16 Feb 11 LPO Programme notes

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Principal Conductor VLADIMIR JUROWSKI Principal Guest Conductor YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN Leader PIETER SCHOEMAN Composer in Residence JULIAN ANDERSON Patron HRH THE DUKE OF KENT KG Chief Executive and Artistic Director TIMOTHY WALKER

AM†

SOUTHBANK CENTRE’S ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Wednesday 16 February 2011 | 7.30pm

List of Players Orchestra History Leader Yannick Nézet-Séguin Anna Caterina Antonacci Programme Notes Supporters Recordings / Southbank Centre 15 Administration 16 Future Concerts

ANNA CATERINA ANTONACCI soprano

BERLIOZ La Mort de Cléopâtre

(16’)

(21’)

INTERVAL BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique

†

CONTENTS 2 3 4 5 6 7 13 14

YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN conductor

RAVEL Suite, Ma Mère l’oye (Mother Goose)

PROGRAMME £3

(49’)

supported by Macquarie Group

CONCERT PRESENTED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

The timings shown are not precise and are given only as a guide.

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LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

FIRST VIOLINS Pieter Schoeman* Leader Vesselin Gellev Sub-Leader Chair supported by John and Angela Kessler

Ji Hyun Lee Katalin Varnagy Catherine Craig Thomas Eisner Tina Gruenberg Martin Hรถhmann Chair supported by Richard Karl Goeltz

Geoffrey Lynn Robert Pool Sarah Streatfeild Yang Zhang Rebecca Shorrock Peter Nall Galina Tanney Caroline Sharp SECOND VIOLINS Clare Duckworth Principal Chair supported by Richard and Victoria Sharp

Jeongmin Kim Joseph Maher Kate Birchall Chair supported by David and Victoria Graham Fuller

Nancy Elan Fiona Higham Marie-Anne Mairesse Ashley Stevens Dean Williamson Sioni Williams Heather Badke Peter Graham Stephen Stewart Mila Mustakova VIOLAS Alexander Zemtsov* Principal Chair supported by The Tsukanov Family

Robert Duncan Katharine Leek Susanne Martens Benedetto Pollani Emmanuella Reiter-Bootiman Laura Vallejo Isabel Pereira Miranda Davis Sarah Malcolm Daniel Cornford Anthony Byrne

CELLOS Susanne Beer Principal Francis Bucknall Laura Donoghue Santiago Sabino Carvalho + Jonathan Ayling Chair supported by Caroline, Jamie and Zander Sharp

Gregory Walmsley Sue Sutherley Susanna Riddell Tom Roff Helen Rathbone DOUBLE BASSES Kevin Rundell* Principal Tim Gibbs Co-Principal Laurence Lovelle George Peniston Richard Lewis Kenneth Knussen Joe Melvin Tom Walley FLUTES Jaime Martin* Principal Stewart McIlwham* PICCOLO Stewart McIlwham* Principal OBOES Ian Hardwick Principal Steve Hudson Guest Principal Angela Tennick COR ANGLAIS Sue Bohling Principal Chair supported by Julian and Gill Simmonds

CLARINETS Robert Hill* Principal Nicholas Carpenter Paul Richards E FLAT CLARINET Nicholas Carpenter Principal BASSOONS John Price Principal Gareth Newman* Simon Estell Emma Harding

2 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

CONTRA BASSOON Simon Estell Principal

* Holds a professorial appointment in London

HORNS John Ryan Principal Martin Hobbs Adrian Uren Gareth Mollison Stephen Nicholls

+

TRUMPETS Paul Beniston* Principal Anne McAneney* Chair supported by Geoff and Meg Mann

CORNETS Daniel Newell Principal David Hilton TROMBONES Mark Templeton* Principal David Whitehouse BASS TROMBONE Lyndon Meredith Principal TUBAS Lee Tsarmaklis Principal Carl Woodcroft TIMPANI Simon Carrington* Principal Christopher Thomas PERCUSSION Rachel Gledhill Principal Andrew Barclay* Co-Principal Chair supported by Andrew Davenport

Keith Millar Ignacio Molins HARPS Rachel Masters* Principal Helen Sharp Emma Ramsdale Lucy Haslar CELESTE Catherine Edwards OFFSTAGE OBOE Steve Hudson

Chevalier of the Brazilian Order of Rio Branco

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LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Patrick Harrison

Seventy-eight years after Sir Thomas Beecham founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra, it is recognised today as one of the finest orchestras on the international stage. Following Beecham’s influential founding tenure the Orchestra’s Principal Conductorship has been passed from one illustrious musician to another, amongst them Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. This impressive tradition continued in September 2007 when Vladimir Jurowski became the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor and, in a further exciting move, the Orchestra appointed Yannick Nézet-Séguin its new Principal Guest Conductor from September 2008.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has been performing at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall since it opened in 1951, becoming Resident Orchestra in 1992. It plays there around 40 times each season with many of the world’s most sought after conductors and soloists.

Concert highlights in 2010/11 include an exploration of Mahler’s symphonies and complete song cycles during the composer’s anniversary season; the premières of works by Matteo D’Amico, Magnus Lindberg and Brett Dean; a rare opportunity to hear Rossini’s opera Aureliano in Palmira in collaboration with long term partner Opera Rara; and works by the Orchestra’s new Composer in Residence, Julian Anderson.

