2011-12 LPO Season Brochure

2011/12 Concert Season

London Philharmonic Orchestra 2011/12 Concert Season

at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

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Season highlights

September

February

Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski celebrates the music of Mussorgsky and explores the Prometheus myth through works by Beethoven, Liszt and Scriabin.

Principal Guest Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin contributes to the year-long exploration of works by Bruckner including the heavenly choral masterpiece – the Te Deum.

October

Two internationally renowned pianists – Maria João Pires and Paul Lewis – will demonstrate their sublime artistry with performances of concertos by Chopin and Mozart.

November

Violinist Janine Jansen makes the first of three visits, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

December

Celebrated soprano Renée Fleming joins Christoph Eschenbach and the Orchestra for Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs.

January

Sergei Prokofiev – Man of the people?

This major festival celebrating the music of Prokofiev offers the chance to hear both well known and rarely performed gems, composed for the concert hall, stage and cinema. www.lpo.org.uk www.southbankcentre.co.uk

March

A programme of British music across the generations – a world première by Composer in Residence Julian Anderson is performed alongside the music of Elgar and Delius.

April

A chance to hear two of the great Beethoven Piano Concertos – No. 2 performed by the renowned piano master John Lill, and No.1 played by the exciting rising star Hong Xu. This month also sees the world première of Kalevi Aho’s Percussion Concerto, played by Colin Currie.

May

Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski closes the season with a feast of Czech music by Janácˇek, Dvorˇák and Suk.

From top: Sergei Prokofiev, Vladimir Jurowski and Renée Fleming

Welcome to the 2011/12 season 01

Welcome to a new season in which we perform the great traditional repertoire alongside the new, with passion, energy and dedication to the highest artistic goals.

Vladimir Jurowski’s concerts have become a magnet for those wishing to experience the greatest sense of occasion. Every performance is an event and demonstrates a logical musical progression. The Prokofiev Festival (Man of the People?) in January is the successor to previous explorations of Tchaikovsky and Schnittke. Jurowski’s Bruckner cycle begins with Symphony No. 1.

Principal Guest Conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin appears with us five times. His rapport with the audience is exceptional, and his concerts are full of energy and spirit, achieving an almost magical quality.

Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director Supported by Macquarie Group

Our regular partners include Sir Mark Elder, Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach and Osmo Vänskä, and we introduce James Gaffigan, Markus Stenz and Eduardo Portal. Renée Fleming sings Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Stephen Hough plays Liszt, Joshua Bell plays Brahms and legendary pianists Maria João Pires, Leon Fleisher and Aldo Ciccolini return.

Works by Julian Anderson, our Composer in Residence, feature in three concerts including a world première, and there are further premières from Raskatov, Pintscher and Aho.

© Chris Blott

The Orchestra is embedded in the cultural life of our great city and shares the live experience of great music through touring worldwide. Join us and be part of something very special.

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Wednesday 21 September 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Mussorgsky Night on a Bare Mountain (original) MussorgskY (orch. Zimmermann) In the Village; On the Southern Shore of the Crimea Alexander Raskatov A White Night's Dream (Homage to Mussorgsky) for orchestra (world première)* Zimmermann Stille und Umkehr (orchestral sketches) Mussorgsky (orch. Raskatov) Songs and Dances of Death (UK première) Vladimir Jurowski conductor Sergei Leiferkus baritone Modest Mussorgsky created some of the most novel music of the nineteenth century. No painstaking craftsman, Mussorgsky wrote in fitful episodes of white-hot inspiration, exemplified by the hair-raising audio-cinematography of his Night on a Bare Mountain. Here his works are placed alongside twentieth and twenty-first century creations that will reveal just how forward-looking Mussorgsky’s music was. To end there’s the chillingly vivid realm of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death – a series of narrative songs shot through with deception and darkness, the composer’s myriad textures and creeping lines portraying a humanity confronted with the pitiful inevitability of life’s end.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.00pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall A performance by Foyle Future Firsts orchestral apprentices conducted

by Nicholas Collon

Barlines – post concert event Free Level 2 Central Bar at Royal Festival Hall Artists involved in the evening’s performance discuss the music of Mussorgsky, Raskatov and Zimmermann

You may also enjoy 24 September See page 03 25 November See page 13 28 January See page 23

Vladimir Jurowski – Principal Conductor

© Southbank Centre/Karen Robinson

*Alexander Raskatov’s A White Night's Dream (Homage to Mussorgsky) for orchestra is commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Ferrara Musica and Ars Musica Brussels.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Saturday 24 September 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Beethoven The Creatures of Prometheus (excerpts) Matthias Pintscher Mar’eh for Violin and Orchestra (UK première)* Liszt Prometheus Scriabin Prometheus, Poem of Fire Vladimir Jurowski conductor Julia Fischer violin Igor Levit piano London Philharmonic Choir lucy Carter lighting designer Legendary egomaniacs Liszt and Scriabin viewed themselves in as heroic a vein as Prometheus himself – bringers of light and truth to a darkened world. Beethoven’s early ballet score based on Prometheus’s moulding of mankind contains so much urgency and character; he used parts of it in the finale of his Eroica Symphony. Scriabin’s indescribable audio-visual experiment Prometheus, Poem of Fire set out to drench the audience in sound and light – ‘an orgasmic blaze of sonic and visual colours’. Many scoff at Scriabin’s ambition.

But here it lives: Vladimir Jurowski conducts as award-winning lighting designer Lucy Carter re-interprets Scriabin’s world of light and colour to match the extraordinary sonic breadth of Scriabin’s music. © Decca/Uwe Arena

*Matthias Pintscher’s Mar’eh for Violin and Orchestra is commissioned by the Lucerne Festival, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Alte Oper Frankfurt.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

Barlines – post concert event Free Level 2 Central Bar at Royal Festival Hall Artists involved in the performance will discuss the evening’s programme

You may also enjoy 19 October See page 07 13 January–1 February See page 17 Sergei Prokofiev: Man of the People?

8 February See page 34

Julia Fischer

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Friday 7 October 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

J Strauss II Overture, Die Fledermaus Korngold Violin Concerto Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique)

Vassily Sinaisky conductor Vadim Gluzman violin If Tchaikovsky was tortured by his innermost desires, Korngold was by his very public success.

