LPO programme: 19 Apr 2023 - War and Peace (Vladimir Jurowski/Gil Shaham)

2022/23 concert season at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

A place to call home Concert programme

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

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Wednesday 19 April 2023 | 7.30pm

A place to call home

War and Peace

Ustvolskaya

Symphonic Poem No. 1 (25’)

Hindemith

Violin Concerto (26’)

Interval (20’)

Prokofiev

Symphony No. 6 in E flat minor (43’)

Vladimir Jurowski conductor

Gil Shaham violin

6.00pm | Free pre-concert performance | Royal Festival Hall

LPO Showcase: Crisis Creates

Members of Crisis – all adults who have experienced homelessness – perform original music they have devised with LPO musicians and workshop leader Fraser Trainer during a week-long creative project. Free and unticketed – all welcome.

The timings shown are not precise and are given only as a guide. Concert presented by the London Philharmonic Orchestra

Contents

2

3

4 London Philharmonic Orchestra

5 Leader: Pieter Schoeman

6 Vladimir Jurowski

Welcome LPO news

Welcome – Crisis Creates

Welcome to the Southbank Centre

We’re the largest arts centre in the UK and one of the nation’s top visitor attractions, showcasing the world’s most exciting artists at our venues in the heart of London. We’re here to present great cultural experiences that bring people together, and open up the arts to everyone.

The Southbank Centre is made up of the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Hayward Gallery, National Poetry Library and Arts Council Collection. We’re one of London’s favourite meeting spots, with lots of free events and places to relax, eat and shop next to the Thames.

We hope you enjoy your visit. If you need any information or help, please ask a member of staff. You can also write to us at Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX, or email hello@southbankcentre.co.uk

Subscribers to our email updates are the first to hear about new events, offers and competitions. Just head to our website to sign up.

Drinks

You are welcome to bring drinks from the venue’s bars and cafés into the Royal Festival Hall to enjoy during tonight’s concert. Please be considerate to fellow audience members by keeping noise during the concert to a minimum, and please take your glasses with you for recycling afterwards. Thank you.

Enjoyed tonight’s concert?

Help us to share the wonder of the LPO by making a donation today. Use the QR code to donate via the LPO website, or visit lpo.org.uk/donate. Thank you.

This evening we welcome members of Crisis – adults who have experienced or are at risk of homelessness –to give a pre-concert performance on the Royal Festival Hall stage at 6pm, and to join us in the audience this evening.

Working with national charity Crisis UK, our ‘Crisis Creates’ project offers a safe space for participants to express themselves, work together and create a high-quality performance that inspires, connects and empowers. Over four days of workshops, the participants have devised music and lyrics as a group alongside LPO musicians and facilitator and composer Fraser Trainer, inspired by the Orchestra’s repertoire. We hope you enjoy it! To find out more, visit lpo.org.uk/crisiscreates

Crisis Creates is generously supported by Scops Arts Trust.

Our new 2023/24 season

Keep an eye out for details of our 2023/24 concert season, which we’ll be announcing next Monday, 24 April!

Did you know that Friends of the LPO enjoy priority booking for all our London concerts? The priority booking period for LPO Friends opens this Tuesday, 25 April, ahead of public booking from Tuesday 2 May. To find out more about LPO Friends and the other benefits on offer, including exclusive invitations to rehearsals, special events and a dedicated private bar at our London concerts, visit lpo.org.uk/friends

Jurowski conducts Stravinsky Vol. 2

Following rave reviews for the first volume of Vladimir Jurowski’s Stravinsky series on the LPO Label, we’re thrilled to release the next volume later this month. Vol. 2 (LPO-0026) is available to pre-order now, and will be in stores and on streaming services from 28 April. Find out more on page 4.

