LPO concert programme: 11 Dec 2022 Eastbourne - Landscapes and Fairytales (Kerem Hasan/Leia Zhu)

2022/23 concert season at Congress Theatre

Where music takes you

Concert programme

Congress Theatre, Eastbourne Sunday 11 December 2022 | 3.00pm

Landscapes and Fairytales

Smetana

Vltava from ‘Má vlast’ (11’)

Vaughan Williams

The Lark Ascending: romance for violin & orchestra (13’)

Interval (20’)

Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade (47’)

Kerem Hasan conductor

Leia Zhu violin

The timings shown are not precise and are given only as a guide. Concert presented by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in association with Eastbourne Borough Council

Contents

2 Welcome LPO news

3 On stage today

4 London Philharmonic Orchestra

5 Glyndebourne Festival 2023

6 Kerem Hasan 7 Leia Zhu 8 Programme notes 11 LPO 90th Birthday Appeal 12 Next concerts 13 Recommended recordings 14 Thank you 16 LPO administration

Principal Conductor Edward Gardner supported by Aud Jebsen

Principal Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis

Conductor Emeritus Vladimir Jurowski Patron HRH The Duke of Kent KG Artistic Director Elena Dubinets Chief Executive David Burke Leader Pieter Schoeman supported by Neil Westreich

Welcome to the Congress Theatre LPO news

Theatre Director Chris Jordan

Welcome to this afternoon’s performance. We are pleased to welcome back the London Philharmonic Orchestra and its patrons to the Congress Theatre.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra gave the first ever performance at this Grade II listed building when it originally opened in 1963. This historic building was purpose-built as a theatre and conference venue designed by Bryan and Norman Westwood Architects. What makes the theatre unique is that it is conceived to be a perfect cube, and has fantastic acoustics to enhance your experience of live music. We thank you for continuing to support the concert series.

Please sit back in your seats and enjoy the concert and your visit here. As a courtesy to others, please ensure mobile phones are switched off during the performance. Thank you.

90th Birthday Appeal

Formed with a bold purpose: to rival the greatest orchestras in the world, this year the London Philharmonic Orchestra celebrates its 90th birthday. On page 11 you can enjoy a glimpse of just a few wonderful moments from the last 90 years.

We cherish our heritage and are committed to keeping the next 90 years and beyon exciting, dynamic and inclusive. Please consider making a donation to our 90th Birthday Appeal, as we continue to make history in the present by offering life-enriching musical experiences for everyone, investing in the next generation of talent, commissioning masterworks of the future and reaching more communities around the UK, especially in Brighton and Eastbourne.

As you may have seen from recent press and media coverage, the vibrant arts community of which we are part has been hit hard by the funding cuts from Arts Council England. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is no exception to this, and so we are even more reliant on your generosity to help carry us forward towards an exciting future.

Your gift to the LPO will enable us to keep writing the wonderfully rich and inspiring story of the LPO for the next 90 years and more. Thank you! lpo.org.uk/celebrate90

Welcome – Create Music

We’d like to extend a special welcome to the young musicians from Create Music who join us today. Create Music is the music hub lead for Brighton and East Sussex, offering high-quality, inclusive music and arts education for children, young people and adults in the area. Today’s Create Music group observed our rehearsal this morning, and then met several artists performing on stage today, with a chance to ask questions and find out what it’s like to be a professional musician. We’re delighted to welcome these young musicians and look forward to lots more collaboration with talented young musicians in Eastbourne and the surrounding areas.

First Violins

Alice Ivy-Pemberton Guest Leader Minn Majoe

Katalin Varnagy

Chair supported by Sonja Drexler

Yang Zhang

Chair supported by Eric Tomsett Martin Höhmann

Catherine Craig Elizaveta Tyun

Nilufar Alimaksumova

Laura Ayoub Amanda Smith Eleanor Bartlett Will Hillman

Second Violins

Dania Alzapiedi Guest Principal Nancy Elan

Joseph Maher

Ashley Stevens

Kate Birchall

Fiona Higham Chair supported by David & Yi Buckley Sioni Williams Sheila Law Jessica Coleman Anna Croad

Violas

Jon Thorne Guest Principal Benedetto Pollani Katharine Leek Martin Wray Kate De Campos Jisu Song

Daniel Cornford Mark Gibbs

Cellos

Pei-Jee Ng Principal Chair supported by The Candide Trust Francis Bucknall Helen Thomas Auriol Evans