Pigeonholed as nothing more than a composer of swashbuckling movie scores, Korngold plundered his Hollywood catalogue for the most haunting, expressive and beautiful themes to create a violin concerto that would prove his prowess in the concert hall. Tchaikovsky, persecuted by an intolerant and unforgiving society as his homosexuality became increasingly public, put his all into the Sixth Symphony. The music teeters on the edge of implosion before collapsing with cruelly prophetic exhaustion: days after finishing it Tchaikovsky died, possibly at his own hand.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 3 December See page 15 1 February See page 24 28 April See page 42

© Roman Malamant

Vadim Gluzman

JTI Friday series

Wednesday 12 October 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Weber Overture, Oberon Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20, K466 Schubert Symphony No. 9 (Great)

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Aldo Ciccolini piano From its monolithic opening theme – kickstarting a cycle of inexorable momentum like a giant pendulum – to the breathless dash of its finale, Schubert’s Ninth offers one of the most riveting journeys of any symphony. No wonder it attracted the nickname ‘Great’. Even its gently undulating Andante is filled with suspense. If Yannick Nézet-Séguin wants to convey a sense of impassioned drama in this concert, he’s chosen the right piano concerto by Mozart, too: dark, tragic undertones haunt the Concerto No. 20, the piano eventually tearing into a furious finale whose dark storm clouds are only parted by the appearance of a radiant major key.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 28 October See page 10 1 February See page 24 13 April See page 40

© Marco Borggreve

Yannick Nézet-Séguin – Principal Guest Conductor

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Saturday 15 October 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Beethoven Symphony No. 2 Rossini Stabat Mater

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Eri Nakamura soprano Ruxandra Donose mezzo soprano Ji-Min Park tenor Matthew Rose bass London Philharmonic Choir In the face of the God he worshipped and loved, Rossini never really believed himself an adequate creator of sacred music. But when presented with the text of the Stabat Mater – a poetic portrayal of the mother of Christ weeping at the cross of her crucified son – something special was stirred inside him. Beethoven might have insisted that Rossini produce ‘more Barbers of Seville’, but even he can’t have denied the spiritual weight of the Italian’s Stabat Mater. From extreme delicacy, the music becomes impassioned, tender and deeply devotional, full of evocative masterstrokes of word-setting. After his astonishing recent performance of Brahms’s Requiem, Yannick Nézet-Séguin is sure to conjure something special in this intense, devotional masterpiece.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 4 February See page 33 22 February See page 37 2 May See page 43

© Chris Gloag

Eri Nakamura

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Wednesday 19 October 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Mozart Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter) mark-anthony Turnage On Opened Ground for viola and orchestra R Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra

Markus Stenz conductor Lawrence Power viola Rich, malleable, unpredictable, wickedly exciting, touchingly tender and intensely dramatic – after its famous opening bars, Also sprach Zarathustra takes the listener on what is arguably the most riveting and sonically spectacular orchestral journey Richard Strauss ever created. While Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony offers a continuous stream of abundant musical joy wrapped up in the most unimposing-yet-complex music of the 18th century. In between comes a heartfelt concerto for viola and orchestra written by Mark-Anthony Turnage – a haunting score that transforms an alluring four-note theme from rough and aggressive to warm and intense.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.15pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall Mark-Anthony Turnage discusses On Opened Ground

You may also enjoy 28 October See page 10 14 December See page 16 18 April See page 41

© Jack Liebeck

Lawrence Power

OCTOBer

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OCTOber

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Friday 21 October 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Sibelius The Dryad Beethoven Violin Concerto Brahms Symphony No. 2

JTI Friday series

Thomas Zehetmair

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Thomas Zehetmair violin Overlooking Lake Wörthersee in the small resort of Pörtschach, Brahms began to create a symphony that captured all he saw: a clear, light day; the infinite beauty of the sunset; the stillness of night; a peaceful awakening and gratitude for another day – the miracle of life. And yet the musicians were to play, said Brahms, as if ‘with a ribbon of mourning around their arms.’ Such meeting of glowing melancholy and piercing brightness created what many consider Brahms’s finest symphony. Beethoven, too, was an inspiration; Brahms regarded his predecessor as the ultimate perfectionist. Few works endorse that theory better than the sublimely graceful Violin Concerto.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 3 December See page 15 22 February See page 37 18 April See page 41

© Priska Ketterer

Wednesday 26 October 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 Shostakovich Symphony No. 8

Jaap van Zweden conductor Maria João Pires piano 4 November 1943, and as the house lights went down in the concert hall of the Moscow Conservatory, an expectant war-fatigued audience awaited the successor to Shostakovich’s morale-boosting Seventh Symphony. They were wholly unprepared for what followed.

Shostakovich’s Eighth was no patriotic flagwaver, but a masterpiece of paranoid despair, vivid grotesquery and bitter anger. Shostakovich had outspokenly denounced the emptiness of war and totalitarianism, and the Soviets banned the work immediately. Today it stands not only as a chilling reminder of some of the darkest days of the twentieth century, but also as a remarkable example of Shostakovich’s acute musical imagination and craftsmanship. Chopin’s sparkling Second Piano Concerto echoes an age when music was altogether more carefree and untroubled by censorship.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 18 January See page 19 10 February See page 35 13 April See page 40

‘Pires's playing was unostentatious but commanding, controlled yet free-flying in its sensitivity to the fluidity of Chopin's lines’ The Guardian on Pires’s Promenade Concert performance of Chopin, July 2010

© Chris Christodoulou

Maria João Pires

OCTOber

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Friday 28 October 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

R Strauss Don Juan Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23, K488 Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances

JTI Friday series

Paul Lewis

James Gaffigan conductor Paul Lewis piano No piece of orchestral music bursts into life quite like Strauss’s roller coaster portrayal of the womanizing nomad Don Juan. The Don makes the most of life through his swaggering antics – careering through the orchestra with pulsating energy and seductive melodies – and teeters on the brink of mortality as Strauss’s orchestra appears close to burn-out. Rachmaninov teases death rather more subtly in his Symphonic Dances, throughout whose strange alluring rhythms and mysterious orchestrations weaves the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) plainsong. Catch your breath in between, with the beguiling beauty of Mozart’s A major Piano Concerto – its Adagio enraptured by stillness.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 12 October See page 05 14/17 February See page 36 28 April See page 42

© Jack Liebeck

Wednesday 2 November 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Brahms Double Concerto for violin and cello Bruckner Symphony No. 7

Christoph Eschenbach conductor Nicola Benedetti violin Leonard Elschenbroich cello None of his own creations brought Anton Bruckner quite the joy and pride that his Seventh Symphony did. It’s not only his most delicately etched orchestral creation, it’s also his most instantly beautiful – the perfect door-opening to our season-long exploration of the composer’s music. Captured in the work’s Adagio is a heartfelt eulogy for his ‘master’ Richard Wagner, which itself gives way to two of the most astonishingly impassioned and triumphant movements Bruckner ever conceived. It's the intimacy of chamber music that proves most affecting in Brahms’s finely tuned Double Concerto – a remarkably structured piece in which violin and cello are cast as the most graceful and delicate foil to the richness of Brahms’s orchestra.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 16 November See page 12 4 February See page 33 22 February See page 37

© Rhys Frampton

Nicola Benedetti

NOVEMber

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Wednesday 16 November 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Bruckner Symphony No. 4

Osmo Vänskä conductor Janine Jansen violin Osmo Vänskä controls the glistening flight of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto before turning to Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. With each of Bruckner’s symphonies came an intensification of his vision – a sharper focusing of his aesthetic ideals and a honing of his orchestral craft. In the Fourth, he really came of age: in the Symphony’s perfectly formed, glowing first movement is a new-found confidence; in its solemn, statuesque Andante a knowing premonition of loss. Vänskä revealed himself as a master Brucknerian with his orchestra in Minnesota, so expect new textures, fresh sonorities and a palpable emotional thrust.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 2 November See page 11 30 November See page 14 4 February See page 33

© Felix Broede

Janine Jansen

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Friday 25 November 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

José Suite, The Muleteer RODRIGO Concierto de Aranjuez Falla Suites Nos. 1 and 2, The Three-Cornered Hat Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel) Pictures at an Exhibition

Eduardo Portal conductor Craig Ogden guitar Manuel de Falla took such fastidious care with all his music that those works he did finish are all exquisitely crafted gems, each encapsulating something utterly in tune with Spanish culture.

