Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra programme by Southbank Centre

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS & VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA SCHOENBERG INSPIRED BY BRAHMS

Concert programme

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17/09/2012 12:26

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS & VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA SHELL CLASSIC INTERNATIONAL TUESDAY 9 APRIL 2013 Royal Festival Hall, 7.30pm Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Michael Tilson Thomas conductor

We have brought together some of the world’s finest orchestras and soloists to perform many of the most significant works of the 20th century. We reveal why these pieces were written and how they transformed the musical language of the modern world.

Yefim Bronfman piano Arnold Schoenberg Theme and Variations arr. for orchestra, Op.43b

11’

Johannes Brahms Piano Concerto No.2

The Rest Is Noise is a year-long festival that digs deep into 20th-century history to reveal the influences on art in general and classical music in particular. Inspired by Alex Ross’ book The Rest Is Noise, we use film, debate, talks and a vast range of concerts to reveal the fascinating stories behind the century’s wonderful and often controversial music.

49’

Interval

Over the year, The Rest Is Noise features 12 focus weekends. The music is set in context with talks from a fascinating team of historians, scientists, philosophers, political theorists and musical experts as well as films, online content and other special programmes. If you’re new to 20th-century music, then this is your time to start exploring with us as your tour guide. There has never been a festival like this. Join the journey: southbankcentre.co.uk/therestisnoise

Johannes Brahms Piano Quartet No.1 orch. Schoenberg

41’

Cover images Marlene Dietrich as Lola, 1930 © AFP/Getty Images Igor Stravinsky © Moviestore Collections/Rex Features Dmitri Shostakovich as a fire warden during the siege of Leningrad © Fine Art Images/Heritage Images Emmeline Pankhurst addresses a crowd

12:26

H C U M Y R E V , Y R E V ‘I OWE ’ . T R A Z O TO MSCHOENBERG ARNOLD

, P I H S N A M S T F A R C T D U E O E H R T I E W R ‘ E M A S I N O I T A R I P S ’ . D IN N I W E H T N I N E SHAK S S BRAHM E N N A H JO L, L A R O F T O N S I T I T, R A S I T IS I T I ‘IF , L L A R O F S I T I F AND I ’ . T R A T O N SCHOENBERG ARNOLD

Y L E D I W , D E T T I W P ‘SHAR Y L I S A E , D CULTURE ED, SCHOENBERG S S E R N I P E M I M O UN H T A F L E S M F O . . . MADE HI S E S U O H E E F F .’ A THE CO N N E I V E L C È I S E FIN-SDS ALEX RO

Alexander von Zemlinsky introduced Schoenberg to Vienna’s Café Griensteidl, where he mixed with artists and intellectuals. It was also jokingly referred to as ‘Café Megalomania’. © Reinhold Völkel 1896

Schoenberg and his family fled from Germany to America in 1933 following the rise of the Nazi Party. Hitler at Nuremberg Rally 1935 © The Print Collection Heritage Images

Los Angeles as Schoenberg would have known it. Railway streetcars cross the busy downtown intersection. USC Digital Library’s Dick Whittington Photography Collection

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PROGRAMME NOTES All great orchestras develop a distinctive style, a distinctive sound. When audiences choose a concert, they may be less focused on the music than on the chance to hear a particular orchestra’s interpretation of the works. The Vienna Philharmonic has always been an outstanding example of orchestral virtuosity, creating some of the seminal recordings of the last century. Late in admitting women to its ranks, it’s fascinating to see the orchestra turn its attention to the modern world and the modern repertoire. When we planned The Rest Is Noise festival, we asked Vienna to create a programme that supported our investigation into the most important music and events of the 20th century. In an elegant programme of Schoenberg and Brahms, the orchestra, under Michael Tilson Thomas, illustrates the links between these two composers who, though from different historical soundscapes, shared a commitment to radical experimentation alongside a reverence for the traditions from which they came. Tilson Thomas, a ten-time Grammy Award winner, a composer and musician in his own right and a conductor renowned for his instinct and intelligence, is joined by the talented pianist Yefim Bronfman. This concert encapsulates the collaborative spirit of The Rest Is Noise, showcasing the extraordinary musicianship of the Vienna Philharmonic. Jude Kelly OBE, Southbank Centre Artistic Director