Julia Morneweg Louise Dearsley

On stage today

Double Basses

Kevin Rundell* Principal George Peniston Tom Walley

Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton Lowri Morgan

Flutes

Fiona Kelly Guest Principal Imogen Royce

Piccolos

Stewart McIlwham* Principal Imogen Royce

Oboes

Ian Hardwick* Principal Rachel Ingleton

Cor Anglais

Sue Böhling* Principal Chair supported by Dr Barry Grimaldi

Clarinets

Elliot Gresty Guest Principal Massimo Di Trolio

Bassoons

Simon Estell* Principal Gareth Humphreys

Horns

Stephen Stirling Guest Principal Martin Hobbs Duncan Fuller Gareth Mollison Elise Campbell

Trumpets

Paul Beniston* Principal Anne McAneney*

Trombones

Mark Templeton* Principal Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton David Whitehouse

Bass Trombone Jan

Kruijsse

Tuba

Lee Tsarmaklis* Principal Chair supported by Friends of the Orchestra

Timpani

Simon Carrington* Principal Chair supported by Victoria Robey OBE

Percussion

Andrew Barclay* Principal Chair supported by Gill & Garf Collins Keith Millar Feargus Brennan Karen Hutt Tom Edwards

Harp

Rachel Masters Principal

* Holds a professorial appointment in London

The LPO also acknowledges the following chair supporters whose players are not present at this concert:

Irina Gofman & Mr Rodrik V. G. Cave

Roger Greenwood

Countess Dominique Loredan

Sir Simon Robey

Bianca & Stuart Roden

Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp Neil Westreich

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Uniquely groundbreaking and exhilarating to watch and hear, the London Philharmonic Orchestra has been celebrated as one of the world’s great orchestras since Sir Thomas Beecham founded it in 1932. With every performance we aim to bring wonder to the modern world and cement our position as a leading orchestra for the 21st century.

Our home is at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, where we’re at the beating heart of London’s cultural life. You’ll also find us at our resident venues here in Eastbourne, in Brighton, and in Saffron Walden, and on tour throughout the UK and internationally, performing to sell-out audiences worldwide. Each summer we’re resident at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, combining the magic of opera with Glyndebourne’s glorious setting in the Sussex countryside.

Sharing the wonder

We’re always at the forefront of technology, finding new ways to share our music globally. You’ll find us online, on streaming platforms, on social media and through our broadcast partnership with Marquee TV. During the pandemic period we launched ‘LPOnline’: over 100 videos of performances, insights and introductions to playlists, which led to us being named runner-up in the Digital Classical Music Awards 2020. During 2022/23 we’ll be working once again with Marquee TV to broadcast selected live concerts, so you can share or relive the wonder from your own living room.

Our conductors

Our Principal Conductors have included some of the greatest historic names like Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. In 2021 Edward Gardner became our 13th Principal Conductor, taking the Orchestra into its tenth decade. Vladimir Jurowski became Conductor Emeritus in recognition of his impact as Principal Conductor from 2007–21. Karina Canellakis is our current Principal Guest Conductor and Brett Dean our Composer-in-Residence.

Soundtrack to key moments

Everyone will have heard the London Philharmonic Orchestra, whether it’s playing the world’s National Anthems at every medal ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, our iconic recording with Pavarotti that made Nessun Dorma a global football anthem, or closing the flotilla at The Queen’s Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. And you’ll almost certainly have heard us on the soundtracks for major films including The Lord of the Rings

We also release live, studio and archive recordings on our own label, and are the world’s most-streamed orchestra, with over 15 million plays of our content each month. Recent releases include the first volume of a Stravinsky series with Vladimir Jurowski; Tippett’s complete opera The Midsummer Marriage under Edward Gardner, captured in his first concert as

© Benjamin Ealovega

London Philharmonic Orchestra

LPO Principal Conductor in September 2021; and James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio, recorded at the work’s UK premiere performance in December 2021.

Next generations

We’re committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians and music-lovers: there’s nothing we love more than seeing the joy of children and families enjoying their first musical moments, and we’re passionate about equipping schools and teachers through schools’ concerts, resources and training. Reflecting our values of collaboration and inclusivity, our OrchLab and Open Sound Ensemble projects offer music-making opportunities for adults and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. Today’s young instrumentalists are the orchestral members of the future, so we’re committed to offering them opportunities to progress. Our LPO Junior Artists programme is leading the way in creating pathways into the profession for young artists from under-represented communities, and our LPO Young Composers and Foyle Future Firsts schemes support the next generation of professional musicians, bridging the transition from education to professional careers.

2022/23 and beyond

We believe in the relevance of our music, and that our programmes must reflect the narratives of modern times. This season we’re exploring themes of belonging and displacement in our series ‘A place to call home’, delving into music by composers including Austrians Erich Korngold and Paul Hindemith, Hungarian Béla Bartók, Cuban Tania León, Ukrainian Victoria Vita Polevá and Syrian Kinan Azmeh. As we celebrate our 90th anniversary we perform works premiered by the Orchestra during its illustrious history. This season also marks Vaughan Williams’s 150th anniversary and we’ll be celebrating with four of his works, as well as both symphonies by Elgar and music by Tippett and Thomas Adès. Our commitment to everything new and creative includes premieres by Brett Dean, Mark Simpson and Heiner Goebbels, as well as new commissions from composers from around the world including Agata Zubel, Elena Langer and Vijay Iyer.

lpo.org.uk

Glyndebourne Festival 2023

The Orchestra are looking forward to returning to Glyndebourne Festival Opera for their annual residency this summer. Between May and August we’ll perform in a new production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites directed by Barrie Kosky and conducted by Glyndebourne Music Director Robin Ticciati; and revivals of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress directed by John Cox, also under Robin Ticciati, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Peter Hall and conducted by Dalia Stasevska, and Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore directed by Annabel Arden and conducted by Ben Gernon.

The 2023 Festival also features new productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni directed by Mariame Clément and conducted by Evan Rogister, and Handel’s Semele directed by Adele Thomas and conducted by Václav Luks, both with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Public booking opens in March 2023. For more details, full performance schedule and booking details, visit glyndebourne.com

© James Bellorini Photography

Kerem Hasan conductor

Kerem Hasan is chief conductor of the Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck, now in his fourth season, having assumed the title in September 2019. In 2017 the young British conductor laid the foundations for a promising international career by winning the Nestlé and Salzburg Young Conductors Award. Prior to this, he had already attracted attention as a finalist in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London, and as Associate Conductor of the Welsh National Opera.

This season in Innsbruck, Kerem conducts Verdi’s La traviata at the Tiroler Landestheater, in addition to his concerts with the Tiroler Symphonieorchester. Today is his concert debut as conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, having previously assisted Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski in 2016. Other highlights of the 2022/23 season include productions of Carmen at English National Opera, and guest engagements with the Hallé, Dresden Philharmonic and Norwegian Radio orchestras. Kerem works with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Romanian National Radio Orchestra and Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música for the first time, and reinvitations take him to the Danish National Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Tampere Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Noord Nederlands orchestras. In June 2023 he will make his debut with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Japan.

Kerem’s recent successes include opera performances at Glyndebourne (The Magic Flute), with Glyndebourne on Tour (The Rake’s Progress), at Welsh National Opera (La forza del destino), at English National Opera (Così fan tutte) and at the Tiroler Landestheater (Samson et Dalila, Rigoletto and The Rape of Lucretia). He has

conducted concerts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, MDR Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Filarmonica Teatro La Fenice and New Japan Philharmonic. In the summer of 2022 he made his US debut with the Detroit Symphony, Utah Symphony and Minnesota orchestras.

Kerem Hasan has received valuable guidance through masterclasses with David Zinman, Edo de Waart, Gianandrea Noseda and Esa-Pekka Salonen, amongst others. At the invitation of his mentor, Bernard Haitink, he assisted Haitink at the Chicago Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw and Bavarian Radio Symphony orchestras.

In the summer of 2016, Kerem Hasan first attended the Conducting Academy of the Aspen Music Festival, where he worked with Robert Spano. In 2017 he returned to the Festival as Conducting Fellow and was subsequently awarded the Aspen Conductor Prize. As Assistant Conductor, he was in Aspen again in summer 2018. In August 2022 he was invited as a guest artist and conducted the Aspen Chamber Orchestra.

Born in London in 1992, Kerem Hasan studied piano and conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He later honed his craft at the Zurich University of the Arts with Johannes Schlaefli.

© Marco Borggreve

Leia Zhu

violin

In May 2022, at the age of 15, Leia became a Patron of the HarrisonParrott Foundation, with a focus on expanding interest in classical music for all generations. In July 2022 she was the youngest musician, after pianist Bruce Liu (25) and conductor Klaus Mäkelä (26), to be included on the list of ‘30 Brilliant Young Musicians Under 30’ by Classic FM for its 30th birthday special edition.

Lauded for her musical maturity, expressive interpretations and impressive technical ability, 16-year-old British violinist Leia Zhu is recognised as a star of the future. A student of renowned UkrainianIsraeli violinist and pedagogue Itzhak Rashkovsky, since her debut at the age of four she has performed at prestigious festivals and venues in more than 15 countries around the world, and with numerous established orchestras and international artists.

