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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†

JTI FRIDAY SERIES

PROGRAMME £3

SOUTHBANK CENTRE’S ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Friday 4 February 2011 | 7.30pm

KURT MASUR conductor ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER violin DANIEL MÜLLER-SCHOTT cello

INTERVAL

†

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 12 13 14 15 16

List of Players Orchestra History Leader Kurt Masur Anne-Sophie Mutter Daniel Müller-Schott Programme Notes Recordings Supporters Southbank Centre Administration Future Concerts

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

BRAHMS Double Concerto in A minor for violin, cello and orchestra (31’)

BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor

CONTENTS

(45’)

supported by Macquarie Group

CONCERT PRESENTED BY THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

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LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

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

Helena Smart Katalin Varnagy Catherine Craig Tina Gruenberg Martin Hรถhmann Chair supported by Richard Karl Goeltz

Geoffrey Lynn Robert Pool Florence Schoeman Sarah Streatfeild Yang Zhang Rebecca Shorrock Alain Petitclerc Peter Nall Galina Tanney 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 Nynke Hijlkema Marie-Anne Mairesse Ashley Stevens Dean Williamson Sioni Williams Heather Badke Alison Strange Peter Graham

VIOLAS Andriy Viytovych Guest Principal Robert Duncan Katharine Leek Susanne Martens Benedetto Pollani Emmanuella Reiter-Bootiman Laura Vallejo Michelle Bruil Alistair Scahill Daniel Cornford Naomi Holt Isabel Pereira CELLOS Kristina Blaumane Principal Susanne Beer Co-Principal Francis Bucknall 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 George Peniston Richard Lewis Kenneth Knussen Tom Walley Louis Garson Damian Rubido Gonzalez

FLUTES Jaime Martin* Principal Sue Thomas*

* Holds a professorial appointment in London +

OBOES Ian Hardwick Principal Angela Tennick

Chevalier of the Brazilian Order of Rio Branco

CLARINETS Robert Hill* Principal Nicholas Carpenter BASSOONS Gareth Newman* Principal Emma Harding CONTRA BASSOON Simon Estell Principal HORNS John Ryan Principal Martin Hobbs Marcus Bates Gareth Mollison Joseph Walters TRUMPETS Paul Beniston* Principal Anne McAneney* Chair supported by Geoff and Meg Mann

TROMBONES Mark Templeton* Principal David Whitehouse BASS TROMBONE Lyndon Meredith Principal TIMPANI Simon Carrington* Principal

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

2 | London Philharmonic Orchestra

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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

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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.

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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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KURT MASUR CONDUCTOR

Honorary Guest Conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In July 2007, he celebrated his 80th birthday with a concert at the BBC Proms in London conducting the joint forces of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France.

Kurt Masur is well known to orchestras and audiences alike as both a distinguished conductor and humanist. In September 2002, he became Music Director of the Orchestre National de France in Paris and from the beginning of the 2008/09 season he assumed the title of Honorary Music Director for Life ensuring his close and active involvement with this Orchestra for many more years to come. From 2000 to 2007 he was Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1991 to 2002 he was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic and, following his eleven year tenure, was named Music Director Emeritus, becoming the first music director to receive that title, and only the second (after the late Leonard Bernstein, who was named Laureate Conductor) to be given an honorary position. The New York Philharmonic established the ‘Kurt Masur Fund for the Orchestra’, which will endow conductor debut week at the Philharmonic in perpetuity in his honour. From 1970 until 1996, Maestro Masur served as Gewandhaus Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, a position of profound historic importance. Upon his retirement from that post in 1996, the Gewandhaus named him its first-ever Conductor Laureate. A frequent guest with the world’s leading orchestras, he made his United States debut in 1974 with the Cleveland Orchestra and his New York Philharmonic debut in 1981. He returns every season to conduct the major American orchestras while in Europe, he works with the Gewandhaus, Dresden Philharmonic, Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic and London Philharmonic Orchestras as well as the Orchestra of the Santa Cecilia in Rome, and the Orchestras of Teatro La Scala and La Fenice. He holds the lifetime title of