Arnold Schoenberg © Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874 – 1951) Theme and Variations, Op.43b (1943) For many years the popular view of Schoenberg was of a Modernist reactionary, ruthlessly casting aside a cherished, centuries-old musical tradition, while Brahms was seen as an essentially backward-looking figure who failed to stem the tide of atonality. From our contemporary perspective it is easier to see that far from pulling in opposite musical directions, they were amongst the most distinguished exponents of the same musical tradition. Indeed, the line that extends through personal contact and mentoring from Brahms via Alexander von Zemlinsky and Gustav Mahler to Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton von Webern (the so-called ‘Second Viennese School’) is every bit as vital as that which linked Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert just a century beforehand. Schoenberg typically had his finger on the pulse when he reflected: ‘What distinguishes dissonances from consonances is not a greater or lesser degree of beauty, but a lesser degree of comprehensibility’ Due to the worsening political situation following the Nazi’s sudden rise to power, Schoenberg and his family fled Germany in 1933 bound for the United States. One can sense the impact of Schoenberg’s exposure to the American way of life in the first major works he completed after arriving: the Violin Concerto and String Quartet No.4 (both 1936). This is less a question of stylistic resonances (as had been the case with Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto the decade before), more a widening of his expressive arteries. Like Rachmaninov, however, Schoenberg found composing away from the Homeland decidedly challenging, and following a move to California in 1936, where he found work lecturing at the University and also became George Gershwin’s enthusiastic tennis partner, he produced little music of significance over the following six years. By 1942 (the year that witnessed a return to form with the Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte and Piano Concerto) his health had begun to trouble him, resulting in his resignation from the University in September 1944. The suggestion that Schoenberg compose a set of variations for wind band came from Carl Engel, the head of Schirmer publishing, in June 1943. Strapped for cash and appreciating that such a commission might open up new audiences for his music, Schoenberg had the piece written in less than a fortnight. However, such was its complexity that within no time he was hard at work on an alternative version for symphony orchestra, which was premiered in Boston under Serge Koussevitzky in October 1944. In a letter to the conductor Fritz Reiner, Schoenberg was full of enthusiasm for his latest offspring: ‘It is one of the works that one writes in order to enjoy one’s own virtuosity… As far as technique is concerned I consider it a masterpiece and believe that it is both original and inspired.’

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JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897) Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat, Op.67 (i) Allegro non troppo (ii) Allegro appassionato (iii) Andante (iv) Allegretto grazioso Brahms was the most universal composer of his time – and the most maligned. As early as 1853, in his very last article entitled ‘New Roads’, Schumann had predicted that Brahms would show the way forward – a gift from Zeus himself, ‘the chosen one’. In an age blinded by the ‘new’ music of Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner, Brahms’ learned approach appeared distinctly old-fashioned at times. For some, his careful balancing of every musical parameter appeared diametrically opposed to the heady inspiration of the Romantic era’s leading lights. He preferred the symphony and sonata to the theatrical spectacle of opera. Yet for one of the most enlightened exposés on Brahms’ music, one need look no further than Schoenberg’s groundbreaking essay, ‘Brahms the Progressive’, which recognised the older composer as the first important stage in ‘the journey towards an unrestricted musical language’. Indeed, without the exemplar of Brahms’ profound concision and contrapuntal ingenuity, Schoenberg and his

Johannes Brahms

Arnold Schoenberg composing in LA 1935 © Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna

disciples may have followed a different musical path altogether. Further evidence of this passionately pro-Brahms outlook is provided by Alban Berg’s 1924 essay entitled ‘Why is Schoenberg’s music so hard to understand?’. Here he speaks not of Wagnerian aesthetics, or Mahlerian sensuality, but of music in its most perfect form representing ‘the application of all compositional possibilities presented through the centuries’. Berg goes on to stress the perfect balancing of harmony, melody and rhythm as a composer’s prime objective, sustained by the constant use of variation and polyphony, with Brahms clearly indicated as a musical ideal. The first thing to strike the listener regarding Brahms’ epic Second Piano Concerto is its unconventional layout in four movements – more akin to a symphony than a conventional concerto. The other is that the two most memorable themes are announced not by the piano but soloists from within the orchestral ranks: the first movement opens daringly with a solo horn theme, the slow movement with a gloriously arching melody from the principal cello. The colossal piano writing makes enormous virtuosic demands, with extreme changes of register a constant feature throughout, as in many of Schoenberg’s works. Yet there is very little display in the Lisztian manner here, more a symphonic gravitas matched perfectly by the massive piano sounds Brahms elicits during the two opening movements. The final unexpected touch is the startling progression of moods, opening with a majestic Allegro offset by the searing intensity of the scherzo. The atmosphere changes completely with an autumnal slow movement and an essentially light-hearted finale.

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JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897) Piano Quartet No.1 in G minor, Op.25 (1861, orch. Schoenberg 1937) (i) Allegro (ii) Intermezzo. Allegro, ma non troppo (iii) Andante con moto (iv) Rondo alla Zingarese. Presto By the time Brahms completed his G minor Piano Quartet in 1861, he was firmly established as Germany’s leading young composer. His close friend and champion Robert Schumann had died under tragic circumstances in a lunatic asylum, and the heartfelt slow movement was one of several pieces that Brahms dedicated to his memory. It was also the work that he chose to introduce himself to Vienna as both composer and pianist. Celebrated violinist Joseph Hellmesberger was ecstatic, declaring excitedly that in Brahms he had at last discovered ‘Beethoven’s natural heir’. On the other hand, the critic Eduard Hanslick (destined to become one of Brahms’ most devoted supporters) inexplicably found much of the Quartet’s material ‘dry and prosaic’! With the benefit of hindsight, Brahms’ Op.25 is an extraordinary achievement for a burgeoning composer in his late twenties. The opening movement’s false exposition

Players from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

repeat deliberately misleads the unwary listener into assuming that the music is returning to the beginning in the traditional manner, when in fact the development section is already underway. No less unorthodox is the second movement, which replaces the expected scherzo with a wistful intermezzo, described by one observer as ‘full of troubled excitement, throbbing as though with the incessant breaking of an agonised heart.’ Following the intensely moving, Schumann-inspired Andante con moto, Brahms rounds the work off with an exuberant, Hungarian-style finale. Although Schoenberg referred disarmingly to his 1937 orchestral transcription of the Piano Quartet as Brahms’ ‘Fifth Symphony’, it is in reality a heartfelt homage to the composer with whom he felt a special sense of creative empathy. Incredibly Schoenberg changed very little, remaining true to the work’s essentially chamber spirit, at least until the high-spirited finale, where even he couldn’t resist letting his hair down with some colourful percussion writing and uproarious trombone glissandi. Programme notes by Julian Haylock

VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA CONCERT MASTERS Rainer Küchl Rainer Honeck Volkhard Steude Albena Danailova –––––––––––––––––– ORCHESTRA Violin I Eckhard Seifert Hubert Kroisamer Josef Hell Jun Keller Daniel Froschauer Günter Seifert Clemens Hellsberg Erich Schagerl Bernhard Biberauer Martin Kubik Milan Ŝetena Martin Zalodek Kirill Kobantchenko Wilfried Hedenborg Johannes Tomböck Pavel Kuzmichev Isabelle Ballot Andreas Großbauer Olesya Kurylyak Maxim Brilinsky –––––––––––––––––– Violin II Raimund Lissy Tibor Kovác Christoph Koncz Gerald Schubert René Staar Helmut Zehetner Alfons Egger George Fritthum Alexander Steinberger Harald Krumpöck Michal Kostka Benedict Lea Marian Lesko Johannes Kostner Martin Klimek Yefgen Andrusenko Shkëlzen Doli Dominik Hellsberg Holger Groh ––––––––––––––––––

