, a father betrays his son and a goddess discovers her own humanity: the second part of Wagner’s Ring Cycle contains some of the most overwhelmingly emotional music in all opera. It’s an ideal entry-point into Wagner’s epic world. Leading Wagnerians Matthias Goerne and Stuart Skelton head a stellar cast.

Join Sir Roger Norrington as he discusses his performance of these two musical giants, and the works being composed during this golden age of British music. Free event

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Matthias Goerne Wotan Stuart Skelton Siegmund Michelle DeYoung Sieglinde Stephen Milling Hunding Claudia Mahnke Fricka Svetlana Sozdateleva Brünnhilde Ursula Hesse von den Steinen Waltraute

DIDO AND AENEAS Wednesday 30 January 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

JANUARY

DIE WALKÜRE

Handel Water Music, Suites 1 & 2 Purcell Dido and Aeneas Sir Roger Norrington conductor Soloists to include: Marie-Claude Chappuis Dido Lucy Crowe Belinda Benjamin Appl Aeneas ‘Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate.’ Dido, Queen of Carthage, learned that destiny is stronger than even the deepest love, and Henry Purcell turned her tragedy into what might be the first truly great opera in the English language. It’s a drama that goes straight to the heart, and after a lifetime in early music Sir Roger Norrington is still finding new beauty in this miraculous score. He’s joined by three superb dramatic singers – and precedes these sorrows with Handel’s gloriously extravagant Water Music: written to entertain Londoners in 1717 and just as much fun in 2019.

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Saturday 2 February 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Sibelius Violin Concerto Bruckner Symphony No. 7 (Nowak edition)

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‘MIND WELL AND TRULY BLOWN BY THE @LPORCHESTRA TONIGHT — BLIMEY, THAT WAS INTENSE.’ Audience member

Christian Tetzlaff

SPIRIT OF ROMANCE Friday 8 February 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Mendelssohn Ruy Blas Overture Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 Elgar Symphony No. 2

Robin Ticciati conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin Is the opening melody of Bruckner’s Seventh the most beautiful beginning in all music? It’s a tune that seems to unfurl itself upwards into heaven – and Bruckner said that it came to him in a dream, played by an angel. But it’s just the start of an emotional odyssey that scales triumphant peaks and plumbs the darkest valleys of sorrow, and for our guest conductor Robin Ticciati, every performance is an act of devotion. It’s a majestic contrast to the midnight sun of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. When our soloist Christian Tetzlaff played it in London in 2016, one critic called it ‘a non-stop tour-de-force’.

ISLE OF NOISES

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

FEBRUARY

LANDSCAPES OF HEART AND SOUL

David Parry conductor Vanessa Benelli Mosell piano ‘Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight!’ The orchestra hovers, pulls back, and then surges forward in glowing waves of sound. No British music is more thrilling than the opening of Elgar’s Second Symphony, and nothing quite matches what follows: music torn straight from the heart. If that doesn’t sound like your idea of Elgar, let guest conductor David Parry reveal what you’ve been missing – and discover the darker side of Mendelssohn too, in a gloriously gothic overture. The link is Chopin: and the timeless romance of his First Piano Concerto, played tonight by the charismatic young Italian virtuoso Vanessa Benelli Mosell.

1 David Parry 2 Vanessa Benelli Mosell

FALL

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S Y M P H O N I E FA N TAS T IQU E WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER 2018 See page 18

‘Seldom, if ever, have I encountered such a combination of evident modesty and utter brilliance’, wrote Paul Driver of The Sunday Times when the young Spanish pianist Javier Perianes performed in London in 2016, and critics from around the world have been queuing up to praise his charisma, as well as his ‘impeccable technique and his effortless control of light and shade’ (The Scotsman). True, Ludwig van Beethoven didn’t really do modesty, but his five piano concertos demand every quality that a truly great pianist possesses.

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Perianes has them all. And along with his compatriot Juanjo Mena he’ll be joining the LPO to perform all five concertos: a journey that sweeps from youthful energy and deep romance to the heavenstorming grandeur of the Fifth, the so-called ‘Emperor’ Concerto. Over two extraordinary concerts, it’s nothing less than portraitin-the-round of Beethoven as revolutionary, poet and virtuoso – brought vividly to life by one of the 21st century’s most consistently thrilling young pianists.

