Issuu

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 26 October 2011 | 7.30pm

JAAP VAN ZWEDEN conductor MARIA JOÃO PIRES piano

PROGRAMME £3 CONTENTS 2 Southbank Centre / Leader 3 List of players 4 About the Orchestra 5 Jaap van Zweden 6 Maria João Pires 7 Programme notes 11 Supporters 12 LPO administration The timings shown are not precise and are given only as a guide.

CHOPIN Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor (30’) Interval SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 8 in C minor (62’)

* supported by the Tsukanov Family † supported by Macquarie Group CONCERT PRESENTED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Welcome

pieter schoeman Leader

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

WELCOME TO SOUTHBANK CENTRE

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 Robert, our Head of Customer Relations, at Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX or phone 020 7960 4250 or email customer@southbankcentre.co.uk 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 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.

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.

Born in South Africa, he made his solo début aged 10 with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. He studied with Jack de Wet in South Africa, winning numerous competitions including the 1984 World Youth Concerto Competition in the US. 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 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 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, Pieter has performed Arvo Pärt’s Double Concerto with Boris Garlitsky, Brahms’s Double Concerto with Kristina Blaumane, and Britten’s Double Concerto with Alexander Zemtsov, which was recorded and released on the Orchestra’s own record label to great critical acclaim. He has recorded numerous violin solos with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos, Opera Rara, Naxos, X5, the BBC and for American film and television, and led the Orchestra in its soundtrack recordings for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In 1995 Pieter 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 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Pieter is a Professor of Violin at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

2 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

First Violins Pieter Schoeman* Leader Vesselin Gellev Sub-Leader Chair supported by John and Angela Kessler

Xuan Du Shlomy Dobrinsky Katalin Varnagy Catherine Craig Martin Höhmann Chair supported by Richard Karl Goeltz

Geoffrey Lynn Robert Pool Yang Zhang Rebecca Shorrock Peter Nall Galina Tanney Joanne Chen Caroline Sharp Sarah Buchan Second Violins Philippe Honoré Guest Principal Joseph Maher Kate Birchall Chair supported by David and Victoria Graham Fuller

Fiona Higham Marie-Anne Mairesse Nynke Hijlkema Heather Badke Peter Graham Stephen Stewart Sheila Law Elizabeth Baldey Stephen Dinwoodie Naomi Anner Linda McLaren

Violas Alexander Zemtsov Guest Principal Gregory Aronovich Susanne Martens Laura Vallejo Benedetto Pollani Emmanuella Reiter-Bootiman Katharine Leek Daniel Cornford Alistair Scahill Michelle Bruil Isabel Pereira Naomi Holt Cellos Josephine Knight Guest Principal Susanne Beer Co-Principal Francis Bucknall Laura Donoghue Santiago Carvalho† Jonathan Ayling Chair supported by Caroline, Jamie and Zander Sharp

Gregory Walmsley Susanna Riddell Jonathan Kitchen David Bucknall Double Basses Kevin Rundell* Principal Tim Gibbs Co-Principal Laurence Lovelle George Peniston Richard Lewis Roger Linley Tom Walley Helen Rowlands

Flutes Jaime Martin* Principal Laura Lucas Marta Santamaria Stewart McIwham*

Horns John Ryan Principal Martin Hobbs Mark Vines Co-Principal Gareth Mollison Timothy Ball

Piccolos Stewart McIlwham* Principal Trumpets Marta Santamaria Paul Beniston* Principal Anne McAneney* Oboes Chair supported by Ian Hardwick Principal Geoff and Meg Mann Angela Tennick Nicholas Betts Co-Principal Tom Rainer Cor Anglais Sue Bohling Principal Trombones Chair supported by Mark Templeton* Principal David Whitehouse Julian and Gill Simmonds Clarinets Robert Hill* Principal Steve Morris E-flat Clarinet Timothy Lines Bass Clarinet Paul Richards Principal Bassoons Gareth Newman* Principal Stuart Russell Claire Webster Contra-bassoon Claire Webster

Bass Trombone Lyndon Meredith Principal Tuba Lee Tsarmaklis* Principal Timpani Simon Carrington* Principal Percussion David Jackson Guest Principal Keith Millar Jeremy Cornes Sam Walton Ignacio Molins Eddie Hackett