Viola Heinrich Koll Tobias Lea Christian Frohn Wolf-Dieter Rath Robert Bauerstatter Gerhard Marschner Hans P. Ochsenhofer Mario Karwan Martin Lemberg Elmar Landerer Innokenti Grabko Michael Strasser Ursula Plaichinger Thilo Fechner Thomas Hajek Daniela Ivanova –––––––––––––––––– Cello Tamás Varga Robert Nagy Friedrich Dolezal Raphael Flieder Csaba Bornemisza Gerhard Iberer Wolfgang Härtel Eckart Schwarz-Schulz Stefan Gartmayer Ursula Wex Sebastian Bru Edison Pashko Bernhard Naoki Hedenborg –––––––––––––––––– Double bass Herbert Mayr Christoph Wimmer Ödön Rácz Jerzy (Jurek) Dybal Alexander Matschinegg Michael Bladerer Bartosz Sikorski Jan-Georg Leser Jedrzej Gorski Filip Waldmann Iztok Hrastnik

Flute Dieter Flury Walter Auer Günter Federsel Wolfgang Breinschmid Karl Heinz Schütz –––––––––––––––––– Oboe Martin Gabriel Clemens Horak Harald Hörth Alexander Öhlberger Wolfgang Plank Herbert Maderthaner –––––––––––––––––– Clarinet Ernst Ottensamer Matthias Schorn Daniel Ottensamer Norbert Täubl Johann Hindler Andreas Wieser –––––––––––––––––– Bassoon Michael Werba Stepan Turnovsky Harald Müller Reinhard Öhlberger Wolfgang Koblitz Benedikt Dinkhauser –––––––––––––––––– Horn Ronald Janezic Lars Michael Stransky Sebastian Mayr Wolfgang Lintner Jan Jankovic Wolfgang Vladar Thomas Jöbstl Wolfgang Tomböck jun. Manuel Huber

–––––––––––––––––– Harp Charlotte Balzereit Anneleen Lenaerts

–––––––––––––––––– Trumpet Gotthard Eder Martin Mühlfellner Stefan Haimel Hans Peter Schuh Reinhold Ambros Jürgen Pöchhacker

––––––––––––––––––

BIOGRAPHIES

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS Michael Tilson Thomas is Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, Founder and Artistic Director of the New World Symphony and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Born in Los Angeles, he is the third generation of his family to follow an artistic career. Tilson Thomas began his formal studies at the University of Southern California where he studied piano with John Crown and conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl. At age 19 he was named Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra. He worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen and Copland on premieres of their compositions at Los Angeles’ Monday Evening Concerts. During this same period he was the pianist and conductor for Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz. In 1969, after winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood, he was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was later appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra where he remained until 1974. He was Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979 and a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985. His guest conducting includes appearances with the major orchestras of Europe and the United States. His recorded repertoire of more than 120 discs includes works by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky as well as his pioneering work with the music of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Steve Reich, John Cage, Ingolf Dahl, Morton Feldman, George Gershwin, John McLaughlin and Elvis Costello. He recently finished recording the complete orchestral works of Mahler with the San Francisco Symphony.

Tilson Thomas’s television work includes a series with the London Symphony Orchestra for BBC Television, the television broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts from 1971 to 1977 and numerous productions on PBS Great Performances. Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony produced a multi-tiered media project, Keeping Score, which includes a television series, websites, radio programs and programs in schools. In February 1988 he inaugurated the New World Symphony, an orchestral academy for graduates of prestigious music programs. In addition to their regular season in Miami Beach, they have toured in Austria, France, Great Britain, South America, Japan, Israel, Holland, Italy and the United States. New World Symphony graduates have gone on to major positions in orchestras worldwide. In 1991 Tilson Thomas and the orchestra were presented in a series of benefit concerts for UNICEF in the United States, featuring Audrey Hepburn as narrator of From the Diary of Anne Frank, composed by Tilson Thomas and commissioned by UNICEF. This piece has since been translated and performed in many languages worldwide. In August 1995 he led the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in the premiere of his composition Showa/Shoah, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Thomas Hampson premiered his settings of poetry by Walt Whitman, Renee Fleming premiered his settings of the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the San Francisco Symphony premiered his concerto for contrabassoon entitled Urban Legend. As Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1995, Tilson Thomas led the orchestra on regular tours in Europe, the United States and Japan as well as at the Salzburg Festival. In London he and the orchestra have mounted major festivals focusing on the music of Reich, Gershwin, Brahms, Takemitsu, Rimsky-Korsakov and the School of St. Petersburg, Debussy and Mahler. As Principal Guest Conductor of the LSO, he continues to lead the orchestra in concerts in London and on tour. His 17-year tenure as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony has been broadly covered by the international press. With the San Francisco Symphony he has made numerous tours of Europe, United States and the Far East. Tilson Thomas is a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, was Musical America’s Musician of the Year and Conductor of the Year, Gramophone Magazine’s Artist of the Year and has been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes and ABC’s Nightline. He has won 11 Grammy Awards for his recordings. In 2008 he received the Peabody Award for his radio series for SFS Media, The MTT Files. In 2010, President Obama awarded him with the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States Government.

