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 9 November 2022 | 7.30pm
Agata Zubel Piano Concerto No. 2 (world premiere) (25’)
Lutosławski Symphony No. 4 (22’)
Interval (20’)
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring (32’)
Edward Gardner conductor
Generously supported by Aud Jebsen
Tomoko Mukaiyama piano
2 Welcome LPO news
3 On stage tonight
4 London Philharmonic Orchestra
5 Leader: Pieter Schoeman
6 Edward Gardner
7 Tomoko Mukaiyama
8 Programme notes
14 Recommended recordings
15 Next concerts
17 Sound Futures donors
18 Thank you
20 LPO administration
Works from tonight’s concert are 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 each full work. Thank you for your co-operation.
6.15pm | Free pre-concert talk
The Clore Ballroom, Level 2, Royal Festival Hall
LPO Principal Conductor Edward Gardner and Artistic Director Elena Dubinets discuss the evening’s programme.
All welcome, no ticket required.
10.00pm | Free late-night chamber concert
Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall
Composer/vocalist Agata Zubel performs her music alongside Berio’s Folk Songs with members of the LPO.
Free admission – for availability please visit the Southbank Centre Ticket Office.
The timings shown are not precise and are given only as a guide. Concert presented by the London Philharmonic Orchestra
Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of PolandWe hope you enjoy your visit. We have a Duty Manager available at all times. If you need any information or help, please ask a member of staff.
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We look forward to seeing you again soon. A few points to note for your comfort and enjoyment:
Photography is not allowed in the auditorium.
Latecomers will only be admitted to the auditorium if there is a suitable break in the performance.
Recording is not permitted in the auditorium without the prior consent of the Southbank Centre.
The Southbank Centre reserves the right to confiscate video or sound equipment and hold it in safekeeping until the performance has ended.
Mobiles and watches should be switched off before the performance begins.
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We are delighted that a selection of concerts from our LPO 2022/23 Royal Festival Hall season are being filmed for broadcast on Marquee TV.
Works from this evening’s concert are being filmed for broadcast on Saturday 14 January 2023 at 7pm.
The performance 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 with code LPO2022. Visit marquee.tv/LPO2022 to find out more, enjoy a free trial or subscribe.
Tonight at 10pm, Polish composer and singer Agata Zubel performs her own music alongside Berio’s Folk Songs, with members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The performance takes place in the Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Free admission – for availability please visit the Southbank Centre Ticket Office.
Just released on the LPO Label is James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio, recorded live at the work’s UK premiere in December 2021. Conducted by Mark Elder, it features the London Philharmonic Choir, soprano Lucy Crowe and baritone Roderick Williams.
Composed in 2019, the Christmas Oratorio embraces a Scots Gaelic lullaby, English poetry and Bible passages, all recounting the Nativity. MacMillan deftly weaves together these strands in his trademark expressive and immediate language, reflecting both his Scottish roots and his deeply-held Catholic faith. It is available to stream or download via all major platforms, and on sale to buy as a double CD. To listen or find out more, visit smarturl.it/lpochristmasoratorio
Pieter Schoeman* Leader Chair supported by Neil Westreich
Alice Ivy-Pemberton
Kate Oswin
Nilufar Alimaksumova
Lasma Taimina Chair supported by Irina Gofman & Mr Rodrik V. G. Cave
Elizaveta Tyun
Minn Majoe
Katalin Varnagy Chair supported by Sonja Drexler
Catherine Craig Yang Zhang Chair supported by Eric Tomsett
Amanda Smith
Ronald Long Alice Hall
Joseph Devalle
Jamie Hutchinson
Ricky Gore
Tania Mazzetti Principal Chair supported by Countess
Dominique Loredan
Emma Oldfield Co-Principal Helena Smart
Kate Birchall
Fiona Higham Chair supported by David & Yi
Buckley
Joseph Maher
Ashley Stevens
Claudia Tarrant-Matthews
Nancy Elan
Eleanora Consta
Nynke Hijlkema
Sioni Williams