Maestro Masur’s recordings with the Orchestre National de France include Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos 2 and 6, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, and two Shostakovich discs featuring the 7th Symphony and the two Violin Concertos with the young Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan. He has made more than thirty recordings with the New York Philharmonic, two of them – Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13, Babi Yar, and Mahler’s Ninth Symphony – winning ‘Record of the Year’ awards from Stereo Review. With Anne-Sophie Mutter and the New York Philharmonic he recorded a Grammy nominated album of Brahms and Schumann and most recently Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Two Romances. He has made well over 100 other recordings with numerous orchestras, including the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. Recordings with the London Philharmonic Orchestra include Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 5, Britten’s War Requiem and Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass. Since 1989, when Kurt Masur played a central role in the peaceful demonstrations that led to German reunification, the impact of his leadership has attracted worldwide attention. He has received numerous honours: in 1995, the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany; in 1996 the Gold Medal of Honour for Music from the National Arts Club; in 1997 the titles of Commander of the Legion of Honour from the French government and New York City Cultural Ambassador from the City of New York; in April 1999 the Commander Cross of Merit of the Polish Republic; in March 2002, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Johannes Rau, bestowed upon him the Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and in September 2007, the President of Germany, Horst Köhler, awarded him the Great Cross of the Legion of Honour with Star and Ribbon. In September 2008 he received the Furtwängler Prize in Bonn. A professor at the Leipzig Academy of Music since 1975, Maestro Masur is an Honorary Citizen of his hometown Brieg.

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ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER

Harald Hoffman / DG

VIOLIN

For 35 years, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has sustained a career of exceptional musicianship with an unwavering commitment to the future of classical music. Since her international debut at the Lucerne Festival in 1976, followed by a solo appearance with Herbert von Karajan at the Salzburg Whitsun Concerts, she has appeared at all the major concert halls of Europe, North and South America and Asia. In addition to performing and recording established masterpieces, she is an avid champion of the 20th- and 21st-century violin repertoire. She has had new works composed for her by Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutoslawski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn and Wolfgang Rihm. This season Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform the Dvořák Violin Concerto in Germany and Austria with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle and in Spain with the Orquesta Sinfonica Degalicia and Victor Pablo Perez. She will also tour with ‘Mutter’s Virtuosi’ – a new ensemble under her own musical direction which consists of 14 current and former scholarship holders of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. The tour will take them to 11 European cities with repertoire including Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and works for violin and double bass by Penderecki and Previn commissioned by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. During the 2010/11 New York concert season AnneSophie Mutter enjoys the status of ‘Artist in Residence’ and treats her audiences to three different concert programmes including three world premières: Wolfgang Rihm’s Lichtes Spiel, Sebastian Currier’s Time Machines and Wolfgang Rihm’s Dyade. In 2011 she will perform with her longtime recital partner Lambert Orkis at

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concerts in Germany, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the US presenting works by Debussy, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Sarasate. In July she embarks on a European tour with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Wolfgang Rihm’s Lichtes Spiel. Her programmes for 2011 also include Brahms’s Double Concerto, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Sofia Gubaidulina’s In tempus praesens. Her many recordings have received the German Record Prize, Record Academy Prize, Grand Prix du Disque, International Record Prize and several Grammies. On Mozart’s 250th birthday she recorded all Mozart’s major compositions for violin. Her recordings of Gubaidulina’s In tempus praesens and Bach’s Violin Concertos in A minor and E major were released in 2008. To mark the bicentenary of Mendelssohn’s birth, she released a series of recordings of his work. Her recording of Brahms’s Violin Sonatas with Lambert Orkis was released in 2010 on the Deutsche Grammophon label. For her 35th stage anniversary Deutsche Grammophon will release a comprehensive box set with all her DG recordings, and the live recording of the New York premières of Wolfgang Rihm’s Lichtes Spiel and Sebastian Currier’s Time Machines will also be released. Anne-Sophie Mutter devotes much of her time and resources to supporting charitable causes and the development of young musicians. In 2008 she established the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation to further increase worldwide support for promising young musicians. The organisation grew out of The Anne-Sophie Mutter Circle of Friends Foundation, which was founded in 1997. She is also interested in the global medical and social problems of our time, regularly lending her support to various charitable causes. In 2010 Anne-Sophie Mutter was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. In 2009 she was granted the European St Ulrich’s Prize and the Cristobal Gabaroon Award, and in the previous year she received the International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize as well as the Leipzig Mendelssohn Prize. She is a bearer of the Grand Order of Merit of the German Federal Republic, the French Order of the Legion of Honour, the Bavarian Order of Merit and the Great Austrian Order of Merit.

