London Philharmonic Orchestra 4 November 2015 concert programme by London Philharmonic Orchestra

Concert programme 2015/16 London Season lpo.org.uk

Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor VLADIMIR JUROWSKI* Principal Guest Conductor ANDRÉS OROZCO-ESTRADA Leader PIETER SCHOEMAN† Composer in Residence MAGNUS LINDBERG Patron HRH THE DUKE OF KENT KG Chief Executive and Artistic Director TIMOTHY WALKER AM

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall Wednesday 4 November 2015 | 7.30pm

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor (34’) Interval Mahler Symphony No. 5 (72’) Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Paul Lewis piano

* supported by the Tsukanov Family Foundation † supported by Neil Westreich CONCERT PRESENTED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Contents 2 Welcome 3 On stage tonight 4 About the Orchestra 5 Leader: Pieter Schoeman 6 Jukka-Pekka Saraste 7 Paul Lewis 8 Programme notes 14 Sound Futures donors 15 Supporters 16 LPO administration

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

Welcome

Welcome to Southbank Centre We hope you enjoy your visit. We have a Duty Manager available at all times. If you have any queries please ask any member of staff for assistance. Eating, drinking and shopping? Southbank Centre shops and restaurants include Foyles, EAT, Giraffe, Strada, YO! Sushi, wagamama, Le Pain Quotidien, Las Iguanas, ping pong, Canteen, Caffè Vergnano 1882, Skylon, Feng Sushi and Topolski, as well as cafes, restaurants and shops inside Royal Festival Hall. If you wish to get in touch with us following your visit please contact the Visitor Experience Team at Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX, phone 020 7960 4250, or email customer@southbankcentre.co.uk We look forward to seeing you again soon. Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery are closed for essential refurbishment until 2017. During this period, our resident orchestras are performing in venues including St John's Smith Square. Find out more at southbankcentre.co.uk/sjss A few points to note for your comfort and enjoyment: PHOTOGRAPHY is not allowed in the auditorium. LATECOMERS will only be admitted to the auditorium if there is a suitable break in the performance. RECORDING is not permitted in the auditorium without the prior consent of Southbank Centre. Southbank Centre reserves the right to confiscate video or sound equipment and hold it in safekeeping until the performance has ended. MOBILES, PAGERS AND WATCHES should be switched off before the performance begins.

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London Philharmonic Orchestra 2015/16 season Welcome to Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Tonight's soloist Paul Lewis, performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, is known as a Beethoven pianist par excellence. Despite this, it's clearly not plain sailing: he describes the composer as being 'bloody-minded – it’s as if he’s saying, "I want to express this idea, and I don’t care about how awkward it is."' Our second work today is Mahler's Symphony No. 5 well-known for its searingly beautiful Adagietto. You can hear more Mahler on Wednesday 25 November at Royal Festival Hall when the Orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, leads Mahler's amazingly confident First Symphony of 1889. lpo.org.uk/whats-on-and-tickets

LPO podcasts Every month you can enjoy a new LPO podcast. The latest one is an edited version of the pre-concert talk given by composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki and the horn soloist Radovan Vlatković in which they discussed Penderecki’s Horn Concerto ‘Winterreise’ performed at Royal Festival Hall on 14 October. lpo.org.uk/podcasts/podcast-oct15.html

On stage tonight

First Violins Pieter Schoeman* Leader Chair supported by Neil Westreich

Ilyoung Chae Chair supported by an anonymous donor

Katalin Varnagy Chair supported by Sonja Drexler

Thomas Eisner Martin Höhmann Chair supported by The Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust

Geoffrey Lynn Chair supported by Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp

Robert Pool Sarah Streatfeild Yang Zhang Grace Lee Rebecca Shorrock Caroline Sharp Galina Tanney Caroline Frenkel Kate Cole John Dickinson Second Violins Dania Alzapiedi Guest Principal Kate Birchall Chair supported by David & Victoria Graham Fuller

Nancy Elan Fiona Higham Nynke Hijlkema Joseph Maher Marie-Anne Mairesse Ashley Stevens Tania Mazzetti Dean Williamson Sioni Williams Harry Kerr Elizabeth Baldey Stephen Stewart

Violas Przemyslaw Pujanek Guest Principal Robert Duncan Gregory Aronovich Susanne Martens Benedetto Pollani Laura Vallejo Daniel Cornford Sarah Malcolm Martin Fenn Rebecca Carrington Emma Sheppard Richard Cookson Cellos Kristina Blaumane Principal Chair supported by Bianca and Stuart Roden

Pei-Jee Ng Co-Principal Francis Bucknall Laura Donoghue Santiago Carvalho† David Lale Gregory Walmsley Elisabeth Wiklander Chair supported by The Viney Family

Sue Sutherley Susanna Riddell Double Basses Kevin Rundell* Principal Tim Gibbs Co-Principal Laurence Lovelle Tom Walley Kenneth Knussen Helen Rowlands Charlotte Kerbegian Ben Wolstenholme

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

Flutes Paola Bonora Guest Principal Sue Thomas*

Gareth Mollison Duncan Fuller Jason Koczur Trumpets Paul Beniston* Principal Anne McAneney*