Jessica Coleman Lyrit Milgram
Richard Waters Principal Chair supported by Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp
Stanislav Popov
Katharine Leek
James Heron
Benedetto Pollani
Shiry Rashkovsky
Laura Vallejo
Toby Warr
Martin Wray
Michelle Bruil
Julia Doukakis
Kristina Blaumane Principal Chair supported by Bianca & Stuart Roden
Pei-Jee Ng Co-Principal Chair supported by The Candide Trust
Francis Bucknall
Susanna Riddell
Helen Thomas George Hoult
Sibylle Hentschel
Hee Yeon Cho
Iain Ward
Auriol Evans
Sebastian Pennar Principal Hugh Kluger
George Peniston
Laura Murphy Elen Roberts
Nickie Dixon Cathy Colwell David Johnson
Thomas Hancox Guest Principal Camilla Marchant
Imogen Royce
Katherine Bicknell
Katherine Bicknell
Clare Childs Oboes
Ian Hardwick* Principal Eleanor Sullivan Hannah Condliffe
Lucy Foster
Sue Böhling*
Sue Böhling* Principal Chair supported by Dr Barry Grimaldi
Lucy Foster
Benjamin Mellefont Principal Thomas Watmough Elliot Gresty Paul Richards* James Maltby
Paul Richards* Principal James Maltby
Thomas Watmough
Principal Chair supported by Roger Greenwood
Jonathan Davies Principal Chair supported by Sir Simon Robey
Dominic Tyler
Emily Newman Simon Estell* Claire Webster
Simon Estell* Principal Claire Webster
John Ryan* Principal Mark Vines Principal Martin Hobbs Elise Campbell Gareth Mollison Zoe Tweed
Jonathan Lipton Oliver Johnson Joel Ashford
John Ryan* Oliver Johnson
Paul Beniston* Principal James Nash Guest Principal Anne McAneney* Tony Cross Kaitlin Wild
James Nash
David Whitehouse
Mark Templeton* Principal Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton
Andrew Cole
Lyndon Meredith Principal
Tubas
Lee Tsarmaklis* Principal Chair supported by Friends of the Orchestra
Grady Hassan
Simon Carrington* Principal Chair supported by Victoria Robey OBE
Tom Lee
Andrew Barclay* Principal Chair supported by Garf & Gill Collins
Ignacio Molins
Karen Hutt
Joe Richards
Rachel Masters Principal Tamara Young
Catherine Edwards
Celeste
Philip Moore
Assistant Conductor
Gabriella Teychenné
* Holds a professorial appointment in London
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, combining the magic of opera with Glyndebourne’s glorious setting in the Sussex countryside.
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 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.
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
LPO Principal Conductor in September 2021; and James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio, recorded at the work’s UK premiere performance in December 2021 (see page 11).
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.
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.
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.
Edward Gardner became Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2021. He is also Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic, a position he will relinquish at the end of the 2023/24 season. From August 2024 he will undertake the Music Directorship of the Norwegian Opera and Ballet (DNO&B), having commenced the role of Artistic Advisor in February 2022.
This season Edward leads the London Philharmonic Orchestra in celebrating its 90th anniversary with music originally written for the LPO, including Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music and Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. He opened the Orchestra’s season in September with Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, bringing the Orchestra and soloists together with the London Philharmonic Choir and London Symphony Chorus. Future highlights this season include Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, an Elgar symphony cycle, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass and Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. He will premiere works by LPO Composer-in-Residence Brett Dean, Vijay Iyer and Agata Zubel, and will tour with the Orchestra throughout the UK and Benelux as well as undertaking an extensive tour of Germany.
Edward opened the LPO’s 2021/22 season with an acclaimed performance of Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage, released in September 2022 on the LPO Label. In August 2022 he conducted the Orchestra in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius at the BBC Proms with the LPC and the Hallé Choir.