* Holds a professorial appointment in London † Chevalier of the Brazilian Order of Rio Branco

Chair Supporters The London Philharmonic Orchestra also acknowledges the following chair supporters whose players are not present at this concert: Andrew Davenport The Sharp Family

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 3

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the world’s finest orchestras, balancing a long and distinguished history with a reputation as one of the UK’s most adventurous and forward-looking orchestras. As well as performing classical concerts, the Orchestra also records film and computer game soundtracks, has its own record label, and reaches thousands of Londoners every year through activities for schools and local communities. The Orchestra was founded by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1932, and since then has been headed by many of the great names in the conducting world, including Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. The current Principal Conductor is Russian Vladimir Jurowski, appointed in 2007, with French-Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin as Principal Guest Conductor.

You may well have heard the London Philharmonic Orchestra on film soundtrack recordings: it has recorded many blockbuster scores, from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to Lawrence of Arabia, The Mission, Philadelphia and East is East. The Orchestra also broadcasts regularly on television and radio, and in 2005 established its own record label. There are now over 50 releases on the label, which are available on CD and to download. Recent additions include Dvořák’s Symphonic Variations and Symphony No. 8 conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras; Holst’s The Planets conducted by Vladimir Jurowski; Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 under Klaus Tennstedt; and Shostakovich Piano Concertos with Martin Helmchen under Vladimir Jurowski. The Orchestra was also recently honoured with the commission to record all 205 of the world’s national anthems for the London 2012 Olympics Team Welcome Ceremonies and Medal Ceremonies.

The Orchestra is based at Royal Festival Hall in London’s Southbank Centre, where it has performed since it opened in 1951 and been Resident Orchestra since 1992. It gives around 40 concerts there each season with many of the world’s top conductors and soloists. Concert highlights in 2011/12 include a three-week festival celebrating the music of Prokofiev, concerts with artists including Sir Mark Elder, Marin Alsop, Renée Fleming, Stephen Hough and Joshua Bell, and several premières of works by living composers including the Orchestra’s Composer in Residence, Julian Anderson. In addition to its London concerts, the Orchestra has flourishing residencies in Brighton and Eastbourne, and performs regularly around the UK. Every summer, the Orchestra leaves London for four months and takes up its annual residency accompanying the famous Glyndebourne Festival Opera in the Sussex countryside, where it has been Resident Symphony Orchestra since 1964.

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.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra tours internationally, performing to sell-out audiences worldwide. 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 remains a big part of the Orchestra’s life: tours in the 2011/12 season include visits to Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, the US, Spain, China, Russia, Oman, Brazil and France.

Find out more and get involved!

4 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

The London Philharmonic Orchestra maintains an energetic programme of activities for young people and local communities. Highlights include the ever-popular family and schools concerts, fusion ensemble The Band, the Leverhulme Young Composers project and the Foyle Future Firsts orchestral training scheme for outstanding young players. Over the last few years, developments in technology and social networks have enabled the Orchestra to reach even more people worldwide: all its recordings are available to download from iTunes and, as well as a YouTube channel, news blog, iPhone app and regular podcasts, the Orchestra has a thriving presence on Facebook and Twitter.

lpo.org.uk facebook.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra twitter.com/LPOrchestra

jaap van zweden

CONDUCTOR

Amsterdam-born Jaap van Zweden has risen rapidly in little more than a decade to become one of today’s most soughtafter conductors. He is currently Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Chief Conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra. He began his conducting career aged 19 when he was appointed as the youngest ever Concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1995, and has since held the positions of Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (1996–2000) and Chief Conductor of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague (2000–2005).

Jaap van Zweden has made numerous acclaimed recordings including Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Petrushka, and the complete Beethoven and Brahms symphonies. He is currently recording a cycle of Bruckner symphonies with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra for Octavia Records, with Symphonies Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9 already released to great critical acclaim. He has recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and his highly acclaimed performances of Wagner’s Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger and Parsifal are also available on CD and DVD. For the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s own record label he has released Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 and Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7. In August 2010 he recorded Mozart piano concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and David Fray.