Appointed Artist-in-Residence with the London Mozart Players in October 2021, Leia continues to embed herself within the orchestra, performing as featured soloist, leading play/direct programmes and in chamber music, while also playing a crucial role in the orchestra’s community residencies in Croydon and Hastings, inspiring and motivating her peers through educational projects. Today’s concert is her debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Other highlights this season include further debuts with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and Paavo Järvi, the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra and Patrick Hahn, the Marvão International Music Festival in Portugal with Christoph Poppen, and here in the UK with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bath Philharmonia. She also returns to Festival Strings Lucerne, and Tel Aviv Soloists for a four-city tour of Israel, as well as appearing in recital in Oxford, Salisbury and Newcastle.

In August 2021, at the age of 14, Leia made her debut with the London Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle as part of the orchestra’s annual BMW Classics concert in London’s Trafalgar Square, and subsequently made her debut with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, as well as in recital at the Tonhalle Zürich, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, and St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

Leia Zhu performs in major concert venues across Europe such as the Royal Festival Hall, Cadogan Hall, Barbican and Milton Court in London; BOZAR in Brussels; the Mozarteum Grosser Saal in Salzburg; KKL in Lucerne; the Berlin Philharmonie; Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall; and the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. She has also appeared at prestigious festivals including Rheingau, MozartFest Würzburg, Interlaken Classics, White Nights and Musical Olympus in St Petersburg and Vadim Repin’s Trans-Siberian Art, with selected performances broadcast on German radio and BBC Radio 3.

Special collaborations include playing with the Belgian National Orchestra under Maxim Vengerov in 2016; performing with violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley (Leader of the Berlin Philharmonic) in 2017; and sharing the stage with violinist Roby Lakatos, accompanied by the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, broadcast live to an audience of millions in 2018.

In producing her own regular videos, Leia Zhu is a confident communicator and passionate advocate for classical music. She has been featured by international media including Classic FM, BBC News, ITV, Sky News, The Strad magazine, Violin Channel and Violinist.com, as well as news channels and newspapers in Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Russia, Germany, Israel, Greece and the USA. She regularly posts videos on her popular YouTube channel, where she shares her joy of music, composers and creativity, which attracts thousands of subscribers and views.

Programme notes

Speedread

The certainty of the adage that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is trumped when music enters the fray. Today’s concert, after all, features three works that, together, suggest far more than just a few thousand words. The final panel in this afternoon’s trio of masterpieces is a musical recreation of One Thousand and One Nights and the many stories told by the Sultana Scheherazade to keep her murderous new husband at bay. In turn, her tales inspired the Russian Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘numerous and varied fairytale wonders’. But it is a natural wonder, namely the River Vltava, flowing through the Czech lands, that prompted the resolutely patriotic composer

Smetana to write one of his most beguiling creations. ‘Vltava’, the second movement from Má vlast, tells of the river’s journey from Southern Bohemia into Prague, before it finally meets the River Elbe. But we come much closer to home, too, with the 150th-birthday composer Vaughan Williams’s evergreen evocation of a spiralling skylark. There has been much speculation as to where the composer was inspired to write this most cherished work, though it is perhaps better to think of the extraordinary time in which it was created. Composed against the backdrop of the beginning of the First World War, the work features an unmistakably nostalgic vein in counterpoint with the energetic song of its eponymous bird.

Bedřich Smetana

1824–84

Vltava from ‘Má vlast’ 1874

Rising at Černá hora, a mountain near the border with Bavaria, and joining the Elbe in the Bohemian winemaking town of Mělník, the River Vltava is both the longest and most historically significant waterway in Czechia. It was, after all, the unique combination of the river’s sweeping bend and seven surrounding hills that led ancient tribes to settle in an area that would come to be called Prague, with the river still dominating almost every view of today’s Czech capital. It was somewhat unsurprising, then, that Bedřich Smetana, the leading musical light of the Czech National Revival during the 19th century, chose to open his orchestral celebration of nationhood, Má vlast (‘My Fatherland’), with those two features: ‘Vyšehrad’, the cycle’s opening movement, describes the castle at the top of the tallest of the hills; and ‘Vltava’, completed in 1874. Four further tableaux, representing other key mythological sites, were then added during the late 1870s, before a first performance of the whole work in 1882.

In the complete cycle, the river has already been introduced at the end of ‘Vyšehrad’, where it purls

beneath the seat of various kings and queens. But the Vltava itself begins far outside the city. Smetana told how his illustrative movement opens with two small springs, the Studená and Teplá Vltava, which are portrayed in overlapping woodwind lines, which then combine when the streams become one current. ‘The course of the Vltava through woods and meadows’ provides the basis for the famously stirring theme, led by the strings, as the river surges and swells through the landscape.

Looking to the sweep of later film music, the score passes a party for a farmer’s wedding, as well as witnessing mermaids dancing in the light of the moon (as would be featured in Dvořák’s opera Rusalka). But, finally, after a turbulent journey over the St John’s Rapids, a particularly dangerous passage that later disappeared under the Štěchovice Reservoir, the Vltava flows into Prague. Immediately, Smetana recalls motifs from ‘Vyšehrad’ in the grandest of terms, before the water ‘vanishes into the distance’, taking the spirit of Czech national pride with it.