Edward opened the Bergen Philharmonic season with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica); further symphonic highlights include works by Stravinsky, Brahms and Nielsen. Choral projects include Mahler’s
Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) and a staged performance of Wagner’s Parsifal. Following recent tours to Berlin, Munich and Amsterdam, and appearances at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival, the orchestra looks forward to touring projects in Germany and Belgium. In demand as a guest conductor, Edward will also return to the Cleveland and Chicago symphony orchestras, and conduct the Staatskapelle Berlin in its Sommerkonzert. Following the announcement of Edward’s appointment at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet, the 2022/23 season will see him conduct a new production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera alongside two concert performances of Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. He will also conduct the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra in a programme of Dvořák and Rachmaninoff.
Music Director of English National Opera for eight years (2007–15), Edward has an ongoing relationship with New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where he has conducted productions of The Damnation of Faust, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier and Werther. In London he has future plans with the Royal Opera House, where he made his debut in 2019 in a new production of Káťa Kabanová and returned for Werther the following season. During the 2021/22 season Edward made his debut with Bayerische Staatsoper in a new production of Peter Grimes. Elsewhere, he has conducted at La Scala, Chicago Lyric Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Opéra National de Paris.
A passionate supporter of young talent, Edward founded the Hallé Youth Orchestra in 2002 and regularly conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He has a close relationship with The Juilliard School of Music, and with the Royal Academy of Music who appointed him their inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Chair in 2014.
Born in Gloucester in 1974, Edward was educated at the University of Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music. He went on to become Assistant Conductor of the Hallé and Music Director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera. His many accolades include being named Royal Philharmonic Society Award Conductor of the Year (2008), an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera (2009) and an OBE for Services to Music in The Queen’s Birthday Honours (2012).
Edward Gardner’s position at the LPO is generously supported by Aud Jebsen.
Tomoko Mukaiyama is a Dutch-Japanese pianist, artist and director based in Amsterdam. In 1991 she was the first Japanese pianist to win the prestigious Dutch Gaudeamus competition, and in 1993 she won the Muramatsu Prize in Japan, which is awarded to an outstanding musician. As a pianist, Tomoko is praised for her vivid interpretations of historical as well as modern compositions. Many prestigious orchestras and ensembles throughout the world have engaged her, including Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Tomoko’s unique approach to the piano has inspired many composers, such as Louis Andriessen, to write new works for her, and Agata Zubel composed tonight’s work, her Piano Concerto No. 2, especially for her. Tonight is Tomoko’s London Philharmonic Orchestra debut.
As a multimodal artist, Tomoko develops arts projects that combine music with contemporary dance, fashion and visual art. She has collaborated with film directors, designers, architects, dancers and photographers such as Marina Abramovic, Merzbow, Jiří Kylián and Michael Gordon. The core of her work is communicating with the audience: she creates a wide variety of projects in different kinds of spaces, always striving to present her art projects in a specific and communicative form, moving between performing in more prestigious venues and creating musical experiences for the intimacy of one. Her work builds on the study of the absence and presence of the composer, the audience and the pianist. She gave new dimension to the concert space with her project for you (2002), in which she performed on the piano in a concert hall for just one visitor.
pianoTomoko’s installation performance wasted (2009), made of some 12,000 silk dresses, challenged the transience of the feminine virtue of fertility. A piano concert with multimedia reached out to audiences to engage with this installation through a personal ritual. The work toured five locations all over the world, and led to a documentary film, Water Children (2011), that was shown at international documentary film festivals and theatres.
Always looking to extend her perspective on art in all possible forms, more recently Tomoko has been moving toward the performing arts. She created the dance work SHIROKURO, presented during the Holland Festival in 2013, with choreographer Nicole Beutler and lighting designer Jean Kalman.
One of Tomoko’s large-scale productions is La Mode (2016). This installation performance investigates and deconstructs the identity of our present time, consumerism, materialism and fetishism in the world of fashion. The piece consists of various art forms including music, dance, architectural installation and fashion imagery.