Jaap van Zweden has appeared as guest conductor with prestigious orchestras across the globe including the London Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Orchestre National de France and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. As well as his extensive symphonic repertoire, opera also plays an important part in his career, and he has conducted La traviata and Fidelio with the National Reisopera, Madame Butterfly with The Netherlands Opera, and concert performances of Verdi’s Otello, Barber’s Vanessa and Wagner’s Parsifal, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Lohengrin at the Concertgebouw with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Recent highlights have included highly acclaimed débuts with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (at the Tanglewood Festival), and his BBC Proms début conducting the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8. Highlights of the 2011/12 season and beyond include subscription débuts with the New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony orchestras, and return visits to the Orchestre National de France, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago and St Louis Symphony orchestras, and the Rotterdam and MonteCarlo Philharmonic orchestras. London Philharmonic Orchestra | 5

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall Wednesday 26 October 2011 We regret that Maria João Pires is unwell and has had to withdraw from this evening’s concert. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is very grateful to Rafał Blechacz for taking her place at short notice.

RafaŁ Blechacz piano In 2005, uncontested, Rafał Blechacz won every prize at the prestigious 15th Frédéric Chopin International Piano Competition: the Polish Radio Prize for the best performance of mazurkas; the Frédéric Chopin Society Prize for the best performance of a polonaise; the National Philharmonic of Poland Prize for the best concerto performance; and Krystian Zimerman’s sponsored Prize for the best performance of a sonata. In 2006 he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, becoming only the second Polish artist – after Krystian Zimerman – to do so. Since his victory of 2005, Rafał’s international career has taken him to many of the world’s famous concert halls, among them the Berlin Philharmonie; Alte Oper, Frankfurt; Tonhalle, Zurich; Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Konzerthaus, Vienna; Salle Pleyel, Paris; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Avery Fisher Hall, New York; Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome; and London’s Wigmore Hall. In the 2011/12 season Rafał performs recitals at venues across Europe including the Berlin Philharmonie; Salle Pleyel, Paris; Laeiszhalle, Hamburg; Konzerthaus, Dortmund; Tonhalle, Zurich; Geneva’s Victoria Hall, and in Lyon, Brussels, Munich, Hannover and Stuttgart. He returns to the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Andrés OrozcoEstrada; the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala and Fabio Luisi; the Danish National Symphony Orchestra with Alexander Polianichko, and the Orquesta Nacional de España with Josep Pons. Rafał is regularly invited to perform at the most renowned music festivals including Salzburg, Verbier, La Roque-d’Anthéron, Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Gilmore Festival in the USA. In 2012 he will give recitals at both the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and La Roque d’Anthéron festivals. Rafał’s début CD of Chopin Preludes won the Platinum Record status in his native Poland, as well as the German Echo Klassik award and the French Diapason D’or. In 2010, he recorded both Chopin piano concertos with the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the baton of Jerzy Semkow. It won the German Radio Critics’ Award and after its release in Poland quickly reached double Platinum Record status. A solo disc of Bach will be released in 2012, followed by a disc of works by Debussy and Szymanowski. In July 2010, Rafał received the prestigious Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana, awarded annually by an international jury of music critics to young musicians for their outstanding artistic achievements.

MARIA JOÃO PIRES

PIANO

Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires was born on 23 July 1944 in Lisbon. She gave her first public performance in 1948. In Portugal she studied with Campos Coelho and Francine Benoît, later continuing her studies in Germany with Rosl Schmid and Karl Engel. Pires recorded with the Erato label for 15 years and subsequently, for the last 22 years, with Deutsche Grammophon. Since 1970 Maria João Pires has dedicated herself to reflecting on the influence of art on life, community and education, and in trying to develop new ways of implementing pedagogic theories within society. She has researched new forms of communication that respect the development of the individual, as opposed to the destructive and materialistic logic of globalisation. She brings this philosophy to the workshops she holds in Japan, Brazil and Europe. In 2005 she formed an experimental theatre, dance and music group, Art Impressions, and together they have produced two major projects – ‘Transmissions’, and in 2007 ‘Schubertiade’.

