26 October 2012 - LPO programme notes

Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor 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

JTI FRIDAY SERIES SOUTHBANK CENTRE’S ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Friday 26 October 2012 | 7.30pm

Stanisław Skrowaczewski conductor GARRICK OHLSSON piano

PROGRAMME £3 CONTENTS 2 Welcome 3 About the Orchestra 4 Tonight’s performers 5 Stanisław Skrowaczewski 6 Garrick Ohlsson 7 Programme notes 11 Supporters 12 LPO administration The timings shown are not precise and are given only as a guide.

brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor (42’) Interval bruckner (arr. Skrowaczewski) Adagio from String Quintet in F major (16’) SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 1 in F minor (28’)

* supported by the Tsukanov Family and one anonymous donor CONCERT PRESENTED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

This concert is being broadcast live by the BBC on Radio 3 Live In Concert.

Welcome

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A few points to note for your comfort and enjoyment: PHOTOGRAPHY is not allowed in the auditorium.

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next LPO concerts at royal festival hall Wednesday 31 October 2012 | 7.30pm Sibelius Symphony No. 3 Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 Nielsen Symphony No. 6 (Sinfonia semplice) Osmo Vänskä conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin

Friday 2 November 2012 | 7.30pm JTI Friday Series Nielsen Pan and Syrinx Dvořák Violin Concerto Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 3 Osmo Vänskä conductor Christian Tetzlaff violin ‘Christian Tetzlaff has the kind of technique that makes you forget the difficulty of the piece and simply wonder at the range of expression, the variety of tone and colour at his disposal.’ Evening Standard

2 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

Booking details London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 Monday to Friday 10.00am–5.00pm lpo.org.uk (no transaction fee) Southbank Centre Ticket Office (transaction fees apply) 0844 847 9920 Daily 9.00am–8.00pm southbankcentre.co.uk

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 giving classical concerts, the Orchestra also records film and video 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 its Principal Conductors have included Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. The current Principal Conductor is Vladimir Jurowski, appointed in 2007, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin is Principal Guest Conductor.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra has recorded many blockbuster scores, from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to Lawrence of Arabia, The Mission, East is East, Hugo, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It also broadcasts regularly on television and radio, and in 2005 established its own record label. There are now nearly 70 releases available on CD and to download.

Recent additions include Dvořák’s Stabat Mater under Neeme Järvi; Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 with Vladimir Jurowski; Sibelius’s Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6 under the late Paavo Berglund; and the world premiere of Ravi Shankar’s First Symphony conducted by David Murphy.

In summer 2012 the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed as part of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames, and was also chosen to record all the world’s national anthems for the London 2012 Olympics.

The Orchestra is Resident Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London’s Southbank Centre, where it has performed since it opened in 1951, giving around 40 The London Philharmonic Orchestra maintains an concerts there each season. 2012/13 highlights include energetic programme of activities for young people and three concerts with Vladimir Jurowski based around local communities. Highlights include the Deutsche the theme of War and Peace in collaboration with the Bank BrightSparks Russian National Orchestra; Kurt schools’ concerts; the Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, ‘As things stand now, the LPO must rate Leverhulme Young also conducted by Jurowski; as an example to all orchestras.’

Composers project; 20th-century American works Musicalcriticism.com, July 2011 and the Foyle Future with Marin Alsop; Haydn and (BBC Proms 2011: Liszt, Bartók and Kodály) Firsts orchestral Strauss with Yannick Nézettraining programme Séguin; and the UK premiere of for outstanding young players. Over recent years, Carl Vine’s Second Piano Concerto with pianist Piers developments in technology and social networks have Lane under Vassily Sinaisky. Throughout 2013 the enabled the Orchestra to reach even more people Orchestra will collaborate with the Southbank Centre worldwide: all its recordings are available to download on The Rest Is Noise festival, based on Alex Ross’s book from iTunes and, as well as a YouTube channel, news of the same name and charting the 20th century’s key blog, iPhone app and regular podcasts, the Orchestra musical works. has a lively presence on Facebook and Twitter.