Chair supported by Victoria Robey OBE

Stewart McIlwham Hannah Grayson

Chair supported by Geoff & Meg Mann

Piccolos Stewart McIlwham* Principal

Nicholas Betts Co-Principal Robin Totterdell John MacDomnic

Chair supported by Friends of the Orchestra

Trombones Mark Templeton* Principal

Hannah Grayson Oboes Ian Hardwick* Principal Alice Munday Sue Böhling

Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton

David Whitehouse Bass Trombone Lyndon Meredith Principal

Cor Anglais Sue Böhling* Principal

Tuba Lee Tsarmaklis* Principal

Clarinets Robert Hill* Principal Thomas Watmough Paul Richards

Timpani Simon Carrington* Principal Percussion Andrew Barclay* Principal

E-flat Clarinet Thomas Watmough Principal

Chair supported by Andrew Davenport

Bass Clarinet Paul Richards Principal

Henry Baldwin Co-Principal

Bassoons Gareth Newman Principal Laura Vincent Simon Estell

Keith Millar Karen Hutt

Contrabassoon Simon Estell Principal Horns David Pyatt* Principal Chair supported by Simon Robey

Chair supported by Jon Claydon

Harp Rachel Masters* Principal * Holds a professorial appointment in London † Chevalier of the Brazilian Order of Rio Branco

John Ryan* Principal Chair supported by Laurence Watt

Martin Hobbs Mark Vines Co-Principal

Meet our members: lpo.org.uk/players

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 3

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski produced one of those utterly compelling performances where the London Philharmonic Orchestra seemed to be playing as if their lives depended on it. Bachtrack, September 2015 (4 Stars) Recognised today as one of the finest orchestras on the international stage, the London Philharmonic Orchestra balances a long and distinguished history with a reputation as one of the UK’s most forwardlooking ensembles. As well as its performances in the concert hall, the Orchestra also records film and video game soundtracks, releases CDs on its own record label, and reaches thousands of people every year through activities for families, schools and community groups. The Orchestra was founded by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1932. It has since been headed by many of the world’s greatest conductors including Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. Vladimir Jurowski is currently the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, appointed in 2007. Andrés Orozco-Estrada took up the position of Principal Guest Conductor in September 2015. Magnus Lindberg is the Orchestra’s current Composer in Residence. The Orchestra is resident at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London, where it gives over 30 concerts each season. Throughout 2014/15 the Orchestra gave a series of concerts entitled Rachmaninoff: Inside Out, a festival exploring the composer’s major orchestral

4 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

masterpieces. 2015/16 is a strong year for singers, with performances by Toby Spence and Anne Sofie von Otter amongst others; Sibelius enjoys 150th anniversary celebrations; distinguished visiting conductors include Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Vasily Petrenko, with Robin Ticciati returning after his debut in 2015; and in 2016 the LPO joins many of London’s other leading cultural institutions in Shakespeare400, celebrating the Bard’s legacy 400 years since his death. The Orchestra continues its commitment to new music with premieres of commissions including Magnus Lindberg’s Second Violin Concerto, and works by Alexander Raskatov and Marc-André Dalbavie. Outside London, the Orchestra has flourishing residencies in Brighton and Eastbourne, and performs regularly around the UK. Each summer the Orchestra takes up its annual residency at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in the Sussex countryside, where it has been Resident Symphony Orchestra for over 50 years. The Orchestra also tours internationally, performing to sell-out audiences worldwide. In 1956 it became the first British orchestra to appear in Soviet Russia and in 1973 made the first ever visit to China by a

Pieter Schoeman leader

Pieter Schoeman was appointed Leader of the LPO in 2008, having previously been Co-Leader since 2002.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has recorded the soundtracks to numerous blockbuster films, from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to Lawrence of Arabia, East is East, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Thor: The Dark World. It also broadcasts regularly on television and radio, and in 2005 established its own record label. There are now over 80 releases available on CD and to download. Recent additions include Vaughan Williams’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 conducted by Stanisław Skrowaczewski and Messiaen’s Des Canyons Aux Étoiles. In summer 2012 the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed as part of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames, and was also chosen to record all the world’s national anthems for the London 2012 Olympics. In 2013 it was the winner of the RPS Music Award for Ensemble. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians through an energetic programme of activities for young people. Highlights include the BrightSparks schools’ concerts and FUNharmonics family concerts; the Young Composers Programme; and the Foyle Future Firsts orchestral training programme for outstanding young players. Its work at the forefront of digital engagement and social media has enabled the Orchestra to reach even more people worldwide: all its recordings are available to download from iTunes and, as well as a YouTube channel and regular podcast series, the Orchestra has a lively presence on Facebook and Twitter. Find out more and get involved! lpo.org.uk facebook.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra twitter.com/LPOrchestra

Western orchestra. Touring remains a large part of the Orchestra’s life: highlights of the 2015/16 season include visits to Mexico City as part of the UK Mexico Year of Culture, Spain, Germany, Canary Islands, Belgium, a return to the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and the Orchestra’s premiere at La Scala, Milan.