His fiery flamenco-inspired ballet score The ThreeCornered Hat and the guitar concerto by Rodrigo – still the most popular ever written – are conducted here by a young Spaniard who has made quite an impression on concert-goers in the last two years, Eduardo Portal. He finishes with Mussorgsky’s celebrated set of pictures in music – a touching walk past etchings and sketches by Victor Hartmann infused with the orchestral colour and power of Maurice Ravel.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 21 September See page 02 7 October See page 04 28 January See page 23

© Berardo Berastegui

Eduardo Portal

NovemBer

JTI Friday series

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Wednesday 30 November 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

MATTHIAS Pintscher Towards Osiris Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 (Emperor) Bruckner Symphony No. 1 (Linz edition)

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Lars Vogt piano ‘Das kecke Beserl’ Anton Bruckner called his First Symphony – ‘the saucy little besom’ in a literal translation that remains a wholly inadequate reflection of the symphony’s impish charm and bold impetuosity. Yes, Bruckner’s First was no cautious water-testing, but a statement made loud and clear enough to herald one of the greatest symphonic careers, as witness the work’s daring, dashing final chapter. Before Beethoven’s epic Emperor Concerto comes a veritable sculpture in sound by Matthias Pintscher, unquestionably one of the most individual and ear-enchanting composers currently at work. He describes his multi-hued, intimate-yet-broad music as suggesting ‘an imaginary theatre’; his powerful Towards Osiris raises the curtain on this concert.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 16 November See page 12 8 February See page 34 13 April See page 40

© Anthony Parmelee

Lars Vogt

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Saturday 3 December 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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DECEmBer

Julian Anderson Fantasias* Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 Tchaikovsky Manfred Symphony

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Janine Jansen violin

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 Byron’s elusive creation Manfred was a nobleman www.lpo.org.uk stalked by an enigmatic guilt, his tortured spirit hoping for forgetfulness or death rather than earthbound redemption. In capturing Manfred symphonically, Tchaikovsky created music quite unlike anything else he’d written: an austere opener littered with brooding silences and yearning outbursts; a strange, glistening scherzo that appears like a dream; a final movement that edges towards the ether before the organ crashes in with a nave-shaking chord to reaffirm the radiant joy of life. After similarly fascinating textures from Julian Anderson's Fantasias and Mozart’s most spirited violin concerto, Tchaikovsky’s Manfred will truly empower the spirit.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.15pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall Composer in Residence Julian Anderson looks in detail at his work Fantasias

You may also enjoy 7 October See page 04 24 March See page 38 13 April See page 40 *This performance is supported

by The Boltini Trust

© Sara Wilson/Decca

Janine Jansen

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Wednesday 14 December 2011 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Wagner Overture, Tannhäuser R Strauss Four Last Songs Beethoven Symphony No. 7

Christoph Eschenbach conductor Renée Fleming soprano ‘It’s so comforting and so beautiful’, says Renée Fleming of Strauss’s Four Last Songs. ‘Every time I sing it, my breathing slows down. I feel as if I’m in an altered state at the end. I never tire of it – ever.’ Fleming has lived with Strauss’s music all her career; one of the great sopranos of our time singing the most resonant song cycle of the twentieth century, this concert is unmissable for that alone. Surrounding it is the cascading hymn of devotion that is Wagner’s overture to Tannhäuser, and Beethoven’s most electrifyingly propulsive symphony, possessed by an obsessive and at times demonic rhythmic drive.

Tickets £12–£48 Premium seats £75 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 15 October See page 06 28 October See page 10 22 February See page 37

Concert generously supported by the Sharp Family.

© Andrew Eccles/Decca

Renée Fleming

13 January–1 February 2012 Vladimir Jurowski: Artistic Director Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

‘In my view, the composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify human life and defend it.

He must be a citizen first and foremost, so that his art might consciously extol human life and lead man to a radiant future. Such is the immutable code of art as I see it.’

No composer’s reputation, output or overall creative legacy is more ripe for reappraisal than Prokofiev’s. Despite being one of the most popular twentieth century composers, Prokofiev remains one of the most misunderstood. Satirist or classicist? Melodist or modernist? Exile or patriot? Prokofiev can so easily feel like an artist of illogical contrast and contradiction.

Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960)

And yet in everything he created – from the tunefulness of Lieutenant Kijé to the irregular melodic elusiveness of the Fifth Piano Concerto – Prokofiev invested the same level of honesty, care, craftsmanship and belief. Perhaps in a century of oppression and freedom, renewal and retrospection, Prokofiev was the composer most inherently connected to the rhythms of social change, tragedy and triumph. Was he the most astute of twentiethcentury artists? Does his music still feel the most contemporary? Can he really be called a ‘man of the people’?

© Sergei Prokofiev Archive

Having shined revelatory new light on Prokofiev’s creative ancestor Tchaikovsky two seasons ago, Vladimir Jurowski curates a Prokofiev series with the London Philharmonic Orchestra that presents known and loved works alongside those pieces often shunned for their complexity and lack of surface glitter. The prospect of an illuminating rebirth for Prokofiev in London is a promising one indeed.

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Friday 13 January 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Prokofiev Suite, Lieutenant Kijé Prokofiev Cello Concerto, Op. 58 Prokofiev Symphony No. 7

Alexander Vedernikov conductor Danjulo Ishizaka cello ‘Kijé was a devilish job’, said Prokofiev of his first attempt to write a film score, ‘but what gay music!’

How right he was. This artistically demanding screen satire needed a fine score and it got one – drawing from Prokofiev his most delightfully frivolous themes and smile-inducing orchestrations, the Troika famously propelled by a joyous combination of bells, piano, harp and percussion. Getting new and enchanting sounds from his orchestra was Prokofiev’s priority in his Seventh Symphony, too. This sonic tapestry hands the listener a succession of enchantingly beautiful shapes and song-like themes that dance along with the utmost grace.