Next London Philharmonic Orchestra concerts Friday 28 October 2011 | 7:30pm JTI Friday Series R Strauss Don Juan Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23, K488 Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances James Gaffigan conductor Paul Lewis piano ‘Lewis’s attention to colour and texture gave his interpretation not only authority but also drew the listener onto another plane. It was not easy to come back.’ The Guardian

Paul Lewis

Wednesday 2 November 2011 | 7:30pm Brahms Double Concerto for violin and cello Bruckner Symphony No. 7 Christoph Eschenbach conductor Nicola Benedetti violin Leonard Elschenbroich cello

Nicola Benedetti and Leonard Elschenbroich

Tickets £9–£39 | Premium seats £65 London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 | lpo.org.uk Mon–Fri 10am–5pm; no booking fee

6 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

PROGRAMME NOTES

Speedread ‘Guns buried in roses’, was the perhaps surprising characterisation that Schumann came up with for the finale of Chopin’s youthful Second Piano Concerto, recognising that its amiable Polish folk flavouring also carried a political message at a time of foreign occupation. How then, might such a perceptive critic have explained a work as complex as Shostakovich’s monumental Eighth Symphony,

Frédéric CHOPIN 1810–1849

Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto is in fact his first; it is only because it was published after the concerto now known as No. 1 that the numberings became forever swapped round. In fact, both works were written within a year of each other and both were intended to serve the same purpose, that of providing the young Chopin, not long out of the Warsaw Conservatory, with material with which to further his career as a concert pianist. In August 1829 he had visited Vienna, where he had scored a success with two other works for piano and orchestra, Krakowiak and the Variations on Mozart’s ‘Là ci darem la mano’, and on returning to Poland he set about composing his first full-scale concerto, completing it early in 1830. After a private try-out in his father’s house in Warsaw at the beginning of March, the public première followed on 17 March at the National Theatre. Despite some audience complaints that Chopin played too quietly (something he would be accused of throughout his career), critical acclaim was high enough for the concert to be repeated only five days later.

one of his three great ‘war’ symphonies in which, as in so many of this composer’s works, the constraints of historical circumstance clash with irrepressible creative force to build an intensely moving tapestry of tragic power and double meanings? Whatever its message, however, few listeners will doubt its power and depth.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 MARIA JOÃO PIRES piano 1 Maestoso 2 Larghetto 3 Allegro vivace

Chopin’s concertos are not in the mould of those by Mozart and Beethoven, in which soloist and orchestra engage in symphonic dialogue, and it would be inappropriate to judge them against such works. The object of the exercise for Chopin was to provide a vehicle for the display of his own virtuosity and musicianship, and for this reason the piano is unapologetically the dominant partner in an unequal relationship with the orchestra, in the same way as in concertos by other early 19th-century composerpianists such as John Field, Ignaz Moscheles and (especially admired by Chopin) Johann Nepomuk Hummel. The emphasis is thus almost wholly on pianistic inventiveness, eloquence and sparkle, and in these the 20-year-old Chopin was already a master. The first movement is perhaps the most conventional of the three: opening with a long orchestral exposition, it follows the expected sonata-form contour in which a succession of themes is presented by the orchestra

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 7

PROGRAMME NOTES

and then restated by the piano, with a few new ones added along the way. A central development section next visits several new keys and finally the principal themes are recapitulated. The piano writing here is brilliant, intricate and innovative throughout – one reason, perhaps, why Chopin felt no need to include the traditional solo cadenza towards the end. The piano has even more fine right-hand tracery in the slow movement, a Larghetto whose dreamy poetry is interrupted by a stormy recitative-like outburst from the piano, its urgency heightened by underlying string tremolos which seem to gasp like shocked onlookers.

Chopin later admitted to a friend that the movement had been inspired by feelings for a singer named Konstancja Gladkowska, his first love. The Concerto concludes with a finale with a distinct folk flavour, nowhere more so than in the mazurka-like episode accompanied by the violins playing with the wood of the bow. After a climax, a horn blast heralds the closing section, now in F major. The nationalist flavour of this movement gratified Chopin’s compatriots at a time when Poland was partitioned under foreign rule, but prompted a more chilling political response from Schumann, who characterised it as ‘guns buried in roses’.