Born in South Africa, he made his solo debut aged 10 with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. He studied with Jack de Wet in South Africa, winning numerous competitions including the 1984 World Youth Concerto Competition in the US. In 1987 he was offered the Heifetz Chair of Music scholarship to study with Eduard Schmieder in Los Angeles and in 1991 his talent was spotted by Pinchas Zukerman, who recommended that he move to New York to study with Sylvia Rosenberg. In 1994 he became her teaching assistant at Indiana University, Bloomington. Pieter has performed worldwide as a soloist and recitalist in such famous halls as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Moscow’s Rachmaninov Hall, Capella Hall in St Petersburg, Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. As a chamber musician he regularly performs at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall. As a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Pieter has performed Arvo Pärt’s Double Concerto with Boris Garlitsky, Brahms’s Double Concerto with Kristina Blaumane, and Britten’s Double Concerto with Alexander Zemtsov, which was recorded and released on the Orchestra’s own record label to great critical acclaim. He has recorded numerous violin solos with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos, Opera Rara, Naxos, X5, the BBC and for American film and television, and led the Orchestra in its soundtrack recordings for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In 1995 Pieter became Co-Leader of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice. Since then he has appeared frequently as Guest Leader with the Barcelona, Bordeaux, Lyon, Baltimore and BBC symphony orchestras, and the Rotterdam and BBC Philharmonic orchestras. He is a Professor of Violin at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. Pieter’s chair in the London Philharmonic Orchestra is supported by Neil Westreich.

youtube.com/londonphilharmonic7

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 5

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor

Saraste assumes full risk here, chasing the orchestra into a trapeze act without a net … much ventured, much gained!

Die Presse, February 2015

Jukka-Pekka Saraste has established himself as one of the leading conductors of his generation, demonstrating remarkable musical depth and integrity. Born in Heinola, Finland, he began his career as a violinist before training as a conductor with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He has served as Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne since 2010. His previous positions include Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (2006–13), as well as the principal conductorships of the Scottish Chamber, Finnish Radio Symphony and Toronto Symphony orchestras. He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He founded the Finnish Chamber Orchestra and the orchestra's annual Tammisaari Festival, for which he is Artistic Director. As guest conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste has led many international major orchestras, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Orchestre de Paris, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco symphony orchestras, as well as the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonic orchestras. His extensive discography includes the complete symphonies of Sibelius and Nielsen with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He has also made a number of critically acclaimed recordings for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. His recordings with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne with works by Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Brahms have received widespread praise.

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Saraste has received the Pro Finlandia Prize, the Sibelius Medal, and the Finnish State Prize for Music. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from York University, Toronto, and recently, an honorary doctorate from the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. Strong will and experience in music are a conductor’s most important qualities. It takes a kind of general talent and ideal personality to become a leader of an orchestra. A conductor has to master an instrument, he needs to have experience in playing in an orchestra and education in conducting. There’s a bond between the conductor and the orchestra which may be described as a kind of telepathy. In order to convince the musicians, the conductor must have a strong conviction of the work. Jukka-Pekka Saraste, taken from the book Kapellimestari by Pekka Tarkka & Jukka-Pekka Saraste, published by Siltala 2009

jukkapekkasaraste.com

Paul Lewis

piano

There are many prized recordings of the Beethoven sonatas from past masters and current artists. But if I had to recommend a single complete set, I would suggest Mr Lewis’s distinguished recordings. Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

Paul Lewis is internationally regarded as one of the leading musicians of his generation. His numerous awards have included the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year, two Edison awards, three Gramophone awards, the Diapason D'or de l'Année, the Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana, and the South Bank Show Classical Music award. In 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Southampton. He performs regularly as soloist with the world's great orchestras and is a frequent guest at the most prestigious international festivals, including Lucerne, Mostly Mozart (New York), Tanglewood, Schubertiade, Salzburg, Edinburgh, and London’s BBC Proms where in 2010 he became the first pianist to perform the complete Beethoven piano concerto cycle in one season. His recital career takes him to venues such as London's Royal Festival Hall, Alice Tully and Carnegie Hall in New York, Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Berlin Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, Tonhalle Zurich, Palau de la Música Barcelona, Symphony Hall Chicago, Oji Hall in Tokyo and Melbourne’s Recital Centre.

Paul Lewis studied with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel. He and his wife, cellist Bjørg Lewis, share artistic directorship of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival in Buckinghamshire, UK. Paul Lewis grew up in a home where the most sophisticated musical device was an electronic organ with a one-octave range. 'There wasn’t really any music at home at all,' he says in a slightly bemused tone. 'Occasionally, my dad would play one of his John Denver records, but that was about it, really ... I grew up in Liverpool, and in the '70s there were still proper public music libraries with big record collections. We had one just round the corner, and I spent most of my life there, picking out the piano records. I really loved Wilhelm Kempf and also Alfred Brendel. Taken from an Interview with Ivan Hewett for The Telegraph

paullewispiano.co.uk/media.aspx Paul Lewis delves into the Beethoven concertos

His extensive discography for Harmonia Mundi includes solo works by Mussorgsky and Schumann, the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, concertos, and all of Schubert’s major piano works from the last six years of his life, including the three song cycles with tenor Mark Padmore. Future releases include the Brahms D minor Piano Concerto with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding.