JTI Friday series

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 24 September See page 03 2 November See page 11 1 February See page 24

© Marco Borggreve

Danjulo Ishizaka

Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

Wednesday 18 January 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

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Prokofiev Symphonic Song, Op. 57 Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 5 Prokofiev Symphony No. 6

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Steven Osborne piano Three pieces ripe for creative renewal are sure to receive it from Vladimir Jurowski. Prokofiev noted in his diary the ‘vigorous major themes’ that came to him as he sketched his Fifth Piano Concerto, a temperamental but brilliantly accomplished piece. The Concerto precedes the Sixth Symphony, arguably Prokofiev’s masterwork, written in 1947. ‘Now we are rejoicing in our great victory’, said the composer, ‘but each of us has wounds which cannot be healed, which must not be forgotten.’ Thus the Symphony became both commemorative and life-affirming – a sharp, ringing musical testament, laden with grief but plumbing a huge spectrum of emotional depths.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.00pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall Prokofiev’s String Quartet No.1 and Quintet, performed by musicians from the Royal College of Music

You may also enjoy 26 October See page 09 25 January See page 22 13 April See page 40

© Eric Richmond

Steven Osborne

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Saturday 21 January 2012 | 7.30pm | Satellite event Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Royal College of Music

Saturday 28 January 2012 | 2.00pm–5.30pm | Satellite event Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall

PROKOFIEV (arr. Kabalevsky) Concertino for Cello PROKOFIEV Two Poems Op. 7 PROKOFIEV Ode to the End of the War PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 2

Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

THE UNKNOWN PROKOFIEV

VLADIMIR JUROWSKI conductor KRISTINA BLAUMANE cello ROYAL COLLEGE OF MUSIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS

Tickets £10–£20 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk or Royal College of Music Box Office 020 7591 4314 www.rcm.ac.uk/boxoffice (£1.95 booking fee)

Leading Prokofiev experts Simon Morrison, Tickets £10 David Nice and Fiona McKnight discuss Book now 020 7840 4242 Prokofiev’s popular music for Soviet www.lpo.org.uk consumption and why these works are virtually unknown. His grandson Gabriel Prokofiev provides a personal insight into the reasons behind Prokofiev’s return to Stalin’s Russia only to endure censorship and difficulties as a Soviet composer.

Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

Vladimir Jurowski rehearsing musicians from the Royal College of Music

© Chris Christodoulou

Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

‘Prokofiev has made an immense, priceless contribution to the musical culture of Russia. A composer of genius, he has expanded the artistic heritage left to us by the great classical masters of Russian music – Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov.’

Dmitri Shostakovich

© Library of Congress

Sergei Prokofiev

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Wednesday 25 January 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Prokofiev Chout (excerpts) Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 4 (for the left hand) Prokofiev Cinderella (excerpts)

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Leon Fleisher piano ‘What I wished to express above all in the music of Cinderella’, said Prokofiev, ‘was the poetic love of Cinderella and the Prince – the birth and flowering of that love, the obstacles in its path and finally the dream fulfilled.’ If Prokofiev’s score does anything, it captures precisely that: here is music above which a sprinkling of fairy dust seems to hover, so glistening are its orchestrations, so enchanting its textures. The composer’s music for the ballet Chout (or The Buffoon) was altogether different. This absurdist satire on Russian village life prompted a tight, tuneful and mischievous score from Prokofiev, with shades of Stravinsky’s Petrushka.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 21 September See page 02 18 January See page 19 28 January See page 23

© Eli Turner

Leon Fleisher

Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

Saturday 28 January 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

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Prokofiev Excerpts from Incidental Music of Egyptian Nights (play) and The Queen of Spades (film) Prokofiev (arr. Atovmyan) Ivan the Terrible (world première of this version)

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Ewa Podles contralto Andrey Breus baritone London Philharmonic Choir Prokofiev's colleagues were astounded that he wrote film and stage incidental music with the same levels of passion and inspiration with which he approached his concert works. Exactitude, polish, vivid characterisation and powerful imagery abound in the music Prokofiev wrote for Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible films. Tender, mystical, wild, but somehow majestic, too – the music had a complicated life, slices of it appearing in subsequent works by Prokofiev. This concert presents the unknown oratorio-arrangement that lay untouched for decades, made by Levon Atovmyan – confidante of both Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and a man who has done more than anyone else to bring the unheard work of both composers to life.

Tickets £9–£39 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

The Unknown Prokofiev 2.00pm–5.30pm Tickets £10 Level 5 Function Room Study afternoon with contributions from leading Prokofiev experts.

See page 20 for details.

6.00pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall Prokofiev’s String Quartet No.2, Humoresque for 4 bassoons and Sonata for 2 violins performed by musicians from the Royal College of Music

© Thomas Kurek

Vladimir Jurowski – Principal Conductor

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Wednesday 1 February 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Prokofiev Symphony No. 1 (Classical) Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 Prokofiev Symphony No. 5

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Janine Jansen violin Here we have three linchpins of Prokofiev’s orchestral art: the charmingly refracted view of the music of Mozart and Haydn that formed his First Symphony; his equally neat and symmetrical Second Violin Concerto, ordered but spiked with distinctively inventive harmonies and tunes that break out on adventures; and finally his central, most astounding symphony, the Fifth. Prokofiev himself described the latter as ‘a symphony of the greatness of the human spirit’.

In it he explored new spiritual horizons, creating what one commentator labelled ‘not so much symphony as exciting symphonic drama.’

Yannick Nézet-Séguin harnesses the propulsive energy of Prokofiev in this, the last performance of our festival.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 24 September See page 03 7 October See page 04 13 January See page 18

© Marco Borggreve

Yannick Nézet-Séguin – Principal Guest Conductor

Sergei ProkoFIev: Man of the people?

London Philharmonic Orchestra: A snapshot

: Early Morning start Rehearsing at Henry Wood Hall, London

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: Early practice Royal Festival Hall, London

: travelling overseas Concerts in Europe

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: rehearsal break Vladimir Jurowski and Principal Cellist Kristina Blaumane discuss the finer details of the music

: ON TOUR This year, Germany, China, Russia and the US

: PRINCIPal CONDUCTOR Vladimir Jurowski continues his leadership of the London Philharmonic Orchestra

: ACCESS FOR CHILDREN Have-a-go at FUNharmonics

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: the band A chance for teenagers to collaborate with LPO players

: rehearsals continue A moment’s rest

: the band Our community fusion ensemble in action

: An enthusiastic CROWD Applauding The Band’s latest gig

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: rehearsals continue A few bars' rest‌

: backstage The instrument store

: funharmonics Family Concert A young audience member is fascinated by the music

: glittering galas Goldsmiths’ Hall, June 2010

: Tuning up Principal Timpanist, Simon Carrington

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: last minute Practice Warming up the fingers

: final preparation Looking the part

: performance begins The anticipation mounts

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: solo time Peter Schoeman, Leader of the Orchestra

: interval Networking in the Corporate Bar

: climax of the concert A brass fanfare

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: bows taken The audience shows its appreciation

: caught on camera Recording the performance for our archive

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: a thrilled audience heads home Inspired by the music

: leaving the stage Tired but happy

: the party continues Post-concert events are our forte

: going home Packing away

Saturday 4 February 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Bruckner Christus factus est Bruckner Symphony No. 9 Bruckner Te Deum Please note there will be no interval during this performance.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Christine Brewer soprano Mihoko Fujimura mezzo soprano Toby Spence tenor Franz-Josef Selig bass London Philharmonic Choir

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Fatally ill, Anton Bruckner grappled unsuccessfully with the completion of his Ninth Symphony.