First Violins

Pieter Schoeman* Leader

Chair supported by Neil Westreich

Alice Ivy-Pemberton Co-Leader

Kate Oswin

Chair supported by Eric Tomsett

Lasma Taimina

Chair supported by Irina Gofman & Mr Rodrik V. G. Cave

Minn Majoe

Elizaveta Tyun

Yang Zhang

Catherine Craig

Katalin Varnagy

Chair supported by Sonja Drexler

Thomas Eisner

Martin Höhmann

Nilufar Alimaksumova

Amanda Smith

Sophie Phillips

Kana Kawashima

Ruth Schulten

Second Violins

Tania Mazzetti Principal

Emma Oldfield Co-Principal

June Lee

Nancy Elan

Ashley Stevens

Claudia Tarrant-Matthews

Fiona Higham

Chair supported by David & Yi

Buckley

Lyrit Milgram

Sioni Williams

Sheila Law

Jessica Coleman

Kate Cole

Eleanora Consta

Anna Croad

Violas

Sam Burstin Guest Principal

Laura Vallejo

Martin Wray

Stanislav Popov

Katharine Leek

James Heron

Benedetto Pollani

Michelle Bruil

Richard Cookson

Raquel López Bolívar

Daniel Cornford

Julia Doukakis

On stage tonight

Cellos

Bozidar Vukotic Guest Principal

Ariana Kashefi

David Lale

Susanna Riddell

Tom Roff

Helen Thomas

George Hoult

Jane Lindsay

Sibylle Hentschel

Julia Morneweg

Double Basses

Sebastian Pennar Principal

Hugh Kluger

George Peniston

Tom Walley Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton

Laura Murphy

Lowri Morgan

Charlotte Kerbegian

Sam Rice

Flutes

Juliette Bausor Principal

Frederico Paixão

Stewart McIlwham*

Piccolo

Stewart McIlwham* Principal

Oboes

Ian Hardwick* Principal

Alice Munday

Sue Böhling*

Cor Anglais

Sue Böhling* Principal

Chair supported by Dr Barry Grimaldi

Clarinets

Thomas Watmough Principal

Chair supported by Roger Greenwood

James Maltby

E-flat Clarinet

Harry Cameron-Penny

Bass Clarinet

Paul Richards* Principal

Bassoons

Jonathan Davies Principal

Chair supported by Sir Simon Robey

Shelly Organ

Simon Estell*

Contrabassoon

Simon Estell* Principal

Horns

Annemarie Federle Principal

John Ryan* Principal

Martin Hobbs

Mark Vines Co-Principal

Gareth Mollison

Elise Campbell

Trumpets

Paul Beniston* Principal

Tom Nielsen Co-Principal

Anne McAneney*

Trombones

Mark Templeton* Principal

Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton

David Whitehouse

Bass Trombones

Lyndon Meredith Principal

Simon Minshall

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

Tom Pritchard

Keith Millar

James Crook

Feargus Brennan

Harp

Rachel Masters Principal

Piano/Celeste

Catherine Edwards

Assistant Conductor

Tim Murray

* Holds a professorial appointment in London

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

Bianca & Stuart Roden

Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp

Welcome to Tom Nielsen, who has joined the LPO as Co-Principal Trumpet. Tom graduated from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2022, and has performed as Guest Principal with the Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, City of Birmingham Symphony, BBC Philharmonic and Aurora orchestras. We’re thrilled to have him on board!

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 here 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 in Brighton, Eastbourne and 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, and you’ll find us online, on streaming platforms, on social media and through our broadcast partnership

with Marquee TV. 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.

Our artists

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, and 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.to be succeeded by Tania León in September 2023.

New on the LPO Label: Vladimir Jurowski conducts Stravinsky Vol. 2

‘The early evolution of Stravinsky from fledgling to Firebird feels like the most natural thing in the world ... It helps, of course, that the instinct and intellect of this most inquisitive and searching of conductors makes all the right connections.’

Pieter Schoeman Leader

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.

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 have a number of opportunities to support their progression. 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. We have also recently launched the LPO Conducting Fellowship, supporting the development of two outstanding early-career conductors from backgrounds currently under-represented in the profession.

2022/23 and beyond

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. Our commitment to everything new and creative includes premieres by Brett Dean and Heiner Goebbels, as well as new commissions from composers from around the world.

lpo.org.uk

Pieter Schoeman was appointed Leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008, having previously been Co-Leader since 2002. He is also a Professor of Violin at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance.