The Orchestra has flourishing residencies in Brighton Find out more and get involved! and Eastbourne, and performs regularly around the UK. Every summer, the Orchestra leaves London for four months and takes up its annual residency lpo.org.uk accompanying the famous Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where it has been Resident Symphony Orchestra facebook.com/londonphilharmonicorchestra since 1964. The Orchestra also tours internationally, performing concerts to sell-out audiences worldwide. twitter.com/LPOrchestra Tours in the 2012/13 season include visits to Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland, the USA and Austria.

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 3

tonight’s performers

First Violins Georgy Valtchev Guest Leader Vesselin Gellev Sub-Leader Chair supported by John & Angela Kessler

Ji-Hyun Lee Katalin Varnagy Catherine Craig Thomas Eisner Tina Gruenberg Martin Höhmann Geoffrey Lynn Robert Pool Sarah Streatfeild Yang Zhang Rebecca Shorrock Galina Tanney Helena Smart Catherine Van de Geest Second Violins Annabelle Meare Guest Principal Joseph Maher Kate Birchall Chair supported by David & Victoria Graham Fuller

Fiona Higham Ashley Stevens Marie-Anne Mairesse Nancy Elan Alison Strange Stephen Stewart Mila Mustakova Sheila Law Elizabeth Baldey Sarah Buchan Stephen Dinwoodie

Violas Helen Kamminga Guest Principal Robert Duncan Gregory Aronovich Katharine Leek Laura Vallejo Susanne Martens Emmanuella ReiterBootiman Naomi Holt Isabel Pereira Miranda Davis Sarah Malcolm Martin Fenn

Flutes Sue Thomas Principal

Cellos Kristina Blaumane Principal Susanne Beer Co-Principal Francis Bucknall Laura Donoghue Jonathan Ayling

Clarinets Nicholas Carpenter* Principal Paul Richards

Chair supported by Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp

Gregory Walmsley Santiago Carvalho† Susan Sutherley Susanna Riddell David Lale Double Basses Kevin Rundell* Principal Tim Gibbs Co-Principal Laurence Lovelle George Peniston Kenneth Knussen Catherine Ricketts Charlotte Kerbegian Antonia Bakewell

Chair supported by the Sharp Family

Sarah Bennington Stewart McIlwham* Piccolos Stewart McIlwham* Principal Sarah Bennington Oboes Ian Hardwick Principal Rachel Ingleton

Bassoons Matthew Taylor Guest Principal Gareth Newman* Horns Mark Vines Principal Martin Hobbs Stephen Nicholls Gareth Mollison Marcus Bates

Trombones Mark Templeton* Principal David Whitehouse Bass Trombone Lyndon Meredith Principal Tuba Lee Tsarmaklis* Principal Timpani Simon Carrington* Principal Percussion Andrew Barclay* Principal Chair supported by Andrew Davenport

Keith Millar Ignacio Molins Eddy Hackett Piano Catherine Edwards

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

Trumpets Paul Beniston* Principal Anne McAneney* Chair supported by Geoff & Meg Mann

Tom Rainer

Chair Supporters The London Philharmonic Orchestra also acknowledges the following chair supporters whose players are not present at this concert: Moya Greene Julian & Gill Simmonds

4 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

Stanisław Skrowaczewski

© Toshiyuki Urano

conductor

Stanisław Skrowaczewski commands a rare position in the international musical scene, being both a renowned conducting figure and a highly regarded composer.

Having conducted all the top orchestras during his long and distinguished career, Skrowaczewski is now the world’s oldest working major conductor.

Born in 1923 in Poland, Skrowaczewski began musical studies aged four; composed his first symphonic work at seven; gave his first public piano recital at 11; and two years later played and conducted Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. A hand injury during the war terminated his keyboard career, after which he concentrated on composing and conducting. In 1946 he became conductor of the Wrocław (Breslau) Philharmonic, and he later served as Music Director of the Katowice Philharmonic (1949–54), Kraków Philharmonic (1954–6) and Warsaw National Orchestra (1956–9).