But he consoled himself with his achievements in another great masterpiece declaring that on entering heaven, ‘I will present to the Lord the score of my Te Deum, and he will judge me mercifully.’ This awe-inspiring hymn of praise combines touching tenderness with blazing triumph, a musical capturing of Bruckner’s rock-steady faith. It seems the only viable epilogue not only to Bruckner’s life but also to the three completed movements of his Ninth Symphony, themselves revealing a blazing spiritual optimism in the face of mortality.

Barlines – post concert event Free

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

Level 2 Central Bar at Royal Festival Hall An informal discussion with Yannick Nézet-Séguin following the evening’s performance

You may also enjoy 15 October See page 06 2 November See page 11 16 November See page 12

© Christian Steiner

Christine Brewer

FEBRUARY

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Wednesday 8 February 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

˚ Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony No. 6) Martinu Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 ˇ ák Symphony No. 8 Dvor

Marin Alsop conductor Stephen Hough piano Antonín Dvorˇák never really suited the musical rat race in which he inevitably became embroiled.

At the height of his career, symphonies were commissioned for London and New York. But there was no such commission for the Eighth.

This was a symphony Dvorˇák wrote to satisfy nobody but himself, ‘a work singing of the joy of green pastures, of summer evenings, of the melancholy of blue forests, of the defiant merrymaking of the Czech peasants’. An eye-widening sense of fun characterises Czech music of a later age from Bohuslav Martinu˚, heard before both of Liszt’s rapturously virtuosic Piano Concertos.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.15pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall A discussion on the symphonies of Bohuslav Martinu˚ with Marin Alsop

You may also enjoy 26 October See page 09 10 February See page 35 2 May See page 43

© Grant Leighton

Marin Alsop

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Friday 10 February 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall JTI Friday series

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Kodály Concerto for Orchestra Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 ˇ ák Symphony No. 7 Dvor

Lukáš Vondrácek

Marin Alsop conductor Lukáš Vondrácek piano When the London Philharmonic Society asked Antonín Dvorˇák for a new symphony in 1884, the composer knew he had to deliver something special. In the resulting Seventh, the doubts and frustrations Dvorˇák experienced as a composer are defeated by music of compelling argument, triumphing over its own nervous energy in the final bars with a glorious plunge into the brightness of D major. Before it we hear a great ‘forgotten’ twentieth-century Concerto for Orchestra by Zoltán Kodály. Like its namesake by the composer’s compatriot Bartók, Kodály’s concerto takes its material from Hungarian folk music, dressing it in the composer’s own rich orchestral clothing – by turns rowdy, bracing, delicate and tender.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 26 October See page 09 8 February See page 34 28 March See page 39

© Martina Cechova

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Tuesday 14 February 2012 | 7.30pm | Valentine’s Day Concert Friday 17 February 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

RachmaninoFF Piano Concerto No. 2 Kreisler (arr. Rachmaninoff/orch. Leytush) Liebesleid (European première) RachmaninoFF Symphony No. 2

Neeme Järvi conductor Boris Giltburg piano Here is the very height of touching, heartrending romance from the composer who arguably did both those qualities better than any other. There’s a reason Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is his most popular: it’s his most rapturous, his most readily moving and his most sweepingly emotive.

There’s also a reason his Second Symphony is played more than any of its companions. Here thick, rich textures and sombre harmonies wrap themselves around Rachmaninoff’s finely contoured melodies, the music smouldering, flaring up and eventually propelling itself towards a whirling, spirited climax. Surrender to the alluring warmth and beauty of Rachmaninoff.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 26 October See page 09 8 February See page 34 28 March See page 39

© Eric Richmond

Boris Giltburg

JTI Friday series (Friday 17 February)

Wednesday 22 February 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Mozart Symphony No. 32 Brahms Violin Concerto Zemlinsky Psalm 23, Op.14 Szymanowski Symphony No. 3 (The Song of the Night)

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Joshua Bell violin Jeremy Ovenden tenor London Philharmonic Choir Wracked by personal crises, Alexander Zemlinsky made a heartfelt cry to God in his setting of the Twenty-Third Psalm. The music moves from trepidation to despair to ecstasy, at once sensitive and majestic. In its glistening bid for the heavenly, it makes a perfect companion to Szymanowski’s Third Symphony, The Song of the Night (a setting of Jalaluddin Rumi’s Sufi poetry). From a vast nocturnal landscape, a human spirit ascends to join with the divine, soaring into the ether.

Languorous sensuality radiates through this all-encompassing score, the final statement in a concert that follows two acknowledged masterworks by Mozart and Brahms with two exquisite twentieth-century rarities.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.15pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall Dr Stephen Downes, Reader in Musicology at the University of Surrey discusses the music of Szymanowski and Zemlinsky

You may also enjoy 15 October See page 06 21 October See page 08 2 May See page 43

Concert generously supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music grant programme. © Bill Phelps

Joshua Bell

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Saturday 24 March 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Julian Anderson New Work for Orchestra (world première)* Delius Sea Drift Elgar Symphony No. 1

Sir Mark Elder conductor Roderick Williams baritone London Philharmonic Choir

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

When Edward Elgar unveiled his First Symphony at the turn of the twentieth century, the UK was languishing in the depths of economic recession.

Elgar, though, saw past that. In his Symphony he seized on a flicker of optimism, describing it as ‘a massive hope for the future.’ A moving, noble melody appears at first fragile and tender. But when it returns at the Symphony’s end, it’s revived and encouraged with gestures of support from the strings and woodwind, who throw themselves at the orchestral procession with a spirit of inextinguishable optimism. After the elegiac songs of Delius’s Sea Drift, Sir Mark Elder’s Elgar will feel palpably contemporary and inspiring.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

Roderick Williams

Sir Mark Elder and Composer in Residence Julian Anderson discuss his new work

You may also enjoy 3 December See page 15 13 April See page 40 2 May See page 43

© Benjamin Ealovega

*Julian Anderson’s New Work for Orchestra is commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with kind support from The Boltini Trust and the Britten-Pears Foundation, and the New York Philharmonic (Alan Gilbert, Music Director).

Barlines – post concert event Free

Wednesday 28 March 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Bartók Violin Concerto No. 1 Mahler Symphony No. 9

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Lisa Batiashvili violin In the violin writing of Bartók’s First Concerto is captured his love for the virtuoso Stefi Geyer.

The composer fell hopelessly for the violinist at the turn of the twentieth century and set about immortalising their relationship in a rhapsodic, emotion-filled piece. But the affair was soon over; their partnership pulled in too many directions by pressure of work and performance. Gustav Mahler knew all about that. Torn between America and Austria in his final years, Mahler would return from New York to his Alpine hut to compose in the summer. The idyllic peace he experienced there permeates the Ninth Symphony – imbued with a remarkable sense of homecoming, but marked with the indelible imprint of a final farewell.

Concert generously supported by the Sharp Family.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.00pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall London Music Masters Artists and Bridge Project students celebrate four years of creative collaboration with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal College of Music, Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre with a performance featuring specially commissioned works.

You may also enjoy 2 November See page 11 4 February See page 33 10 February See page 35

© Anja Frers

Lisa Batiashvili

april

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Friday 13 April 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Mozart Symphony No. 35 (Haffner) Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 Julian Anderson Past Hymns Stravinsky Symphony in C

JTI Friday series

John Lill

The International Conductors’ Academy of the Allianz Cultural Foundation John Lill piano

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

His Symphony in C, Stravinsky once said, ‘could not have come to me before I had known the neon glitter of the Californian boulevards from a speeding automobile.’ But after the finely clipped topiary of Mozart’s Haffner Symphony and Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, Stravinsky’s music is a work of utter sense and contentment – colourful and a shade American, yes, but lucidly scored, enchantingly varied and gloriously symmetrical. It follows the elegy-tinged beauty of Julian Anderson’s 1997 chamber orchestra creation Past Hymns. Each piece in this concert of fascinating contrasts and similarities, is conducted by one of three brilliantly talented young conductors – individually searched out and invited for the purpose.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

You may also enjoy 26 October See page 09 3 December See page 15 28 April See page 42

© Tim Jenkins

Wednesday 18 April 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Schumann Overture, Genoveva Kalevi Aho Percussion Concerto (world première)* Brahms Symphony No. 1

Osmo Vänskä conductor Colin Currie percussion Radiant joy and intense poetry characterise recent works from the pen of Finnish composer Kalevi Aho. His style might continue to adapt and evolve, but he never ceases to arouse listeners and make them aware of the world in alluring and enlightening ways. Here percussionist Colin Currie unveils the new concerto written for him

by Aho in what is one of the most eagerlyanticipated premières of the season. It is followed by the symphony Brahms thought he could never write: his post-Beethoven First – its opening passages famously launching like an arrow-shot in slow-motion, steamrolling towards an angelic Andante and a cheering, striding finale.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.15pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall Colin Currie explores Kalevi Aho’s Percussion Concerto

You may also enjoy 19 October See page 07 21 October See page 08 24 March See page 38

*Kalevi Aho’s Percussion Concerto is commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Luosto Classic Festival.

© Chris Dawes

Colin Currie

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Saturday 28 April 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Messiaen Les Offrandes oubliées Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4

Yan Pascal Tortelier conductor Hong Xu piano Fate. It has hung dagger-like over the art of music since Beethoven seized it by the throat. In 1877, Tchaikovsky felt its weighty hand on his shoulder.

His artistic response was a Symphony unlike anything he’d created before: ‘This is fate’, he revealed to his confidante Nadezhda von Meck, explaining the opening notes of his heart-onsleeve Fourth Symphony. But by the Symphony’s final chapter, Tchaikovsky’s darkness had turned to light. ‘Rejoice in other’s rejoicing’ he urged Nadezhda, and the Symphony veered towards the sort of unstoppable, ebullient confidence and joy that Beethoven captured so gloriously in his First Piano Concerto.

Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.00pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall Yan Pascal Tortelier presents a performance with Foyle Future Firsts orchestral apprentices

You may also enjoy 7 October See page 04 30 November See page 14 13 April See page 40

© Malcolm Crowthers

Yan Pascal Tortelier

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Wednesday 2 May 2012 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

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Janácek Suite, The Cunning Little Vixen ˇ ák Piano Concerto Dvor Suk Symphonic Poem, Ripening

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Martin Helmchen piano London Philharmonic Choir In 2010 Vladimir Jurowski presided over a performance of Suk’s Asrael Symphony that electrified the atmosphere inside the Royal Festival Hall. Now he turns to Asrael’s successor Ripening, another huge orchestral canvas in which the composer grapples with his tragic demons and ultimately finds a radiating transcendence. ‘In it you will find all the degrees of human emotions’ Suk said of Ripening, and he wasn’t exaggerating. It’s heard here after the Piano Concerto by the man whose death inspired both Asrael and Ripening: Suk’s father-in-law Dvorˇák. This is without doubt one of the best-kept secrets of the Romantic repertoire, a piece that astounds with its noble virtuosity.

Tickets £9–£39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Discounted subscription packages available See page 51

6.15pm–6.45pm Free Royal Festival Hall Professor Geoffrey Chew explores three giants of the Czech repertoire

You may also enjoy 25 January See page 22 10 February See page 35 28 April See page 42

© Marco Borggreve

Martin Helmchen

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FUNharmonics FAMILY CONCERTS Royal Festival Hall

SAVE THE DATES

Sunday 23 October 2011 | 12.00pm–1.00pm THE NUTCRACKER Nicholas Collon conductor Chris jarvis presenter

Tickets Child £5–£9 Adult £10–£18 Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Sunday 19 February 2012 | 12.00pm–1.00pm Discounted subscription packages THE JUNGLE BOOK available See page 51 David Angus conductor Chris jarvis presenter Hear it first!

Visit www.lpo.org.uk/listen | Sunday 13 May 2012 12.00pm–1.00pm

THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN Vladimir Jurowski conductor Hannah Conway presenter

Access our online playlist of the music for our concerts

Foyer events throughout the morning

Available on the Orchestra’s own label as a CD or download. Visit www.lpo.org.uk/shop or order the CD on 020 7840 4242 or through all good retailers

You can try your hand at playing an orchestral instrument in one of our Have-a-Go sessions or join our Human Orchestra workshops from 10.30am to 2.30pm in Royal Festival Hall foyers.

Musical Stories for Children

All images on these pages © Matt Stuart

Supporting the Orchestra VIP corporate hospitality

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Be our special guests for the evening with corporate hospitality tickets An exclusive seating area at a spine-tingling performance by one of the world’s great orchestras; mingling with musicians and chatting to fellow guests in the private bar; wonderful cuisine and stunning views of the River Thames; let the London Philharmonic Orchestra enhance your concert experience and help create a special evening for you and your guests.

• • • •

Corporate hospitality tickets include: Excellent front stall seats for the evening’s concert A complimentary concert programme for each guest A private cloakroom Access to a variety of pre-concert, interval and post-concert dining options including: — Opportunity to host guests in private function rooms within Royal Festival Hall — Access to the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s private Corporate Bar, where guests will have the opportunity to meet musicians and fellow concert-goers whilst enjoying Villa Maria fine wines, gourmet canapés and luxury Lindt chocolates — An exclusive reservation service at Skylon Restaurant (located within Royal Festival Hall) as a special guest of the Orchestra

• Opportunity to invite London Philharmonic Orchestra players, conductor and soloists to post-concert receptions.

Packages start from just £2,500 and a dedicated member of the our Corporate team will assist you in planning a perfect experience for your VIP guests. Corporate entertaining with the Orchestra is the ideal way to bring a new level of sophistication to your client events.

Supporting the Orchestra Corporate partnerships For more information on partnerships with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, please contact:

Phoebe Rouse Corporate Relations Manager 020 7840 4210 phoebe.rouse@lpo.org.uk

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has a rich assortment of packages, all of which can be perfectly customised to suit any business strategies. From supporting our education and community work as part of a corporate social responsibility strategy, through to private events with the Orchestra for those special company milestones, or sponsoring an overseas tour for international branding and business opportunities, the possibilities reach far beyond the London concert hall.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is a registered charity and corporate partnerships play a vital role in supporting our work both on and off the concert platform. Bring prestige to your brand and open up a wealth of opportunities for your business, your clients and your staff.