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DANIEL MÜLLER-SCHOTT CELLO

Spain, he is soloist with Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife and Vasily Petrenko, and in Castilla y Léon with Lionel Bringuier.

With technical brilliance, authority, intellect and emotional esprit, Daniel Müller-Schott is establishing himself on the world’s major concert platforms. Born in Munich in 1976, he studied under Walter Nothas, Heinrich Schiff and Steven Isserlis, and was a scholar recipient of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. In 1992, at the age of 15, he won first prize at the Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. His instrument is the ‘Ex Shapiro’ Matteo Goffriller cello, which was made in Venice in 1727. The opening of his 2010/11 season was marked by the world première of Peter Ruzicka’s Cello Concerto ‘Über die Grenze…’, which Müller-Schott performed with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under the composer’s baton at the Beethovenfest Bonn. He also appeared at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern playing a solo Bach/Britten recital and as a soloist with NDR Hannover, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl with Bramwell Tovey. This season also sees engagements with the Dresden Philharmonie and André Previn, MDR Leipzig and Jun Märkl, NDR Hamburg and Krzysztof Urbanksi, Konzerthaus Berlin Orchestra and Eiji Oue, Orchestre National de France and Kurt Masur, Orchestra of the RAI Turin and Juraj Valcuha, Brno Philharmonic and Jakub Hruša, Oslo Philharmonic and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Helsinki Philharmonic and John Storgårds, and Bergen Philharmonic with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. He continues his longstanding collaboration with Yakov Kreizberg joining him as soloist with the Netherlands Philharmonic, and with Julia Fischer on tour in Spain with l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. In

Daniel Müller-Schott will also be the soloist with the Hungarian National Symphony Orchestra and Zoltán Kocsis on an extensive German tour which will include a performance in his native Munich at the Philharmonie am Gasteig as well as with the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich and David Zinman at a residency in BadenBaden. With SWR Stuttgart he will give performances of Brahms’s Double Concerto with Baiba Skride under Thomas Dausgaard, and in the USA he is a soloist under the baton of André Previn with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo. His impressive discography on Orfeo saw the release in autumn 2009 of concertos by Schumann and Robert Volkmann with Eschenbach and the NDR Hamburg. In summer 2010 his recording of Mendelssohn duos with Jonathan Gilad was released to great critical acclaim. The release of his recording of both Shostakovich Concertos with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Yakov Kreizberg received exceptional praise and, due out in 2013 in the Britten anniversary year, will be his recording of Britten’s Solo Cello Suites and the Cello Symphony. His chamber music partners include Nicholas Angelich, Renaud Capuçon, Viviane Hagner, Jonathan Gilad, Robert Kulek, Julia Fischer, Anne-Sophie Mutter, André Previn, Arabella Steinbacher, Christian Tetzlaff, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Lars Vogt. He will play a new trio with Renaud Capuçon and Nicholas Angelich at concerts in France and Denmark and he returns by popular demand to Dublin’s ‘Great Irish Houses Festival’ series. Daniel Müller-Schott is a regular leader of the ‘Rhapsody in School’ project, the brainchild of his friend and pianist, Lars Vogt, which encourages young people to understand the fascination and magic of music.