In collaboration with Maison Hermes is Pianist (2019), in which the artist performs 24 times in a 24-day period, concurrently exhibiting an installation made out of a forest of pianos. The concert was postponed every day by an hour, meaning that the concert could be experienced in each moment of daylight throughout the month.
Tomoko continues collaborating with various artists in different parts of the world with the intention to expand the boundaries of interdisciplinary performing arts.
Polish composer Agata Zubel began her musical journey as a percussionist, studying at the Karol Szymanowski High School of Music in Wrocław. This formative experience has infused her compositional style ever since, with a particular emphasis on rhythm and timbre. She went on to study composition with Jan Wichrowski at the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music. Her first commission for voice came while she was still a student; unable to find a student singer to perform the piece, she decided to sing it herself. Soon, Zubel’s fellow composers were writing for her voice, prompting her to embark on vocal training and a parallel career as a singer. As both composer and performer, Zubel has collaborated with a wide range of artists and venues, with accolades including both the Polonica Nova and the International Rostrum of Composers prizes for Not I, a work for soprano, ensemble and electronics (which can be heard at the late-night chamber concert in the Purcell Room later this evening – see page 11). She is currently a professor on the faculty of the Academy of Music in Wrocław.
A London Philharmonic Orchestra commission, Agata Zubel’s Piano Concerto No. 2 follows her smaller-scale Chamber Piano Concerto of 2018. This earlier piece was also conceived for a soloist playing two pianos: one standard, one prepared. For the Piano Concerto No. 2, the second piano is tuned a quarter-tone lower than concert pitch and spans the gamut of the quarter-tone scale, allowing for material that is both harmonically and melodically microtonal.
Piano Concerto No. 2 2022 (world premiere)
Tomoko Mukaiyama piano I II
The foundations of the Piano Concerto No. 2 are built on ‘classical’ structures: the piece is in three parts, as in a conventional concerto, with a slow and beautiful second section, delicate and muted. Zubel then drapes and fills these parameters with contemporary elements: swathes of microtonal harmonic colour decorate and infiltrate the traditional framework in a way that sets up a fascinating tension between the old and the new, creating moments of contrast and even confrontation.
Agata Zubel composed her Second Piano Concerto with its soloist, Tomoko Mukaiyama, in mind. The two musicians happened to be participating in the same festival in Italy, where they listened to one another perform; Zubel soon realised that Tomoko Mukaiyama’s engaging and dynamic mode of performance would be ideally suited to the theatrical character of a concerto that uses two pianos. This is a piece in which visual as
well as aural elements are used to dramatic effect: the physicality of the artist moving between two keyboards – and two sets of pedals – creates a visual spectacle matched by the ebb and flow of the music.
Agata Zubel explores the shifting relationship between soloist and orchestra throughout the Concerto. There are moments when the pianist’s hands correlate with the orchestral material – as though choreographing its slow glissandi, for example – but in other passages, both the nature of this relationship, and the movements of the soloist between the two pianos, have a free and spontaneous quality. Occasionally, the exchanges between pianist and ensemble bubble over into conflict, but ultimately the soloist is in charge.
Programme note © Joanna WyldOne of the 20th-century’s great symphonists, the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski created an impressive, always progressing body of music in the most difficult of circumstances. As the commander of a military radio station, he was captured by the invading Germans at the beginning of the Second World War. He escaped, and survived the occupation by playing piano duos in Warsaw cafes, including his Variations on a Theme of Paganini. In 1949 his Symphony No. 1 was the first Polish work to be denounced as ‘formalist’ by Stalinist cultural politicians. In reaction, Lutosławski wrote public works based on folk material, while continuing to develop a more personal language privately. In the cultural thaw following Stalin’s death, Lutosławski became a major international figure, renowned for innovations in form and performing techniques and a consistently eloquent personal voice.