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

Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH 1906–1975

Of the three ‘war’ symphonies that Shostakovich wrote between 1941 and 1945, it was the first, No. 7, the inspirational ‘Leningrad’, that drew most attention at the time. Partly composed in Leningrad during the siege by German forces in 1941, it came to symbolise Russian resistance to the terrors and deprivations of the ‘Great Patriotic War’, especially after a copy was smuggled to the USA, where numerous enthusiastically received performances of it were seen as emblematic of RussianAmerican solidarity in the face of the Nazi threat. The next symphony, No. 8, composed in the space of just two months at an artists’ retreat in the summer of 1943, caused less excitement; reaction to its première in Moscow later in the year was muted, and none of the major papers reviewed it. This was despite the fact that Shostakovich had declared in a recent interview 8 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65 1 Adagio – Allegro non troppo 2 Allegretto 3 Allegro non troppo – 4 Largo – 5 Allegretto –

that ‘it reflects my thoughts, feelings and elevated creative mood, which could not help being influenced by the joyful news of the Red Army’s victories ... [It] contains many tragic and dramatic inner conflicts. But on the whole it is an optimistic, life-asserting work.’ If that led people to expect another ‘Leningrad’, a second stirring celebration of Russian heroism, no wonder they were puzzled by No. 8, a work of Mahlerian emotional complexity and violent power whose message is far from being so clear-cut, and in which optimism in particular seems for the most part to struggle just to survive. Perhaps the people of influence sensed something of the alternative interpretation suggested in 1979 by Solomon Volkov’s controversial book Testimony, claiming to present Shostakovich’s true thoughts as related to

the author, in which we are told that ‘the war brought much new sorrow and much new destruction, but I haven’t forgotten the terrible pre-war years ... Too many of our people died and were buried in places unknown to anyone, not even their relatives. I think constantly of those people, and in almost every major work I try to remind others of them.’ By 1956, eight years after Shostakovich had also come under fire from the authorities for ‘formalism’, the composer was lamenting that the ‘work into which I put so much thought and feeling’ had not been performed in the Soviet Union for many years. Subsequently, however, the stock of the Eighth has risen to the point where it is now seen as one of the greatest of all his works. It may be that it is the ever-increasing distance in time from the War and from Shostakovich’s predicament as a Soviet artist that has enabled it to emerge to advantage, less encumbered and in a more revealing light. For all that the War continues to maintain a strong presence in our collective emotional consciousness – a presence that Shostakovich’s music of that time undoubtedly still connects with – the details of it recede, with the result that a work such the Eighth can begin to be seen more as a symphony that is great in its own right and on its own ‘symphonic’ terms. Yes, it is a ‘war’ symphony, if that helps; but it is also a symphony by a towering master of the genre, for whom, however much we may pore over the background, the music ultimately does the real talking. Like Mahler, Shostakovich was freely pragmatic in his approach to formal outline in his symphonies – only six of the 15 are in the ‘traditional’ four movements. The Eighth has a particularly Mahlerian shape, its five movements containing two adjacent march-scherzos, a spacious and wide-ranging finale, and, to start, an epic sonata-form slow movement that in terms of duration makes up almost half the work. It opens darkly in the lower strings, sounding in the very first bar a three-note motif – a note followed by an adjacent note and then the first note again – that will recur memorably and in many guises throughout the symphony. The texture builds eerily until a more lyrically relaxed tune is heard on violins over a gently throbbing accompaniment. After this has been heard a second time, the development section begins quietly and almost with the calm flavour of a fugal exposition, but, propelled by horrifying transformations of the earlier throbbing accompaniment figure, the music soon builds to a fff