In addition to its London season and a series of concerts at Wigmore Hall, the Orchestra has flourishing

residencies in Brighton and Eastbourne, and performs regularly around the UK. It is unique in combining these concert activities with esteemed opera performances each summer at Glyndebourne Festival Opera where it has been the Resident Symphony Orchestra since 1964.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra performs to enthusiastic audiences all round the world. In 1956 it became the first British orchestra to appear in Soviet Russia and in 1973 made the first ever visit to China by a Western orchestra. Touring continues to form a significant part of the Orchestra’s schedule and is supported by Aviva, the International Touring Partner of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Tours in 2010/11 include visits to Finland, Germany, South Korea, Spain, France, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Having long been embraced by the recording, broadcasting and film industries, the London Philharmonic Orchestra broadcasts regularly on domestic and international television and radio. It also works with the Hollywood and UK film industries, recording soundtracks for blockbuster motion pictures including the Oscar-winning score for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and scores for Lawrence of Arabia, The Mission, Philadelphia and East is East.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra made its first recordings on 10 October 1932, just three days after its first public performance. It has recorded and broadcast

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 3

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LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

PIETER SCHOEMAN

regularly ever since, and in 2005 established its own record label. The recordings on its own label are taken mainly from live concerts given with distinguished conductors over the years including the Orchestra’s Principal Conductors from Beecham and Boult, through Haitink, Solti and Tennstedt, to Masur and Jurowski.

Recent additions to the catalogue have included acclaimed releases of Christmas choral music conducted

by Vladimir Jurowski, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6 conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, Verdi’s Requiem conducted by Jesús López-Cobos, Holst’s The Planets conducted by Vladimir Jurowski and Elgar’s Symphony No. 1 and Sea Pictures with Vernon Handley and Janet Baker. The Orchestra’s own-label CDs are also widely available to download. Visit www.lpo.org.uk/shop for the latest releases.

‘ … a simply tremendous performance of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony … Jurowski and his players plunged us into a winter of discontent so profoundly expectant that even the inveterate coughers were silenced.’

EDWARD SECKERSON, THE INDEPENDENT, 23 SEPTEMBER 2010

The Orchestra reaches thousands of Londoners through its rich programme of community and school-based activity in Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, which includes the offshoot ensembles Renga and The Band, its Foyle Future Firsts apprenticeship scheme for outstanding young instrumentalists, and regular family and schools concerts.

To help maintain its high standards and diverse workload, the Orchestra is committed to the welfare of its musicians and in December 2007 received the Association of British Orchestras/Musicians Benevolent Fund Healthy Orchestra Bronze Charter Mark.

There are many ways to experience and stay in touch with the Orchestra’s activities: visit www.lpo.org.uk, subscribe to our podcast series, download our iPhone application and join us on Facebook and Twitter.

4 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

In 2002, Pieter Schoeman joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra as Co-Leader. He was appointed Leader in 2008.

Born in South Africa, he made his solo debut with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra at the age of ten. He studied with Jack de Wet in South Africa, winning numerous competitions, including the 1984 World Youth Concerto Competition in America. In 1987 he was offered the Heifetz Chair of Music scholarship to study with Eduard Schmieder in Los Angeles and in 1991 his talent was spotted by Pinchas Zukerman who recommended that he move to New York to study with Sylvia Rosenberg. In 1994 he became her teaching assistant at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Pieter Schoeman has performed as a soloist and recitalist throughout the world 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 Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. As a chamber musician he regularly performs at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall. As a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, he has performed Arvo Pärt’s Double Concerto with Boris Garlitsky and Benjamin Britten’s Double Concerto with Alexander Zemtsov, which was recorded and released on the Orchestra’s own record label to great critical acclaim. Last October he performed the Brahms Double Concerto with Kristina Blaumane.

In 1995 Pieter Schoeman became Co-Leader of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice. Since then he has performed frequently as Guest Leader with the symphony orchestras of Barcelona, Bordeaux, Lyon and Baltimore as well as the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This season he has been invited to lead the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on several occasions.

Pieter Schoeman has recorded numerous violin solos with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos, Opera Rara, Naxos, X5, the BBC and for American film and television. He led the Orchestra in its soundtrack recordings for The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

He teaches at Trinity College of Music in London.

Patrick Harrison

LEADER

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YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN

Marco Borggreve

CONDUCTOR

At 35 years old, Yannick Nézet-Séguin is one of the most highly respected and sought-after conductors on today’s international classical music scene and has been widely praised by audiences, critics and artists alike for his musicianship, dedication and charisma. He is Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and in June 2010 was appointed Music Director Designate of the Philadelphia Orchestra with immediate effect and will take up the full title of Music Director from the 2012/13 season. He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain (Montreal).

A native of Montreal, Yannick Nézet-Séguin has conducted all of the major Canadian orchestras. Since his European debut in 2004, he has appeared regularly with many of Europe’s leading orchestras including the Dresden Staatskapelle, Orchestre National de France, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of Europe. In 2009, he made his BBC Proms debut with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Recent conducting highlights have included highly successful tours of the Far East and North America with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, as well as his debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic (at the 2010 Salzburg Mozartwoche), Zürich Tonhalle, Philadelphia, Boston Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras.

conducted Janáček's The Makropoulos Case and Puccini’s Turandot with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. In summer 2010, he returned to the Salzburg Festival to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in Mozart’s Don Giovanni as well as a revival of his 2008 production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg.