Javier Perianes’s Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycle is generously supported by an anonymous donor.

1 Javier Perianes 2 Juanjo Mena

Friday 22 February 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Saturday 23 February 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 (Emperor)

Juanjo Mena conductor Javier Perianes piano

Beethoven’s five piano concertos are the ultimate adventure for a virtuoso pianist and a full symphony orchestra. But they’re also a musical self-portrait, and to hear them played by a truly great interpreter is as close as we can get to hearing Beethoven himself at the keyboard. So we’re thrilled to welcome Javier Perianes and his musical kindred spirit Juanjo Mena for two concerts in which they’ll perform the complete cycle. This first instalment finds Beethoven at his darkest, in the Third Concerto; at his wittiest, in the Second; and at his most poetic in the serene, enigmatic Fourth.

Beethoven never actually called his Fifth Piano Concerto the ‘Emperor’. It just seemed to fit. But what’s beyond question is that this most majestic of all piano concertos is one of the pinnacles of art in the age of revolution: a concerto on the scale of a great symphony, written for a pianist of truly heroic stamina and skill. It’s the only possible way for Javier Perianes to crown his complete Beethoven concerto cycle with Juanjo Mena and the LPO. But first, a flashback to the unbridled joie de vivre of Beethoven’s youthful Piano Concerto No. 1: music as pure sonic sunshine.

FEBRUARY

POETRY AND PASSION THE EMPEROR

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

FEBRUARY

BEETHOVEN PIANO CONCERTO CYCLE: PERIANES PLAYS BEETHOVEN

Wednesday 27 February 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

ISLE OF NOISES

Wagner Overture, Tannhäuser Weber Clarinet Concerto No. 1 Smith Andante for Clarinet and Orchestra Brahms Symphony No. 2

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Page 54

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Andreas Ottensamer clarinet

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Page 54

Contemporaries

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

Subscription Series

Andreas Ottensamer

1 Mark Padmore 2 Sophie Bevan

British music isn’t what you might think. The deeply romantic music of Alice Mary Smith (born in London in 1839) is at the heart of this concert; an unfairly neglected but beautiful counterpart to Weber’s brooding First Clarinet Concerto, both performed tonight by one of the world’s pre-eminent living clarinettists. Vladimir Jurowski launches the evening with Wagner’s barnstorming overture, and then dives deep into Brahms’s expansive Second Symphony. Written on the sunlit slopes of the Austrian Alps and filled with lullabies, folksongs and half-remembered passions, this is music that seems to glow from within.

HAYDN’S SEASONS Saturday 2 March 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

MARCH

FEBRUARY

ROMANTIC DREAMS

Haydn The Seasons Sung in English

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Sophie Bevan soprano Mark Padmore tenor London Philharmonic Choir Joseph Haydn was born in an era when nature touched every part of life, and he died in an age of revolution. It’s all there in his final masterpiece The Seasons: an irresistibly tuneful panorama of 18th-century life and love in all its bustling, earthy exuberance. With its winter storms and whistling ploughmen, hymns of praise and booze-fuelled revels, this sequel to The Creation was inspired by Haydn’s time in London, and written specially to appeal to British audiences. And it doesn’t come around all that often – so this performance with the London Philharmonic Choir under Vladimir Jurowski should be a real occasion.

We take a look at Haydn’s love affair with England which would not only leave a mark on the musical life of this country, but on the composer himself.

FREE

YOUR

MIND

W I TH

BERIOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SINFONIA

SATURDAY 8 DECEMBER 2018 See page 23

Saturday 23 March 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

ISLE OF NOISES

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Beethoven Egmont Overture Elgar Cello Concerto Mahler Symphony No. 1

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Vasily Petrenko conductor George Li piano

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

William Walton was the original angry young composer. So forget everything you thought you knew about British music: Walton’s First Symphony is a cry of rage from an age of anxiety, a controlled explosion of anger, ardour and shattering power. There’s no possible way to follow it, so guest conductor Vasily Petrenko looks back to his childhood in the USSR, and starts the concert with the no-holds-barred romance of Khachaturian’s famous Adagio. And pianist George Li was a medallist in the 2015 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow – so who better to join the musical battle-royale of Tchaikovsky’s hugely popular First Piano Concerto?