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Programme notes

Speedread Over 100 years after their composer’s death, and despite a slow first few decades, Mahler’s symphonies have never been higher in the public esteem – indeed they are now a ubiquitous presence on the concert scene. The complex, sometimes bafflingly contradictory Fifth, cherished for its famously beautiful Adagietto, is among the most frequently performed of all of them.

Ludwig van Beethoven 1770–1827

By the time Beethoven published his first two, distinctly Mozartian, piano concertos in 1801, he had long been at work on their successor, a piece he claimed was at ‘a new and higher level’. Yet it was not until April 1803 that he premiered it at a concert in Vienna which also included the first performances of the Second Symphony and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives. The concert was a moderate success, but even those critics who observed only that Beethoven’s playing was rather disappointing must have noticed that the concerto was a more sophisticated, original and weighty piece than its predecessors. Indeed, it is a work that clearly reflects the changes occurring in the composer’s style as he moved from early-period promise and brilliance to middle-period mastery and increasing individuality. Beethoven’s musical personality is stamped all over the Third Piano Concerto, most unmistakably in its choice of key. Almost from the beginning of his composing career, Beethoven had turned to C minor to express some of his stormiest sentiments, and by the time of this concerto 8 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

Beethoven’s piano concertos have always been popular, with the Third being perhaps the most personable and endearing, as befits a work in which the composer at once acknowledged his Mozartian concerto inheritance and for the first time found his true artistic voice in the genre.

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor Paul Lewis piano 1 Allegro con brio 2 Largo 3 Rondo: Allegro

he had already written several powerful and heroic works in that key, including the famous Pathétique Piano Sonata. Ironically, the inspiration for this most recognisable of Beethovenian emotional colourings was probably Mozart, whose C minor Fantasy and Sonata for solo piano (K475/457) and Piano Concerto No. 24, K491, provide clear anticipations of Beethoven’s C minor mood. Mozart’s concerto, a work Beethoven is known to have admired, also appears to have provided some formal pointers. That model is acknowledged in the opening bars, where, as in the Mozart, a quiet theme is stated by the strings in unison. This is the start of what turns out to be an unusually long orchestral introduction, but after an assertive entry it is the soloist who delineates the movement’s formal scheme, as climactic trills and precipitous downward scales noisily signal the respective arrivals of the central development section (characterised by meltingly flowing piano octaves and a deliciously exotic G minor statement of the opening theme), the vital return to the opening theme in the

home key, and the tumultuous preparation for the solo cadenza. Normally in a concerto of this date, the soloist would not play after the cadenza leaving it instead to the orchestra to wrap up the first movement; Beethoven, taking his lead again from Mozart, brings it back to be the prompter of an atmospheric coda. The slow movement contains what is perhaps the most dramatically effective moment in the whole Concerto, and it comes in the very opening piano chord. Beethoven was always an adventurous explorer of key relationships, but to pitch this meditative Largo in E major, thereby sending the music in a moment into a distant and rarefied realm is a coup de théâtre which will touch even those who think they know nothing of keys and harmonies. The music itself has a summer

afternoon drowsiness and warmth which puts one in mind of the Pastoral Symphony, its loving nature epitomised by the central section’s piano arpeggios, caressingly accompanying a drawn-out dialogue between flute and bassoon. The work ends with a Rondo, joyfully returning us to C minor, though not without a few diversions, including an episode resembling a Mozart wind serenade, a short fugue, and another typically toe-warming Beethovenian key-shift as the main theme briefly re-acquaints us with the world of E major. Finally, with the end in sight and the listener thinking there can be no more surprises, a grand piano flourish heralds a switch to C major, and a cheekily altered-rhythm version of the theme to finish.

Interval – 20 minutes An announcement will be made five minutes before the end of the interval.

INTERNATI O N A L

PI A NO S ERIES 2015/16

Tue 12 Jan 2016

Wed 3 Feb 2016

Fri 11 Mar 2016

Tue 26 Apr 2016

Wed 25 May 2016

Lukas Geniušas Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók and Prokofiev

Steven Osborne Schubert, Debussy and Rachmaninov

Mitsuko Uchida Berg, Schubert, Mozart and Schumann

Richard Goode Schubert’s last three sonatas

Tue 26 Jan 2016

Tue 23 FeB 2016

Chopin Competition Winner 2015’s winner plays Chopin

Thu 28 Apr 2016

Wed 8 Jun 2016

Jean-Effl am Bavouzet Beethoven’s last three sonatas

Maurizio Pollini Schumann and Chopin

Katia and Marielle Labèque Sisters – moments from a shared musical life

Imogen Cooper Schumann, Wagner and Liszt

FRI 26 Feb 2016 Tamara Stefanovich Copland, Carter and Ives

SERIES SAVINGS: Book 3 – 4 concerts and save 10% Book 5 or more concerts and save 20%