In one way or another, a two-part format – preparation, main event – lies at the heart of many of Lutosławski’s later works, including the Second Symphony (whose two movements bear the explicit titles Hesitant and Direct) and the Third (introduction, preparatory first movement, large main movement, third movement comprising lyrical aftermath, brief coda). The Fourth Symphony presents an example that is both clear-cut in its two-movement layout and unprecedentedly subtle in the way in which the two movements relate to one another to create a single, overarching musical experience. Its first movement adopts a favourite ploy for engaging our attention while at the same time frustrating our desire for continuity: alternating two contrasting kinds of music. The first of these, a lyrical melody against a gentle, chordal background, is first exposed by solo clarinet, later by flute and clarinet together. Interposed between statements of this
Witold Lutosławski 1913–94 Symphony No. 4 1992
Music
I –II
‘A big part of everything I do is intuitive … I’ve discovered some rules, but in an empirical way, not thought out as doctrine’
– Witold Lutosławski
unfolding melody are mercurial interludes of faster, less predictable music. On its last appearance the lyrical music is taken up and extended by the strings until it culminates in an abortive attempt at a grand climax.
As promised, just at the moment when we grow impatient with the preparatory first movement, the main second movement arrives. This music unfolds in three stages. The first section, dominated by running semiquaver figures, introduces a grave, cantabile (‘songlike’) theme that will return for later development. The middle section is a sparkling orchestral texture that begins at the top of the orchestra and swells down through the ranks until, heralded by solo trumpet and a trio of trombones, it yields to the third section.
Now the cantabile idea heard earlier returns in full force, gaining in urgency until it culminates in a powerful unison statement by the massed strings and brasses. As if there were no way forward from this frankly emotional climax, the music dissolves in dreamlike recollections. A brief, brilliant coda brings the Symphony to a close.
Lutosławski’s Fourth Symphony, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with generous support from Betty Freeman, was completed on 22 August 1992; the composer conducted the first performance in Los Angeles on 5 February 1993.
Programme note © Steven Stucky
An announcement will be made five minutes before the end of the interval.
Recorded live in concert at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, 4 December 2021
Available to buy on CD, and to download or stream via Spotify, Apple Music, Idagio and others.
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JAMES MACMILLAN CHRISTMAS ORATORIO conducted by MARK ELDER with LUCY CROWE soprano RODERICK WILLIAMS baritone
LONDON PHILHARMONIC CHOIR
‘As powerful an experience, musical and spiritual, as I expect to hear from a living composer for years’
The Times
The Augurs of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls)
Ritual of Abduction Spring Rounds
Ritual of the Rival Tribes Dance of the Earth
The Adoration of the Earth Dance of the Earth
The Summoning of the Ancestors
It would be difficult to point to one single element of the spectacle that took place at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris on the evening of 29 May 1913 (the first performance of The Rite of Spring) and say that it caused particular offence – offence enough, for example, to spark a riot. There would have been features of the production, both musical and visual, that shrieked of barbarism and modernity, but it was more the overall combination of sound and staging that provoked a certain faction of the audience into outrage.
A brawl necessitates confrontation though, and there were almost as many present in the audience who supported and enjoyed the technical advances of Igor Stravinsky and his choreographer Vaslav Nikinsky as those who overtly disliked them. Moreover, The Rite of Spring had been preceded by two scores from Stravinsky, The Firebird and Petrushka, which posed similar musical views of Russian peasant culture and folksong – it was a compositional tradition dating back to Rimsky-Korsakov and the Czarist composers. But
whilst The Firebird and Petrushka remained within reach of tradition, The Rite of Spring seemed, in the words of Stravinsky biographer Percy Young, ‘to tear the whole structure of music apart’.