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Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

‘FABULOUS END TO MY DAY @LPORCHESTRA.’

Dr Kate Kennedy explores Walton’s arrival on the symphonic stage with his First Symphony, joining the likes of Elgar and Vaughan Williams in this prolific period for English symphonists.

Kian Soltani

Audience member

Wednesday 27 March 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Khachaturian Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 Walton Symphony No. 1

Edward Gardner conductor Kian Soltani cello What if silence had a sound? That’s how Mahler begins his First Symphony; with a sound so still and deep that you feel it rather than hear it. And gradually – from bird calls and folksongs, daydreams and trumpet calls – he creates a wondrous new musical world. By turns playful and tragic, epic and intimate, it’s become one of the best-loved of 19th-century symphonies, just as Elgar’s autumnal Cello Concerto has come to embody the soul of a nation. With conductor Edward Gardner making a welcome return, and the superb Kian Soltani on cello, you’ll hear new poetry in even the most familiar music.

AGE OF ANXIETY

MARCH

MUSIC AND SILENCE

1 Vasily Petrenko 2 George Li

ISLE OF NOISES

Friday 29 March 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

A selection of popular tenor arias from world-famous operas by composers including Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, Massenet and Offenbach Sascha Goetzel conductor Juan Diego Flórez tenor Juan Diego Flórez has one of the great voices of the 21st century, and this gala evening offers a chance to hear it at its most unrestrained, in a selection of famous tenor arias. Flórez is unsurpassed on the operatic stage, but without the costumes and sets, he reveals all the subtleties of his phenomenal voice. One thing’s for sure, though: you’ll certainly get to hear the gleaming legato, the heartfelt edge and the spectacular power that have made him one of the supreme vocalists of our time. ‘The best tenor in the world?’ asked The Independent. We just know he sounds glorious.

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Juan Diego Flórez

Friday 5 April 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Bax Tintagel Grieg Piano Concerto Sibelius Suite, Belshazzar’s Feast Sibelius Symphony No. 5

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Tickets £60 – £15 Premium seats £80 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Osmo Vänskä conductor Jan Lisiecki piano

Series discounts not available for this performance Osmo Vänskä

‘VÄNSKÄ SCULPTED ONE OF THE SHARPEST, MOST BELLIGERENT READINGS THAT THESE EARS HAVE HEARD.’

The Guardian

‘THIS CAPTIVATING PERUVIAN IS THE ONE WHO CAN DELIVER TOP Cs LIKE A DARTS CHAMPION THE TREBLE 20 ... HIS JOY AND SENSE OF RISK ARE INFECTIOUS.’

The Times on Vänskä conducting Sibelius with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, October 2016

LEGENDS OF THE NORTH

APRIL

MARCH

GALA EVENING WITH JUAN DIEGO FLÓREZ

High above the Atlantic breakers, the clifftop castle of Tintagel is the stuff of legend, and when Arnold Bax saw it he let his imagination soar. Tonight’s concert begins with some of the most passionately romantic music ever written by a British composer and ends with Jean Sibelius gazing at a flight of swans in the sunset: the inspiration for his Fifth Symphony, and one of the simplest – but greatest – melodies ever written for orchestra. Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä is simply unequalled in Sibelius – and the young Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki has something marvellously fresh to say about Grieg’s much-loved Concerto, too.

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall The Foyle Future Firsts bring their youthful energy to a celebration of British chamber music, as part of Isle of Noises. 43

REFRESH

YO U R S E N S E S WITH

H AY D N â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S

THE SEASONS SATURDAY 2 MARCH 2019 See page 37

Wednesday 10 April 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Debussy Iberia from Images Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5 (Egyptian) Ravel Mother Goose Suite Debussy La mer

Series discounts Page 54

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Page 54

Subscription Series

1 Vladimir Jurowski 2 Yefim Bronfman

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm The Clore Ballroom LPO Soundworks is a platform for teenage composers to collaborate with young people from other artforms and learn from industry specialists. This year’s Soundworks performance is the culmination of a week of exciting creative collaboration, and promises to challenge and entertain!

Saturday 27 April 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 Elgar Falstaff R Strauss Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks

Contemporaries

This year’s LPO Junior Artists – members of our annual scheme for high-level teenage instrumentalists from under-represented backgrounds – perform British music alongside LPO members and Junior Artist alumni. Join us to celebrate the diversity and talent of the future generation of orchestral musicians.

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Edward Gardner conductor Stephen Hough piano There might be grey skies over London, but at Royal Festival Hall, Edward Gardner is serving up pure sunshine. Because after all, the great composers liked to escape too. So here’s Debussy, dreaming of a Spain even more colourful and fragrant than the real thing – and finding a thousand iridescent colours in the waves of the English Channel. Here’s Ravel, opening a storybook and conjuring a whole enchanted world. And here’s pianist extraordinaire Stephen Hough joining Saint-Saëns on a musical cruise to Egypt. This glittering Fifth Piano Concerto features frogs, ocean liners, and piano playing that’ll leave you breathless.

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall

1 Edward Gardner 2 Stephen Hough

MERRY PRANKS

APRIL

ISLE OF NOISES

APRIL

THE GREAT ESCAPE

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Yefim Bronfman piano ‘A goodly, portly man, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage’. And as this musical portrait of Falstaff lumbers humorously into life, you’ll hear Shakespeare’s fat knight transformed into pure Elgar. Witty, stirring and surprisingly poignant, Falstaff is one of British music’s most unexpected masterpieces; a fitting companion for the dazzling orchestral high-jinks of Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel. And since both composers revered Brahms, his First Piano Concerto makes a perfect opener. Vladimir Jurowski is joined by Yefim Bronfman, whose combination of gentleness and power is ideally suited to this epic – yet profoundly intimate – Concerto.

‘ALL PRAISE TO VLADIMIR JUROWSKI AND THE LPO FOR PRESENTING THIS EXTRAORDINARY WORK.’

Friday 3 May 2019 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

London Philharmonic Orchestra Label

Live, studio and archive recordings from our catalogue including critically acclaimed recordings with Tennstedt, Haitink and Jurowski are available from lpo.org.uk/recordings, London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 (Monday–Friday 10.00am–5.00pm), all good retail outlets and the Royal Festival Hall shop.

Evening Standard on the LPO’s performance of Enescu’s Oedipe, September 2017

Download or stream online via iTunes, Spotify and others.

RECORDINGS

MAY

ALPINE JOURNEYS Brahms Violin Concerto Bruckner Symphony No. 3 (1877 revised version)

Some listeners have described Bruckner’s symphonies as cathedrals in sound, and it’s true, there’s no denying either their majesty or their intensely spiritual beauty. But the voice of nature sings throughout them, too, and in his Third Symphony – Bruckner’s homage to his hero Wagner – he creates nothing less than a whole Alpine landscape in sound. Fittingly, Vladimir Jurowski has paired Bruckner with another masterpiece from the mountains. Brahms wrote his Violin Concerto while on a summer holiday in the Austrian Alps – and you can definitely tell. Few living violinists make it sing (and dance) quite like Janine Jansen.

Tickets £46 – £10 Premium seats £65 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts Page 54

VLADIMIR JUROWSKI – 10 Years LPO-1010

Janine Jansen

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Janine Jansen violin

Celebrating Vladimir Jurowski’s first 10 years as Principal Conductor (since 2007), this set of previously unreleased recordings embraces established orchestral classics as well as unearthing rarely heard masterpieces, certain to both challenge and reward the listener simultaneously. ‘This seven-disc celebratory set marking [Jurowski’s] ten years as the LPO’s Principal Conductor is an impressive statement … London’s musical life would have been a duller place without his sense of adventure.’ Richard Fairman, Financial Times, November 2017

TCHAIKOVSKY Complete Symphonies (also includes Francesca da Rimini and Serenade for Strings) with Vladimir Jurowski LPO-0101 ‘If Jurowski is the hero of this set, so too is Tchaikovsky. How often we underrate the remarkable range of music he produced. This symphonic cycle is one of the great achievements of western classical music. And it’s a tribute to Jurowski and the LPO that these universally excellent performances make that abundantly clear.’ David Mellor, Classic FM, October 2017