Wed 6 Apr 2016 Ingrid Fliter An all-Chopin programme including the 24 Preludes Tue 19 Apr 2016 Yundi The piano superstar returns

Wed 11 May 2016 Paul Lewis Brahms, Schubert and Liszt

The home of classical music

Concerts take place in Royal Festival Hall and at St John’s Smith Square.

southbankcentre.co.uk/piano 0844 847 9929

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 9

Programme notes continued

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

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

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

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

Wherein does that greatness lie? Well, part of Mahler’s achievement was to take the idea of the programmatic symphony and infuse it with the intense expressiveness of Wagner. The ‘programmes’ for his symphonies were more emotional trajectories than spelt-out narratives – and Mahler did not consider 10 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

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

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 5

1860–1911

Part I Trauermarsch: In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt [Funeral March: At a measured pace. Strict. Like a cortège] Stürmisch bewegt. Mit grösster Vehemenz [Tempestuously. With utmost vehemence] Part II Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell [Sturdy, not too fast] Part III Adagietto: Sehr langsam [Very slow] Rondo-Finale: Allegro – Allegro giocoso ‘My dear friend’, Mahler once told his friend and conducting protégé Bruno Walter, ‘I used to possess certainty, but I lost it again. I will regain it tomorrow and lose it once more the day after.’ Changeableness and inner conflict are indeed important facets of Mahler’s creative personality, but perhaps few of his works so consistently leave us unsure of what is to come next, of where the overall trajectory is taking us, as does the Fifth Symphony. This is not to say that its separate messages are unclear: Mahler composed the work at his off-season retreat by the Wörthersee lake in the summers of 1901 and 1902, and the world of nature is present, almost overwhelmingly so, in the third movement Scherzo. But the period of the Fifth’s composition also brought two hugely significant events in Mahler’s life in the form of his first personal brush with mortality thanks to a near-fatal haemorrhage in February 1901, and his marriage to Alma Schindler (by then already pregnant with their first child) in March 1902, and so it is that death, marital love and

exuberant joy are also major presences here. Yet unlike Mahler’s other symphonies, this one does not mould these elements into some smoothly observable spiritual journey; rather, the Fifth forces them to jostle side-by-side in an almost schizophrenic work in which, as the great Mahler commentator Deryck Cooke has described, ‘the most tragic and the most joyful worlds of feeling are separated from one another entirely, and only bound together by Mahler’s unmistakable personality and his command of large-scale symphonic construction.’ One of the benefits of Mahler’s strong structural grip was that it gave him the confidence to approach every one of his symphonies on its own architectural terms. The Fifth Symphony employs a unique format in which five movements are grouped into three parts, a long central Scherzo being framed by two pairs of movements, each of which in turn is based on shared material, as if deliberately presenting alternative treatments of the same subject. Further unity is provided by the reappearance of material from the second movement at the climax of the Fifth. The symphony begins with a movement with the unequivocal title of ‘Funeral March’, in which attempts to climb towards optimistic expression are weighed down by a combination of sheer gravity and the fateful rhythm stated in the trumpet’s first notes. Soon after the opening fanfares a yearning string melody makes an appearance, eventually winning for itself a lyrical extension, but just as that seems to be attaining a measure of peace it is snuffed out, this time by its own nightmarish transformation into a cruel whirling dance. London Philharmonic Orchestra | 11

Programme notes continued

After this episode the music winds down again. At the point when the march has been reduced to a muffled timpani beat there is a second new episode derived from the string melody, but it is in a mood of sombre quiet that the movement ends.

intellectual effort: ‘The apparent confusion must, as in a Gothic cathedral, be resolved into the highest order and harmony,’ he wrote to a friend. ‘It is kneaded through and through until not a grain of the mixture remains unmixed and unchanged.’

The second movement shatters the mood in an instant. Stormy and impetuous, it nevertheless contains slower sections based on material from the first movement, in particular its two contrasted episodes. The climax comes when a brass chorale melody briefly shines out to offer hopes of victory, but no sooner has it got going in earnest than it begins to subside and the stormy music returns. Clearly the battle is not won yet, and as the music draws to an uncertain close with a final reminder of the first movement, we feel as if we are on a knife-edge.

The third and final section of the Symphony begins with what has become one of Mahler’s most celebrated creations. The association of the Adagietto in many people’s minds with a Mahler-lookalike Aschenbach expiring in a deckchair in Luchino Visconti’s ravishing film Death in Venice is ironic, for this is one Mahler work that is very definitely not about death. In fact it is love music of the purest kind, offered by the composer to Alma soon after their meeting as a wordless declaration which, apparently, she well understood. The Mahlers’ marriage did not always run smoothly, but nine years later when Gustav was working on the finale of the Tenth Symphony in the wake of Alma’s recent infidelity, he recalled the tender atmosphere of this Adagietto, and with it the memory of their early years together.