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Š Chris Christodoulou

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Supporting the Orchestra Join us Without his philanthropic patrons, Sir Thomas Beecham would never have founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Eight decades on the generosity of our members still helps us to deliver exciting performances with the world’s great artists and to enthuse and inspire the next generation of music lovers through education and community projects in London and beyond.

FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS (£50–£1,000)

To learn more about Friends, Benefactors and LPO Contemporaries please contact:

Elisenda Ayats Development Officer 020 7840 4225 elisenda.ayats@lpo.org.uk

For information on the Thomas Beecham Group please contact:

Nick Jackman Development Director 020 7840 4211 nick.jackman@lpo.org.uk

Our members enjoy flexible priority booking, open rehearsals, and regular news and updates. For those giving at the higher levels there is an annual programme of events including rehearsals and performances at Glyndebourne. We welcome our Friends to join us on concert evenings in a private bar at Royal Festival Hall. Benefactors are invited to join LPO musicians and staff in our Corporate Bar, where they can enjoy fine wines, canapés and stunning views of London.

LPO CONTEMPORARIES (from £150) LPO Contemporaries are dynamic Londoners in their 20s and 30s with a desire to become involved in London’s cultural life. This tailor-made programme is the perfect package for professionals with busy diaries seeking to enjoy music and the arts as part of an exclusive social group. Events include VIP evenings, Champagne Open Rehearsals, and parties at glamorous London venues.

LPO Contemporaries Subscription Series 2011/12: 7 October See Page 04 14 February See Page 36 18 April See Page 41

THOMAS BEECHAM GROUP Thomas Beecham Group members are encouraged to develop a bespoke and lasting association with the Orchestra through major supporting gifts from £3,000 and upwards. Amongst the benefits are the opportunity to join the Orchestra on tour, to endow a musician’s chair, and to enjoy a private recital by that player at your home. © Patrick Harrison

Supporting the Orchestra Willing them on For further information on legacy donations please contact:

Harriet Mesher Charitable Giving Manager 020 7840 4212 harriet.mesher@lpo.org.uk Find out more about supporting the orchestra by visiting:

www.lpo.org.uk/ support_the_lpo

Leaving a Legacy to the London Philharmonic Orchestra 2011 marks fifty years since the passing of musical visionary Sir Thomas Beecham, who left the London Philharmonic Orchestra as a legacy to future generations of music lovers. A charitable bequest may represent the culmination of a long-term relationship with the Orchestra or could be your very first gift. Either way, our team will be happy to talk you through the many options that exist to ensure that your donation works hard to make a difference.

Unrestricted gifts are used wherever the Orchestra needs them most – be that in commissioning new music, engaging the very best artists, or taking our performances around the world. You can also nominate specific areas for support, for example, endowing the chair of a principal musician, supporting education projects with disadvantaged young people, or having a concert dedicated to your memory.

Finally, a donation to the endowment fund would make a long term contribution to ensuring that Beecham’s own legacy is preserved and that the London Philharmonic Orchestra continues to enthral audiences with music of the highest quality for many years to come.

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Recordings Recent releases on the London Philharmonic Orchestra Label Live, studio and archive recordings from our catalogue are available at www.lpo.org.uk/shop, London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office (020 7840 4242, Monday–Friday 10.00am–5.00pm), all good retail outlets and Royal Festival Hall shop.

Downloads available from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, and classicsonline.com Have you seen our recordings catalogue?

For a full list of all our recordings so far, download the FREE London Philharmonic Orchestra catalogue at www.lpo.org.uk

Keep in touch with the London Philharmonic Orchestra • Get up-to-the-minute news and reviews • Glimpse behind the scenes of a world class orchestra • Receive exclusive previews of the latest LPO Label recordings • Share opinions and interact with players, staff and other audience members

Join us on Facebook facebook.com/ londonphilharmonicorchestra

Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/lporchestra

Subscribe to our Podcasts www.lpo.org.uk/podcasts

Engage with the LPO Blog londonphilharmonic.wordpress.com

Download the free iPhone App LPO-0047

Gramophone Magazine: Editor’s Choice

LPO-0048

www.lpo.org.uk/iphone The latest news, reviews and concerts direct to your phone

Booking information

London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk Monday to Friday 10.00am–5.00pm No transaction fee F 020 7840 4201

• • • • •

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.

Daily 9.00am–8.00pm (transaction fees apply) (transaction fees apply) In person at Royal Festival Hall Ticket Office Daily 10.00am–8.00pm (no transaction fee) For details of our privacy policy, please visit www.lpo.org.uk or call to request details All discounts are subject to availability and cannot be combined

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

Southbank Centre Ticket Office 0844 847 9920 www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Book more, pay less: series discounts

• • • • • • •

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 Discounted coach hire Customised free publicity material for your group.

Book now 020 7840 4205, www.lpo.org.uk/groups or groups@lpo.org.uk Monday to Friday 10.00am–5.00pm

STUDENT AND UNDER-26 NOISE SCHEMES If you are a full time student or under 26 you can get discounted tickets to selected London Philharmonic Orchestra concerts throughout the year. Several 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 www.lpo.org.uk/noise to get details of these fantastic offers!

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Information General information CAN I EXCHANGE MY TICKETS? You may exchange your tickets for another concert in the Orchestra’s 2011/12 season or a credit voucher provided we receive your unwanted tickets within two working days of the concert (please post to the Orchestra’s office address on the right hand side).

All tickets are non-refundable.

LIMITED CONCESSIONS 50% off all ticket prices for full-time students, benefit recipients (Jobseekers Allowance, Income Support, and Pension Credit) and under-16s (maximum 4 per transaction.

Not applicable to Family Concerts). Limited availability; appropriate cards 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 0844 847 9910 or visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk/access.

The auditoria are fitted with Sennheiser infrared systems. Receivers can be collected from the Cloakroom on Level 1 of Royal Festival Hall.

Royal Festival Hall has level access via internal lifts and ramps, and accessible toilets.

For further details please call 0844 847 9910.

Royal Festival Hall has wheelchair spaces in the boxes, choir seats, side and rear stalls of the auditorium.

Guide and companion dogs may be taken anywhere on site.

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 Position supported by Macquarie Group HRH The Duke of Kent KG Patron Vladimir Jurowski Principal Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin Principal Guest Conductor Pieter Schoeman Leader Julian Anderson Composer in Residence

T 020 7840 4200 F 020 7840 4201 Tickets 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

Information Getting to Southbank Centre NORTH

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

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By bus to Waterloo (stopping on Waterloo Bridge, York Road, Stamford Street and Belvedere Road). For detailed bus information call 0845 300 7000 or visit www.tfl.org.uk/buses Southbank Centre Car Park – Hayward Gallery (7am–1am daily)

RIVERSIDE ENTRANCE

FESTIVAL RIVERSIDE

ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL SOUTHBANK CENTRE SQUARE

RIVERSIDE TERRACE FESTIVAL PIER SOUTHBANK CENTRE CAR PARK THE HAYWARD

THE HAYWARD

QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL

ARTISTS’ ENTRANCE

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Southbank Centre Car Park – Belvedere Road (7am–1am daily)

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Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

Discounted rate after 5pm and also for patrons attending daytime, paid ticketed artistic events at Southbank Centre (Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery) who present their performance ticket and car park ticket at a Southbank Centre Ticket Office for validation. Parking enquiries: 020 7620 0357 or visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk/visitor-info Accessible parking is available in Southbank Centre Car Park – Hayward Gallery on a first-come, first-served basis. To collect your free exit voucher, please present your parking ticket and event ticket and Blue Badge at Queen Elizabeth Hall Artists’ Entrance or Royal Festival Hall Ticket Office.