Skrowaczewski spent the immediate post-war years studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 1948 he conducted the Paris premiere of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. After winning the 1956 International Competition for Conductors in Rome, he was invited by George Szell to make his American debut conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. This led to engagements with the New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony and Cincinnati Symphony orchestras and, in 1960, to his appointment as Music Director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now the Minnesota Orchestra), a position he held for 19 years. During the 1960s he made his debuts with the London, Chicago and Boston symphony orchestras; the Los Angeles, Munich, Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras; the Philadelphia Orchestra; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; as well as with the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

From 1984 to 1991, Skrowaczewski was Principal Conductor of the Hallé, with whom he gave concerts throughout Europe and the USA and recorded extensively. In 2007 Skrowaczewski was appointed

Principal Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo, for three highly successful seasons, during which time many of his performances were recorded live for Columbia Records.

Guest engagements continue to take Skrowaczewski across North America, Europe and Japan. As well as two concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, highlights of his 2012/13 season include returns to the Hallé; the Orchestre National de Lyon; the Bruckner Orchester Linz; and the Frankfurt Radio and Gothenburg symphony orchestras. Skrowaczewski is currently Conductor Laureate of the Minnesota Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, and Honorary Conductor Laureate of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, all of which he also conducts this season.

Still an active composer, Skrowaczewski’s works have recently been performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony, German Radio Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony and Minnesota orchestras. His Concerto for Orchestra (1985) and Passacaglia Immaginaria (1995) were both nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

The recipient of numerous accolades, Skrowaczewski has six Honorary Doctorates, awarded most recently by the universities of Minnesota and Wrocław, the New England Conservatory of Music and the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, Katowice. His interpretations of Bruckner have earned him the Bruckner Society of America’s Kilenyi Medal of Honor and the Gold Medal of the Mahler-Bruckner Society, and his programming of contemporary music at the Minnesota Orchestra was acknowledged with five ASCAP Awards. Of particular note within Skrowaczewski’s extensive discography are his complete recordings of Bruckner and Beethoven symphonies with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra for Arte Nova Classics, which received enormous critical acclaim.

The Bruckner set was included in BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Top Ten Discs of the Decade’.

Published in 2011, a comprehensive account of Skrowaczewski’s life can be found in Seeking the Infinite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski,

by Frederick Harris Jr; it is available via seekingtheinfinite.com and from Foyle’s Bookshop at Royal Festival Hall. The conductor will be signing a limited number of copies in the main Level 2 Foyer after this evening’s concert.

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 5

garrick ohlsson

© Paul Body

piano

Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 International Chopin Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess.

Although he has long been regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Chopin, Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, ranging across the entire piano literature.

A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Garrick Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. His concerto repertoire alone is unusually wide and eclectic – ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century – and to date he has at his command more than 80 concertos.

The 2012/13 season began with performances of Busoni’s Piano Concerto with the European Union Youth Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda, including at the Edinburgh International Festival. Tonight’s appearance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra will be followed by a month-long tour of Australia and live recordings of both Brahms Piano Concertos. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 conducted by Sir Mark Elder with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is programmed for the winter, followed by a Kennedy Center appearance with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra as part of the venue’s Nordic Festival, and a short East Coast tour with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Garrick Ohlsson returns to New York in the spring as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. Other US appearances include return visits to the orchestras of Minnesota, Dallas, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Baltimore.

In acknowledgement of the bicentenary of Liszt’s birth, the 2011/12 season included recitals of the composer’s works in cities including Chicago, Hong Kong , London and New York, where he also visited Carnegie Hall with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic. Tours in Europe and Asia 6 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

included concerts in the UK, France, Italy, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan.

During the 2010/11 season and in recognition of the bicentenary of Chopin’s birth, Garrick Ohlsson presented a series of all-Chopin recitals in Seattle, Berkeley and La Jolla, culminating at Lincoln Center. In conjunction with that project, a documentary, The Art of Chopin, featuring Garrick Ohlsson and co-produced by Polish, French, British and Chinese television stations, was released in autumn 2010. In summer 2010, Ohlsson was featured in all-Chopin programmes at the Ravinia and Tanglewood festivals, as well as appearances in Taipei, Beijing, Melbourne and Sydney.

Garrick Ohlsson is an avid chamber musician, and has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Takács and Tokyo string quartets. Together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, he is a founding member of the San Francisco-based FOG Trio.