Cultural Tours & Music Holidays f o r

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Our escorted holidays consist of small exclusive groups and are designed for those with an interest in history, art, gardens, architecture and music. Holidays for music lovers include our own series of exclusive Kirker music festivals on land and at sea as well as visits to major festivals such as the Schubertiade, the Sibelius Festival, the Bregenz Festival and the Dresden Music Festival. We also offer special opera breaks to Venice, Milan and New York. Prices are per person and include flights, transfers, accommodation, meals as described and the services of a Kirker Tour Leader. Single supplements available on request.

The Palaces & Galleries of St Petersburg

A Visit to La Fenice, Venice We have a range of four night escorted holidays to Venice throughout the season, which include a first category seat at Venice’s beautiful opera house.

3 May, 7 June, 5 September & 3 October 2013

Staying at the 4* Monaco & Grand Canal we include three guided walking tours and visits to the Guggenheim and the Accademia art galleries. Operas include Verdi’s Rigoletto and La traviata, both of which received their first performance at La Fenice. Other operas are Mozart’s Don Giovanni and two more Verdi operas – Otello and the rarely performed I masnadieri.

Our six night escorted tour to the city built on the ambition of Peter the Great, provides one of the most culturally stimulating holidays imaginable.Visits include the Hermitage and a selection of Imperial residences including Pavlovsk, the Catherine Palace and the glittering palace at Peterhof. Optional ballet and opera performances at the Mariinsky Theatre will be available on the May, June & Oct departures. This tour is based at the 4* superior Hotel Petro Palace. Price from £1,997 for six nights including five dinners and two lunches.

Price from £1,369 for four nights departing 22 Nov 2012 & 24 Jan, 15 Feb, 17 Mar & 15 July 2013 Price from £1,775 for four nights departing 9 May, 16 May, 28 June & 24 Sep 2013 Prices include one opera performance & two dinners.

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Leif Ove Andsnes Augustin Dumay Lorin Maazel Murray Perahia András Schiff and many others Prague Spring 12/5 – 2/6/2013 68th International Music Festival

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Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union on 10 April 1958, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at The Juilliard School, Marlboro and the Curtis Institute, and with Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher and Rudolf Serkin. He became an American citizen in July 1989.

VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

YEFIM BRONFMAN Yefim Bronfman is widely regarded as one of the most talented virtuoso pianists performing today. His commanding technique and exceptional lyrical gifts have won him consistent critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences worldwide, whether for his solo recitals, his prestigious orchestral engagements or his rapidly growing catalogue of recordings. Bronfman’s 2012/13 season begins early with concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle in Berlin, Salzburg and the London Proms followed by the Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich with David Zinman and London’s Philharmonia conducted by Tugan Sokhiev. A year-long residency with the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra and long-time collaborator Mariss Jansons begins in the autumn and encompasses orchestral and chamber music in a broad range of repertoire. A return to Salzburg’s Easter Festival with the Dresden Staatskapelle and Christian Thielemann is planned for the spring followed by appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic and Michael Tilson Thomas in Vienna and London, subscription concerts in Spain and Germany and a spring tour with Ensemble Wien-Berlin. In North America he works with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in one of their infrequent Carnegie Hall visits conducted by Fabio Luisi and returns to the orchestras in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Montreal where he is a beloved regular. In collaboration with mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená he will make a short winter tour including New York’s Carnegie Hall and in solo recital he can be heard in Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver and Atlanta as well as the great halls of Paris, Berlin and Lisbon. Widely praised for his solo, chamber and orchestral recordings, he was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award in 2009 for his recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s piano concerto with Salonen conducting, released on Deutsche Grammophon. He won a GRAMMY® Award in 1997 for his recording of the three Bartók Piano Concerti with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Otto Nicolai conducted a ‘Grand Concert’ on March 28, 1842 in the Großer Redoutensaal which was presented by all the orchestra members of the imperial “Hof-Operntheater”. This ‘Philharmonic Academy’, as it was originally called, is rightly regarded as the origin of the orchestra, because all the principles of the ‘Philharmonic Idea’, which still apply today, were put into practice for the first time: • Only a musician who plays in the Vienna State Opera Orchestra (originally Court Opera Orchestra) can become a member of the Vienna Philharmonic. • The orchestra is artistically, organizationally and financially autonomous, and all decisions are reached on a democratic basis in a completely independent and autonomous way during the general meeting of all members. • The day-to-day management is the responsibility of a democratically elected body, the administrative committee. Despite a successful start Otto Nicolai left Vienna permanently in 1847; due to this and the Revolution in Vienna (1848) the young enterprise almost collapsed. In 1860 the orchestra gained final stability thanks to subscription concerts and the co-operation of important conductors, composers and soloists (Otto Dessoff, Hans Richter, Wagner, Verdi, Bruckner, Brahms, Liszt). In 1877 the Vienna Philharmonic had its first performance outside of Vienna at what was then known as the ‘Salzburg Musikfest’ and it performed abroad for the first time at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 with Mahler conducting. The orchestra has been a registered association since 1908. The only significant change in all those years was to switch, in 1933, from having one conductor for a complete season of subscription concerts to the present system of having various guest conductors within a season. The Philharmonic’s close relationship with Richard Strauss is of great historical importance. Further musical highlights were artistic collaborations with Toscanini, the long-lasting co-operation with Wilhelm Furtwängler and – after 1945 – with honorary conductors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan, as well as the Vienna Philharmonic’s honorary member Leonard Bernstein. The Vienna Philharmonic has performed approximately 7,000 concerts since its creation on all five continents, has participated in the Salzburg Festival since 1922, is permanently guest at the Festival Wiener Festwochen, the Mozart Week in Salzburg or the Lucerne Festival, has been presenting Vienna Philharmonic Weeks in New York since 1989 and in Japan since 1993. The orchestra organises the New Year’s Concert, which is broadcast internationally in over 70 countries, and the Summer Night Concert Schönbrunn in the unique ambience of the gardens of Schönbrunn palace, attended annually by up to 120,000 people.

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WELCOME TO SOUTHBANK CENTRE Welcome to Southbank Centre. Enjoy your visit to the world’s most inspiring centre for the arts.

• in June we invite a guest artist to curate their fantasy fortnight of music in Meltdown

Southbank Centre’s story started with the 1951 Festival of Britain, which made participation in the arts a joyous reality. With 21.5 million visitors from all parts of the world every year, our site is now the focus of cultural life in London.

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Major artists call Southbank Centre their home. Our four Resident Orchestras are the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and London Sinfonietta. Artists-inResidence include poet Simon Armitage, beatboxer Shlomo and folk super-group Bellowhead.

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Great Orchestras from around the world

SHELL CLASSIC INTERNATIONAL

From Oct 2013 – Jun 2014

Marin Alsop, Swingle Singers & São Paulo Symphony Orchestra

(The Guardian on Imogen Cooper)

Imogen Cooper

Michael Tilson Thomas & San Francisco Symphony Claudio Abbado, Diego Matheuz, Orchestra Mozart & Maria João Pires

Monday 22 April 2013

Antonio Pappano & Orchestra and Chorus of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome

Imogen Cooper performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1, and Iván Fischer conducts Bartók’s dramatic, adventurous and playful Concerto for Orchestra.

Christian Vásquez & Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA BOOK NOW

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