DVORˇÁK Othello Overture/Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin LPO-0095 ‘The melodies sing, the music-making is unexaggerated, the spirit is joyous. Recommended.’ Richard Fairman, Financial Times, March 2017

SUPPORTING THE ORCHESTRA

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OrchLab: Making Music Accessible

JTI is a long-term partner of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and has supported a range of projects including regional concerts and accessible ticket schemes for older people’s community groups. In 2017 the London Philharmonic Orchestra and JTI launched a new initiative, OrchLab, which makes music accessible to disabled adults. The project sees members of the Orchestra working with Drake Music (the leading national organisation working in music, disability and technology) to deliver a programme of music workshops using assistive music technology to service users at Leonard Cheshire Disability. In its first year the programme delivered 20 workshops to 37 Leonard Cheshire Disability service users. Now in its second year, the programme continues to expand, working with new centres, using bespoke instruments tailored to the needs of the service users and developing an online space where participants can create and share their own content.

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‘The whole experience was very emotional for me as I never thought I would be able to join in and play instruments. My input to the whole group was welcomed by everyone. I absolutely loved it. The experience was phenomenal …’ Participant

From £5,000 52

Evening concert ticket prices £10/£14/£19/£25/£32/£39/£46 Premium seats £65*

Ticket prices for 27 January and 29 March 2019: £15/£25/£35/£45/£60 Premium seats £80*

*We have selected the very best seats in the front stalls to be sold at premium price to ensure you the finest acoustic and view. Evening concerts suitable for children aged 7 and over unless otherwise stated.

FUNharmonics ticket prices £6/£7/£8/£9/£10 (children) £12/£14/£16/£18/£20 (adults) Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 Monday to Friday 10.00am – 5.00pm (£2.75 transaction fee)

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Ticket Office 020 3879 9555 Daily 9.00am – 8.00pm (£3.00 transaction fee)

southbankcentre.co.uk (£2.50 transaction fee) All ticketing staff at Southbank Centre can take typetalk calls.

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All discounts are subject to availability and cannot be combined. For details of our privacy policy, please visit lpo.org.uk or call to request details.

Book more, pay less: series discounts

— Book 3 – 4 concerts and receive a 10% discount — Book 5 – 7 concerts and receive a 15% discount — Book 8 – 10 concerts and receive a 20% discount — Book 11 – 14 concerts and receive a 25% discount — Book 15 + concerts and receive a 30% discount

Group bookings

With savings of up to 20% on ticket prices, and many other group benefits, everything has been done to help your group have an enjoyable evening with one of the world’s finest orchestras. Benefits include: — 20% discount for groups of ten or more — A pair of complimentary tickets for the group organiser for groups of 20+ — Exclusive ticket offers and special promotions on selected concerts — Flexible reservations until one month before the concert — No booking fee or postal charge — Customised free publicity material for your group School parties receive a 50% discount on ticket prices plus one in ten tickets free. Bookings cannot be made online. Book now 020 7840 4205, lpo.org.uk/groups or groups@lpo.org.uk Monday to Friday 10.00am – 5.00pm

NOISE Schemes for students and 18-26 year olds

If you are a full-time student in higher education or aged between 18 and 26 you can get discounted tickets to selected London Philharmonic Orchestra concerts throughout the year. Students receive £5 best available tickets and 18–26 year olds receive £10 best available tickets. Selected concerts are also followed by a complimentary drinks reception courtesy of the Orchestra’s Principal Beer Sponsor, Heineken. Sign up to one of the free e-bulletins at lpo.org.uk/noise to get details of these fantastic offers!

Can I exchange my tickets?

You may exchange them for another concert in the Orchestra’s Royal Festival Hall season or for a credit voucher (valid for one year only). Tickets must be returned to the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the address in the right hand column on this page, and arrive at least two working days before the concert. For ‘Print at Home’ tickets, forward them to boxoffice@lpo.org.uk with a covering email. We do not offer refunds unless a concert is cancelled. The right is reserved to substitute artists and vary programmes if necessary, and to adjust ticket price allocations according to demand.

Limited concessions

50% off all ticket prices for full-time students, benefit recipients (Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Universal or Pension Credit) and under-18s (maximum four per transaction. Not applicable to Family Concerts). Limited availability; appropriate ID will be checked on admission.

Access

Visitors with a disability can join Southbank Centre’s free Access Scheme. You may be eligible for tickets at concessionary prices and to bring a companion who can assist you during your visit; and to receive information in alternative formats. For information, please email accesslist@southbankcentre.co.uk, call 020 3879 9555 or visit southbankcentre.co.uk/access.

London Philharmonic Orchestra Resident at Southbank Centre and Glyndebourne Festival Opera 89 Albert Embankment London SE1 7TP Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director HRH The Duke of Kent KG Patron

GENERAL INFORMATION

BOOKING INFORMATION

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor* Andrés Orozco-Estrada Principal Guest Conductor Pieter Schoeman Leader† Tickets 020 7840 4242 General enquiries 020 7840 4200 lpo.org.uk *Supported by the Tsukanov Family Foundation †Supported by Neil Westreich

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QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL

Your feedback ‘@LPOrchestra ACE performance of Gruffalo’s Child today, so special! The children loved it. Loved ur dresscode. Simply magical. Thank you!’ ‘Muscular, poised, deeply-felt, beautifully-commanded Bruckner 5 from Jurowski & @LPOrchestra. Another superlative @southbankcentre evening.’ ‘Superlative playing from @LPOrchestra + @jancello tonight. What a programme: 2 symphonies and a rhapsody! (Plus chat from V.Jurowski).’

THE LONDON EYE

By bus to Waterloo (stopping on Waterloo Bridge, York Road, Stamford Street and Belvedere Road). For detailed bus information call 0343 222 1234 or visit tfl.gov.uk/buses. Alternative parking is available nearby at the National Theatre car park and Cornwall Road multi-storey car park and is subject to charges. Free parking in the National Theatre and Cornwall Road car parks is available to Blue Badge holders visiting Southbank Centre. Please note on Sundays when the National Theatre building is closed there is no step-free access from the car park. A drop-off point is available adjacent to the level 1 glass lift outside the Royal Festival Hall.

— Get up-to-the-minute news and glimpse behind the scenes of a world class orchestra — Chat and interact with us and other audience members — Access regular online concert streaming for free — Find out more about the music we play through our interactive online content, articles, interviews and podcasts

SOCIAL MEDIA

Southbank Centre is situated on the Thames Riverside between the Golden Jubilee Bridge and Waterloo Bridge.

UPPER GROUN

TRAVEL INFORMATION

Getting to Southbank Centre

youtube.com/ londonphilharmonicorchestra

Keep up to date with LPO concerts, events, recordings and news.

We want to share our live music-making with as many people as possible, and we will upload a regular selection of exclusive concert recordings each season for you to listen to, for free, wherever you are in the world.

Visit us at lpo.org.uk

Get to know more about the music, the players and guest performers through our website, podcasts, videos and online playlists, and sign up to hear about our latest recordings.

‘Never heard Shost 11 before - what a mind blowing piece. Especially when you are sat behind the percussion! Congrats @LPOrchestra.’ ‘The best performance of a Shostakovich symphony I’ve ever heard live by Vladimir Jurowski @LPOrchestra @bbcproms Amazing concert. Thank you.’ ‘And @SteveReich monumental composition played with exquisite precision by @LPOrchestra @southbankcentre What a night. Thank you.’ ‘Still moved by the power and emotion of #Shostakovich 15th symphony last night (esp 2nd movement) thx to @LPOrchestra + @southbankcentre.’ ‘Wow that was some performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No.15 from @LPOrchestra at @southbankcentre tonight. Bravo.’ ‘Wow! @HellTweet Harmonielehre just given a magnificent performance by @LPOrchestra and #Jurowski. Feel so energised I won’t sleep!’ ‘Feeling pumped after @LPOrchestra great performance of John Adams’s Harmonielehre @southbankcentre @HellTweet.’