Last month he undertook a tour with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe which culminated in a performance at the Salzburg Mozartwoche. This season sees his debuts with the Chicago Symphony, Bayerischer Rundfunk (Munich) and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras. He makes his house debut at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, conducting Roméo et Juliette, returns to Montreal Opera for Salome and conducts the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a production of Don Giovanni in Baden-Baden. He will make his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 2011/12.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s first three Rotterdam Philharmonic recordings on the EMI/Virgin label, all released during the 2009/10 season, comprise an Edison Award-winning album of Ravel’s orchestral works, the Beethoven and Korngold Violin Concertos with violinist Renaud Capuçon, and Fantasy: A Night at the Opera with flautist Emmanuel Pahud. Future releases include Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and La Mort de Cléopâtre for BIS Records. His discography also includes several award-winning recordings with the Orchestre Métropolitain on the ATMA Classique label.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin studied piano, conducting, composition and chamber music at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in Montreal, and continued his studies with renowned conductors, most notably the Italian maestro Carlo Maria Giulini. His honours include a prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award, the Virginia-Parker Award from the Canada Council in 2000, numerous Prix Opus from the Conseil québécois de la musique, and Canada’s highly coveted National Arts Centre Award.

A notable operatic conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin made his critically acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in December 2009 with a new production of Bizet’s Carmen and has just returned for a new production of Verdi’s Don Carlo. For Netherlands Opera he has

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ANNA CATERINA ANTONACCI

Pascal Victor

SOPRANO

Embracing both soprano and mezzo soprano roles, Anna Caterina’s extraordinary vocal timbre and great acting skills have enabled her to perform many works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries including works

by Monteverdi, Purcell, Handel, Gluck, Paisiello and Mozart. Also an acclaimed interpreter of Rossini, she has sung both buffo and serio roles, and has had equal success with Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Bizet, Massenet and Stravinsky.

Since the 2003/04 season, she has concentrated on the dramatic soprano repertory and scored notable personal successes as Cassandre in Les Troyens with Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Elettra in Idomeneo for the Netherlands Opera and the Maggio Musicale in Florence, and Marschner's Hans Heiling in Cagliari. Her engagements have included L'incoronazione di Poppea with Jacobs at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Palais Garnier in Paris. She also sang Alceste in Parma and at the Salzburg Festival, Medea in Toulouse and the Châtelet in Paris, and Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva and the Palais Garnier in Paris. In 2006, she gave recitals in homage to Pauline Viardot at the Châtelet in Paris and the Wigmore Hall in London, and sang Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été with Sir Colin Davis at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

Anna Caterina recently made her debut in a new production of Carmen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Antonio Pappano followed by the same opera at the Opéra Comique conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. She also sang Berlioz’s La Mort de Cléopâtre with Sir John Eliot Gardiner at La Scala and Berlioz’s Les Nuits d'été with Bartoletti in Parma followed by Rachel in La Juive at the Opéra de Paris.

6 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

Anna Caterina Antonacci also sang a selection of Cantaloube’s Chants d’Auvergne at the 2010 BBC Proms with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by François-Xavier Roth, La Damnation de Faust at the Marseille Opera and with the Orchestre du Capitole in Toulouse, Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda at La Scala, Alice Ford in Falstaff at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Medea at the Teatro Regio Turin and in Epidaurus, and Cassandre in Les Troyens at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine at Tanglewood.

Her future engagements include Cassandre in Les Troyens at the Royal Opera House in London conducted

by Antonio Pappano, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and at the Teatro Real Madrid; Carmen at the Grande Théâtre de Luxembourg; La Voix humane at the Opéra Comique; and Don Quichotte at the Teatro Real Madrid.

Upcoming concert performances will include La Mort de Cléopâtre with the Orchestre National de France conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, La Damnation de Faust with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano and Shéhérazade with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Anna Caterina will also continue to give solo recital tours including music by composers such as Hahn, Tosti, Toscanini, Bachelet, Tirindelli and Respighi, accompanied

by Donald Sulzen, at venues such as the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Cologne Opera, Wigmore Hall, Opera du Rhin in Strasbourg, Concertgebouw, Megaron Concert Hall, Opéra Comique, La Monnaie, Lincoln Center New York, Kennedy Center in Washington DC and Montreal.

She records for the Naïve label and her first recording of Era la Notte has received great acclaim.

Anna Caterina Antonacci has been awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur by the French Republic.

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PROGRAMME NOTES

TWO FRENCH MASTERS OF THE ORCHESTRA From Rameau to Dutilleux, French composers have shown a particular flair for colourful and imaginative orchestral scoring. Maurice Ravel’s mastery of the art is shown in his ‘Mother Goose’ suite of 1911, orchestrations of five children’s piano duet pieces inspired by the stories of Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, the Oriental empress Laideronnette and Beauty and the Beast, and in the solemn finale by the whole ‘Enchanted Garden’ of fairy tales. Hector Berlioz’s confident handling of the orchestra even in his student days is evident in the accompaniment to his dramatic cantata ‘The Death of Cleopatra’, his unsuccessful entry in the 1829 Prix de Rome competition. And one of the most remarkable features of his epoch-making ‘Fantastic Symphony’ of the

Maurice RAVEL

following year is its extraordinarily original and powerful scoring.