Programme notes

Ralph Vaughan Williams

The Lark Ascending: romance for violin & orchestra 1914/21

Leia Zhu violin

George Meredith was one of Vaughan Williams’s favourite writers. Although known primarily as a novelist, not least due to the scandal that followed the publication of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel in 1859, Meredith had begun his professional life as a poet and continued to write verse until the end of his career. One of his most cherished works was The Lark Ascending, a 122-line poem that first appeared in The Fortnightly Review in May 1881, before featuring again in Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth in 1883.

When Meredith died in 1909, Vaughan Williams was busy travelling around the British Isles collecting folk songs, specifically in Herefordshire – a fecund county for such material. Indeed, the composer may well have begun musing on the idea of writing a tribute to Meredith while he was there, not least given the preponderance of skylarks across the Welsh Marches. But it would only be in 1914 that he finally put pen to paper, choosing 12 lines from Meredith’s poem as the inspiration for his ‘Romance’.

He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound, Of many links without a break In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake ‘For singing till his heaven fills, ‘Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup, And he the wine which overflows To lift us with him as he goes. Till lost on his aërial wings In light, and then the fancy sings.

First came a version for violin and piano, in which form for the work was eventually performed at the Shirehampton Public Hall, just outside Bristol, on 15 December 1920. The premiere of the more famous version with full orchestral accompaniment, as heard this afternoon, followed in 1921 at the Queen’s Hall in London, where, despite the presence of an early account of Vaughan Williams’s close friend Holst’s dazzling work The Planets, many were even more wowed by the rapt ‘silver chain of sound’ that emanated from Marie Hall’s violin. The piece was soon taken to the nation’s heart, where it has remained over the last century. But it is worth noting that Vaughan Williams never intended the twilit tones that sometimes typify modern performances. Instead, as noted in the Canadian violinist Frederick Grinke’s copy of the score, ‘it mustn’t sound like a nightingale’, but a highly spirited bird taking aloft in the morning air.

The opening chords even seem to indicate sunrise, as the violin ‘rises and begins to round’. Arpeggios and trills tell the ‘aerial rings’ of Meredith’s poem, while folk-inspired material – albeit, apparently, without direct quotation – places the bird’s life and flight within the landscapes from which Vaughan Williams drew so much of his vision. And yet there is no precursor to this highly original idyll, as the composer deftly blends spiralling cadenzas and lilting dances, while moving no less seamlessly between key centres, all the while suspended in time. Time, however, is nonetheless present. For despite the music’s energy, it cannot help but reveal a sense of wistfulness, reminding the listener that the work was composed on the eve of a conflict that would change the world irrevocably.

Interval – 20 minutes

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

Programme notes

Scheherazade, Op. 35 1888

The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship The Tale of the Kalender Prince

The Young Prince and the Young Princess Festival in Baghdad – The Sea – The Ship goes to pieces on a rock surmounted by a Bronze Warrior – Conclusion

Orientalism was big business during the final decades of the 19th century. World fairs introduced new clothes and customs to culturally voracious Westerners and, as shipping lines opened – not least the Suez Canal in 1869 – access to the East increased. Following suit, the Russians also created a brand of Orientalism, though even they admitted that an empire straddling both Europe and Asia could not entirely consider the Middle and Far East as ‘other’. Nonetheless, there are numerous examples of exotic tropes in the music of the time, such as Borodin’s In Central Asia, the ‘Arabian Dance’ in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, and RimskyKorsakov’s Scheherazade

Drawing on One Thousand and One Nights, the collection of West and South Asian folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Middle Ages, this symphonic poem was composed in 1888, shortly after Rimsky-Korsakov had finished work on the completion and orchestration of Borodin’s mammoth opera Prince Igor. RimskyKorsakov decided that his new work, Scheherazade, would recall, rather than directly refer to, events from One Thousand and One Nights. ‘All I desired’, he wrote in his autobiography, ‘was that the hearer, if he liked my piece as symphonic music, should carry away the impression that it is beyond doubt an Oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairytale wonders and not merely four pieces played one after the other and composed on the basis of themes common to all the four movements’.

The work begins with a fanfare, describing Sultan Schariar. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote that the Sultan ‘vowed to put to death each of his wives after the first nuptial night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life by entertaining her lord with fascinating tales.’ After a passage that is clearly indebted to Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we hear Scheherazade’s own beguiling motif, played by a solo violin and harp. There follows a steady but sweeping barcarolle, describing the sea and Sinbad’s ship. Its melody, full of chromatic inflections, develops freely over the course of the ensuing sections, in which Scheherazade’s storytelling theme is also prominent.