I love the strictness of the form of the Fifth Symphony. It’s just so symphonic. Mahler puts this enormous statement at the beginning, this trumpet fanfare with Beethoven-like rhythmic motifs, and then how it develops – from this incredible anxiety to a positive and joyful finale – is like a classical symphony extended to the 20th century. The finale is like Beethoven Nine, it’s so uplifting. It’s almost like a paradox that it’s so positive. Jukka-Pekka Saraste, taken from article in the Autumn/Winter 2015 edition of LPO's Tune In magazine

Part II is the Scherzo, a title justified by its dance-like character somewhere between a waltz and a ländler, and by a clear-cut formal use of repetition which links it to the minuets and scherzos of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Led by a jaunty solo horn, its atmosphere is apparently that of the outdoors, of the forest, field and mountain, and on an early draft Mahler indicated that it could be taken to represent ‘a world without gravity’ (the German word he used for gravity, Schwere, carries a double-meaning similar to that of its English equivalent). Being Mahler, however, it is never as simple as that. True, it has a bouyancy absent from the heavy-legged first part of the symphony, but few could feel that this is an entirely carefree movement. The first of the five to be written, it is also an intricately detailed piece of work that cost the composer much

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Part III Rondo opens with some chirpy calls to attention, before launching into a giant final movement, which combines elements of sonata and rondo forms and features a lopingly bucolic main theme. As in Part I there are cross-references to the previous movement, most clearly in a suave transformation of its string melody, but a new element is also introduced in the form of passages of busy fugal counterpoint. As the momentum builds towards the end, all sorts of fragments of themes we have heard are reshaped and thrown together, until at last the brass chorale, which never quite made it into the sun in the second movement, bursts out in full splendour. This time it cannot be stopped, the mood is triumphant at last, and a joyous celebratory coda hastens the music to an exhilarating finish. Programme notes © Lindsay Kemp

More Mahler with the LPO at Royal Festival Hall

Recommended recordings of tonight’s works Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 Alfred Brendel | Vienna Philharmonic | Sir Simon Rattle [Philips, part of the complete box set of Beethoven piano concertos] Artur Schnabel | London Philharmonic Orchestra | Malcolm Sargent [Naxos Historical, 1933 recording] Mahler: Symphony No. 5 London Philharmonic Orchestra | Klaus Tennstedt [EMI Classic B00000DNM6, live recording from Royal Festival Hall]

LPO Principal Guest Conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada

Wednesday 25 November 2015 7.30pm Dvořák Cello Concerto Mahler Symphony No. 1 Andrés Orozco-Estrada conductor Johannes Moser cello As Andrés Orozco-Estrada points out, Mahler knew at first-hand what a conductor needed from a score – and he provided it in spades. ‘My present to myself at Christmas 1997 was a score of Mahler’s First, and I was amazed by the German instructions he’d written all over the music’ he recalls. ‘There were just so many words - not only musical terms, but even how to conduct: saying where you need to beat in 8 or in 4, which melody or counter-melody to bring out. I started translating them all, but it was only a pocket score, so before long I’d covered the entire thing in Post-It® notes! I thought, this is a composer and a conductor in one.’ Taken from the article in the Autumn/Winter 2015 edition of LPO's Tune In magazine Tickets £9–£39 (premium seats £65) London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office: 020 7840 4242 | Monday–Friday 10.00am–5.00pm lpo.org.uk | Transaction fees: £1.75 online, £2.75 phone

LPO release The latest release on the LPO label is a live BBC recording by the late great Klaus Tennstedt, the Orchestra's Principal Conductor from 1983 to 1987, in a performance of Beethoven's Coriolan Overture and powerful Symphony No. 5. 'Nobody listens to Beethoven quite like Klaus Tennstedt,' wrote Hilary Finch in The Times in 1992, 'and, because he listens so acutely, his orchestra must, and we in the audience do as well. The dark glass of familiarity is swept aside and we meet the composer face to face.’ The recording is available as a CD and download, priced £6.99, number LPO-0087. lpo.org.uk/recordings

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SOUND FUTURES DONORS We are grateful to the following donors for their generous contributions to our Sound Futures campaign. Thanks to their support, we successfully raised £1 million by 30 April 2015 which has now been matched pound for pound by Arts Council England through a Catalyst Endowment grant. This has enabled us to create a £2 million endowment fund supporting special artistic projects, creative programming and education work with key venue partners including our Southbank Centre home. Supporters listed below donated £500 or over. For a full list of those who have given to this campaign please visit lpo.org.uk/soundfutures. Masur Circle Arts Council England Dunard Fund Victoria Robey OBE Emmanuel & Barrie Roman The Underwood Trust