The Symphony is based on a semi-autobiographical programme describing a young artist’s hopeless love for an unattainable beloved, represented by a melody which is later transformed and distorted. The first movement depicts the artist’s confused emotions before and after meeting his beloved; in the second and third movements, he seeks solace at a brilliant ball and in the peace of the countryside, but remains haunted by thoughts of her; and the last two movements are delirious dreams of being marched to the scaffold after killing her, and of watching her take part in a wild ‘Witches’ Sabbath’.

SUITE: MA MÈRE L’OYE (MOTHER GOOSE) Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant | Petit Poucet | Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes | Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête | Le jardin féerique

1875-1937

Ravel composed ‘Mother Goose’, a suite of ‘Cinq Pièces Enfantines’ (five childish, or child-like, pieces), between 1908 and 1910, as piano duets for a friend’s two young children. In 1911, at the suggestion of his publisher, he arranged them for a small but colourful orchestra. The following year, he turned these orchestrations into a ballet score, with some re-ordering and some extra numbers. But this performance is of the original suite, with its evocative titles, and in some cases subheadings, drawn from the fairy tales of various French writers.

The suite opens with the gravely beautiful ‘Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane’, an archaic dance in a modal A minor.

The heading of the second movement quotes from Charles Perrault’s version of the story of ‘Tom Thumb’: ‘He thought he would find the way easily by means of the bread he had scattered along his route; but he was

alarmed to discover that there was not a crumb to be seen; the birds had come along and eaten it all up.’ The piece wanders sadly through restless changes of metre, with mocking bird-calls.

‘Laideronnette, the Empress of the Pagodas’ is headed by an excerpt from Mme d’Aulnoy: ‘She undressed and got into the bath. At once little insect creatures (“pagodes et pagodines”) began singing and playing instruments: some had lutes made out of walnut shells, others viols made from almond shells – for their instruments had to be in proportion to their height.’

This fantastic Oriental scene is depicted by Ravel in melodies in the pentatonic scale, on the black notes of the piano, with the more solemn middle section coloured by strokes of the tam-tam.

‘Conversations between Beauty and the Beast’ is based on exchanges quoted from Mme Leprince de

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PROGRAMME NOTES

Beaumont’s re-telling of the familiar tale, followed by the dénouement: ‘The Beast had disappeared, and now at her feet she saw a prince, more handsome than Love itself, who thanked her for releasing him from his spell.’

This story is told in slow waltz time, with the Beast’s theme introduced on contra-bassoon, but transformed at the end on a high solo violin.

Hector BERLIOZ

The slow, rapt finale, ‘The Enchanted Garden’, is mostly subdued in dynamics, but ends resplendently in a pure C major, on the white notes of childhood exploration of the piano. Here above all Ravel shows us, in the words of his biographer Roland-Manuel, ‘the secret of his profound nature and the soul of a child who has never left fairyland’.

LA MORT DE CLÉOPÂTRE ANNA CATERINA ANTONACCI soprano

1803-1869

As an impoverished and late-starting composition student in Paris, Berlioz made five attempts to win the coveted, and lucrative, Prix de Rome, a two-year scholarship to live and work in Italy. In 1826, he fell at the first hurdle, the preliminary test which involved writing a fugue. But in the following years he was admitted each time to the final round, which required the composition of a cantata for voice and orchestra on a set text, to be accomplished in a 25-day incarceration within the Institut de France. His 1827 cantata, La Mort d’Orphée, was deemed ‘unplayable’; but his 1828 effort, Herminie, won a second prize. This, coupled with the fact that his music was beginning to be performed, published and (so important in Paris) talked about, made him the favourite in the 1829 competition. But, all too aware of this, he made the mistake of treating the text, ‘The Death of Cleopatra’ by one Pierre-Ange Viellard de Boismartin, with a freedom and boldness that was guaranteed to set the more conservative jury members against him; and his ambitious orchestral writing proved unsuitable to the piano reduction which was all that was performed to the jury. No first prize was awarded that year, and the cantata remained unpublished and unperformed in the composer’s lifetime (allowing him to raid it for themes for other works). Finally, in 1830, the chastened Berlioz reined in

8 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

his more adventurous instincts and won the prize with La Mort de Sardanapale (only a fragment of which has survived). But his complicated love life, and the success of his Symphonie fantastique the same year, meant that he did not spend the full two years in Rome.

The cantata is a soliloquy of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, the consort of Mark Antony (and before him Julius Caesar), who following Antony’s defeat in battle by his Roman rival Octavius has resolved to commit suicide. The text is arranged in the form of recitatives alternating with arias. But Berlioz loosens this structure by the addition of an extended and dramatic orchestral introduction, and a very free approach to the closing stages. There is just one complete aria, ‘Ah! Qu’ils sont loin ces jours’, looking back to days of glory (and including a recurring phrase which found its way into the opera Benvenuto Cellini, and from there into the Roman Carnival Overture). A second aria, a ‘Méditation’ addressed by Cleopatra to her ancestors the Pharaohs, has a self-contained opening section over an insistent throbbing rhythm, followed by an agitated quick section. But it dissolves into increasingly disjointed recitative, before the closing orchestral representation of a heartbeat faltering and failing.