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Seating information Evening Concerts Ticket prices

£9 £16 £27 £39

£12 £21 £33

Monday to Friday 10.00am–5.00pm (no transaction fee) F 020 7840 4201

Premium seats £65*

Ticket prices for 14 December (ESCHENBACH/FLEMING)

£12 £21 £33 £48

London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office Book now 020 7840 4242 www.lpo.org.uk

£16 £27 £39

Premium seats £75* *Premium seats 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.

Southbank Centre Ticket Office Book now 0844 847 9920 Daily 9.00am–8.00pm (transaction fees apply) All ticketing staff at Southbank Centre can take typetalk calls

www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Balcony

(transaction fees apply) In person at Royal Festival Hall Ticket Office Daily 10.00am–8.00pm (no transaction fee)

Boxes

Boxes Rear stalls

Front stalls

Side stalls

Side stalls Performance area

Choir seats

Seating information FUNharmonics Family Concerts Sunday 23 October Sunday 19 February Sunday 13 May

Balcony

Boxes

Boxes Rear stalls

Front stalls

Side stalls

Side stalls Performance area

Adult £10 Adult £12 Adult £14 Adult £16 Adult £18

Child £5 Child £6 Child £7 Child £8 Child £9

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Royal Festival Hall has wheelchair spaces in the boxes, choir seats, side and rear stalls of the auditorium.

Diary 2011

Wednesday 21 September MUSSORGSKY MUSSORGSKY (ORCH. ZIMMERMANN) RASKATOV ZIMMERMANN MUSSORGSKY (ORCH. RASKATOV) Vladimir Jurowski conductor Sergei Leiferkus baritone Saturday 24 September BEETHOVEN PINTSCHER LISZT SCRIABIN Vladimir Jurowski conductor Julia Fischer violin Igor Levit piano London Philharmonic Choir Lucy Carter lighting designer

Friday 7 October J STRAUSS II KORNGOLD TCHAIKOVSKY Vassily Sinaisky conductor Vadim Gluzman violin Wednesday 12 October WEBER MOZART SCHUBERT Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Aldo Ciccolini piano

Saturday 15 October BEETHOVEN ROSSINI Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Eri Nakamura soprano Ruxandra Donose mezzo soprano Ji-Min Park tenor Matthew Rose bass London Philharmonic Choir Wednesday 19 October MOZART TURNAGE R STRAUSS Markus Stenz conductor Lawrence Power viola Friday 21 October SIBELIUS BEETHOVEN BRAHMS Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Thomas Zehetmair violin Wednesday 26 October CHOPIN SHOSTAKOVICH Jaap van Zweden conductor Maria João Pires piano Friday 28 October R STRAUSS MOZART RACHMANINOV James Gaffigan conductor Paul Lewis piano

Concert texts Andrew Mellor Front cover image Patrick Harrison Back cover image Benjamin Ealovega Design Roundel www.roundel.com 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.

November

September

Wednesday 2 November BRAHMS BRUCKNER Christoph Eschenbach conductor Nicola Benedetti violin Leonard Elschenbroich cello Wednesday 16 November TCHAIKOVSKY BRUCKNER Osmo Vänskä conductor Janine Jansen violin Friday 25 November JOSÉ RODRIGO FALLA MUSSORGSKY (ORCH. RAVEL) Eduardo Portal conductor Craig Ogden guitar Wednesday 30 November Pintscher Beethoven Bruckner Vladimir Jurowski conductor Lars Vogt piano

December

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

October

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Saturday 3 December ANDERSON MOZART TCHAIKOVSKY Vladimir Jurowski conductor Janine Jansen violin Wednesday 14 December WAGNER R STRAUSS BEETHOVEN Christoph Eschenbach conductor Renée Fleming soprano

Wednesday 25 January PROKOFIEV Vladimir Jurowski conductor Leon Fleisher piano Saturday 28 January THE UNKNOWN PROKOFIEV 2.00pm Level 5 Function Room Royal Festival Hall Saturday 28 January PROKOFIEV Vladimir Jurowski conductor Ewa Podles contralto Andrey Breus baritone London Philharmonic Choir

Wednesday 8 February ˚ MARTINU LISZT ˇ ÁK DVOR Marin Alsop conductor Stephen Hough piano Friday 10 February KODÁLY CHOPIN ˇ ÁK DVOR Marin Alsop conductor Lukáš Vondrácˇek piano Tuesday 14/Friday 17 February RACHMANINOV KREISLER (ARR. RACHMANINOV/ ORCH. LEYTUSH) Neeme Järvi conductor Boris Giltburg piano Wednesday 22 February MOZART BRAHMS ZEMLINSKY SZYMANOWSKI Vladimir Jurowski conductor Joshua Bell violin Jeremy Ovenden tenor London Philharmonic Choir

March

Wednesday 28 March BARTÓK MAHLER Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Lisa Batiashvili violin

Friday 13 April MOZART BEETHOVEN ANDERSON STRAVINSKY Conductors from Allianz Cultural Foundation John Lill piano Wednesday 18 April SCHUMANN AHO BRAHMS Osmo Vänskä conductor Colin Currie percussion Saturday 28 April MESSIAEN BEETHOVEN TCHAIKOVSKY Yan Pascal Tortelier conductor Hong Xu piano

May

Saturday 21 January Royal College of Music PROKOFIEV Vladimir Jurowski conductor Kristina Blaumane cello Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

Saturday 4 February BRUCKNER Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Christine Brewer soprano Mihoko Fujimura mezzo soprano Toby Spence tenor Franz-Josef Selig bass London Philharmonic Choir

Saturday 24 March ANDERSON DELIUS ELGAR Sir Mark Elder conductor Roderick Williams baritone London Philharmonic Choir

Wednesday 2 May JANÁCˇEK ˇ ÁK DVOR SUK Vladimir Jurowski conductor Martin Helmchen piano London Philharmonic Choir

FUNharmonics

Wednesday 18 January PROKOFIEV Vladimir Jurowski conductor Steven Osborne piano

Wednesday 1 February PROKOFIEV Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Janine Jansen violin

April

Friday 13 January PROKOFIEV Alexander Vedernikov conductor Danjulo Ishizaka cello

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February

January

Diary 2012

FUNharmonics Family Concerts Sunday 23 October | 12.00pm The Nutcracker Sunday 19 February | 12.00pm The Jungle Book Sunday 13 May | 12.00pm The Cunning Little Vixen

The London Philharmonic Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the financial support of Arts Council England and Southbank Centre.