The Rothschild Foundation Tom & Phillis Sharpe The Viney Family

Haitink Patrons Mark & Elizabeth Adams Dr Christopher Aldren Welser-Möst Circle Mrs Pauline Baumgartner William & Alex de Winton Lady Jane Berrill John Ireland Charitable Trust Mr Frederick Brittenden The Tsukanov Family Foundation David & Yi Yao Buckley Neil Westreich Mr Clive Butler Gill & Garf Collins Tennstedt Circle Mr John H Cook Valentina & Dmitry Aksenov Mr Alistair Corbett Richard Buxton Bruno de Kegel The Candide Trust Georgy Djaparidze Michael & Elena Kroupeev David Ellen Kirby Laing Foundation Christopher Fraser OBE & Lisa Fraser Mr & Mrs Makharinsky David & Victoria Graham Fuller Alexey & Anastasia Reznikovich Goldman Sachs International Simon Robey Mr Gavin Graham Bianca & Stuart Roden Moya Greene Simon & Vero Turner Mrs Dorothy Hambleton The late Mr K Twyman Tony & Susie Hayes Solti Patrons Malcolm Herring Ageas Catherine Høgel & Ben Mardle John & Manon Antoniazzi Mrs Philip Kan Gabor Beyer, through BTO Rehmet Kassim-Lakha de Morixe Management Consulting AG Rose & Dudley Leigh Jon Claydon Lady Roslyn Marion Lyons Mrs Mina Goodman & Miss Miss Jeanette Martin Suzanne Goodman Duncan Matthews QC Roddy & April Gow Diana & Allan Morgenthau The Jeniffer & Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust Charitable Trust Dr Karen Morton Mr James R.D. Korner Mr Roger Phillimore Christoph Ladanyi & Dr Sophia Ruth Rattenbury Ladanyi-Czernin The Reed Foundation Robert Markwick & Kasia Robinski The Rind Foundation The Maurice Marks Charitable Trust Sir Bernard Rix Mr Paris Natar David Ross & Line Forestier (Canada)

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Carolina & Martin Schwab Dr Brian Smith Lady Valerie Solti Mr & Mrs G Stein Dr Peter Stephenson Miss Anne Stoddart TFS Loans Limited Lady Marina Vaizey Jenny Watson Guy & Utti Whittaker Pritchard Donors Ralph & Elizabeth Aldwinckle Mrs Arlene Beare Mr Patrick & Mrs Joan Benner Mr Conrad Blakey Dr Anthony Buckland Paul Collins Alastair Crawford Mr Derek B. Gray Mr Roger Greenwood The HA.SH Foundation Darren & Jennifer Holmes Honeymead Arts Trust Mr Geoffrey Kirkham Drs Frank & Gek Lim Peter Mace Mr & Mrs David Malpas Dr David McGibney Michael & Patricia McLaren-Turner Mr & Mrs Andrew Neill Mr Christopher Queree The Rosalyn & Nicholas Springer Charitable Trust Timothy Walker AM Christopher Williams Peter Wilson Smith Mr Anthony Yolland And all other donors who wish to remain anonymous

We would like to acknowledge the generous support of the following Thomas Beecham Group Patrons, Principal Benefactors and Benefactors: Thomas Beecham Group The Tsukanov Family Foundation Neil Westreich William and Alex de Winton Mrs Philip Kan* Simon Robey Victoria Robey OBE Bianca & Stuart Roden Laurence Watt Anonymous Jon Claydon Garf & Gill Collins* Andrew Davenport Mrs Sonja Drexler David & Victoria Graham Fuller The Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust Mr & Mrs Makharinsky Geoff & Meg Mann Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp Julian & Gill Simmonds* Eric Tomsett The Viney Family John & Manon Antoniazzi Jane Attias John & Angela Kessler Guy & Utti Whittaker * BrightSparks Patrons: instead of supporting a chair in the Orchestra, these donors have chosen to support our series of schools’ concerts.

Principal Benefactors Mark & Elizabeth Adams David & Yi Yao Buckley Desmond & Ruth Cecil Mr John H Cook David Ellen Mr Daniel Goldstein Drs Frank & Gek Lim Peter MacDonald Eggers Dr Eva Lotta & Mr Thierry Sciard Mr & Mrs David Malpas Mr & Mrs G Stein Mr & Mrs John C Tucker Mr & Mrs John & Susi Underwood Lady Marina Vaizey Grenville & Krysia Williams Mr Anthony Yolland Benefactors Mr Geoffrey Bateman Mrs A Beare Ms Molly Borthwick David & Patricia Buck Mrs Alan Carrington Mr & Mrs Stewart Cohen Mr Alistair Corbett Mr Bruno de Kegel Mr David Edgecombe Mr Timothy Fancourt QC Mr Richard Fernyhough Wim and Jackie Hautekiet-Clare Tony & Susan Hayes Mr Daniel Heaf and Ms Amanda Hill Michael & Christine Henry Malcolm Herring

J. Douglas Home Ivan Hurry Mr Glenn Hurstfield Per Jonsson Mr Gerald Levin Wg. Cdr. & Mrs M T Liddiard OBE JP RAF Paul & Brigitta Lock Mr Peter Mace Ms Ulrike Mansel Mr Brian Marsh Andrew T Mills Dr Karen Morton Mr & Mrs Andrew Neill Mr Michael Posen Alexey & Anastasia Reznikovich Mr Konstantin Sorokin Martin and Cheryl Southgate Mr Peter Tausig Simon and Charlotte Warshaw Howard & Sheelagh Watson Des & Maggie Whitelock Christopher Williams Bill Yoe and others who wish to remain anonymous Hon. Benefactor Elliott Bernerd Hon. Life Members Kenneth Goode Carol Colburn Grigor CBE Pehr G Gyllenhammar Mrs Jackie Rosenfeld OBE