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PROGRAMME NOTES

La Mort de Cléopâtre C’en est donc fait! Ma honte est assurée.

Veuve d’Antoine et veuve de César, Au pouvoir d’Octave livrée, Je n’ai pu captiver son farouche regard.

J’étais vaincue et suis déshonorée.

En vain, pour ranimer l’éclat de mes attraits, J’ai profané le deuil d’un funeste veuvage; En vain, de l’art épuisant les secrets, J’ai caché sous des fleurs les fers de l’esclavage; Rien n’a pu du vainqueur désarmer les décrets.

So it is done! My shame is beyond doubt.

Widow of Antony and widow of Caesar, delivered into Octavius’s power, I have been unable to charm his fierce gaze.

I was conquered and am dishonoured.

In vain, to revive the splendour of my charms, I have profaned the mourning of a wretched widowhood; vainly, exhausting the secrets of art, I hid under flowers the chains of slavery; nothing has been able to soften the decrees of the conqueror.

À ses pieds j’ai traîné mes grandeurs opprimées.

Mes pleurs même ont coulé sur ses mains répandus, Et la fille des Ptolémées A subi l’affront des refus.

I have dragged my crushed majesty at his feet.

My very tears have run flowing down his hands, and the daughter of the Ptolemies has suffered the insult of being rejected.

Ah! Qu’ils sont loin ces jours, tourment de ma mémoire, Où sur le sein des mers, comparable à Vénus, D’Antoine et de César réfléchissant la gloire, J’apparus triomphante aux rives du Cydnus!

Actium m’a livrée au vainqueur qui me brave; Mon sceptre, mes trésors ont passé dans ses mains; Ma beauté me restait, et les mépris d’Octave Pour me vaincre ont fait plus que le fer des Romains.

Ah! How distant are those days, the torment of my memory, when on the bosom of the sea, like Venus, reflecting the glory of Antony and Caesar, I appeared in triumph on the banks of the Cydnus!

Actium delivered me up to the conqueror who now defies me; my sceptre, my treasures passed into his hands; only my beauty remained, and the rebuffs of Octavius did more to vanquish me than the Roman sword.

Ah! Qu’ils sont loin ces jours, etc.

Ah! How distant are those days, etc.

En vain, de l’art épuisant les secrets, etc.

Vainly, exhausting the secrets of art, etc.

Mes pleurs mêmes ont coulé sur ses mains répandus.

J’ai subi l’affront des refus.

Moi! Qui du sein des mers, comparable à Vénus, M’élançai triomphante aux rives du Cydnus!

Even my tears have run flowing down his hands.

I have suffered the insult of being rejected.

I! Who from the bosom of the sea, like Venus, Soared in triumph onto the banks of the Cydnus!

Au comble des revers, qu’aurais-je encor à craindre?

Reine coupable, que dis-tu!

Du destin qui m’accable est-ce à moi de me plaindre?

Ai-je pour l’excuser les droits de la vertu?

J’ai d’un époux déshonoré la vie.

C’est par moi qu’aux Romains l’Egypte est asservie, Et que d’Isis l’ancien culte est détruit.

Quel asile chercher! Sans parents!

In the depths of misfortune, what have I left to fear?

Guilty queen, what do you have to say?

Can I complain of the fate that overwhelms me?

Have I the right to point to my virtue as an excuse?

I have dishonoured a husband’s life.

Because of me Egypt is subservient to the Romans, and the ancient cult of Isis is destroyed.

What refuge can I find? Without family!

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PROGRAMME NOTES

Sans patrie!

Il n’en est plus pour moi que l’éternelle nuit!

Without homeland!

There is nothing left for me but eternal night!

Méditation [‘How, if when I am laid into the tomb …’ Shakespeare] Grands Pharaons, nobles Lagides, Verrez-vous entrer sans courroux, Pour dormir dans vos pyramides, Une reine indigne de vous?

Great Pharaohs, noble descendants of Lagos, will you see, without anger, a queen unworthy of you enter to sleep in your pyramids?

Non! Non, de vos demeures funèbres Je profanerais la splendeur.

Rois, encor au sein des ténèbres, Vous me fuiriez avec horreur.

No! No, I should profane the magnificence of your funerary abodes.

Kings, already in the depths of darkness, you would shun me in horror.

Du destin qui m’accable est-ce à moi de me plaindre?

Ai-je pour l’accuser; le droit de la vertu?

Par moi nos Dieux ont fui d’Alexandrie, D’Isis le culte est détruit.

Grands Pharaons, nobles Lagides, Vous me fuiriez avec horreur!

Can I complain of the fate that overwhelms me?

Have I the right to point to my virtue, to accuse it?

Because of me our gods have fled from Alexandria.

The cult of Isis is destroyed.

Great Pharaohs, noble descendants of Lagos, you would shun me in horror!

Du destin qui m’accable est-ce à moi de me plaindre?, etc.

Can I complain of the fate that overwhelms me?, etc.

Grands Pharaons, nobles Lagides, Verrez-vous entrer, etc.

Great Pharaohs, noble descendants of Lagos, Will you see, etc.

Non, j’ai d’un époux déshonoré la vie.

Sa cendre est sous mes yeux, son ombre me poursuit.

C’est par moi qu’aux Romains l’Egypte est asservie.