DGE

BFI SOUTHBANK

Children £6 – £10 Adults £12 – £20 Book 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Every year, 30,000 people bring the London Philharmonic Orchestra into their lives through our Education & Community programme. They might be a Year 4 class from one of our south London partner boroughs or a young cellist fresh out of conservatoire; a resident at a disability care home in Essex, or a teenage composer from Lewes, all learning from and inspiring our own LPO musicians. And many thousands meet us at our London home – Royal Festival Hall – to enjoy our BrightSparks schools concerts or FUNharmonics family concert series all year round.

OAE TOTS Sunday 14 October 2018 & Saturday 30 March 2019 10.15am/11.15am/12.15am

‘Give me your buns and your biscuits! Give me your chocolate éclairs! For I am the Rat of the Highway ... and the Rat Thief never shares!’ Following last year’s screening of The Gruffalo’s Child with live orchestral soundtrack, we present The Highway Rat – a new animated special from Magic Light Pictures, based on the wonderful picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. With the animated film projected on big screen, and live music performed by the LPO, this will be a wonderful first concert experience for all the family.

On every FUNharmonics day, we invite our youngest audience members to join our friends from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. OAE TOTS workshops offer a magical, interactive introduction to music-making for children between two and five, sitting up-close to orchestral musicians and taking part with their parents and carers. Workshops take place in the Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall – separate tickets required.

CONDUCTING SCIENCE – VOICE BOX

And there’s more ...

Sunday 14 October 2018 12.00 noon–1.00 pm

Series discounts apply

This season, we invite you to come and enjoy our full range of Education & Community programme events at Royal Festival Hall – bring younger members of your family to experience the wonder of the full LPO on stage in FUNharmonics, and talent-spot the next generation of musicians in our pre-concert project showcases.

Saturday 30 March 2019 12.00 noon–1.00 pm

7 November 2018 Foyle Future Firsts Page 14 5 April 2019 Foyle Future Firsts Page 43 10 April 2019 LPO Soundworks ensemble and friends Page 46 27 April 2019 LPO Junior Artists Page 47

2 Courtesy of Magic Light Pictures

Free pre-concert performances 6.00pm

THE HIGHWAY RAT

The LPO musical laboratory opens its doors once more, for a brand new concert fusing science, sounds and singing. Join our expert presenter Helen Arney for more on-stage experiments with the whole Orchestra, astounding facts and extraordinary music-making. Bring along your lab coat and your voice, open up your ears and expect the unexpected! Suitable for children aged six and over.

FUNHARMONICS CONCERTS

EDUCATION & COMMUNITY EVENTS

Before each FUNharmonics concert, there are free hands-on activities around the building linked to the concert theme, including opportunities for children aged six and over to ‘have a go’ at different orchestral instruments under expert instruction. FUNharmonics foyer activities are generously supported by Stentor Music Co. Ltd.

September

October continued

November

November continued December

January

February

March

April

May

FUNharmonics

All concerts are at Royal Festival Hall and start at 7.30pm unless otherwise stated.

Wednesday 26 September Stravinsky Thomas Adès Lutosławski

Saturday 13 October Poulenc Orff

Saturday 3 November 7.00pm Stravinsky

Friday 5 April Bax Grieg Sibelius

Friday 3 May Brahms Bruckner

Sunday 14 October 2018 12.00 noon – 1.00pm The Highway Rat

Oleg Caetani conductor Roberto Prosseda pedal piano

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Alena Baeva violin

Wednesday 16 January Arne Gieshoff Erkki-Sven Tüür Helen Grime Louis Andriessen Anders Hillborg

Saturday 2 March Haydn

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Allan Clayton Tom Rakewell Miah Persson Anne Trulove Matthew Rose Nick Shadow Patricia Bardon Baba the Turk Clive Bayley Father Trulove Kim Begley Sellem Marie McLaughlin Mother Goose London Voices

Wednesday 5 December Weber Tchaikovsky Bruckner

Saturday 2 February Sibelius Bruckner

Jérémie Rhorer conductor Louise Alder soprano Toby Spence tenor Simon Keenlyside baritone London Philharmonic Choir Tiffin Boys’ Choir