A prolific recording artist, Garrick Ohlsson can be heard on labels including Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, BMG, Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc, Virgin Classics and Bridge Records, where his ten-disc set of the complete Beethoven sonatas has garnered considerable critical praise, including a GRAMMY® for Volume 3. His recording of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Robert Spano was released in 2011. In 2008, Hyperion re-released his 16-disc set of the complete works of Chopin, and recently released a disc of all the Brahms Piano Variations and Granados’s Goyescas.

Born in New York State, Garrick Ohlsson began his piano studies at the age of eight. He attended the Westchester Conservatory of Music and at 13 entered The Juilliard School. His musical development has been influenced by a succession of distinguished teachers, most notably Claudio Arrau, Olga Barabini, Tom Lishman, Sascha Gorodnitzki, Rosina Lhévinne and Irma Wolpe. Although he won First Prizes at the 1966 Busoni Competition in Italy and the 1968 Montreal Piano Competition, it was his 1970 triumph at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, where he won the Gold Medal, that brought him worldwide recognition as one of the finest pianists of his generation. Since then he has made nearly a dozen tours of Poland, where he retains immense personal popularity.

PROGRAMME NOTES

Speedread Two youthful works frame tonight’s concert, both of which caused their composers some trouble to get into shape. Not that you would guess that from the sound of them. The piece that gradually worked its way through several guises towards its final form as Brahms’s turbulent First Piano Concerto was composed against the disturbing background of the illness and death of a great friend and idol, Robert Schumann, to emerge as a personal statement of

Johannes Brahms 1833–97

The D minor Piano Concerto is Brahms’s first orchestral work, composed in his early twenties. That it took him four years to complete is probably due partly to inexperience and partly to his uncertainty of mind during a traumatic period caused by the attempted suicide, mental illness and eventual death in 1856 of his friend and mentor Robert Schumann. Shortly after the first of these incidents, in 1854, Brahms began work on a sonata for two pianos, but soon started converting the piece to a four-movement symphony. Growing dissatisfaction with this version, however, led him to hit on the idea of combining both to form a piano concerto; the first movement was recast, but the others abandoned and new second and third movements composed in their place. The work was finished in 1858, and the premiere given with Brahms as soloist in Hanover early the following year.

If the first movement was born of a mixture of compromise and second thinking, it is not evident in the final result, unless it be in the fact that it displays a spectacular symphonic grandeur and expressive

enormous power and depth. And Shostakovich’s First Symphony was the brilliant public debut not only of one of the 20th century’s most gifted composers, but also, as the piece itself resoundingly announces, one of its most naturally communicative symphonists.

In between comes the slow movement from Bruckner’s String Quintet in an orchestral version that reminds us that its composer, too, was one of history’s greatest symphonic thinkers.

Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 Garrick Ohlsson piano 1 Maestoso 2 Adagio 3 Rondo: Allegro non troppo

strength that had not been present in the concerto genre (nor even, in truth, in the symphony) since Beethoven, and that the piano part, though certainly taxing, is not principally driven by virtuosity as an end but plays a role effectively integrated with that of the orchestra. The grim Sturm und Drang passion of the movement as a whole, and of its opening theme in particular, may well owe something to the Schumann situation, but there are consoling moments, too, in this richly thematic sonata design, many of them memorably associated with the soloist, such as the Bachian first entry and the richly chordal delivery of the second subject. This allows the most dramatic stroke of the movement to be the moment of recapitulation, when the piano for the first time takes up the turbulent opening theme, thundering it out over the same held Ds in the bass, but now cast into the disorientatingly darkening key of E major.

In his autograph score of the Adagio, Brahms wrote words from the Latin Mass under the calmly mystical opening: ‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini’

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 7

PROGRAMME NOTES

(‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’).

He left no further explanation, and there has been speculation (not otherwise supported) that the theme was once intended for a Mass setting. Less equivocally, Brahms had been in the habit of addressing Schumann as ‘Domine’ and had privately told Schumann’s widow Clara that he was ‘painting a lovely portrait of you’, but whether connected to the Schumanns or not, this glorious music certainly appears moved by emotions as profound and heartfelt as those that inspired the first movement.

