LPO programme 29 Jan 2025 - Benjamin Grosvenor plays Mozart
2024/25 season at the Southbank Centre FREE CONCERT PROGRAMME
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Principal Conductor Edward Gardner supported by Aud Jebsen
Principal Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis
Conductor Emeritus Vladimir Jurowski KBE 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 29 January 2025 | 6.30pm
Benjamin Grosvenor plays Mozart
Sibelius En Saga (17’)
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21, K467 (29’)
Interval (20’)
Sibelius Lemminkäinen Suite (44’)
Karina Canellakis conductor
Benjamin Grosvenor piano
Tonight’s concert is being filmed for future broadcast on Marquee TV. We would be grateful if audience noise during the performance could be kept to a minimum, and if audience members could kindly hold applause until the end of the work. Thank you for your co-operation.
Welcome LPO news
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Tonight’s concert on Marquee TV
Once again this season, a selection of our Royal Festival Hall concerts will be filmed for broadcast on Marquee TV. Tonight’s concert is being filmed for broadcast on Saturday 26 July 2025 at 7pm, and will remain available to watch free of charge for 48 hours without a Marquee TV subscription.
If you would like to subscribe for unlimited access to Marquee TV’s extensive range of music, opera, theatre and dance productions, you can enjoy 50% off an annual subscription with code 50LPO Visit discover.marquee.tv/50lpo to find out more or subscribe.
George Benjamin: LPO Composer-in-Residence
We’re delighted to announce that renowned British composer Sir George Benjamin will be the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s next Composer-in-Residence, succeeding Tania León in September 2025.
Benjamin is one of the leading figures in contemporary classical music. His works have been performed by notable conductors and orchestras worldwide, and his groundbreaking opera collaborations with playwright Martin Crimp have created modern classics like Into the Little Hill, Written on Skin, and Lessons in Love and Violence. His most recent opera, Picture a day like this, was premiered at the 2023 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Now the Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King’s College London, he has received numerous international awards, including a knighthood in 2017. We look forward to working with him from September!
Chair supported by Irina Gofman & Mr Rodrik V. G. Cave
Minn Majoe
Chair supported by Dr Alex & Maria
Chan
Thomas Eisner
Chair supported by Ryze Power
Martin Höhmann
Katalin Varnagy
Helen Ayres
Sylvain Vasseur
Ricky Gore
Alice Apreda Howell
Alice Hall
Jamie Hutchinson
Daniel Pukach
Rasa Zukauskaite
Second Violins
Emma Oldfield Principal
Claudia Tarrant-Matthews
Kate Birchall
Nancy Elan
Nynke Hijlkema
Ashley Stevens
Marie-Anne Mairesse
Joseph Maher
Kate Cole
Beatriz Carbonell
Vera Beumer
Sheila Law
Olivia Ziani
José Nuno Cabrita Matias
Violas
Samuel Burstin
Guest Principal
Martin Wray
Chair supported by David & Bettina
Harden
Lucia Ortiz Sauco
Katharine Leek
Laura Vallejo
Benedetto Pollani
Jill Valentine
Toby Warr
Anita Kurowska
Richard Cookson
Jennifer Coombes
Sarah Malcolm
Cellos
Kristina Blaumane Principal
Chair supported by Bianca & Stuart
Roden
Waynne Kwon
David Lale
Daniel Hammersley
Jane Lindsay
Iain Ward
Helen Thomas
Pedro Silva
Francis Bucknall
Hee Yeon Cho
Double Basses
Sebastian Pennar* Principal
George Peniston
Tom Walley
Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton
Charlotte Kerbegian
Elen Roberts
Catherine Ricketts
Cathy Colwell
Sam Rice
Flutes
Juliette Bausor Principal
Jack Welch
Stewart McIlwham*
Piccolo
Stewart McIlwham* Principal
Oboes
Tom Blomfield
Guest Principal Alice Munday
Cor Anglais
Sue Böhling* Principal
Chair supported by Dr Barry Grimaldi
Clarinets
Benjamin Mellefont*
Principal
Chair supported by Sir Nigel Boardman & Prof. Lynda Gratton
Thomas Watmough
Chair supported by Roger Greenwood
Bass Clarinet
Paul Richards* Principal
Bassoons
Jonathan Davies* Principal Chair supported by Sir Simon Robey
Helen Storey*
Chair supported by Friends of the Orchestra
Horns
John Ryan* Principal
Martin Hobbs
Mark Vines Co-Principal
Gareth Mollison
Duncan Fuller
Trumpets
Paul Beniston* Principal
Tom Nielsen Co-Principal
Anne McAneney*
Chair supported in memory of Peter Coe
Trombones
Mark Templeton* Principal
Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton
David Whitehouse
Bass Trombone
Lyndon Meredith Principal
Tuba
Lee Tsarmaklis* Principal
Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton
Timpani
Simon Carrington*
Principal
Chair supported by Victoria Robey CBE
Percussion
Andrew Barclay* Principal Chair supported by Gill & Garf Collins
Karen Hutt Co-Principal Feargus Brennan
Harp
Rachel Masters
Guest Principal
Assistant Conductor
Juya Shin
*Professor at a London conservatoire
The LPO also acknowledges the following chair supporters whose players are not present at this concert:
David & Yi Buckley
The Candide Trust
Ian Ferguson & Susan Tranter
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. Our mission is to share wonder with the modern world through the power of orchestral music, which we accomplish through live performances, online, and an extensive education and community programme, cementing 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 in Brighton, Eastbourne and Saffron Walden, and on tour worldwide. In 2024 we celebrated 60 years as Resident Symphony Orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, combining the magic of opera with Glyndebourne’s glorious setting in the Sussex countryside.
Soundtrack to key moments
Everyone will have heard the Grammy-nominated London Philharmonic Orchestra, whether it’s playing the world’s National Anthems for 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
Sharing the wonder worldwide
We’re one of the world’s most-streamed orchestras, with over 15 million plays of our content each month. In 2023 we were the most successful orchestra worldwide on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, with over 1.1m followers across all platforms, and in spring 2024 we featured in a TV documentary series on Sky Arts: ‘Backstage with the London Philharmonic Orchestra’, still available to watch via Now TV. During 2024/25 we’re once again working with Marquee TV to broadcast selected live concerts to enjoy from your own living room.
Our conductors
Our Principal Conductors have included some of the greatest historic names like Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, 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 Tania León our Composer-in-Residence.
Next generations
We’re committed to nurturing the next generation of musicians and music-lovers: we love seeing the joy of children and families experiencing their first musical moments, and we’re passionate about inspiring schools and teachers through dedicated concerts, workshops,
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 disabilities and special educational needs.
Today’s young instrumentalists are the orchestra members of the future, and we have a number of opportunities to support their progression. Our LPO Junior Artists programme leads 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 also recently launched the LPO Conducting Fellowship, supporting the development of two outstanding early-career conductors from backgrounds under-represented in the profession.
2024/25 season
Principal Conductor Edward Gardner leads the Orchestra in an exciting 2024/25 season, with soloists including Joyce DiDonato, Leif Ove Andsnes, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Víkingur Ólafsson and Isabelle Faust, and works including Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Principal Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis joins us for three concerts including Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, and Mozart with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor. We’ll also welcome back Conductor Emeritus Vladimir Jurowski, as well as guest conductors including Mark Elder, Lidiya Yankovskaya, Robin Ticciati and Kevin John Edusei.
Throughout the season we’ll explore the relationship between music and memory in our ‘Moments Remembered’ series, featuring works like Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony, Strauss’s Metamorphosen and John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls. During the season there’ll be the chance to hear brand new works by composers including Freya Waley-Cohen and David Sawer, as well as performances by renowned soloists violinist Gidon Kremer, sarod player Amjad Ali Khan, soprano Renée Fleming and many more. The season also features tours to Japan, the USA, China and across Europe, as well as a calendar bursting with performances and community events in our Brighton, Eastbourne and Saffron Walden residencies. lpo.org.uk
Pieter Schoeman Leader
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 Rachmaninoff 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, Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2, 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.