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 the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. As a chamber musician he regularly appears at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall. His chamber music partners have included Anne-Sophie Mutter, Veronika Eberle, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Boris Garlitsky, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Martin Helmchen and Julia Fischer.

Pieter has performed numerous times as a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Highlights have included an appearance as both conductor and soloist in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at the Royal Festival Hall, the Brahms Double Concerto with Kristina Blaumane, and the Britten Double Concerto with Alexander Zemtsov, which was recorded and released on the LPO Label to great critical acclaim.

Pieter has appeared as Guest Leader with the BBC, Barcelona, Bordeaux, Lyon and Baltimore symphony orchestras; the Rotterdam and BBC Philharmonic orchestras; and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

Pieter’s chair in the LPO is generously supported by Neil Westreich.

© Benjamin Ealovega

Vladimir Jurowski

Conductor Emeritus, London Philharmonic Orchestra

A committed operatic conductor, Vladimir’s recent highlights include semi-staged performances of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Siegfried with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall; new productions of Der Rosenkavalier, Shostakovich’s The Nose and Penderecki’s Die Teufel von Loudun at the Bavarian State Opera; Die Frau ohne Schatten in Berlin and Bucharest with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra; Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel at the Bavarian State Opera; Henze’s The Bassarids and Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron at the Komische Oper Berlin; his acclaimed debut at the Salzburg Festival with Wozzeck; and his first return to Glyndebourne as a guest conductor, for the world premiere production of Brett Dean’s Hamlet with the LPO.

Vladimir Jurowski became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Conductor Emeritus in September 2021, following 14 years as Principal Conductor, during which his creative energy and artistic rigour were central to the Orchestra’s success. At the BBC Proms concert with the LPO on 12 August 2021 – his final official concert as Principal Conductor – he received the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal, one of the highest international honours in music.

In September 2021 Vladimir became Music Director at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Since 2017 he has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is also Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and in 2021 stepped down from his decade as Artistic Director of the Russian State Academic Symphony Orchestra to become its Honorary Conductor. He has previously held the positions of First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper, Berlin (1997–2001), Principal Guest Conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (2000–03), Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra (2005–09), and Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (2001–13).

Vladimir enjoys close relationships with the world’s most distinguished artistic institutions, collaborating with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago and Boston symphony orchestras.

Previous seasons at Glyndebourne – many with the LPO – have included Die Zauberflöte, La Cenerentola, Otello, Macbeth, Falstaff, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Don Giovanni, The Rake’s Progress, The Cunning Little Vixen, Ariadne auf Naxos and Péter Eötvös’s Love and Other Demons.

This season Vladimir returns to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducts new productions of Così fan tutte and Prokofiev’s War and Peace and a revival of Dean’s Hamlet at the Bavarian State Opera, and showcases a wealth of concert repertoire with the Berlin Radio Symphony and Bavarian State orchestras. On 22 April he returns to the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for a programme of Mozart and Strauss.

The LPO has released a wide selection of Vladimir Jurowski’s live recordings with the Orchestra on its own label, including the complete symphonies of Brahms and Tchaikovsky; Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 4 & 8; and works by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Strauss, Mozart, Vaughan Williams, Julian Anderson and Vladimir Martynov. In 2017 the Orchestra released a 7-CD box set of Jurowski’s LPO recordings in celebration of his 10th anniversary as Principal Conductor.

2022 saw the first of a three-volume Stravinsky series featuring The Rite of Spring and The Firebird (LPO0123). The second volume, including The Fairy’s Kiss and movements orchestrated by Stravinsky from Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, is released at the end of this month (LPO-0126) (see page 4).

© Drew Kelley

Gil Shaham violin

Gil Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, a Diapason d’Or and a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Volume 2, the latest in his ‘1930s Violin Concertos’ series, was nominated for a Grammy Award. His most recent recording, of Beethoven and Brahms concertos with The Knights, was released in 2021.

Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012 he was named ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ by Musical America. He plays the 1699 ‘Countess Polignac’ Stradivarius and performs on an Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona c1719, with the assistance of Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.

Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time: his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit have solidified his renown as an American master. He is sought-after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

In April 2021 Gil Shaham performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Arvo Pärt’s Fratres with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Ryan Bancroft in a streamed concert broadcast from the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall by Marquee TV. In April 2018 he performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, also at the Royal Festival Hall, with the Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski.

Gil regularly appears with the Berlin Philharmonic; the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco symphony orchestras; the Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris; and in multi-year residencies with the orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart and Singapore. Other highlights of recent years include a recording and performances of J S Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin, and recitals with his long-time duo partner, pianist Akira Eguchi.

Gil lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.

© Luke Ratray

Programme notes

Galina Ustvolskaya 1919–2006

Symphonic Poem No. 1

1958

Galina Ustvolskaya is one of the strangest, most craggily individual artistic voices to have emerged from Soviet Russia. Her dogged determination to stick to her own course resulted in criticism (the words ‘narrowness’ and ‘obstinacy’ were used more than once), and later marginalisation, and it was only after the fall of Russian Communism that her music began to be heard across the world, confusing and infuriating some, but fascinating others. Religious themes recur in her work –not the kind of thing likely to appeal to an officially atheist regime – and yet the tone is rarely exultant, more often dark, even desperate. Such, for instance, is the impression given by the Fifth Symphony (1990), subtitled Amen, in which a narrator, attired in black, mostly shouts the words of the Lord’s Prayer, to a desolately trudging accompaniment of violin, oboe, trumpet, tuba and a wooden cube (it had to be 0.5cm thick and 43cm long), struck with wooden mallets. It was Ustvolskaya’s fondness for that wooden cube that led the Dutch critic Elmer Schönberger to dub her ‘the lady with the hammer’, though it could also serve as a description of the angry aesthetic she pursued in her later works.

Ustvolskaya was 38 when she composed her Symphonic Poem No. 1 (1958) and still to some extent indebted musically to her teacher, Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich encouraged Ustvolskaya, and even quoted from her in several of his works. He was also in love with her at some stage, though the nature of their relationship is hard to make out. Ustvolskaya later turned against her teacher (the only one of his pupils to do so), but at this stage his shadow can still be felt: in the deep, chant-like bass lines at the beginning, and in the edgy ambiguity of the seemingly more upbeat music that follows. But it is clear that she is also much more single-minded, and although there is a moment of deeply touching beauty near the end, where a Russian folk-like theme flourishes polyphonically on high strings, on the whole the character is stark, impressively uncompromising. Symphonic Poem No. 1 was officially declared a failure at its premiere in Leningrad (now

St Petersburg) in 1959, and Shostakovich’s somewhat cagey public defence of it may have been one of the reasons Ustvolskaya turned her hammer on him in later years. But it marks an important step forward. There may be passing echoes of other composers, but already the voice feels in essence like no one else. The bleak but captivating visions of her later work are only a few steps away.

Programme notes

Paul Hindemith 1895–1963

Violin Concerto 1939

Gil Shaham violin

1 Mässig bewegte Halbe (Moderately moving half-notes)

2 Langsam (Slow)

3 Lebhaft (Lively)

integrity in times of political trial. Unsurprisingly, the Nazis were not impressed, and Hindemith found himself slowly and circuitously negotiating his way out of Germany, eventually reaching the USA in 1940.

When Paul Hindemith came to international attention in the years following the end of the First World War, it was as an iconoclast, a zestful prankster, and as the only half-serious champion of Gebrauchsmusik (‘Utility Music’) – in other words, definitely not an old-world romantic in any shape or form. But as the cultural climate worsened in Germany in the 1930s, a new warmth of expression began to emerge in his music, finally blossoming in his operatic masterpiece Mathis der Maler (‘Mathis the Painter’), based on the life and work of the 16th-century artist Matthias Grünewald, and foregrounding his struggles to maintain faith and

The Violin Concerto was written in 1939, while Hindemith was still in Switzerland – relatively safe, but too near to his abandoned homeland for the reverberations of what was going on there, and later abroad, not to reach and disturb him. Hindemith originally had the German violinist Georg Kulenkampff (a champion of his music) in mind as soloist, but the Nazis weighed in there too, and the premiere was given in Amsterdam by the far less starry Ferdinand Helmann, in March 1940. Hindemith wasn’t there, and given that the Nazis were to invade the Netherlands just two months later, that was probably just as well. But one consequence of this was that the Concerto wasn’t seriously taken up in the concert hall until much later, by the great Russian violinist David Oistrakh, whose recording (with Hindemith himself conducting) remains the benchmark for this piece.