Par moi nos Dieux ont fui les murs d’Alexandrie, Et d’Isis le culte est détruit.

No, I have dishonoured a husband’s life.

His ashes are before my eyes, his shade pursues me.

Because of me Egypt is subservient to the Romans.

Because of me our gods have fled the walls of Alexandria, and the cult of Isis is destroyed.

Osiris proscrit ma couronne. À Typhon je livre mes jours!

Osiris forbids me my crown.

I deliver my life to Typhon!

Contre l’horreur qui m’environne Un vil reptile est mon recours.

A vile reptile is my recourse against the horrors that engulf me.

Dieux du Nil, vous m’avez trahie!

Octave m’attend à son char.

Cléopâtre en quittant la vie Redevient digne de César!

Gods of the Nile, you have betrayed me!

Octavius is waiting for me at his chariot.

In departing from life, Cleopatra becomes once more worthy of Caesar!

Text by Pierre-Ange Vieillard (1778–1862)

Translation © Kevin Halliwell

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PROGRAMME NOTES

INTERVAL 20 minutes An announcement will be made five minutes before the end of the interval.

Hector BERLIOZ 1803-1869

The first performance of Berlioz’s ‘Fantastic Symphony’ in Paris in December 1830 was a decisive moment in the history of musical Romanticism – and in the composer’s own life. The work was a public expression of his passion, from afar, for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom he had seen in 1827 performing Shakespeare’s Ophelia and Juliet with a visiting English company, and of his later disillusion at rumours that she was involved in a liaison with the manager of the company. By 1830, Harriet had left Paris; but in December 1832, she was in the audience when Berlioz repeated the Symphony together with its sequel, Lélio, or The return to life.

Shortly afterwards, she met the composer for the first time; and in October 1833 they were married – though not, alas, to live happily ever after.

The Symphony was composed in no more than a few months in 1830; but Berlioz’s task was lightened by his use of pre-existing material. The opening melody of the introduction, by his own account, comes from a song which he had written in his childhood; the idée fixe at the heart of the work was borrowed from his Prix de Rome cantata Herminie; scholars have suggested that the ‘Marche au supplice’ was lifted from the score of his unperformed opera Les Francs-juges; and the melody of the ‘Scène aux champs’ is now known to come from the

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE Rêveries, Passions: Largo – Allegro agitato e appassionato assai | Un bal: Valse. Allegro non troppo | Scène aux champs: Adagio | Marche au supplice: Allegretto non troppo | Songe d’une nuit du sabbat: Larghetto – Allegro – Un peu retenu

‘Gratias agimus’ of his early and long-lost Messe solennelle, rediscovered in Antwerp in 1992.

These disparate elements, however, are fused together in the searing heat of Berlioz’s imagination into a score of remarkable coherence and power. What was so striking about it at the time was not simply the originality and freshness of Berlioz’s musical language, nor even the varied colours and sheer forcefulness of his orchestral writing, but above all the way in which at a stroke it brought Romanticism into the concert hall.

Berlioz’s famous instrumental effects – offstage oboe in the ‘Scène aux champs’ and offstage bells in the finale, chords on four timpani, notated glissandi (slides), and much more – were of the kind which were beginning to be employed in the opera house, but which had not before been heard in the traditional medium of the symphony. Equally new was, not the idea of a narrative symphony (which can be traced back before Beethoven to Dittersdorf), but the kind of sensational, quasiautobiographical programme which underlies the Symphonie fantastique.

Berlioz had this distributed to audiences in various forms on different occasions; but in outline it describes an ‘Episode in the life of an artist’, a young musician

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PROGRAMME NOTES

obsessively in love with a woman who corresponds to the ideal being of his dreams. She is represented by the idée fixe, the long melody which begins the main Allegro of the first movement, and which thereafter recurs in different contexts in transformed versions. The first movement is called ‘Reveries, Passions’: its introduction depicts the restless state of mind of the protagonist before he first sets eyes on his beloved; the main Allegro portrays the conflicting emotions she inspires in him. In the second movement, a brilliant waltz, he tries to find distraction at ‘A Ball’, and in the slow third movement

he seeks out the peace of a ‘Scene in the Country’, with two shepherds piping to each other: but in both places he is still haunted by thoughts of her. In the fourth movement, in a delirious opium dream, he imagines that he has killed his beloved, and is being led to execution in a ‘March to the Scaffold’. And the finale is a ‘Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath’, in which he watches her taking part in a wild round-dance, its strains mingled with the funeral chant of the Dies irae.