The symphonic drama of that first movement is not an easy force to summon again within the necessarily

altered atmosphere of a finale, and Brahms’s choice of rondo form – in which a principal theme returns several times separated by contrasting episodes – is perhaps not the most obvious way to attempt it. Several commentators over the years have drawn attention to structural parallels between Brahms’s finale and that of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto – including the manner in which the main theme is presented, the extravagant piano lead-backs and the central fugato episode – but the way the demonic energy of the opening movement is here successfully recalled while at the same time finding a lighter and more optimistic trajectory surely has a spiritual model in the finale of another great D minor piano concerto, Mozart’s K466.

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

Anton Bruckner

Adagio from String Quintet in F major (arr. Stanisław Skrowaczewski)

1824–96

Bruckner composed his only String Quintet between December 1878 and July 1879 in answer to a commission from the prominent Viennese conductor and quartet leader Joseph Hellmesberger. That places the work between the Fifth Symphony (like the Fourth, as yet unperformed) and the Sixth, a time when Bruckner’s music was still subject to much critical opprobrium and condescension, particularly in Vienna.

The success of its first complete public performance, in Vienna in 1885, must therefore have made a welcome change, especially as Hellmesberger’s objections to certain parts of the score – he even got Bruckner to write a replacement for the second movement Scherzo (later reinstated) – had been the reason for the long gap between completion and formal premiere.

The work is certainly worthy of its composer, and the Adagio in G-flat major, the third of its four movements, 8 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

was singled out from the beginning as its greatest wonder: ‘completely original music which could only be written by this composer’, wrote one critic in response to its harmonic richness, tonal range and noble beauty of melody and counterpoint. Others thought it worthy of comparison with Beethoven’s late quartets, a judgement rendered all the more telling by the fact that at that time Bruckner apparently had no knowledge of the Beethoven works in question.

The movement has also struck many over the years as being essentially orchestral in conception, perhaps because there is nothing in it that seems to demand soloistic expression, and a number of transcriptions for multiple strings have been made. Stanisław Skrowaczewski’s version was produced in 1998, and brings to the piece a convincing symphonic breadth.

Dmitri Shostakovich 1906–75

It took Shostakovich two years to write his First Symphony. He began it in July 1923, but broke off the following January when the death of Lenin inspired him to attempt a grand memorial symphony. That came to nothing, but when work began again on the First, the need to earn money for his family by working as a cinema pianist slowed him down, and it was not until July 1925 that it was at last finished. Despite the holdups, the composer was still only 19.

Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10 1 Allegretto – Allegro non troppo 2 Allegro 3 Lento – 4 Allegro molto

symphony) which is then taken up by other sections of the orchestra. A second theme arrives, this time a balletic, waltz-like tune for solo flute, but after a short pause the development section begins with material from the introduction before building to a chaotic climax involving a reappearance of the first theme. The clear moment of recapitulation comes, however, with a return of the flute waltz, after which the first theme attempts to stir up another riot, only for the music to wind down to the finish.

The premiere in Leningrad in May 1926, and the further performances that followed shortly afterwards in Berlin, Vienna, Warsaw, Philadelphia and Buenos Aires, propelled Shostakovich to a level of instant international fame that outstripped those of other notable teenage symphonists such as Mozart, Schubert, Bizet, Glazunov and Knussen. The work revealed a young composer brilliantly equipped to bring together elements of his Russian heritage with a bright, modern and distinctive voice of his own – a perfect fit, it must have seemed, for the optimistic early dawn of Revolutionary Russia – but it was also a significant achievement in its own right. There are some, indeed, who feel that Shostakovich never again matched it, but in the light of his subsequent 14 symphonies it can perhaps be seen that the real strength of the First lies less in its technical precocity (remarkable though that is), but in the fact that at such an early stage it already shows its composer capable of convincingly articulating the kind of momentous spiritual experience that would later raise him to true greatness as a symphonist.

The last two movements form a structural pairing linked by a side-drum roll. The third launches with a romantic oboe melody, meandering but emotionally focused.

As the music builds, it acquires a drooping but insistent trumpet-and-drum motif, giving it the feel of a funeral procession which is heightened when a new march-like tune eventually appears, also on oboe. A high solo violin then reprises the first theme, and the movement closes with distant recalls of the trumpet motif.

The first movement opens theatrically, with an introduction in which a dialogue of wind solos and stealthy string lines seems to search for a melody.