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PROGRAMME NOTES

SPEEDREAD Concertos with more than one solo instrument were very rare in the 19th century. This was a period of glamorous star soloists and the cult of the romantic-heroic individual – there was no room for more than one hero in the Byronic universe. But one of the most remarkable features of Brahms’s Double Concerto is the relationship between its two soloists: sometimes confrontational, sometimes intimate or impassioned, but with the two contributions carefully balanced. Brahms intended the work as a gesture of reconciliation with his old friend, violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, with whom he’d fallen out drastically seven years earlier. It clearly worked:

Johannes BRAHMS

Joachim was impressed and moved by the music, and the two men became friends again. Another kind of intense relationship left its mark on Brahms’s First Symphony. The composer’s complex feelings for Clara Schumann, further muddied by distress at her husband Robert’s suicide attempt and final descent into madness, can be sensed in the first movement’s turbulent emotional drama. But the symphony eventually wins through to affirmation: in the finale a horn sounds a rapturous salute to Clara, after which the great main tune is unmistakably a Brahmsian tribute to Beethoven’s famous ‘Ode to Joy’.

DOUBLE CONCERTO IN A MINOR FOR VIOLIN, CELLO AND ORCHESTRA, OP. 102 ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER violin DANIEL MÜLLER-SCHOTT cello

1833-1897

Allegro | Andante | Vivace non troppo

The concerto was one of the most popular of all musical forms in the 19th century. This was the era of the romantic virtuoso soloist: audiences loved the idea of the superhuman individual taking on the might of the full symphony orchestra and emerging victorious. What a perfect vehicle for an age intoxicated with dashing, sensational figures like the poet Byron, the violinist Niccolo Paganini and the pianist-composer Franz Liszt. Something of this romantic spirit – the suffering, striving, intensely charismatic soloist pitted against the elemental force of the orchestra – can be felt in Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, composed during 1854-8.

something else: the contained formal strength and subtlety of great classical and baroque masters like Haydn and Mozart, Bach and Handel, and for the emotional ‘objectivity’ that offered.

But Brahms was a paradoxical figure – it’s one of the things that makes him so fascinating. Part of him was romantic to the core: a lonely misfit, sustained by an impossible love, laying bare his wounded heart in song after song (especially in the wonderful Alto Rhapsody). Yet there was another part of him that longed for

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The Double Concerto, for violin, cello and orchestra, composed in 1887, embodies this paradox magnificently. It contains some of Brahms’s most romantically expressive music: strikingly the almost operatic ‘love duet’ for violin and cello at the heart of the slow central movement. The first cello solo, only a few seconds into the first movement, is marked ‘in modo d’un recitativo’ – ‘ the style of a recitative’ – a direct acknowledgement of the music’s operatic character by a composer who never wrote an opera. And yet this is a concerto with two soloists. Concertos with more than one star in the spotlight were common enough in baroque times (think of Bach’s glorious Double Concerto in D minor for two violins). Brahms

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PROGRAMME NOTES

also knew and valued Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, with solo violin and viola, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for piano trio and orchestra. But in the romantic era the solo concerto had apparently conquered all – there’s no room for more than one hero in the Byronic universe. In reverting to what would have been considered a strange, outmoded form at the time, Brahms showed that he was also not of his time.

of those wonderful long-breathed tunes which are such a signature of Brahms’s style. Yet in the middle section violin and cello now enact an almost operatic ‘love duet’, passing ideas to each other now tenderly, now with impassioned urgency. The folk-coloured finale offers a refreshing contrast, but the dialogue element remains important, until at last both players join in a bravura display guaranteed to bring the house down.

Structurally it is more compact than any of the solo concertos. In the first movement particularly the solo violin and cello writing can be stirringly theatrical (visually as well as aurally), but Brahms is also careful to keep the solo contributions on an equal footing, as in chamber music. Soon after the cello’s opening ‘recitative’ solo the violin has its turn in the spotlight, only now with comments from the cello, with the two instruments finally fusing in rich fortissimo chords. Later, in the lyrical second theme, the conversation between the two turns subtler, more confidential, and the orchestra tactfully restrains its power to allow the soloists to speak more clearly.