London Philharmonic Orchestra • 29 January 2025 • Benjamin Grosvenor plays Mozart
Karina Canellakis
Principal Guest Conductor, London Philharmonic Orchestra
Karina Canellakis has been Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra since September 2021, and recently extended her contract for a further three years, to the end of the 2026/27 season. She has also been Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (RFO) since 2019. Universally acclaimed for symphonic and operatic performances characterised by their emotional impact, interpretive depth and technical command, Karina is welcomed by the finest musical institutions across the globe.
Tonight is Karina’s third Royal Festival Hall concert with the LPO this season. Last night she conducted the same programme with the Orchestra and Benjamin Grosvenor at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall, and tomorrow they will reprise it at Bristol Beacon.
As Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Karina programmes and leads a diverse and eclectic 2024/25 season of new works by living composers alongside great masterworks, at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. Symphonic highlights include Mahler’s Third Symphony, Brahms’s German Requiem and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius
Guest engagements this season include debuts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Dresden, as well as return visits to the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Washington DC’s National Symphony Orchestra. In December 2024, Karina returned to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées to conduct Poulenc’s Dialogues des
Carmélites with Les Siècles. She conducts at least one opera-in-concert each season with the RFO at the Concertgebouw, and this March will lead Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, completing a cycle of Janáček operas over the past three seasons. Last season she also led Wagner’s complete Siegfried, having previously conducted acts from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre. She made her Santa Fe Opera debut last summer with Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, and in previous seasons has conducted a wide range of the opera canon including Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte and Le nozze di Figaro.
2023 saw the start of a multi-album collaboration between Karina, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Pentatone with their debut release: Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and Four Orchestral Pieces, earning a GRAMMY nomination. Her second album for Pentatone, Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, is due for release in April 2025. Karina and the RFO were also featured artists for the launch of Apple Music Classical with a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Alice Sara Ott.
Since winning the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award in 2016, Karina has developed close relationships with several of the world’s leading orchestras. She was Principal Guest Conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2019–23, and in 2023/24 was a featured Artist-in-Residence at Vienna’s Musikverein. She has toured Australia and will make her debut in Japan in July 2025.
Already known to many in the classical music world as a virtuoso violinist, Karina was encouraged to pursue conducting by Sir Simon Rattle while playing in the Berlin Philharmonic’s Orchestre-Akademie. She performed for several years as soloist, guest leader and chamber musician, spending many summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, until conducting eventually became her focus.
Karina Canellakis was born and raised in New York City. She now makes her home in Amsterdam with her husband and two children.
British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is internationally recognised for his sonorous lyricism and understated brilliance at the keyboard. His virtuosic interpretations are underpinned by a unique balance of technical mastery and intense musicality. He is regarded as one of the most important pianists to emerge in several decades, with Gramophone acknowledging him as one of the top 50 pianists ever on record.
Benjamin has appeared regularly with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, most recently at Saffron Hall in September 2024, and at the 2024 BBC Proms, where he performed Busoni’s monumental Piano Concerto under Edward Gardner. As well as this week’s performances with the LPO and Karina Canellakis in Nottingham, London and Bristol, other concerto highlights of his 2024/25 season include debuts with the Bamberg and NHK symphony orchestras, and returns to the Montreal, Utah, Seattle, Bern, Dallas, BBC, and City of Birmingham symphony orchestras, as well as to the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Benjamin is also a featured artist at the Théâtre des ChampsElysées in Paris, giving both concerto and solo recital performances during the same week in February 2025.
A celebrated recitalist, this season Benjamin performs across the world a programme featuring Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition including at Shanghai Symphony Hall, Muza Kawasaki, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Princeton University Concerts, Unione Musicale de Torino and London’s Wigmore Hall.
Highlights of recent seasons include successful debuts with the Chicago Symphony and Cleveland orchestras, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Vienna Radio Symphony at the BBC Proms; Beethoven’s
Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Maxim Emelyanychev at the Festival Radio France; and varied projects as Artist-inResidence at Sage Gateshead in the 2022/23 season, Wigmore Hall in 2021/22, and Radio France in 2020/21.
A keen chamber musician, Benjamin regularly works with renowned ensembles – the Modigliani Quartet and Doric Quartet amongst them. He also enjoys chamber collaborations with esteemed soloists Kian Soltani, Timothy Ridout and Hyeyoon Park. The quartet recently embarked on a European tour, performing piano quartet works by Strauss and Brahms at the Luxembourg Philharmonie, the Southbank Centre, and the Palau de la Música in Barcelona.