When that melody appears, rather suddenly, it is a jaunty march tune on solo clarinet (reminding us that the word ‘Chaplinesque’ has been applied to this

The finale starts with foreboding wind recitatives, but the main body of the movement gets going with a swirling rush that rises to a climax, out of which emerges a sentimental solo violin melody made from an inverted version of the third-movement march theme.

A return of the fast music is eventually stilled by a bleak

Even at 19 Shostakovich was already an accomplished composer of scherzo movements, and the second movement is a sprightly example with galloping outer sections (in which a prominent piano part reminds us of the composer’s cinema nights) followed by a slower central panel that seems to remove us to the world of Russian folk-tales. The galloping music makes its way back in, but its return comes with the ‘Russian’ theme blaring over the top. The piano stamps its foot, however, and the music subsides to a calm conclusion.

London Philharmonic Orchestra | 9

PROGRAMME NOTES

timpani solo that in its turn is an angry inversion of the funereal trumpet motif. This heralds a gorgeously written slow string passage featuring the ‘sentimental’ theme on solo cello, which together with the new, optimistic version of the trumpet motif drives the music on to grandeur and, ultimately, an exhilarating majorkey finish.

Programme notes © Lindsay Kemp

Stanisław Skrowaczewski – Post-concert book signing Conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewski will be signing a limited number of copies of his recently published biography, Seeking the Infinite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski by Dr Frederick Harris (available for sale at Foyles Bookshop in Royal Festival Hall). This will take place in the main Level 2 Foyer after this evening’s concert.

INTERNATIONAL PIANO SERIES 2012/13

ANGELA HEWITT

Tuesday 2 October 2012 Tuesday 7 May 2013

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR Wednesday 31 October 2012

FRANCESCO PIEMONTESI Wednesday 7 November 2012

BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV Tuesday 20 November 2012

DANIIL TRIFONOV

Tuesday 4 December 2012

MITSUKO UCHIDA

Tuesday 15 January 2013

KARIM SAID

Sunday 20 January 2013* Sunday 3 March 2013* Sunday 9 June 2013*

10 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

Angela Hewitt © Mark McNulty

* Part of Southbank Centre’s year-long festival The Rest Is Noise

FREDDY KEMPF

Wednesday 23 January 2013

YULIANNA AVDEEVA Tuesday 5 February 2013

ALICE SARA OTT

Tuesday 12 February 2013

KATIA & MARIELLE LABÈQUE Sunday 17 February 2013*

CHRISTIAN BLACKSHAW Tuesday 26 February 2013

STEPHEN KOVACEVICH Tuesday 19 March 2013

KIRILL GERSTEIN Thursday 4 April 2013

YUNDI

Thursday 18 April 2013

DENIS KOZHUKHIN Sunday 12 May 2013*

PIOTR ANDERSZEWSKI Thursday 23 May 2013

STEVEN OSBORNE

Wednesday 29 May 2013*

ELISABETH LEONSKAJA Wednesday 5 June 2013

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We would like to acknowledge the generous support of the following Thomas Beecham Group Patrons, Principal Benefactors and Benefactors:

Guy & Utti Whittaker Manon Williams

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Benefactors Mrs A Beare Dr & Mrs Alan Carrington CBE FRS Mr & Mrs Stewart Cohen Mr Alistair Corbett Mr David Dennis Mr David Edgecombe Mr Richard Fernyhough

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Thomas Beecham Group The Tsukanov Family Anonymous The Sharp Family Julian & Gill Simmonds Garf & Gill Collins Andrew Davenport Mrs Sonja Drexler David & Victoria Graham Fuller Moya Greene John & Angela Kessler Mr & Mrs Makharinsky Geoff & Meg Mann Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp Eric Tomsett

Hon. Life Members Kenneth Goode Pehr G Gyllenhammar Edmund Pirouet Mrs Jackie Rosenfeld OBE

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In-kind Sponsors Google Inc Sela / Tilley’s Sweets Trusts and Foundations Addleshaw Goddard Charitable Trust Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation BBC Performing Arts Fund The Boltini Trust Britten-Pears Foundation The Candide Trust The Coutts Charitable Trust Diaphonique, Franco-British fund for contemporary music Dunard Fund The Equitable Charitable Trust The Eranda Foundation Fidelio Charitable Trust The Foyle Foundation J Paul Getty Junior Charitable Trust The Jeniffer and Jonathan Harris Charitable Trust Capital Radio’s Help a London Child The Hobson Charity The Kirby Laing Foundation The Idlewild Trust The Leverhulme Trust