There may be a personal element in all this. In 1880 Brahms had a serious falling out with his close friend and collaborator, the virtuoso violinist and composer Joseph Joachim. The Double Concerto seems to have been conceived partly as a peace offering to Joachim. Yet it’s striking that Brahms did not offer his old friend another violin concerto, but a work in which the violin must come to an accommodation with the cello – an instrument Brahms loved and wrote for with great feeling. Hearing the Double Concerto for the first time, Brahms’s friend, confidante and ‘ideal’ love Clara Schumann wrote that ‘This Concerto is in a way a work of reconciliation’, adding that ‘Joachim and Brahms have spoken to one another again after years of silence’ – a comment that could be applied just as readily to the music itself.

This relationship issue is also crucial in the central slow movement. After a short horn and woodwind introduction, violin and cello launch out together in one

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

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PROGRAMME NOTES

Johannes BRAHMS

SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN C MINOR, OP. 68 Un poco sostenuto – Allegro | Andante sostenuto | Un poco Allegretto e grazioso | Adagio – Allegro non troppo ma con brio

1833-1897

Few great concert works have taken longer to mature than Brahms’s First Symphony. Ideas probably began to take shape in Brahms’s mind around 1855, a period of great emotional turmoil for the twenty-two year-old composer. The previous year his mentor and artistic father figure Robert Schumann had suffered a complete and irrevocable mental breakdown, and the emotional fall-out took a long time to subside. Five years later, Brahms’s confidante and ‘ideal’ love Clara Schumann – virtuoso pianist and widow of the composer – was still urging him not to give up the struggle: ‘Such a sky of storm may yet lead to a symphony’. Two years after that, in the summer of 1862 Clara received a surprise parcel, containing the symphony’s first movement – or at least an early version of it. ‘It begins somewhat severely’, she wrote to a friend, ‘but I have got used to it. The movement is full of beauties; the themes are treated with a mastery that grows more and more individual.’ Fourteen more years were to pass before Brahms was able to show Clara a completed score – and even then there were more revisions to follow. The problem was at least partly that Brahms had set himself such dauntingly high standards: his goal was to produce something worthy to set beside the greatest of all symphonists, Ludwig van Beethoven. ‘I shall never write a symphony’, Brahms told the conductor Hermann Levi in 1870. ‘You’ve no idea what it feels like with such a giant marching behind you.’ But his friends carried on a campaign of sustained encouragement, and the success of Brahms’s first orchestral masterpiece, Variations on a theme of Haydn in 1874 seems to have rekindled his ambition. By 1876 the First Symphony as we know it was finally ready. It was performed all over Europe, with increasing success. Soon critics were calling it ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’ – but that ringing compliment only made Brahms doubt himself all over again. Had he emerged from the giant’s shadow or not? When

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someone unwisely pointed out the ‘extraordinary’ similarity between the main theme of Brahms’s finale and the ‘Ode to Joy’ theme in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Brahms snapped back: ‘Yes, and still more extraordinary that any fool can hear it!’ It isn’t hard to hear echoes of Beethoven in the first movement’s surging momentum and grim, almost obsessive rhythmic determination. Almost certainly Brahms’s struggles to come to terms with Schumann’s attempted suicide and final mental breakdown left their mark on this music. And like Brahms, Schumann had revered Beethoven and strove continually to match up to his great example. But it’s also possible that the slow introduction – apparently added after the main Allegro was complete – contains a tribute to another of Brahms’s gods, Johann Sebastian Bach. The opening’s low throbbing bass-notes could be an echo of the opening chorus of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. As Clara Schumann observed on receiving the 1862 version of this movement, the flow of ideas is remarkably sustained, and the climactic build up to the return of the first Allegro theme is superbly, thrillingly engineered. Brahms’s debt to Beethoven is clear enough in that; but what Brahms does at the end is completely original. The tempo drops and the pulsating bass notes of the introduction return, quietly this time. The end is neither thunderous triumph nor black tragedy; C minor turbulence gradually yields to ambiguous C major calm. Heroic struggle is forgotten in the two central movements. In the Andante sostenuto it is melody that carries the argument, reaching its apotheosis in a ravishing violin solo in the final moments. The opening theme of the Un poco Allegretto e grazioso is all relaxed charm – a far cry from the cosmic dance energy of the typical Beethovenian scherzo. More energetic music follows, but as a whole the effect is to heighten our