In 2011 Benjamin signed to Decca Classics, becoming the youngest British musician ever – and the first British pianist in almost 60 years – to do so. His recent solo release of Schumann and Brahms, featuring Kreisleriana, was praised as a ‘masterpiece’ (Le Devoir), selected as Gramophone Editor’s Choice, and awarded a Diapason d’or de l’année and a CHOC Classica de l’année 2023. The renewal of his partnership with Decca in 2021 coincided with the release of Benjamin’s album of Liszt, awarded Chocs de l’année and the Prix de Caecilia. The most recent addition to Benjamin’s impressive discography includes Beethoven’s Triple Concerto alongside Nicola Benedetti and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and folksong settings with baritone Gerald Finley.
Benjamin Grosvenor was invited to perform at the First Night of the 2011 BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, where he has since become a regular over the last decades, including at the Last Night of the Proms with Marin Alsop and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2015.
Benjamin Grosvenor has received Gramophone’s Young Artist of the Year, a Classic BRIT Critics’ Award, the UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent, and a Diapason d’Or Jeune Talent Award. He has been featured in two BBC television documentaries, on BBC Breakfast, Front Row, and CNN’s ‘Human to Hero’ series.
Following studies at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Benjamin graduated in 2012 with the Queen’s Commendation for Excellence, and in 2016 was awarded a RAM Fellowship. He is an Ambassador of Music Masters, a charity dedicated to making music education accessible to all children regardless of their background, championing diversity and inclusion.
Unlike his half-friend, half-rival, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, Sibelius could be remarkably unhelpful when it came to revealing what his works were ‘about’. He said next to nothing in public about possible meanings of his symphonies, preferring to leave listeners to interpret the music for themselves. And while many of his tone-poems come with titles, and sometimes with stories or poetic ideas attached, even here there are riddles, reminding us that there’s far more to this music than simple illustration. Sibelius’s first truly mature tone-poem has a title, En Saga, Swedish for ‘A Story’, but as to what that story might be, the only explanation Sibelius provided was that ‘En Saga is an expression of a state of mind’ – in other words, work it out for yourself.
In one sense the ‘story’ is a purely musical one. In En Saga – composed in 1892 and substantially revised ten years later – Sibelius made one of his biggest technical breakthroughs as a composer. Here, instead of following the traditional inherited structures of European classical music, he allows the themes to dictate their own form: as he put it later, like a river finding its way to the sea. But to describe En Saga as an abstract work clearly won’t do. The music is powerfully atmospheric, the themes are powerfully suggestive, full of character, their developments emotionally highly charged, like the storyline in an ancient Norse saga. If nothing else, En Saga evokes the essential elemental drama of one of those age-old verse epics in a way that only music can.
The opening of En Saga, with its misty string figurations and pungent woodwind, is a compelling evocation of farnorthern darkness, a wintry Nordic landscape. From this a more heroic theme gradually emerges, tentatively at first (bassoons, pizzicato cellos and basses), then with more determination on horns. These themes go through a variety of adventures, some of which may seem to end hopefully, but there’s no mistaking the tragic character of the ending. The tempo notches up, the horn theme sounds its heroic challenge for the last time, but at the
climax it is crushed, and a lonely clarinet is left to brood inconsolably on the hero’s fate. Ultimately, we are left with little doubt as to the ‘state of mind’ this music represents.
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K467 1785 with cadenzas by Robert Casadesus
Benjamin Grosvenor piano
1 Allegro maestoso
2 Andante
3 Allegro vivace assai
This is one of the great series of piano concertos which Mozart wrote for himself to play at his subscription concerts in Vienna between 1784 and 1786. It was completed on 9 March 1785, less than a month after its predecessor, the dramatic D minor, K466. The orchestra is a large one, with trumpets and timpani added in the outer movements to flute, oboes, bassoons, horns and strings. As usual in these Viennese concertos, the woodwind instruments play an important role as carriers of the melodic line, frequently in chamber-music-like dialogue with the soloist.