The second movement brings with it another story, introduced once more by the Sultana. She recites the tale of a young prince who dresses up as a wandering pauper and endures hardship in his search for wisdom. Various instruments pick up his travelling tune before they are interrupted by more ominous forces (with premonitions of the evil Kashchei from Stravinsky’s The Firebird). The third movement, on the other hand, is a heartfelt romance, evoking a prince, represented by a string melody, and his love for a princess, who is described in the dancing middle section. Although the two are initially separated, they eventually come together, as the movement closes contentedly with both themes.

Programme notes

Tracking the scheme of many four-movement symphonies, the Finale offers a grand summation of the preceding descriptions. Particularly prominent is the juxtaposition of the Sultan’s booming bass motif and Scheherazade’s storytelling theme. To save her life, she offers a dazzling conflation of three episodes from One Thousand and One Nights, featuring the humming bazaars of Baghdad and a particularly violent seascape. Ultimately, Scheherazade’s charms overwhelm the Sultan’s murderous intentions and the work closes with her theme and a final iteration of those Mendelssohn-like chords.

Enjoyed today’s concert?

Programme notes © Gavin Plumley

with LUCY CROWE soprano RODERICK WILLIAMS baritone LONDON PHILHARMONIC

Next concerts at the Congress Theatre

Miloš plays Rodrigo

Sunday 15 January 2023 | 3.00pm

De Falla The Three-Cornered Hat: Suite No. 1

David Bruce The Peacock Pavane

Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez

Bizet Carmen Suites Nos. 1 & 2

Bizet Farandole from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2

Karen Kamensek conductor

Miloš Karadaglić guitar

Poetry and Passion

Sunday 12 February 2023 | 3.00pm

Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet: Fantasy Overture

Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5

Gergely Madaras conductor Zlatomir Fung cello*

* LPO Alexandra Jupin Award recipient: An annual award for an artist making their debut with the LPO

Romantic Journeys

Sunday 26 March 2023 | 3.00pm

Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3 (Scottish) Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3

Patrick Hahn conductor Tom Borrow piano

Imaginary Landscapes

Sunday 16 April 2023 | 3.00pm

Mendelssohn Hebrides Overture Dvořák Violin Concerto Brahms Symphony No. 3

Chloé van Soeterstède conductor Tai Murray violin

Celebrating

In

“ I fell in love with my husband, 38 years ago, at an LPO concert featuring Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony in White Rock, Hastings.” LPO audience member

In 1961 we were the first British orchestra to tour to Australia.

1987, with a commitment to sharing orchestral music with as wide and diverse an audience as possible, we established our Education and Community programme.

In 2016 LPO Junior Artists was launched, a programme offering young musicians from under-represented backgrounds a pathway into the music profession.

In September 2021, Edward Gardner took to the podium for his first concert as Principal Conductor.

Formed with

national anthems for the London 2012 Olympic Games!

In 2021, thrilled to be reunited with live audiences, we gave London’s first performance of Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage in 17 years.

We were the first orchestra to perform at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1964.

Thank you

We are extremely grateful to all donors who have given generously to the LPO over the past year. Your generosity helps maintain the breadth and depth of the LPO’s activities, as well as supporting the Orchestra both on and off the concert platform.

Artistic Director’s Circle

Anonymous donors

Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet

Aud Jebsen

In memory of Mrs Rita Reay Sir Simon & Lady Robey OBE

Orchestra Circle

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The American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra

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Countess Dominique Loredan Stuart & Bianca Roden

In memory of Hazel Amy Smith

The Tsukanov Family

The Viney Family

Gold Patrons

An anonymous donor

Chris Aldren

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In memory of Allner Mavis

Channing

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Mr Bernard Bradbury Simon Burke & Rupert King Desmond & Ruth Cecil

Mr Evgeny Chichvarkin

Mr John H Cook Georgy Djaparidze

Deborah Dolce

Cameron & Kathryn Doley Mariana Eidelkind & Gene

Moldavsky

David Ellen Ben Fairhall

Mr Richard & Helen Gillingwater

Mr Daniel Goldstein David & Jane Gosman

Mr Gavin Graham

Lord & Lady Hall Mrs Dorothy Hambleton Martin & Katherine Hattrell Michael & Christine Henry