The generosity of our Sponsors, Corporate Members, supporters and donors is gratefully acknowledged: Corporate Members Silver: Accenture Berenberg Carter-Ruck We are AD Bronze: Appleyard & Trew LLP BTO Management Consulting AG Charles Russell Speechlys Lazard Leventis Overseas Preferred Partners Corinthia Hotel London Heineken Sipsmith Steinway Villa Maria In-kind Sponsors Google Inc

rusts and Foundations Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation The Bernarr Rainbow Trust The Boltini Trust Borletti-Buitoni Trust The Candide Trust Cockayne – Grants for the Arts The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust Dunard Fund The Equitable Charitable Trust The Foyle Foundation Lucille Graham Trust The Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust Help Musicians UK The Idlewild Trust Kirby Laing Foundation The Leche Trust The London Community Foundation London Stock Exchange Group Foundation Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust Marsh Christian Trust Adam Mickiewicz Institute The Peter Minet Trust

The Ann and Frederick O’Brien Charitable Trust Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain in London The Austin and Hope Pilkington Trust The Stanley Picker Trust The Radcliffe Trust Rivers Foundation The R K Charitable Trust RVW Trust Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation The David Solomons Charitable Trust Souter Charitable Trust The John Thaw Foundation The Tillett Trust UK Friends of the Felix-MendelssohnBartholdy-Foundation The Viney Family Garfield Weston Foundation The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust and all others who wish to remain anonymous

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Administration Board of Directors Victoria Robey OBE Chairman Stewart McIlwham* President Gareth Newman* Vice-President Dr Manon Antoniazzi Roger Barron Richard Brass Desmond Cecil CMG Jonathan Harris CBE FRICS Amanda Hill Dr Catherine C. Høgel Rachel Masters* George Peniston* Kevin Rundell* Natasha Tsukanova Mark Vines* Timothy Walker AM Laurence Watt Neil Westreich David Whitehouse* * Player-Director Advisory Council Victoria Robey OBE Chairman Christopher Aldren Richard Brass David Buckley Sir Alan Collins KCVO CMG Andrew Davenport Jonathan Dawson William de Winton Edward Dolman Christopher Fraser OBE Lord Hall of Birkenhead CBE Rehmet Kassim-Lakha Jamie Korner Clive Marks OBE FCA Stewart McIlwham Sir Bernard Rix Baroness Shackleton Lord Sharman of Redlynch OBE Thomas Sharpe QC Julian Simmonds Martin Southgate Sir Philip Thomas Sir John Tooley Chris Viney Timothy Walker AM Elizabeth Winter American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Inc. Jenny Ireland Co-Chairman William A. Kerr Co-Chairman Kyung-Wha Chung Alexandra Jupin Dr. Felisa B. Kaplan Jill Fine Mainelli Kristina McPhee Dr. Joseph Mulvehill Harvey M. Spear, Esq. Danny Lopez Hon. Chairman Noel Kilkenny Hon. Director Victoria Robey OBE Hon. Director Richard Gee, Esq Of Counsel Jenifer L. Keiser, CPA, EisnerAmper LLP Stephanie Yoshida

Chief Executive

Education and Community

Digital Projects

Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director

Isabella Kernot Education Director (maternity leave)

Alison Atkinson Digital Projects Director

Amy Sugarman PA to the Chief Executive / Administrative Assistant

Clare Lovett Education Director (maternity cover)

Finance

Talia Lash Education and Community Project Manager

Albion Media (Tel: 020 3077 4930)

Lucy Duffy Education and Community Project Manager

Philip Stuart Discographer

David Burke General Manager and Finance Director David Greenslade Finance and IT Manager Dayse Guilherme Finance Officer

Richard Mallett Education and Community Producer

Concert Management

Development

Roanna Gibson Concerts Director

Nick Jackman Development Director

Graham Wood Concerts and Recordings Manager

Catherine Faulkner Development Events Manager

Jenny Chadwick Tours Manager Tamzin Aitken Glyndebourne and UK Engagements Manager Alison Jones Concerts and Recordings Co-ordinator

Kathryn Hageman Individual Giving Manager Laura Luckhurst Corporate Relations Manager Anna Quillin Trusts and Foundations Manager Rebecca Fogg Development Co-ordinator

Jo Cotter Tours Co-ordinator

Helen Yang Development Assistant

Orchestra Personnel

Kirstin Peltonen Development Associate

Andrew Chenery Orchestra Personnel Manager Sarah Holmes Sarah Thomas Librarians (job-share) Christopher Alderton Stage Manager

Marketing Kath Trout Marketing Director Libby Northcote-Green Marketing Manager

Damian Davis Transport Manager

Rachel Williams Publications Manager (maternity leave)

Madeleine Ridout Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager

Sarah Breeden Publications Manager (maternity cover)

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Samantha Cleverley Box Office Manager (Tel: 020 7840 4242) Anna O’Connor Marketing Co-ordinator Natasha Berg Marketing Intern

Matthew Freeman Recordings Consultant Public Relations