The first movement is of a recognisably Mozartian type, that of a kind of idealised march: listen, for example, to the first entry of the wind section, with brisk dotted rhythms, and timpani providing the bass line. The same kind of movement opens Mozart’s last C major Piano Concerto, K503 – and also, incidentally, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in the same key, which begins in the same way as this work, with a quiet, almost stealthy statement by the strings alone. As it goes on, the first movement of this Concerto explores a great variety of material and moods; at one point, never repeated, there is even a distinct anticipation, in the appropriate key, of the opening of Mozart’s great G minor Symphony of 1788.
The F major slow movement is less easily categorised than the first: it is unique, and in many ways Mozart’s
London Philharmonic Orchestra • 29 January 2025 • Benjamin Grosvenor plays Mozart
Programme notes
closest approach to the spirit of Romanticism (as the Swedish director Bo Widerberg recognised when he pillaged it for his film Elvira Madigan in 1967, the echo-chamber on the soundtrack corresponding to the soft-focus on the screen). Its special atmosphere stems partly from the colouring of muted upper strings; partly from the seamless flow of melody which obscures the usual divisions of the sonata form; partly from the continuous murmur of accompanying triplets, sometimes in the inner strings, sometimes in the wind, sometimes in the soloist’s left hand, which is stilled only at the magical turn to the unexpected key of A-flat major for the start of the recapitulation; and partly from the contrast between the harsh and complex dissonances of the second subject and the cloudless simplicity of the first subject and, in due course, of the ending.
The finale is based on a gavotte-like principal theme, though at a very fast and un-gavotte-like tempo. Between statements of this main theme, the first episode introduces a couple of contrasting ideas, the second (again anticipating Beethoven) is an intensive development section, and the third is a recapitulation of the first. The final rondo statement is preceded by a pause for a cadenza (though, alas, Mozart seems never to have written any cadenzas down for this work – tonight, Benjamin Grosvenor has chosen to play the cadenzas by Robert Casadesus), followed by a tiny but brilliant coda.
An announcement will be made five minutes before the end of the interval.
Next Royal Festival Hall concerts
Symphonic Dances
Wednesday 19 February 2025 7.30pm
Glazunov Concert Waltz No. 1
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1
Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances
Juraj Valčuha conductor
Boris Giltburg piano
An Alpine Symphony
Friday 21 February 2025 7.30pm
Tania León Pasajes
Grieg Piano Concerto R Strauss An Alpine Symphony
Edward Gardner conductor
Alexandra Dovgan piano
Programme notes
Jean Sibelius
1865–1957
Lemminkäinen Suite (Four Legends of the Kalevala), Op. 22
1893–95
1 Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island
2 The Swan of Tuonela
3 Lemminkäinen in Tuonela
4 Lemminkäinen’s Homeward Journey
The Lemminkäinen Suite is an early work, though its later history runs all through its composer’s long life. Sibelius wrote it between 1893 and 1895, shortly after his first popular success, the music for the pageant Karelia, and a few years before his First Symphony. He conducted its first performance in Helsinki in 1896, and then revised it for a second performance the following year. He further revised the two shorter movements, ‘The Swan of Tuonela’ and ‘Lemminkäinen’s Homeward Journey’, for publication in 1900; ‘The Swan’ in particular became, and has remained, widely popular as an independent concert piece. But he withheld the remaining two movements for many years, before revising them again in 1939, during his long retirement. Finally, in 1954, three years before his death, Sibelius authorised the publication of the complete Suite.
Like several of Sibelius’s early works, the Suite was suggested by the Kalevala, the national epic of Finnish mythology, which had been compiled from the narrative poems of oral tradition in the eastern province of Karelia during the first half of the 19th century. The four movements are based on episodes concerned with the young and headstrong hero Lemminkäinen. But there is very little in the way of detailed musical narrative; instead, the musical material is expanded, developed and combined in the abstract manner familiar from the composer’s symphonies. In a telling comment in a letter to his fiancée in 1890, Sibelius wrote that the Kalevala ‘to my ears is pure music, themes and variations; its story is far less important than the moods and atmosphere conveyed.’
