ANDRÁS SCHIFF conductor/piano MOZART Symphony No. 29 MOZART Piano Concerto No. 20, K466 MOZART Symphony No. 41, Jupiter András Schiff has described Mozart as “a gift to mankind”, his music of “such sublime quality, its message so universal”. This evening he conducts three of Mozart’s most extraordinary works, including the darkly brooding D minor piano concerto, No. 20, in which he also performs as soloist. This piece is thought by many to anticipate the shadowy world of Don Giovanni, written two years later. The concert ends with Mozart’s final – and to most, greatest – symphony, the Jupiter, in many ways the summation of his compositional life, notable for its dazzling Finale, combining five themes simultaneously.
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philharmonia.co.uk/shop Schiff Schubert Symphonies Nos. 2, 5, 8 & 9, plus piano sonatas
“I have seldom heard this work’s drama more
brilliantly realised… there was authority in every bar” The Independent on Schiff and the Philharmonia performing Beethoven, March 2011
András Schiff © Clive Barda
Thursday 14 June 2012 7.30pm
“The still point of the turning world”: Music that defines an era
RESURRECTION SYMPHONY Thursday 28 June 2012 7.30pm ESA-PEKKA SALONEN conductor KATE ROYAL soprano EKATERINA GUBANOVA mezzo-soprano PHILHARMONIA CHORUS JOSEPH PHIBBS New commission MAHLER Symphony No. 2, Resurrection Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony takes the listener on a truly transcendental journey. In Mahler’s own words, “The first movement depicts the titanic struggles of a mighty being still caught in the toils of this world; grappling with life and with the fate to which he must succumb – his death”. The last movement deals with “the resolution of the terrible problem of life – redemption”. In Mahler’s original programme, he details the sounding of the Last Trumpet, the resurrection of the dead with wailing and gnashing of teeth, and then the fading away of all noise as everything ‘ceases to be’ before the enormous E flat major climax, with a chorus joined by soprano
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Quotation from TS Eliot’s Four Quartets
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and mezzo-soprano soloists and pealing bells, representing souls reborn in Heaven. Although Mahler later withdrew his detailed ‘programme’, this enormous work clearly represents a huge personal journey: Mahler wrote of the last movement, “The increasing tension, working up to the final climax, is so tremendous that I don’t know myself, now that it is over, how I ever came to write it.” The first half of the programme is the London première of a co-commission with The Anvil, Basingstoke: composer Joseph Phibbs’s soundworld has been described as offering “a kaleidoscopic range of colour” (The Times). This series is supported by The Meyer Foundation
6pm Music of Today, Royal Festival Hall Young Composers Academy: new works by three young composers, all of whom are recipients of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Composition Prize, conducted by David Robert Coleman. FREE admission
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