Marsh Christian Trust Adam Mickiewicz Institute The Peter Minet Trust Paul Morgan Charitable Trust The Diana and Allan Morgenthau Charitable Trust Maxwell Morrison Charitable Trust Musicians Benevolent Fund Newcomen Collett Foundation The Austin & Hope Pilkington Trust Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation The Rothschild Foundation The Seary Charitable Trust The Samuel Sebba Charitable Trust The David Solomons Charitable Trust The Steel Charitable Trust The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation John Thaw Foundation The Underwood Trust Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement Kurt Weill Foundation for Music Garfield Weston Foundation and others who wish to remain anonymous London Philharmonic Orchestra | 11

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Victoria Sharp Chairman Stewart McIlwham* President Desmond Cecil CMG Vesselin Gellev* Jonathan Harris CBE FRICS Dr Catherine C. Høgel Martin Höhmann* Angela Kessler Gareth Newman* George Peniston* Sir Bernard Rix Kevin Rundell* Julian Simmonds Mark Templeton* Sir Philip Thomas Natasha Tsukanova Timothy Walker AM Laurence Watt Dr Manon Williams

Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director

Andrew Chenery Orchestra Personnel Manager

Philip Stuart Discographer

Sarah Thomas Librarian

Gillian Pole Recordings Archive

Michael Pattison Stage Manager

Professional Services

Finance David Burke General Manager and Finance Director

Julia Boon Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager

* Player-Director

Advisory Council Jonathan Dawson Clive Marks OBE FCA Lord Sharman of Redlynch OBE Victoria Sharp Timothy Walker AM American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Inc. Margot Astrachan Chairman David E. R. Dangoor Vice Chair/Treasurer Kyung-Wha Chung Peter M. Felix CBE Alexandra Jupin Dr. Felisa B. Kaplan William A. Kerr Jill Fine Mainelli Kristina McPhee Dr. Joseph Mulvehill Harvey M. Spear, Esq. Danny Lopez Honorary Chairman Noel Kilkenny Honorary Director Victoria Sharp Honorary Director Richard Gee, Esq Of Counsel Robert Kuchner, CPA

Alison Atkinson Digital Projects Manager

Charles Russell Solicitors Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP Auditors

Ken Graham Trucking David Greenslade Instrument Transportation FSC_57678 14 January 2011 15/09/2011 12:30 Page Dr 1 Louise Miller Finance and ITLPO Manager Honorary Doctor Development Concert Management Roanna Gibson Concerts Director (maternity leave) Ruth Sansom Artistic Administrator / Acting Head of Concerts Department Graham Wood Concerts and Recordings Manager Barbara Palczynski Glyndebourne and Projects Administrator Jenny Chadwick Tours and Engagements Manager Alison Jones Concerts Co-ordinator Jo Orr PA to the Chief Executive / Concerts Assistant

Nick Jackman Development Director Helen Searl Corporate Relations Manager Katherine Hattersley Charitable Giving Manager Melissa Van Emden Events Manager Laura Luckhurst Corporate Relations and Events Officer Sarah Fletcher Development and Finance Officer Marketing Kath Trout Marketing Director Mia Roberts Marketing Manager

Matthew Freeman Recordings Consultant

Rachel Williams Publications Manager

Education & Community

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

Patrick Bailey Education and Community Director Alexandra Clarke Education Manager Caz Vale Community and Young Talent Manager Richard Mallett Education and Community Producer

12 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

Libby Northcote-Green Marketing Co-ordinator Claire Lampon Intern Albion Media Public Relations (Tel: 020 3077 4930)

London Philharmonic Orchestra 89 Albert Embankment London SE1 7TP Tel: 020 7840 4200 Fax: 020 7840 4201 Box Office: 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk The London Philharmonic Orchestra Limited is a registered charity No. 238045.

Photographs of Brahms and Bruckner courtesy of the Royal College of Music, London.

Front cover photograph © Patrick Harrison.

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