climax. This gives out onto two faster sections, the first shrilly agitated and the second a grim march, at the end of which percussion rolls pitch us into an even more ear-splitting climax featuring restatements of the threenote motif from the opening. In formal terms, this is the moment of recapitulation, but the first thing we hear after a stunned silence is a long and heartbreakingly mournful cor anglais solo. The earlier themes then return in a new order as the movement winds down to a hushed ending. The first of the march-scherzos follows. At first it seems to be in celebratory, almost ‘Russian nationalist’ mood, but its attempts at carefree jollity (borrowed from a movement in the second Jazz Suite of 1938) are repeatedly stamped out by interventions and transformations that are variously sarcastic, ugly, grotesque or macabre. The second march shows not even a hint of a smile, however, being a relentless moto perpetuum of mechanistic brutality, with an absurd, self-important trumpet melody for a central ‘trio’; if it is a depiction of militaristic totalitarianism it could hardly be more damning. This horrifying episode crashes to a halt on a rudely aggressive drum-roll, and probably few listeners would expect at this point that the next movement is about to follow straight on, even less that it is to be a noble and generously unfolding passacaglia. The spacious, mysteriously undulating bass line is stated 12 times, forcefully at first to combat the drum-roll, but quickly subsiding as variations are calmly spun over it in gently shifting colours. The movement then slides without a break into the finale, which starts in apparently lighthearted vein with a trio for bassoons. Further relaxed episodes follow, but when a fugue opens up the tension builds with it as reminders of the horrors of earlier movements begin to appear, culminating in a shattering reappearance of the violent climax of the first movement. Following this the music winds down, but without its former cheerfulness, as if stung by the memory of this final outburst. Eventually the symphony dies quietly away, but if its lack of a real sense of peaceful repose does not quite affirm for us Shostakovich’s assertion that ‘everything that is dark and gloomy will perish and disappear, and the beautiful will triumph’, it at least allows us reason to hope. Programme notes © Lindsay Kemp London Philharmonic Orchestra | 9

13 January — 1 February 2012

Get closer to Sergei Prokofiev A festival curated by Vladimir Jurowski

Festival highlights include — The world première of an oratorio version of Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible — Prokofiev’s incidental music to Egyptian Nights with excerpts from texts by Bernard Shaw, Pushkin and Shakespeare read by Simon Callow — Excerpts from ballets Cinderella and Chout (The Buffoon) — Free classical club night with Gabriel Prokofiev and Rambert Dance Company

lpo.org.uk/prokofiev Get closer to one of the most misunderstood men in 20th-century music

10 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

We would like to acknowledge the generous support of the following Thomas Beecham Group Patrons, Principal Benefactors and Benefactors: Thomas Beecham Group The Tsukanov Family The Sharp Family Julian & Gill Simmonds Garf & Gill Collins Andrew Davenport David & Victoria Graham Fuller Richard Karl Goeltz John & Angela Kessler Mr & Mrs Makharinsky Geoff & Meg Mann Caroline, Jamie and Zander Sharp Eric Tomsett Mrs Sonja Drexler Guy & Utti Whittaker Principal Benefactors Mark & Elizabeth Adams Jane Attias Lady Jane Berrill Desmond & Ruth Cecil Mr John H Cook Mr Charles Dumas David Ellen

Commander Vincent Evans Mr & Mrs Jeffrey Herrmann 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 Mr & Mrs John & Susi Underwood Howard & Sheelagh Watson Mr Laurie Watt Mr Anthony Yolland

Michael & Christine Henry Mr Glenn Hurstfield Mr R K Jeha 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 Bill Yoe

Benefactors Mrs A Beare Dr & Mrs Alan Carrington CBE FRS Mr & Mrs Stewart Cohen Mr Alistair Corbett Mr David Edgecombe Mr Richard Fernyhough Ken Follett Pauline & Peter Halliday

Hon. Benefactor Elliott Bernerd Hon. Life Members Kenneth Goode Edmund Pirouet 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 Charles Russell Destination Québec – UK Lazard Leventis Overseas Man Group plc 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 Arts and Business Allianz Cultural Foundation The Boltini Trust Britten-Pears Foundation The Candide Charitable Trust The Coutts Charitable Trust The Delius Trust Dunard Fund The Equitable Charitable Trust The Eranda Foundation The Fenton Arts Trust The Foyle Foundation The Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust Hattori Foundation for Music and the Arts Capital Radio’s Help a London Child The Hobson Charity The Kirby Laing Foundation The Leverhulme Trust Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust Maurice Marks Charitable Trust Marsh Christian Trust

The Mercers’ Company Adam Mickiewicz Institute Paul Morgan Charitable Trust Maxwell Morrison Charitable Trust Musicians Benevolent Fund Newcomen Collett Foundation The Serge Prokofiev Foundation Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation The Reed Foundation The Seary Charitable Trust The Samuel Sebba Charitable Trust The David Solomons Charitable Trust The Steel Charitable Trust The Stansfield Trust The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation The Swan Trust John Thaw Foundation The Thistle Trust The Underwood Trust Garfield Weston Foundation Youth Music and others who wish to remain anonymous London Philharmonic Orchestra | 11

Administration

Board of Directors

General Administration

Orchestra Personnel