Programme notes by Anthony Burton © 2011

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We would like to acknowledge the generous support of the following Thomas Beecham Group Patrons, Principal Benefactors and Benefactors: Thomas Beecham Group Mr & Mrs Richard & Victoria Sharp Julian & Gill Simmonds The Tsukanov Family

Guy & Utti Whittaker

Mr Daniel Goldstein Mrs Barbara Green Oliver Heaton Peter MacDonald Eggers Mr & Mrs David Malpas Andrew T Mills Mr Maxwell Morrison Mr Michael Posen Mr & Mrs Thierry Sciard Mr John Soderquist & Mr Costas Michaelides Mr & Mrs G Stein Mr & Mrs John C Tucker Howard & Sheelagh Watson Mr Laurie Watt Mr Anthony Yolland

Principal Benefactors Mark & Elizabeth Adams Jane Attias Lady Jane Berrill Desmond & Ruth Cecil Mr John H Cook Mrs Sonja Drexler Mr Charles Dumas David Ellen Commander Vincent Evans

Benefactors Mrs A Beare Dr & Mrs Alan Carrington CBE FRS Marika Cobbold & Michael Patchett-Joyce Mr & Mrs Stewart Cohen Mr Alistair Corbett Mr David Edgecombe Mr Richard Fernyhough

Garf & Gill Collins Andrew Davenport David & Victoria Graham Fuller Richard Karl Goeltz John & Angela Kessler Mr & Mrs Makharinsky Geoff & Meg Mann Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp Eric Tomsett

Ken Follett Michael & Christine Henry Mr Glenn Hurstfield Mr R K Jeha Mr & Mrs Maurice Lambert Mr Gerald Levin Sheila Ashley Lewis Wg. Cdr. & Mrs M T Liddiard OBE JP RAF Mr Frank Lim Paul & Brigitta Lock Mr Brian Marsh John Montgomery Edmund Pirouet Mr Peter Tausig Mrs Kazue Turner Lady Marina Vaizey Mr D Whitelock Hon. Benefactor Elliott Bernerd Hon. Life Members Kenneth Goode Mrs Jackie Rosenfeld OBE

The generosity of our Sponsors, Corporate Members, supporters and donors is gratefully acknowledged.

Corporate Members Appleyard & Trew llp AREVA UK British American Business Brown Brothers Harriman Charles Russell Destination Québec – UK Diagonal Consulting Lazard Leventis Overseas Man Group plc Québec Government Office in London Corporate Donor Lombard Street Research In-kind Sponsors Google Inc Heineken The Langham London Lindt & Sprüngli Ltd Sela / Tilley’s Sweets Villa Maria

Trusts and Foundations Allianz Cultural Foundation The Andor Charitable Trust Arts and Business Ruth Berkowitz Charitable Trust The Boltini Trust Borletti-Buitoni Trust Britten-Pears Foundation The Candide Charitable Trust The John S Cohen Foundation The Coutts Charitable Trust The Dorset Foundation The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust Dunard Fund The Equitable Charitable Trust The Eranda Foundation The Ernest Cook Trust The Fenton Arts Trust The Foyle Foundation The Jonathan & Jeniffer Harris Trust Capital Radio’s Help a London Child The Idlewild Trust The Emmanuel Kaye Foundation The Leverhulme Trust Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust Maurice Marks Charitable Trust The Michael Marks Charitable Trust

Marsh Christian Trust UK Friends of the FelixMendelssohn-Bartholdy Foundation The Mercers’ Company Adam Mickiewicz Institute Paul Morgan Charitable Trust Maxwell Morrison Charitable Trust Musicians Benevolent Fund The R K Charitable Trust Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation The Reed Foundation The Rubin Foundation The Seary Charitable Trust The Samuel Sebba Charitable Trust Sound Connections The Stansfield Trust The Steel Charitable Trust The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation The Swan Trust John Thaw Foundation The Underwood Trust Garfield Weston Foundation Youth Music and others who wish to remain anonymous.

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RECENT RECORDINGS ON THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA’S OWN RECORD LABEL

SOUTHBANK CENTRE

WELCOME TO SOUTHBANK CENTRE We hope you enjoy your visit. We have a Duty Manager available at all times. If you have any queries please ask any member of staff for assistance.

LPO-0045 Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Brahms’s German Requiem with Elizabeth Watts and Stéphane Degout ‘A German Requiem that doesn’t rush and achieves a remarkable inwardness ... I found so many things to enjoy about this recording that I didn’t begrudge a single minute of the time spent to savour them.’

PETER QUANTRILL, GRAMOPHONE, AUGUST 2010

Eating, drinking and shopping? Southbank Centre shops and restaurants include: Foyles, EAT, Giraffe, Strada, YO! Sushi, wagamama, Le Pain Quotidien, Las Iguanas, ping pong, Canteen, Caffè Vergnano 1882, Skylon, Concrete and Feng Sushi, as well as cafes, restaurants and shops inside Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery.

If you wish to get in touch with us following your visit please contact Kenelm Roberts, our Head of Customer Relations, at Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX or email customer@southbankcentre.co.uk or phone 020 7960 4250.

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

LPO-0048 Jesús López-Cobos conducts Verdi’s Requiem with Margaret Price, Livia Budai, Giuseppe Giacomini and Robert Lloyd ‘This live recording from the Festival Hall in 1983 is so good, I regret not having attended the concert ... Jesús López-Cobos conducts a splendidly dramatic account of the score and the London Philharmonic Choir raise the roof.’

HUGH CANNING, THE SUNDAY TIMES, 5 SEPTEMBER 2010

The recordings may be downloaded in high quality MP3 format from www.lpo.org.uk/shop.