Though Hindemith was also internationally renowned as a viola player, his first instrument was the violin, and as a very young man he’d made a favourable impression as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Hindemith’s Concerto begins with a half-veiled tribute to the Beethoven: as there, it’s the timpani that start the work, quietly; though here, instead of a solid march rhythm, they play a kind of irregular dancing heartbeat figure

Programme notes

with more than a hint of unease, above which the violin soars melodically, as though to a different beat, almost as though striving for freedom from disquiet. The rest of the movement switches between tense ambiguity, lyricism, and moments of increasingly militaristic forcefulness from the full orchestra.

Lyricism is much more to the fore in the slow movement, in which the violin’s aspiration has a kind of counterweight in the low tones of the bass clarinet. Militarism returns with added emphasis at the climax,

then violin returns, a little subdued at first, but with a touch of light and hope at the very end. After this, the finale seems at first determined to be as positive as possible: the orchestra boisterous, the violin brilliantly sparkling. But at the heart of the movement hushed, rustling strings herald a long, heavenwards-climbing violin line of remarkable intensity – a display of determined hope in the face of darkness? Nevertheless, it is humour - good-natured, playful, and only a little ironic – that wins in the end.

Interval – 20 minutes

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

Programme notes

Sergei Prokofiev 1891–1953

Symphony No. 6 in E flat minor, Op. 111 1946

1 Allegro moderato

2 Largo

3 Vivace

Few would describe Sergei Prokofiev’s music in general as emotionless, yet it is rarely self-revealing. Unlike his colleague Dmitri Shostakovich, Prokofiev doesn’t often bear his heart, especially when it comes to the darkest and most painful emotions. One striking exception however is this Symphony, possibly sketched out around the time he was composing the prevailingly positive Fifth (1944), but not completed until 1946, when the horrors of the Nazi invasion of Russia were at last over.

The Sixth Symphony’s premiere, in Leningrad in 1947, seems to have gone down well on the whole, but the following year it was publicly torn apart by Stalin’s propagandist-in-chief, Andrei Zhdanov, and by the General Secretary of the USSR Composers’ Union Tikhon Khrennikov. What was it that so offended these worthy gentlemen? Prokofiev had given an indication of how the Symphony might be viewed in a remark quoted by his biographer Israel Nesteyev: ‘Now we are rejoicing in our great victory, but each of us has wounds that cannot be healed ... These must not be forgotten.’ But the feeling at the top in the USSR seems to have been that those ‘wounds’ must indeed be forgotten, as quickly as possible, and that everything must be focussed on the ‘great victory’ and, of course, the bright and glorious socialist future. Khrennikov wasn’t completely wide of the mark when he complained that the Sixth Symphony’s ‘lively and limpid ideas’ were destroyed by ‘contrived chaotic groanings’. There are some beautiful melodic ideas in the Symphony, in fact the first movement’s slower-paced second theme (oboes) is one of the loveliest things this great musical melodist ever created; but this only makes their later development – it’s tempting to call it their ‘fate’ – all the more shocking.

Programme notes

The first movement’s opening gives us more than a hint of what we’re in for: brass spit out an angry descending figure, after which a gently rocking melancholic theme on violins makes an attempt at pacification. The mood remains fractious, unstable, until an ominous hushed bass-drum roll and misty muted strings introduce the exquisite, dignified, yet profoundly sad oboe melody mentioned above. More agitation follows, then a much slower, sinister tick-tocking idea on woodwind and metallic piano builds with mounting unease, until it is suddenly dismissed by a more resolute version of the original violin theme. An out-and-out battle between these ideas ensues. At the very end the music turns to the ostensibly lighter major key, but the metallic piano, ominous bass drum and pungent lower brass add a sour colouring.