Mr Steve Holliday J Douglas Home

Mr & Mrs Ralph Kanza

Mrs Elena & Mr Oleg Kolobov Rose & Dudley Leigh Wg. Cdr. & Mrs M T Liddiard OBE

JP RAF

Drs Frank & Gek Lim

Mr Nicholas Little Geoff & Meg Mann

Mrs Elizabeth Meshkvicheva

Andrew T Mills

Peter & Lucy Noble

Mr Roger Phillimore

Mr Michael Posen

Mr Anthony Salz

Ms Nadia Stasyuk

Charlotte Stevenson Joe Topley Mr & Mrs John C Tucker

Timothy Walker CBE AM Jenny Watson CBE Grenville & Krysia Williams

Principal Supporters

Anonymous donors

Dr Manon Antoniazzi

Julian & Annette Armstrong

Mr John D Barnard

Mr Geoffrey Bateman

Mr Philip Bathard-Smith

Mrs A Beare

Dr Anthony Buckland Dr Simona Cicero & Mr Mario Altieri

Mr Peter Coe

Mrs Pearl Cohen

David & Liz Conway

Mr Alistair Corbett

Ms Mary Anne Cordeiro

Ms Elena Dubinets

Mr Richard Fernyhough

Jason George

Mr Christian Grobel

Prof Emeritus John Gruzelier Mark & Sarah Holford

Mrs Maureen Hooft-Graafland

Per Jonsson

Mr Ian Kapur

Ms Kim J Koch

Ms Elena Lojevsky

Mrs Terry Neale

John Nickson & Simon Rew

Oliver & Josie Ogg

Ms Olga Ovenden

Mr James Pickford Filippo Poli

Sir Bernard Rix

Mr Robert Ross Priscylla Shaw

Martin & Cheryl Southgate

Mr & Mrs G Stein

Dr Peter Stephenson

Joanna Williams

Christopher Williams

Ms Elena Ziskind

Supporters

Anonymous donors

Ralph & Elizabeth Aldwinckle

Mr & Mrs Robert Auerbach

Mrs Julia Beine

Harvey Bengen

Miss YolanDa Brown

Miss Yousun Chae

Mr Julien Chilcott-Monk Alison Clarke & Leo Pilkington

Mr Joshua Coger

Miss Tessa Cowie

Mr David Devons

Patricia Dreyfus

Mr Martin Fodder

Christopher Fraser OBE Will Gold

Ray Harsant

Mr Peter Imhof

The Jackman Family

Mr David MacFarlane

Dame Jane Newell DBE

Mr Stephen Olton

Mari Payne

Mr David Peters

Ms Edwina Pitman

Mr & Mrs Graham & Jean Pugh

Mr Giles Quarme

Mr Kenneth Shaw

Mr Brian Smith

Ms Rika Suzuki

Tony & Hilary Vines

Dr June Wakefield

Mr John Weekes

Mr C D Yates

Hon. Benefactor

Elliott Bernerd

Hon. Life Members

Alfonso Aijón

Kenneth Goode

Carol Colburn Grigor CBE

Pehr G Gyllenhammar

Robert Hill

Victoria Robey OBE

Mrs Jackie Rosenfeld OBE

Timothy Walker CBE AM Laurence Watt

Thank you

Thomas Beecham Group Members

David & Yi Buckley

Gill & Garf Collins

William & Alex de Winton

Sonja Drexler

The Friends of the LPO

Irina Gofman

Roger Greenwood Dr Barry Grimaldi

Mr & Mrs Philip Kan

John & Angela Kessler

Countess Dominique Loredan

Sir Simon Robey

Victoria Robey OBE

Bianca & Stuart Roden

Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp

Julian & Gill Simmonds

Eric Tomsett

Neil Westreich Guy & Utti Whittaker

Corporate Donor Barclays

LPO Corporate Circle

Principal Berenberg Bloomberg Carter-Ruck

French Chamber of Commerce Tutti Lazard Walpole

Trialist Sciteb

Preferred Partners

Gusbourne Estate

Jeroboams

Lindt & Sprüngli Ltd

OneWelbeck Steinway

In-kind Sponsor

Google Inc

Trusts and Foundations

ABO Trust

BlueSpark Foundation

The Boltini Trust

Borrows Charitable Trust

The Candide Trust

Cockayne – Grants for the Arts

The London Community Foundation

The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust

Dunard Fund

Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation

Foyle Foundation Garrick Charitable Trust

John Horniman’s Children’s Trust

John Thaw Foundation

Institute Adam Mickiewicz

Kirby Laing Foundation

The Marchus Trust

The Radcliffe Trust

Rivers Foundation

Rothschild Foundation Scops Arts Trust

Sir William Boremans' Foundation

The John S Cohen Foundation

The Stanley Picker Trust

The Thriplow Charitable Trust

Vaughan Williams Foundation

The Victoria Wood Foundation

The Viney Family

The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust and all others who wish to remain anonymous.

Board of the American Friends of the LPO

We are grateful to the Board of the American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who assist with fundraising for our activities in the United States of America:

Simon Freakley Chairman

Kara Boyle

Jon Carter Jay Goffman

Alexandra Jupin

Natalie Pray

Damien Vanderwilt

Elizabeth Winter

Catherine Høgel Hon. Director Jenifer L. Keiser, CPA, EisnerAmper LLP

LPO International Board of Governors

Natasha Tsukanova Co-Chair Martin Höhmann Co-Chair Mrs Irina Andreeva

Steven M. Berzin

Veronika Borovik-Khilchevskaya Marie-Laure Favre Gilly de Varennes de Bueil Aline Foriel-Destezet Irina Gofman

Countess Dominique Loredan Olivia Ma

George Ramishvili Sophie Schÿler-Thierry Jay Stein

London Philharmonic Orchestra Administration

Board of Directors

Dr Catherine C. Høgel Chair

Lord Hall of Birkenhead CBE Vice-Chair

Martin Höhmann* President

Mark Vines* Vice-President

Kate Birchall*

David Buckley

David Burke

Bruno De Kegel

Deborah Dolce

Elena Dubinets

Tanya Joseph Hugh Kluger*

Katherine Leek*

Al MacCuish

Minn Majoe*

Tania Mazzetti*

Jamie Njoku-Goodwin

Andrew Tusa

Neil Westreich

Simon Freakley (Ex officio –Chairman of the American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra)

*Player-Director

Advisory Council

Martin Höhmann Chairman

Christopher Aldren

Dr Manon Antoniazzi

Roger Barron

Richard Brass

Helen Brocklebank

YolanDa Brown

Simon Burke

Simon Callow CBE

Desmond Cecil CMG

Sir Alan Collins KCVO CMG

Andrew Davenport

Guillaume Descottes

Cameron Doley

Christopher Fraser OBE

Jonathan Harris CBE FRICS

Marianna Hay MBE

Nicholas Hely-Hutchinson DL

Amanda Hill

Rehmet Kassim-Lakha

Jamie Korner

Geoff Mann

Clive Marks OBE FCA

Stewart McIlwham

Andrew Neill

Nadya Powell

Sir Bernard Rix

Victoria Robey OBE

Baroness Shackleton

Thomas Sharpe KC

Julian Simmonds

Barry Smith

Nicholas Snowman OBE

Martin Southgate

Chris Viney Laurence Watt Elizabeth Winter

General Administration

Elena Dubinets Artistic Director

David Burke Chief Executive Chantelle Vircavs PA to the Executive Concert Management

Roanna Gibson Concerts and Planning Director

Graham Wood Concerts and Recordings Manager

Maddy Clarke Tours Manager

Alison Jones Concerts and Recordings Co-ordinator

Robert Winup Concerts and Tours Assistant Matthew Freeman Recordings Consultant

Andrew Chenery Orchestra Personnel Manager

Sarah Thomas Martin Sargeson Librarians

Laura Kitson Stage and Operations Manager

Stephen O’Flaherty Deputy Operations Manager

Felix Lo Orchestra and Auditions Manager

Finance

Frances Slack Finance Director

Dayse Guilherme Finance Manager

Jean-Paul Ramotar Finance and IT Officer

Education and Community

Talia Lash Education and Community Director

Lowri Davies Hannah Foakes Education and Community Project Managers

Hannah Smith Education and Community Co-ordinator

Development

Laura Willis Development Director Rosie Morden Individual Giving Manager Siân Jenkins Corporate Relations Manager

Anna Quillin Trusts and Foundations Manager

Katurah Morrish Development Events Manager

Eleanor Conroy Al Levin

Development Assistants

Nick Jackman Campaigns and Projects Director

Kirstin Peltonen Development Associate Marketing

Kath Trout Marketing and Communications Director Sophie Harvey Marketing Manager Rachel Williams Publications Manager

Harrie Mayhew Website Manager

Gavin Miller Sales and Ticketing Manager

Ruth Haines Press and PR Manager

Greg Felton Digital Creative

Hayley Kim Marketing Co-ordinator Alicia Hartley Marketing Assistant Archives

Philip Stuart Discographer Gillian Pole Recordings Archive

Professional Services

Charles Russell Speechlys Solicitors Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP Auditors

Dr Barry Grimaldi Honorary Doctor

Mr Chris Aldren Honorary ENT Surgeon Mr Simon Owen-Johnstone Hon. Orthopaedic Surgeon

London Philharmonic Orchestra 89 Albert Embankment London SE1 7TP

Tel: 020 7840 4200 Box Office: 020 7840 4242 Email: admin@lpo.org.uk lpo.org.uk

Cover illustration

Simon Pemberton/Heart 2022/23 season identity

JMG Studio Printer John Good Ltd