CDs may also be purchased from all good retail outlets or through the London Philharmonic Orchestra: telephone 020 7840 4242 (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm) or visit the website www.lpo.org.uk

14 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

RECORDING is not permitted in the auditorium without the prior consent of Southbank Centre. Southbank Centre reserves the right to confiscate video or sound equipment and hold it in safekeeping until the performance has ended MOBILES, PAGERS AND WATCHES should be switched off before the performance begins

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ADMINISTRATION

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

GENERAL ADMINISTRATION

ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL

ARCHIVES

Martin Höhmann Chairman Stewart McIlwham Vice-Chairman Sue Bohling Simon Carrington Lord Currie* Jonathan Dawson* Anne McAneney George Peniston Sir Bernard Rix* Kevin Rundell Sir Philip Thomas* Sir John Tooley* The Rt Hon. Lord Wakeham DL* Timothy Walker AM †

Timothy Walker AM † Chief Executive and Artistic Director

Andrew Chenery Orchestra Personnel Manager

Edmund Pirouet Consultant

Sarah Thomas Librarian

Philip Stuart Discographer

Michael Pattison Stage Manager

Gillian Pole Recordings Archive

*Non-Executive Directors

THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC TRUST Pehr Gyllenhammar Chairman Desmond Cecil CMG Jonathan Harris CBE FRICS Dr Catherine C. Høgel Martin Höhmann Angela Kessler Clive Marks OBE FCA Victoria Sharp Julian Simmonds Timothy Walker AM † Laurence Watt AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, INC.

Alison Atkinson Digital Projects Manager FINANCE David Burke General Manager and Finance Director David Greenslade Finance and IT Manager CONCERT MANAGEMENT Roanna Chandler Concerts Director Ruth Sansom Artistic Administrator Graham Wood Concerts, Recordings and Glyndebourne Manager Alison Jones Concerts Co-ordinator Jenny Chadwick Tours and Engagements Manager Jo Orr PA to the Executive / Concerts Assistant Matthew Freeman Recordings Consultant

Camilla Begg Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager Ken Graham Trucking Instrument Transportation (Tel: 01737 373305) DEVELOPMENT

Harriet Mesher Charitable Giving Manager Phoebe Rouse Corporate Relations Manager

Elisenda Ayats Development and Finance Officer MARKETING Kath Trout Marketing Director Ellie Dragonetti Marketing Manager

We are very grateful to the Board of the American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for its support of the Orchestra’s activities in the USA.

EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY PROGRAMME

Helen Boddy Marketing Co-ordinator

Fiona Lambert Education and Community Consultant

Frances Cook Publications Manager

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Anne Findlay Education Officer

Samantha Kendall Box Office Administrator (Tel: 020 7840 4242)

Richard Mallett Education and Community Producer

Ed Weston Intern

Charles Russell Solicitors Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP Auditors Dr Louise Miller Honorary Doctor

89 Albert Embankment London SE1 7TP Tel: 020 7840 4200 Fax: 020 7840 4201 Box Office: 020 7840 4242

Nick Jackman Development Director

Melissa Van Emden Events Manager

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

www.lpo.org.uk Visit the website for full details of London Philharmonic Orchestra activities.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra Limited is a registered charity No. 238045.

Photographs of Ravel and Berlioz courtesy of the Royal College of Music, London.

Photograph on the front cover

by Patrick Harrison.

Programmes printed by Cantate.

Valerie Barber Press Consultant (Tel: 020 7586 8560)

†Supported by Macquarie Group

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FUTURE CONCERTS AT SOUTHBANK CENTRE’S ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL

MAHLER ANNIVERSARY Saturday 19 February 2011 | 7.30pm

6.15pm–6.45pm | FREE Pre-Concert Event Royal Festival Hall How serious was the music of Haydn, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich? Professor Alexander Ivashkin discusses the use of jokes, allusions, parodies and enciphered riddles through the centuries.

Mozart Sinfonia Concertante, K364 Mahler Das Lied von der Erde Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Stefan Jackiw violin Richard Yongjae O’Neill viola Sarah Connolly mezzo soprano Toby Spence tenor

THE THOMAS BEECHAM GROUP CONCERT Saturday 19 March 2011 | 7.30pm Julian Anderson The Crazed Moon Beethoven Violin Concerto Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 Yannick NézetSéguin and Sarah Connolly

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin

MAHLER ANNIVERSARY JTI FRIDAY SERIES Friday 25 February 2011 | 7.30pm Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen Mahler Symphony No. 9 Christoph Eschenbach conductor Christopher Maltman baritone 6.15pm–6.45pm | FREE Pre-Concert Event Royal Festival Hall Surrey University music lecturer Jeremy Barham explores ‘Ends and beginnings: Mahler and the Ninth’.

Christoph Eschenbach and Christopher Maltman

JTI FRIDAY SERIES Friday 18 March 2011 | 7.30pm Prokofiev Suite, The Love for Three Oranges Haydn Piano Concerto in D Stravinsky Capriccio Shostakovich Symphony No. 6 Vladimir Jurowski conductor Emanuel Ax piano

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Vladimir Jurowski and Christian Tetzlaff

Wednesday 23 March 2011 | 7.30pm Brett Dean Komarov’s Fall (London première) John Adams Dr Atomic Symphony Holst The Planets Marin Alsop conductor London Philharmonic Choir

TO BOOK

Tickets £9-£38 | Premium seats £55 London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 | www.lpo.org.uk Mon-Fri 10am-5pm; no booking fee Southbank Centre Ticket Office | 0844 847 9920 www.southbankcentre.co.uk/lpo Daily, 9am-8pm. £2.75 telephone / £1.75 online booking fees; no fee for Southbank Centre members