Prokofiev described the next movement as ‘brighter and more tuneful’. Now he must have been being ironic, for the Largo has possibly the most violent beginning of any slow movement in symphonic history. Grinding dissonant harmonies on woodwind and brass introduce a long, eloquent but deeply uneasy melody led by

violins. The Largo is ‘more tuneful’ in the sense that there is more melodic music, yet it is constantly challenged by harsher, more aggressive ideas (Khrennikov’s ‘chaotic groanings’), and the softlyscored, gentle ending may only serve to remind us of how little of this sort of thing there has been so far.

One the face of it, Prokofiev’s finale seems to be determined to do what is expected of it: put grief and trauma behind it and throw itself headlong into general rejoicing. But if the partying seems a little strained at first, that sense only grows as the movement unfolds. Eventually the mask drops completely, and so does the tempo, and suddenly we are back with the quiet but unappeasable sadness of the first movement’s oboe theme. What follows is one of the few passages in symphonic music that can be described as genuinely shocking. A chill spreads through the orchestra, then come two horrifically dissonant full-orchestral outbursts. The finale’s main theme sets off again, now in thuggish transformation, finally restoring the major key. But there is nothing in this ending for anyone’s comfort.

Next LPO concerts at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

DON QUIXOTE RIDES AGAIN

Saturday 22 April 2023 | 7.30pm

Mozart Symphony No. 40*

R Strauss Don Quixote

Vladimir Jurowski conductor

Kristina Blaumane cello†

Richard Waters viola‡

* Please note change from originally advertised programme

† Chair supported by Bianca and Stuart Roden

‡ Chair supported by Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp

MAHLER’S FIFTH

Wednesday 26 April 2023 | 7.30pm

Brett Dean In spe contra spem (world premiere)*

Mahler Symphony No. 5

Edward Gardner conductor

Emma Bell soprano

Elsa Dreisig soprano

Programme notes © Stephen Johnson

* Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with the generous support of The Boltini Trust.

Supported by Cockayne - Grants for the Arts, a donor advised fund held at The London Community Foundation.

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

Welser-Möst Circle

William & Alex de Winton

John Ireland Charitable Trust

The Tsukanov Family Foundation

Neil Westreich

Tennstedt Circle

Valentina & Dmitry Aksenov

Richard Buxton

The Candide Trust

Michael & Elena Kroupeev

Kirby Laing Foundation

Mr & Mrs Makharinsky

Alexey & Anastasia Reznikovich

Sir Simon Robey

Bianca & Stuart Roden

Simon & Vero Turner

The late Mr K Twyman

Solti Patrons

Ageas

John & Manon Antoniazzi

Gabor Beyer, through BTO

Management Consulting AG

Jon Claydon

Mrs Mina Goodman & Miss Suzanne

Goodman

Roddy & April Gow

The Jeniffer & Jonathan Harris

Charitable Trust

Mr James R.D. Korner

Christoph Ladanyi & Dr Sophia

Ladanyi-Czernin

Robert Markwick & Kasia Robinski

The Maurice Marks Charitable Trust

Mr Paris Natar

The Rothschild Foundation

Tom & Phillis Sharpe

The Viney Family

Haitink Patrons

Mark & Elizabeth Adams

Dr Christopher Aldren

Mrs Pauline Baumgartner

Lady Jane Berrill

Mr Frederick Brittenden

David & Yi Yao Buckley

Mr Clive Butler

Gill & Garf Collins

Mr John H Cook

Mr Alistair Corbett

Bruno De Kegel

Georgy Djaparidze

David Ellen

Christopher Fraser OBE

David & Victoria Graham Fuller

Goldman Sachs International

Mr Gavin Graham

Moya Greene

Mrs Dorothy Hambleton

Tony & Susie Hayes

Malcolm Herring

Catherine Høgel & Ben Mardle

Mrs Philip Kan

Rehmet Kassim-Lakha de Morixe

Rose & Dudley Leigh

Lady Roslyn Marion Lyons

Miss Jeanette Martin

Duncan Matthews KC

Diana & Allan Morgenthau

Charitable Trust

Dr Karen Morton

Mr Roger Phillimore

Ruth Rattenbury

The Reed Foundation

The Rind Foundation

Sir Bernard Rix

David Ross & Line Forestier (Canada)