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PROGRAMME NOTES

expectations of the finale, which now has to be an effective counterweight to the first movement, confronting and finally resolving its tragic tensions. The opening brings an immediate darkening, after which the music seems to be groping in the shadows for something definitive – the outline of a fully-fledged theme perhaps. A sudden timpani fortissimo dispels the gloom: to warm harmonies on trombones (their first appearance in the symphony) a noble horn theme sounds through shimmering strings. This was the theme Brahms noted in a letter to Clara Schumann in

1868, adding the words, ‘High on the mountain, deep in the valley, I send you a thousand greetings’. The vision fades, then a confident, forward striding tune begins the Allegro non troppo ma con brio – Brahms’s reply to Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ theme. There are reminders of the first movement’s heroic struggle, but this time the ending is unambiguous, with a forcefully affirmative brass hymn tune heralding a victorious final dash to the finishing post. Programme notes © by Stephen Johnson 2011

Download London Philharmonic Orchestra recordings from www.lpo.org.uk/shop It’s easy to take the London Philharmonic Orchestra with you wherever you go! Visit our downloads site to choose the works (or even single movements) you’d like to buy, and download high quality MP3s to your computer for transfer to an MP3 player or CD. With regular additions of new recordings with conductors from Beecham to Jurowski you’ll always have a selection of great music to choose from.

Hear every note

Hard of hearing? Visit the cloakroom for equipment to improve your concert experience.

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RECORDINGS ON THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA’S OWN RECORD LABEL

LPO-0010 Kurt Masur conducts Britten’s War Requiem with soloists Christine Brewer, Anthony Dean Griffey, Gerald Finley and the London Philharmonic Choir ‘Masur’s focused, powerfully perceptive reading impresses with its overwhelming sense of structure and purpose, drawing from the score every ounce of anger, bitterness, resignation, tragedy, pathos and ecstasy.’ INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW

LPO-0029 Kurt Masur conducts Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass with soloists Zdena Kloubová, Karen Cargill, Pavol Breslick, Gustáv Beláček and the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno ‘... this awesomely muscular, vital account of Janá˘c ek’s Glagolitic (or Czech) Mass …’ RICK JONES, TIMES KNOWLEDGE, 8 SEPTEMBER 2007

LPO-0043 Vladimir Jurowski conducts Brahms’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 2 ‘This pair of budget-priced CDs on the LPO’s own label demonstrate how, in the right hands, the first two symphonies can thrill and delight … exquisite wind playing …genuinely exciting …’ GRAHAM RICKSON, THE ARTS DESK, 22 FEBRUARY 2010

LPO-0045 Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Brahms’s German Requiem with soloists Elizabeth Watts, Stéphane Degout and the London Philharmonic Choir ‘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

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

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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 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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SOUTHBANK CENTRE

WELCOME TO SOUTHBANK CENTRE

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

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. 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, CaffĂ¨ Vergnano 1882, Skylon, Concrete and Feng Sushi, as well as cafes, restaurants and shops inside Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery.

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

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.

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA RECORDING ARCHIVE The New Year may be a good time to sort through your collection of London Philharmonic Orchestra recordings. If seasonal gifts or indulgent shopping have resulted in a shelf space problem, we would be delighted to help out by taking any recordings you now feel you could part with. Last year we received some splendid windfalls from two generous supporters, whose gifts have filled in some of the gaps in our Recording Archive but there is still quite a long way to go. So, if you have any recordings that you think may be of interest, please get in touch with Gillian Pole at the London Philharmonic Orchestra, 89 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TP.

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ADMINISTRATION

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

GENERAL ADMINISTRATION

ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL