London Philharmonic Orchestra 22 Apr 2017 Wigmore Hall concert programme

Programme ÂŁ2

Featuring soloists of the London Philharmonic Orchestra Saturday 22 April 2017 – 7.30pm Wigmore Hall

Programme notes

Saturday 22 April 2017 – 7.30pm Brahms Horn Trio in E flat major, Op. 40 (33’) Pieter Schoeman violin John Ryan horn Katya Apekisheva piano

Interval – 20 minutes Schubert Piano Quintet in A major, D667 (‘Trout’) (40’) Pieter Schoeman violin Cyrille Mercier viola Kristina Blaumane cello Kevin Rundell double bass Katya Apekisheva piano Would patrons please ensure that mobile phones are switched off. Please stifle coughing as much as possible and ensure that watch alarms and any other electronic devices which may become audible are switched off.

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–97) Horn Trio in E flat major, Op. 40 (1865) (33’) 1 Andante 2 Scherzo: Allegro 3 Adagio mesto 4 Allegro con brio Most major chamber works for wind instruments were inspired by a specific player. Mozart wrote his Horn Quintet for Ignaz Leutgeb and his Clarinet Quintet for Anton Stadler, and Beethoven composed his Horn Sonata for Giovanni Punto. No single horn player, however, inspired Brahms’s Horn Trio. Brahms later showed his friend Albert Dietrich the exact place that did inspire it: a clearing in the pine forests above the small town of Lichtental near Baden-Baden, where in May 1865 Brahms had rented a blue-walled room with a view of the Black Forest. ‘I was walking along one morning’, he told Dietrich, ‘and as I came to this spot the sun shone out and the subject immediately suggested itself.’

So the Horn Trio was born in the pine forests; and it’s significant that whoever performed it, Brahms insisted that they play the Waldhorn – the traditional valveless horn whose German name translates literally as ‘forest horn’.

The forest, however, provided only that opening theme.

Brahms had sought solitude for a reason. On 2 February 1865 his beloved mother Christiane had died at the age of 76. The three instruments of the Trio, it’s been pointed out, are all instruments that Brahms played in his childhood in Hamburg: indeed, Brahms’s father (whose estrangement from his mother would cause the composer lifelong pain) had for 30 years played the horn in the Hamburg Bürgerwehr (civic guard). And for the rest of that summer, Brahms worked solely on his German Requiem.

We don’t have to go as far as one writer, who’s seen the Horn Trio as a musical description of the stages of mourning, to feel the sense of nostalgia, love and loss that permeates this poetic and profoundly beautiful work. That sighing first theme begins the only first movement in all of Brahms’s chamber music that isn’t in a dynamic sonata form. It’s a sort of rondo, a form in which the same material is reflected upon and repeatedly returned to, and naturally enough, it proceeds at a pensive Andante – walking pace.

The Scherzo is our first experience of the headlong, hunting-horn energy that had been the default style for horn writing since the Baroque era and before.

And now Brahms starts to develop his material, making the stillness of the central Trio section – marked ‘Much slower’ and set in the remote, twilit key of A flat minor – all the more poignant.

The Adagio retreats still further, into E flat minor, but what matters is what we hear: the piano’s steady, sinking lament; the horn and violin answering each other in broken phrases, the quiet, fugal unfolding of their dialogue almost Baroque in its measured gravity (Brahms’s friend Josef Gänsbacher found him at home, shortly after his mother’s funeral, playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations with tears streaming down his face); and the sound – as if echoing from a great distance – of a little melody that sounds very like the old Rhenish folksong ‘Dort in den Weiden steht ein Haus’ (‘There in the meadow stands a house’), which Brahms had learned as a child. And almost nowhere else in his music does he head a movement with an instruction as emotionally explicit as mesto: ‘sadly’.

–2–

But even Schubert’s closest circle could surely never have imagined that it would become the best loved piece in all chamber music. Part of the secret lies in its scoring. The double bass doesn’t just free up the cello to sing; it liberates the piano from the need to supply the ensemble’s bass. Thus, not only does the delicious Forelle theme shape the fourth movement, but the glittering piano writing of the original song can spill out into the surrounding movements, giving them an irresistible lightness and sparkle.

Allegro con brio, though, is explicit enough: the finale feels like a release as the violin leads off – and the horn follows – on the kind of exuberant, unbuttoned hunting-horn gallop with which Mozart ended each of his horn concertos. Light out of darkness? Not quite.

The Adagio still casts some shadows; there’s darkness as well as sunlight in this forest. Classical convention dictated a cheerful finish to a melancholy work, but no-one understood classical convention better than Brahms – or knew how to find in it so deep a well of strength.

Interval: 20 minutes Please check that your mobile phone is switched off, especially if you used it during the interval.

franz schubert (1797–1828) Piano Quintet in A major, D667 (‘Trout’) (1819) (40’) 1 Allegro vivace 2 Andante 3 Scherzo: Presto 4 Tema con variazioni: Andantino 5 Allegro giusto

Of course, the double bass is an outsider in chamber music – its proper place is supporting outdoor wind serenades. So its presence in this indoor quintet immediately gave Schubert’s inspiration an open-air buoyancy and freshness. And it’s welcomed into the party. The bass gets to sing with everyone else, most notably in the development of the first movement.

Musicologists have grumbled that this sounds awkward. But anyone who’s ever played this Quintet with friends knows that there’s no moment in the whole repertoire that engenders so warm a glow of musical camaraderie.

The exuberant opening flourish and its lyrical answer set the tone for the whole of the Allegro vivace, which bubbles along on a crystal-clear stream of piano semiquavers and triplets. The sweet, songful Andante opens in F major – the key of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony – and simply presents three themes and then plays them once again. Beethoven would have approved of the Scherzo’s energy, too – even if he could never quite have mustered such gleeful humour.

Friendship inspired Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet. It was written at the request of Sylvester Paumgartner, the assistant manager of an iron mine in Steyr, Upper Austria, and a keen amateur cellist. Schubert and his friends stayed with Paumgartner during their summer rambles through Austria in 1819, 1823 and 1825, Schubert writing that ‘the countryside round Steyr is unimaginably lovely.’ They participated in musical evenings on each occasion, and on one of these visits Paumgartner requested a piano quintet from Schubert.

He requested that one of the movements use Schubert’s song Die Forelle (‘The Trout’) of 1817 – being ‘quite taken with the delicate little song’. But that’s all we know of the Quintet until it appears for sale, a year after Schubert’s death, in a catalogue issued by the Viennese publisher Joseph Czerny. ‘Since this Quintet has already been performed in several circles at the publisher’s instigation, and declared by those musical connoisseurs present to be a masterpiece’, he announces, ‘we deem it our duty to draw the musical public’s attention to this latest work by the beloved composer.’

And then we’re into the famous Forelle variations.

‘In a bright stream’, goes the song, ‘the capricious trout darted along like an arrow in joyous haste.

I stood on the bank and, in sweet rest, watched the lively little fish bathing in the clear water …’ Decide for yourself what’s what in this delightfully entertaining movement. It’s so infectious that the finale can’t help but find room for the Forelle theme as a second subject. This is the kind of detail that, in any other work, musicologists could hail as evidence of a formal breakthrough. If they haven’t, maybe it’s because it’s so indisputably clear that Schubert’s only serious purpose, as he brings his Quintet to a close, is to give pleasure.

Programme notes © Richard Bratby

–3–

Tonight’s performers

Pieter Schoeman (violin) was appointed Leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008, having previously been Co-Leader since 2002.

Born in South Africa, Pieter made his solo debut aged 10 with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. In 1991 his talent was spotted by Pinchas Zukerman who, after several consultations, recommended that he move to New York to study with Sylvia Rosenberg.

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, Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. As a chamber musician he regularly appears at Wigmore Hall. At the invitation of Yannick Nézet-Séguin he has been part of the ‘Yannick and Friends’ chamber group, performing at festivals in Dortmund and Rheingau. Pieter has performed several times as a soloist with the LPO, and his live recording of Britten’s Double Concerto with Alexander Zemtsov was released on the Orchestra’s own label to great critical acclaim. He has also recorded numerous violin solos for film and television, and led the LPO 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 appeared frequently as Guest Leader with the Barcelona, Bordeaux, Lyon, Baltimore and BBC symphony orchestras, and the Rotterdam and BBC Philharmonic orchestras. In April 2016 he was Guest Leader with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for Kurt Masur’s memorial concert. He is a Professor of Violin at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London.

Chair supported by Neil Westreich

John Ryan (horn) graduated from London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2001, where he studied with Jeff Bryant and Richard Bissill. He was appointed Co-Principal Horn with the London Symphony Orchestra in the same year. John has played as Guest Principal with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and was appointed Principal Horn of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2009.

As a soloist John has performed both of Strauss’s horn concertos, the Mozart concertos, and Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. He has recorded Mozart’s Second Horn Concerto on the Lyric label with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

Chair supported by Laurence Watt

Katya Apekisheva (piano) performs regularly with the English Chamber, Royal Philharmonic, Wiesbaden and OFUNAM (Mexico City) orchestras, among others. She is also a keen chamber musician and appears frequently with artists including Janine Jansen, Maxim Rysanov, Jack Liebeck, Natalie Clein and Charles Owen, and the Heath, Navarra, Brodsky and Belcea string quartets.

Recent highlights include solo recitals in London, Glasgow and Tokyo, and performances at the Ryedale, Leicester, Westport, North York Moors and Music in Country Churches festivals.

Katya's 2008 CD of solo works by Grieg was a Gramophone Editor's Choice and Classic FM CD of the Week. Her recent duo release of Stravinsky piano ballets with Charles Owen also received high critical acclaim.

Katya is a Professor of Piano at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

–4–

Tonight’s performers continued

Kevin Rundell (double bass) began

Cyrille Mercier (viola) was born in France and studied with Françoise Gnéri, Pierre-Henri Xuereb and Jean-Philippe Vasseur.

In 1998 he received First Prize from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

Passionate about chamber music, Cyrille has taken masterclasses with the Amadeus, Alban Berg, Bartók and Artis string quartets and has given many performances as soloist and with string quartets, string trios and sonata ensembles.

He has been Principal Viola of the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra since 2000 and joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra as Co-Principal Viola at the start of the 2013/14 season.

Kristina Blaumane (cello) was born in Riga

his studies with his grandfather, Jack Silvester, and continued with Adrian Beers at the Royal College of Music. He joined the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House at the age of 19 and studied with the virtuoso Thomas Martin.

Kevin was appointed Professor at the Guildhall School in 1975 at the age of 22, a position he still holds. Between 1975 and 1990 he was also a Professor of Double Bass at Trinity College of Music, London.

Kevin's first Principal position was with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 1976. In 1980 he joined English National Opera as Principal, where he remained for ten years. He was also a leading performer of contemporary music, playing with the chamber group Lontano. Kevin joined the London Symphony Orchestra as Principal Double Bass in 1990 and subsequently the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1991.

and graduated from the Latvian Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She has performed as soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (of which she is Principal Cello), Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Kremerata Baltica, Britten Sinfonia and Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, as well as all the main orchestras in Latvia.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra also acknowledges the following chair supporters whose players are not present at this concert: Molly & David Borthwick • David & Yi Buckley The Candide Trust • Andrew Davenport William & Alex de Winton • Sonja Drexler Drs Oliver & Asha Foster • Friends of the Orchestra Dr Barry Grimaldi • Geoff & Meg Mann Sir Simon Robey • Victoria Robey OBE Caroline, Jamie & Zander Sharp • Eric Tomsett

As a chamber musician Kristina has worked with such renowned artists as Isaac Stern, Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, Yuri Bashmet, Leif Ove Andsnes and Janine Jansen, and has performed at festivals such as Lockenhaus, Gstaad, Salzburg, Verbier, Basel, Jerusalem, Utrecht, Spitalfields, Cheltenham and Aldeburgh.

Date for your diary: Next LPO chamber concert at Wigmore Hall

Kristina is a keen promoter of new music. She has given a number of world premieres and several works are dedicated to her.

Monday 28 November 2017 | 7.30pm

Chair supported by Stuart and Bianca Roden

Soloists of the London Philharmonic Orchestra

Dvořák String Sextet Schubert Octet Tickets will be on sale in early autumn 2017: sign up to our LPO eNews list at lpo.org.uk/contact

–5–

Support us As a registered charity, the London Philharmonic Orchestra is reliant on the generosity of companies, trusts and private donors to support the depth, breadth and quality of its work. There are many ways to show your support for our work both on and off the concert platform.

Friends and Benefactors – Join Us! The Friends and Benefactors of the London Philharmonic Orchestra share our passion for performance at the highest level, contributing between £50 and £1000 a year to the Orchestra and accessing a range of benefits throughout the Orchestra’s Royal Festival Hall season.

Thomas Beecham Group Our Thomas Beecham Group patrons make a significant contribution to the life of the Orchestra through major gifts of £5000 and upwards. They enjoy unparalleled involvement with the Orchestra’s work, including the opportunity to support the chair of a particular musician.

Gifts in Wills A gift of any size in your Will can make an impact on our work on the concert platform or in the community. Please consider remembering the London Philharmonic Orchestra in your Will.

Our future is in your hands.

Corporate Support Partner with the London Philharmonic Orchestra to meet your business needs through resultsdriven, bespoke relationships. We can help you connect with your stakeholders, reach target audiences or meet your CSR objectives through creative and tailored partnerships.

For more details about how you can become involved with the London Philharmonic Orchestra please contact Nick Jackman, Development Director, on 020 7840 4211 or email nick.jackman@lpo.org.uk

Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, London W1U 2BP Director: John Gilhooly The Wigmore Hall Trust Registered Charity No. 1024838 www.wigmore-hall.org.uk Disabled access and facilities:

For full details please contact House Management, tel: 020 7258 8210 or email housemanagers@wigmore-hall.org.uk Wigmore Hall is a no-smoking venue. No recording or photographic equipment may be taken into the auditorium, nor used in any other part of the Hall without the prior written permission of the Hall Management. Wigmore Hall is equipped with a ‘Loop’ to help hearing aid users receive clear sound without background noise. Patrons can use the facility by switching their hearing aids over to ‘T’. In accordance with the requirements of City of Westminster, persons shall not be permitted to stand or sit in any of the gangways intersecting the seating, or to sit in any of the other gangways. If standing is permitted in the gangways at the sides and rear of the seating, it shall be limited to the numbers indicated in the notices exhibited in those positions.

London Philharmonic Orchestra Concert presented by London Philharmonic Orchestra, 89 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TP • lpo.org.uk Tel 020 7840 4200 • Box Office 020 7840 4242 HRH The Duke of Kent KG Patron Vladimir Jurowski Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor Andrés Orozco-Estrada Principal Guest Conductor Pieter Schoeman Leader Magnus Lindberg Composer in Residence Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director Board of Directors Victoria Robey OBE Chairman, Stewart McIlwham* President, Gareth Newman* Vice-President, Roger Barron, Richard Brass, Desmond Cecil CMG, Bruno de Kegel, Dr Catherine C. Høgel, Rachel Masters*, Al MacCuish, Julian Metherell, George Peniston*, Kevin Rundell*, Natasha Tsukanova, Mark Vines*, Timothy Walker AM, Neil Westreich, David Whitehouse* * Player-Director The London Philharmonic Orchestra Limited is a registered charity No. 238045.

Cover image: Huang Xu, Flower Series-Chrysanthemum No. 1, 2009, Giclée print, 150 x 150cm ed.6. Courtesy October Gallery, London

–6–