Carolina & Martin Schwab

Dr Brian Smith

Lady Valerie Solti

Mr & Mrs G Stein

Dr Peter Stephenson

Miss Anne Stoddart

TFS Loans Limited

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 Querée

The Rosalyn & Nicholas Springer

Charitable Trust

Timothy Walker CBE AM

Christopher Williams

Peter Wilson Smith

Mr Anthony Yolland

and all other donors who wish to remain anonymous

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

William & Alex de Winton

Patricia Haitink

Mr & Mrs Philip Kan

TIOC Foundation

Neil Westreich

The American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra

Principal Associates

Richard Buxton

Gill & Garf Collins

In memory of Brenda Lyndoe

Casbon

In memory of Ann Marguerite

Collins

Sally Groves MBE

George Ramishvili

Associates

Mrs Irina Andreeva

In memory of Len & Edna Beech

Steven M. Berzin

Ms Veronika BorovikKhilchevskaya

The Candide Trust

John & Sam Dawson

Irina Gofman & Mr Rodrik V. G.

Cave

The Lambert Family Charitable

Trust

Stuart & Bianca Roden

In memory of Hazel Amy Smith

The Tsukanov Family

The Viney Family

Gold Patrons

An anonymous donor

Chris Aldren

David & Yi Buckley

In memory of Allner Mavis

Channing

Sonja Drexler

Jan & Leni Du Plessis

The Vernon Ellis Foundation

Peter & Fiona Espenhahn

Hamish & Sophie Forsyth

Mr Roger Greenwood

Malcolm Herring

John & Angela Kessler

Julian & Gill Simmonds

Eric Tomsett

Andrew & Rosemary Tusa

Guy & Utti Whittaker

Mr Florian Wunderlich

Silver Patrons

Dame Colette Bowe

David Burke & Valerie Graham

Bruno De Kegel

Ulrike & Benno Engelmann

Virginia Gabbertas MBE

Dmitry & Ekaterina Gursky

The Jeniffer & Jonathan Harris

Charitable Trust

Catherine Høgel & Ben Mardle

Sir George Iacobescu

Jamie & Julia Korner

Mr & Mrs Makharinsky

Mr Nikita Mishin

Andrew Neill

Tom & Phillis Sharpe

Mr & Mrs John & Susi Underwood

Laurence Watt

Bronze Patrons

Anonymous donors

Michael Allen

Mr Mark Astaire

Nicholas & Christine Beale

Mikhail Noskov & Vasilina Bindley

Mr Anthony Blaiklock

Lorna & Christopher Bown

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

Iain & Alicia Hasnip

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

Mr Joe Topley & Ms Tracey

Countryman

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 OBE

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

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

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

Bloomberg Carter-Ruck

French Chamber of Commerce

Tutti

Lazard

Natixis Corporate Investment

Banking

Sciteb Ltd

Walpole

Preferred Partners

Gusbourne Estate

Jeroboams

Lindt & Sprüngli Ltd

OneWelbeck

Steinway

In-kind Sponsor

Google Inc

Thank you

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 Coates Charitable Trust

John Horniman’s Children’s Trust

John Thaw Foundation

Institute Adam Mickiewicz

Kirby Laing Foundation

Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust

Lucille Graham Trust

The Marchus Trust

PRS Foundation

The Radcliffe Trust

Rivers Foundation

Rothschild Foundation

Scops Arts Trust

Sir William Boremans’ Foundation

The John S Cohen Foundation

The R K Charitable Trust

The Stanley Picker Trust

The Thriplow Charitable Trust

TIOC Foundation

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

Marc Wassermann

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

Shashank Bhagat

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

Florian Wunderlich

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 OBE

Simon Burke

Simon Callow CBE

Desmond Cecil CMG

Sir Alan Collins KCVO CMG

Andrew Davenport

Guillaume Descottes

Cameron Doley

Christopher Fraser OBE

Jenny Goldie-Scot

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

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

Madeleine Ridout

Glyndebourne and Projects 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

Digital Co-ordinator

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