Wednesday 14 November Messiaen Gounod Berlioz

Wednesday 21 November Bizet Verdi Puccini

Saturday 8 December Stravinsky Berio

Marin Alsop conductor Stewart McIlwham piccolo Colin Currie percussion

Friday 8 February Mendelssohn Chopin Elgar

Thomas Adès conductor Kirill Gerstein piano Saturday 29 September Mozart Mahler Vladimir Jurowski conductor Mitsuko Uchida piano Dame Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano Stuart Skelton tenor

October Saturday 6 October Beethoven Stravinsky Vladimir Jurowski conductor Wednesday 10 October Sibelius Dvorˇák Bartók Karina Canellakis conductor Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano

Friday 19 October Glinka Rachmaninoff Tchaikovsky Alondra de la Parra conductor Benjamin Grosvenor piano Wednesday 24 October Berlioz Canteloube Bizet Gershwin Enrique Mazzola conductor Anna Caterina Antonacci soprano Saturday 27 October Rossini Gustavo Gimeno conductor Elizabeth Watts soprano Sara Mingardo contralto Kenneth Tarver tenor Luca Pisaroni bass-baritone London Philharmonic Choir

Wednesday 7 November Klein Schulhoff Martinu° Janácˇek Vladimir Jurowski conductor Borodin Quartet Saturday 10 November Debussy Magnus Lindberg Stravinsky Janácˇek Vladimir Jurowski conductor Soloists to be announced London Philharmonic Choir

Sir Mark Elder conductor Ermonela Jaho soprano Fabio Sartori tenor Luca Salsi baritone Opera Rara Chorus Wednesday 28 November Enescu Pascal Dusapin Martinu˚ Ravel Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Viktoria Mullova violin Matthew Barley cello Friday 30 November Blacher Bruch Liadov Mussorgsky (arr. Ravel) Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Ray Chen violin

Vladimir Jurowski conductor The Swingles London Philharmonic Choir

Sunday 27 January 4.00pm Wagner

Robin Ticciati conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin

David Parry conductor Vanessa Benelli Mosell piano

Friday 22 February Beethoven

Wednesday 30 January Handel Purcell

Wednesday 27 February Wagner Weber Smith Brahms

Sir Roger Norrington conductor Marie-Claude Chappuis Dido Lucy Crowe Belinda Benjamin Appl Aeneas

Juanjo Mena conductor Javier Perianes piano Saturday 23 February Beethoven Juanjo Mena conductor Javier Perianes piano

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Andreas Ottensamer clarinet

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Sophie Bevan soprano Mark Padmore tenor London Philharmonic Choir

Osmo Vänskä conductor Jan Lisiecki piano

Saturday 23 March Beethoven Elgar Mahler

Wednesday 10 April Debussy Saint-Saëns Ravel

Edward Gardner conductor Kian Soltani cello

Edward Gardner conductor Stephen Hough piano

Wednesday 27 March Khachaturian Tchaikovsky Walton

Saturday 27 April Brahms Elgar R Strauss

Vasily Petrenko conductor George Li piano

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Yefim Bronfman piano

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Janine Jansen violin

Saturday 30 March 2019 12.00 noon – 1.00pm Conducting Science – Voice Box

Friday 29 March Popular tenor arias Sascha Goetzel conductor Juan Diego Flórez tenor The London Philharmonic Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the financial support of Arts Council England and Southbank Centre. Concert texts Richard Bratby Photography Page 08 Carlos Quintero/ Unsplash Page 24 Tim Marshall/Unsplash Design Ross Shaw @ JMG Studio Printer Tradewinds (This brochure is produced on paper from a sustainable source). Information in this brochure was correct at the time of going to press. The right is reserved to substitute artists and to vary programmes if necessary.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is a registered charity No. 238045. Southbank Centre is a registered charity No. 298909.

DIARY

The 2018/19 season

‘T H E L P O I S K N OW N A S T H E A D V E N T U R O U S O R C H E S T R A; T HE O RC H E S T R A WITH A V I S I O N .’ VLADIMIR JUROWSKI PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR AND ARTISTIC ADVISOR

LPO.ORG.UK