The narrative of a pagan ritual in which a chosen girl danced herself to death in propitiation of the god of spring was literally dreamt by Stravinsky in 1910 whilst he was at work on Petrushka. After discussion with the Ballet Russes boss Serge Diaghilev and the painter Nicolas Roerich, Stravinsky worked on a scenario and then a score in 1911–12, apparently experiencing many difficulties notating the music. But elements of it came easily to him at the piano, most notably the adjacent chords of E major and E flat major which are the basis of the thick, dissonant chord shot through with irregular, swiping rhythmic emphases that is machined out repeatedly in the ‘Dance of the Young Girls’ (which follows the piercing woodwind tangles of the Introduction). This striking passage summarises some of the musical advances of the piece in microcosm: not only are the conventions of harmonic relationships rendered irrelevant by Stravinsky’s combination of the chords of E and E flat, but the composer creates a soundscape which, whilst driven by a stamping pulse, is also audibly lacking a discernable time signature; there’s no regular rhythmic emphasis from which one can ascertain the division of the music into ‘bars’. Stravinsky had transformed the essentially urban, cultural institution that is ‘the orchestra’ into a primitive, de-humanised being, devoid of any sense of traditional musical sentimentality.
In these stamping rhythms we glimpse something of the barbarism of Nijinsky’s choreography, which was lost in its original notation but reconstructed by the BBC for a television drama in 2006. Nijinsky had his dancers twist their feet inwards and pivot movements from the centre of their bodies (the pelvis) rather than their feet. Their jerking, twisting movements were as vivid, unorthodox and ‘pagan’ as much of Stravinsky’s music, whilst their circular formations carried extra ritual weight.
The dramatic narrative of the ensuing sections is implied by Stravinsky’s titles; ‘The Adoration of the Earth’ concludes with a blazing brass and percussion and a huge orchestral crescendo which builds to silence, whilst ‘The Sacrifice’ begins with slowly undulating winds atop muted strings before a girl is chosen, glorified, and danced to death with a continuous pulse tormented by terrifying orchestral salvos, placed alongside fragmented gasps whose tectonics are shifted by alternate thumps on two timpani.
Throughout The Rite Stravinsky uses distinctive Russian folk themes, often given flight by the equally clear sonorities of woodwinds (which Stravinsky favoured over strings for this purpose due to them being ‘drier, cleaner, less prone to facile expressiveness’). These melodies – or rather melodic fragments rarely longer than a few beats in length – are placed together to create patterns rather than combined in a traditional polyphonic sense to achieve smooth counterpoints. Stravinsky scholar Stephen Walsh has also pointed to the ‘transparency’ of Stravinsky’s dissonance: the ingredients of the chords are discernable, and the rhythmic techniques, described by Stravinsky as ‘lapidary’, bring a similarly natural feel to the sound,
‘Very little immediate tradition lies behind The Rite of Spring – and no theory. I had only my ear to help me; I heard and I wrote what I heard. I am the vessel through which The Rite passed.’
– Igor Stravinsky
‘the closeness of men to the earth’ for Stravinsky, ‘the community of their lives with the soil’.
Though it unleashed decades of innovation in music, The Rite of Spring is in many ways Stravinsky’s stripping-down of music’s assumed rules and habits; an imagining of a pre-Christian world through prehistoric music that took its rhythm and sound from the earth. More than either youthful rule-breaking or fashion led innovation, The Rite’s sole purpose is the conveying of its subject matter. Unfortunately for Nijinsky and the world of dance, it’s often deemed sufficient a depiction of its narrative in concert form alone, and is almost impossibly demanding of any attached choreography.
Programme note © Andrew Mellor
Recommended recordings by Laurie WattLutosławski: Symphony No. 4 Edward Gardner | BBC Symphony Orchestra (Chandos)
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring London Philharmonic Orchestra | Vladimir Jurowski (LPO Label LPO-0123: see below) or Igor Markevich | Philharmonia Orchestra (Testament)
THE LPO LABEL
FIREBIRD THE RITE OF SPRING SYMPHONY IN E FLAT
JUROWSKI conductor
JULY 2022
Agata Zubel composer and vocalist. Known for her unique vocal range and the use of techniques that challenge stereotypes, Zubel gives concerts throughout the world and has premiered numerous new works.
Modern music takes pride of place in her repertoire. She has worked together with the world’s leading ensembles – Klangforum Wien, Ensemble InterContemporain, musikFabrik, London Sinfonietta, Ictus, Eighth Blackbird, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Seattle Chamber Players, Münchener Kammerorchester, Neue Vocalsolisten, Remix Ensemble, 2e2m Ensemble, as well as The ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Staatsoper Hannover, Sinfonia Varsovia, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice and others.
Agata Zubel’s performance in the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Sessionsis coorganized by Adam Mickiewicz Institute – national cultural institution whose mission is to develop and communicate the cultural aspect of Poland by initiating international cooperation and cultural exchange.
Over the last 20 years, the Institute has organised more than 6,000 cultural events with almost 55 million participants. The relations developed and maintained over the years with major institutions and festivals from around the globe have allowed Polish artists to take part in projects taking place in 70 countries across 5 continents.
The Institute also publishes the Culture.pl web portal with daily updates on the most interesting events concerning Polish culture across the world. www.iam.pl/en www.culture.pl/en
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
Arts Council England Dunard Fund
Victoria Robey OBE Emmanuel & Barrie Roman
The Underwood Trust
William & Alex de Winton
John Ireland Charitable Trust
The Tsukanov Family Foundation
Neil Westreich
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
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
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.
Anonymous donors
Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet
Aud Jebsen
In memory of Mrs Rita Reay
Sir Simon & Lady Robey OBE
William & Alex de Winton
Mr & Mrs Philip Kan
Neil Westreich
The American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra
Richard Buxton
Gill & Garf Collins
In memory of Brenda Lyndoe Casbon
In memory of Ann Marguerite Collins
Sally Groves MBE
George Ramishvili
Mrs Irina Andreeva
In memory of Len & Edna Beech Steven M. Berzin
Ms Veronika BorovikKhilchevskaya
The Candide Trust
Irina Gofman & Mr Rodrik V. G. Cave Patricia Haitink
The Lambert Family Charitable Trust
Countess Dominique Loredan
Stuart & Bianca Roden
In memory of Hazel Amy Smith
The Tsukanov Family
The Viney Family
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
Dame Colette Bowe
David Burke & Valerie Graham
John & Sam Dawson
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
Grenville & Krysia Williams
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
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
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
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
Elliott Bernerd
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
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
Berenberg
Bloomberg Carter-Ruck
French Chamber of Commerce
Tutti Lazard Walpole
Trialist
Sciteb
Gusbourne Estate Jeroboams
Lindt & Sprüngli Ltd
OneWelbeck Steinway
Google Inc
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 RVW Trust Scops Arts Trust
Sir William Boremans' Foundation
The John S Cohen Foundation
The Stanley Picker Trust
The Thriplow Charitable Trust
The Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust
The Victoria Wood Foundation
The Viney Family
The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust
and all others who wish to remain anonymous.
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
Jon Carter
Jay Goffman
Alexandra Jupin
Natalie Pray
Damien Vanderwilt
Elizabeth Winter
Catherine Høgel Hon. Director
Jenifer L. Keiser, CPA, EisnerAmper LLP
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 Jay Stein
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 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
Frances Slack Finance Director Dayse Guilherme Finance Manager
Jean-Paul Ramotar Finance and IT Officer
Education and Community Talia Lash Education and Community Director Hannah Foakes Lowri Davies Education and Community Project Managers Hannah Smith Education and Community Project 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 Mairi Warren Marketing Manager Rachel Williams Publications Manager
Harrie Mayhew Website Manager
Gavin Miller Sales and Ticketing Manager
Ruth Haines Press and PR Manager
Sophie Harvey Digital and Residencies Marketing Manager Greg Felton Digital Creative 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