The first movement, ‘Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island’, was suggested by Canto 29 of the Kalevala, which describes how Lemminkäinen travels to a distant island while its male inhabitants are away, and seduces all the girls. The first section, with its gradually unfolding melodies and its rising scale figure in the horns, is presumably a portrait of the young hero, while the following passage over a held bass note must represent the innocent dances of the island girls. When the melodies of the introduction return in more expansive form, that can be taken as corresponding to Lemminkäinen’s amorous advances – answered by threatening brass interjections as the angry menfolk return to the island. The return of the dance, now with tremolando strings, seems to have a more orgiastic quality than at first. And after Lemminkäinen’s departure on a stormy sea, receding echoes of the dance suggest either the girls waving goodbye or the memories he leaves behind.
At the first performance of the Suite in 1896, Sibelius placed ‘The Swan of Tuonela’ third, presumably because its spare textures offered some relief for the string players between two movements full of strenuous tremolando writing. But in the final published version, he placed it second, in accordance with the narrative thread of the Suite. However, the piece began its life in an earlier project based on the Kalevala, as the prelude to an abandoned opera called The Building of the Boat, and it makes no claim to be a narrative, but is simply an atmospheric piece of scene-setting. The scene, in the Suite as in the opera, is Tuonela, the underground land
Programme notes
of the dead – which, according to a preface to the score of the piece, ‘is surrounded by a large river with black waters and a rapid current, on which the Swan of Tuonela floats majestically, singing’. The swan is represented by a solo cor anglais, projecting long, arching spans of melody against a background of muchdivided muted strings. A sustained major chord provides a shaft of light in the gloom; but the home minor key is restored in a dirge-like string melody, before the work ends with a return to the icy darkness of the opening.
‘Lemminkäinen in Tuonela’ – which may also be based on music intended for The Building of the Boat – was suggested by Cantos 14 and 15 of the Kalevala Lemminkäinen, as part of his wooing of the daughter of the Northland, has been set the task of descending to Tuonela and killing the Swan. Instead, he is himself speared to death, and his body is cut into pieces which are scattered in the water. But Lemminkäinen’s mother fishes out the pieces and sews them together to bring her son back to life. A speculative interpretation of the movement would suggest that the opening string tremolandos evoke the dark currents of Tuonela; over these, extended wind melodies represent Lemminkäinen, and, later, threatening brass interjections signal the danger he is in. An acceleration and a dramatic plunge into the low register mark the moment of Lemminkäinen’s death, which is followed by a keening woodwind lament. High divided upper strings, over a quiet side-drum roll, and an expressive cello melody depict the miracle-working of Lemminkäinen’s mother. The closing section, less narrative than recapitulation, revisits the dark waters, the moment of the hero’s death and the lament – followed this time by solemn brass chords, and a cello solo suggesting Lemminkäinen awakening to new life.
Describing ‘Lemminkäinen’s Homeward Journey’ in the programme for the first performance of the Suite, Sibelius quoted passages from two cantos of the Kalevala about homeward journeys made by the hero. In the first, he ‘fashions horses out of his sorrows’; in the second, he catches sight of familiar landscapes and seascapes as he gallops home. This is all that is needed by way of a narrative programme for a movement that depicts the hero’s journey in music that moves from the key of C minor through different key-areas to reach E flat major, the opening key of the cycle, while at the same time gradually expanding fragmentary motifs into sustained melodic statements, and gaining in weight and pace.
Recommended recordings of tonight’s works by Laurie Watt
Sibelius: En Saga Danish National Symphony Orchestra | Leif Segerstam (Chandos) or London Philharmonic Orchestra | Sir Thomas Beecham (Historic Great Conductors) or Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra | Hannu Lintu (Ondine)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21, K467 Géza Anda (piano/conductor) | Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg (Deutsche Grammophon) or Friedrich Gulda (piano) | Vienna State Opera Orchestra | Hans Swarowsky (Piano Masterpieces)
Sibelius: Lemminkainen Suite Lahti Symphony Orchestra | Osmo Vänskä or Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra | Susanna Mälkki (both on BIS)
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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
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London Philharmonic Orchestra • 29 January 2025 • Benjamin Grosvenor plays Mozart
Thank you
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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:
