Thursday 12 May programme - London Symphony Orchestra

Valery Gergiev © Gautier Deblonde
London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music
Resident at the Barbican
Gordan Nikolitch leader
Thursday 12 & Sunday 15 May 2011 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Shostakovich Concerto for Trumpet, Piano and Strings
Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2
INTERVAL
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 3 (‘Polish’)
Valery Gergiev conductor
Yefim Bronfman piano
Concert ends approx 9.50pm
Thu 12 May supported by LSO Patrons
Sun 15 May sponsored by Toshiba
Download it
LSO programmes are now available to
download from two days before each concert
lso.co.uk/programmes

Welcome News
Welcome to these two concerts which see the third instalment of
Principal Conductor Valery Gergiev’s Tchaikovsky Symphony Cycle.
Yefim Bronfman makes a welcome return to the LSO performing
as soloist tonight. Later in the month, the LSO and Gergiev take
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 3 on tour in Switzerland to Bern, Geneva,
Lugano, Zürich and Lucerne.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank LSO Patrons for
supporting the concert on 12 May and for the continued support
from Toshiba who sponsors 15 May.
I hope you enjoy the performance tonight and that you can join us
for our next concert on 26 May when Sir Colin Davis continues his
highly acclaimed cycle of Nielsen symphonies, joined by Mitsuko
Uchida for the start of the LSO’s Beethoven Piano Concerto series.
Kathryn McDowell
LSO Managing Director
2 Welcome & News
LSO retired and past players’ reunion
Since the LSO’s centenary in 2004 it has become an annual tradition
to invite retired and past players to attend a Barbican concert.
On 15 May we are joined by many former members of the Orchestra –
a warm welcome back to all.
Into the LSO: for our teenage audiences
If you’re aged 13–18, or you know someone who is, join our free
‘Into the LSO’ teens scheme and take advantage of cheap tickets,
pre-concert events and exclusive chances to meet the LSO players.
Before the concert on 15 May there will be a free talk introducing
the evening’s music and you’ll also find some extra programme
notes for a quirky angle on the music!
Find out more at lso.co.uk/intothelso
Support the LSO’s Annual Fund
The LSO’s Annual Fund gives you the opportunity to donate whatever
you are able. Your gift will ensure that the LSO continues to make the
finest music available to the greatest number of people. Every gift is
important, however small.
You can donate online and read stories of how the LSO has made a
difference at lso.co.uk/annualfund
Or you can donate £5 by text message now
Text LSO DONATE5 to 60123
LSO Live wins double award at BBC Music Magazine Awards
We are delighted to have won the BBC Music Magazine Disc of the
Year Award for our LSO Live recording of Prokofiev’s Romeo and
Juliet, as well as winning the Award in the orchestral category. The
Disc of the Year Award was presented to the LSO by the composer’s
grandson, Gabriel Prokofiev, at a ceremony at Kings Place (Gabriel
is also appearing at LSO St Luke’s on 17 May). Pick up the May issue
of BBC Music Magazine for a full feature on the award-winning
recordings and an interview with the man at the helm, Valery Gergiev.
Kathryn McDowell © Camilla Panufnik

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
Concerto for Trumpet, Piano and Strings Op 35 (1933)
1 Allegretto
2 Moderato
3 Lento
4 Allegro con brio
Yefim Bronfman piano
Philip Cobb trumpet
As a young man Shostakovich had ambitions to become a composer-
pianist in the mould of Rachmaninov or Prokofiev, and by his early
twenties he had gained a notable position in Russia as a solo pianist.
In 1927 he had even been one of the Russian competitors at the
Chopin Competition in Warsaw, though he achieved only an honourable
mention. His performing style was very individual. ‘Shostakovich
emphasised the linear aspect of music and was very precise in all
the details of performance,’ recalled a friend, ‘he used little rubato
in his playing, and it lacked extreme dynamic contrasts. It was an
‘anti-sentimental’ approach to playing which showed incredible
clarity of thought.’
He wrote this concerto for himself to play, composing it soon after
completing the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the 24 Preludes
for Piano, and gave the first performance with members of the
Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Fritz Stiedry on 13 October 1933.
Shostakovich twice recorded the work, and there is even a brief film
clip of him playing the finale at a recklessly fast tempo.
For a decade Shostakovich had taken full advantage of the excitement
and confusion that reigned in post-Revolutionary Russia, producing
a vast body of work that ranged from the modernist brutalism of
the Second and Third Symphonies to the biting satire of The Nose,
from light-hearted ballet scores to the deep seriousness of Lady
Macbeth of Mtsensk. The concerto is one of his most accessible
and justly popular works from this period. Short and compact, the
concerto constantly teases the listener with half-quotations, parodies
and sudden changes of direction. Although it has its moments of
seriousness, they are more apparent than real and tend to be swept
aside by the anarchic humour which was a speciality of the young
Shostakovich. Influences of Ravel, Prokofiev, Gershwin and Stravinsky
4 Programme Notes
can be heard, but equally important is Shostakovich’s own approach
to music for stage and film.
One account suggests that Shostakovich’s initial idea was for a solo
trumpet concerto. Whether there is any truth in this or not, the final
result is by no means a double concerto for equally-matched soloists,
for the piano is very much in the foreground all the time. The trumpet
plays a major role, however, often a thoroughly subversive one, and
achieves a kind of lunatic glory in the Rossini-meets-Mickey-Mouse
conclusion.
Programme note © Andrew Huth
More great pianists with the LSO this summer…
Thu 26 May 7.30pm
Beethoven Piano Concerto No 2
with Mitsuko Uchida piano
Thu 2 Jun 7.30pm
Beethoven Piano Concerto No 1
with Mitsuko Uchida piano
Tue 14 & Thu 16 Jun 7.30pm
Schumann Piano Concerto
with Murray Perahia piano
Tickets from £8
Choose your own seats online at
lso.co.uk or call 020 7638 8891

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
Piano Concerto No 2 in F Major Op 102 (1957)
1 Allegro
2 Andante
3 Allegro
Yefim Bronfman piano
Shostakovich composed six concertos altogether, but while the
two violin concertos (both intended for David Oistrakh) and the two
cello concertos (for Mstislav Rostropovich) count among his most
searching, personal works, the piano concertos are very much on the
lighter side. They also show the radical differences that Shostakovich’s
approach to composition had undergone in 24 years. The first, for
all its good humour, was a product of Russian post-revolutionary
modernism where the high spirits are expressed through a kaleidoscope
of teasing parodies. By the time he composed the Second Piano
Concerto, he had undergone two official condemnations and had
learned to avoid trouble by adopting a more restrained language,
which in his darker and more serious works becomes a mask where
classical forms and procedures are moulded to his own purposes.
That said, the Second Piano Concerto is one of the most straight-
forward and uncomplicated pieces he ever composed, its humour
untinged by sarcasm or bitterness. He wrote it not for himself but for
his son Maxim, who gave the first performance on his 19th birthday
on 10 May 1957 (three years earlier Shostakovich had written the
little Concertino for Two Pianos for father and son to play together).
Maxim was a fine pianist but never aimed to become a great virtuoso.
Although the Concerto’s solo writing is always highly effective,
it avoids the bravura and extreme difficulties of the First.
The Second Piano Concerto is as lighthearted as the First, though in a
gentler and perhaps more innocent way. There is nothing provocative,
controversial or experimental here, just the skill and imagination that
Shostakovich devoted to all his music, whether deeply serious or
intended mainly for entertainment. The Concerto’s outward shape
is quite conventional, with a three-movement structure and clear
cut form, so that nothing disturbs its simplicity and directness.
The first movement is in a quick march tempo, its character set by
the bassoon opening; the initial piano texture – left and right hands
playing one or two octaves apart – is a common feature of the solo
writing throughout the Concerto. The second movement, with reduced
orchestra, has the mood and textures of a nocturne. It leads directly
into the high-spirited finale, where the basic duple metre is wittily
subverted by the 7/8 metre of the secondary theme.
Programme note © Andrew Huth
Dmitri Shostakovich – Composer Profile
After early piano lessons with his mother, Shostakovich enrolled at the
Petrograd Conservatoire in 1919. He announced his Fifth Symphony
of 1937 as ‘a Soviet artist’s practical creative reply to just criticism’.
A year before its premiere he had drawn a stinging attack from
Soviet mouthpiece Pravda, in which his initially successful opera
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was condemned for its extreme
modernism. With the Fifth Symphony came acclaim not only from
the Russian audience, but also from musicians and critics overseas.
Shostakovich lived through the first months of the German siege of
Leningrad serving as a member of the auxiliary fire service. In July
he began work on his Seventh Symphony, completing the defiant
finale after his evacuation in October, dedicating the score to the
city. A copy was despatched by way of an American warship to
the US, where it was broadcast by the NBC Symphony Orchestra.
In 1943 Shostakovich completed his Eighth Symphony, its emotionally
shattering music compared by one critic to Picasso’s Guernica.
In 1948 Shostakovich and other leading composers were forced by
the Soviet cultural commissar, Andrey Zhdanov, to concede that their
work represented ‘most strikingly the formalistic perversions and
anti-democratic tendencies in music’, a crippling blow to his artistic
freedom that was healed only after the death of Stalin in 1953.
Shostakovich answered his critics later that year with the powerful
Tenth Symphony, in which he portrays ‘human emotions and
passions’, rather than the collective dogma of Communism.
Profile © Andrew Stewart
Programme Notes
5

Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
Symphony No 3 in D Major Op 29 (‘Polish’) (1875)
1 Moderato assai (Tempo di marcia funebrae) – Allegro brillante
2 Alla tedesca
3 Andante
4 Scherzo
5 Allegro con fuoco (Tempo di polacca)
Composed between two of his most popular works, the First
Piano Concerto and Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony
deliberately avoids the expression of any deep personal emotion
but demonstrates instead the composer’s growing involvement
in a wider and more objective symphonic tradition. It was written
in the summer of 1875, when Tchaikovsky was free of his teaching
duties at the Moscow Conservatory. Visiting the country houses of
friends and relatives, he drafted the symphony in barely two weeks
and then took enormous trouble over the final orchestral score.
It was first performed on 19 November 1875 in Moscow, conducted
by Nikolay Rubinstein.
The nickname ‘Polish’, which seems to have been coined when
Sir August Manns gave the symphony its first British performance
at the Crystal Palace in 1899, is quite irrelevant. While the Second
Symphony is known as the ‘Ukrainian’ or ‘Little Russian’ because it
makes prominent use of Ukrainian folk tunes, the finale of the Third
features the polonaise not as an expression of national colour but
simply as a stylised dance rhythm. Tchaikovsky was consciously
moving away from his brief but close involvement with the Russian
national composers, finding their dogmatic approach too restricting.
Instead of a heavy dependence on folk themes, which may be
colourful in themselves but tend to be self-contained, Tchaikovsky
is here working with material that is on the surface less distinctive,
but which allows for more elaborate development and more subtle
relationships between themes and movements. Even so, every
detail of the symphony bears the personal stamp of the composer
who admitted that ‘As regards the Russian element in general in my
music … I grew up in the backwoods, saturating myself from earliest
childhood with the inexplicable beauty of the characteristics of
Russian folksong’.
6 Programme Notes
Tchaikovsky’s only symphony in a major key opens with a minor-key
introduction, Tempo di marcia funebre, but this funeral march is more
an indication of style and tempo than any particular expression of
grief. Halting phrases in the dominant key build up suspense with a
gradual acceleration towards the main body of the movement, whose
three themes are treated with many inventive rhythmic shifts.
The three central movements are more lightly scored. The Alla
tedesca, a German dance, is in George Balanchine’s description
‘another of Tchaikovsky’s marvellous waltzes, a whole ballet scene
exquisitely orchestrated’. The central trio keeps the same basic pulse
but sounds faster because of the shorter note-values, a stream of
quaver triplets with a distinct flavour of Schumann or Mendelssohn.
The wind solos that open the deeply expressive slow movement mark
it as both the most Russian and the most personal music heard so far.
The triplet figures that appear later can be heard as a development of
those in the second movement, and are heard to very evocative effect
in the coda, with its echoes of Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique. In the
fourth movement orchestral texture becomes an essential part of the
music’s effect: the strings are muted throughout, giving a spectral
quality to what is essentially a single line of running semiquavers.
For the opening of the trio section Tchaikovsky recycled an idea
from a cantata he had hastily written three years earlier for the
bicentenary of the birth of Peter the Great.
The finale mirrors the first movement as an exercise in orchestral
sonority and brilliance. While for Chopin the Polonaise was a vehicle
for his patriotism, proud, heroic or tragic by turns, Tchaikovsky here
treats the dance as something grand and ceremonial, as he would do
again two years later to convey the aristocratic world of St Petersburg
at the opening of the last act of Eugene Onegin.
Programme note © Andrew Huth
Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and translator who writes
extensively on French, Russian and Eastern European music.

Valery Gergiev
Conductor
‘The vigour of Gergiev’s interpretation,
all darting flashes of colour and
contrast, was immensely appealing’
The Guardian on Valery Gergiev
and the LSO, March 11
Principal Conductor of the London Symphony
Orchestra since January 2007, Valery Gergiev
performs regularly with the LSO at the Barbican,
at the Proms and at the Edinburgh Festival,
as well as on regular tours of Europe, North
America and Asia. During the 2010/11 season
has led them in appearances in Germany,
France, Switzerland, Japan and the US.
Valery Gergiev is also Artistic and General
Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, founder
and Artistic Director of the Stars of the
White Nights Festival and New Horizons
Festival in St Petersburg, the Moscow Easter
Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, the
Mikkeli International Festival, and the Red
Sea Festival in Eilat, Israel. He succeeded
Sir Georg Solti as conductor of the World
Valery Gergiev © Gautier Deblonde
Orchestra for Peace in 1998 and has led them
this season in concerts in Abu Dhabi.
Gergiev’s inspired leadership of the Mariinsky
Theatre since 1988 has taken the Mariinsky
ensembles to 45 countries and has brought
universal acclaim to this legendary institution,
now in its 227th season. Having opened a new
concert hall in St Petersburg in 2006, Maestro
Gergiev looks forward to the opening of the
new Mariinsky Opera House in summer 2012.
Born in Moscow, Valery Gergiev studied
conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad
Conservatory. Aged 24 he won the Herbert
von Karajan Conductors Competition in Berlin
and made his Mariinsky Opera debut one
year later in 1978 conducting Prokofiev’s
War and Peace. In 2003 he led St Petersburg’s
300th anniversary celebrations, and opened
the Carnegie Hall season with the Mariinsky
Orchestra, the first Russian conductor to do
so since Tchaikovsky conducted the Hall’s
inaugural concert in 1891.
Now a regular figure in all the world’s major
concert halls, this season he led the LSO
and the Mariinsky Orchestra in a symphonic
Centennial Mahler Cycle in New York. Gergiev
has led several cycles previously in New York
including Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev,
Berlioz and Richard Wagner’s Ring. He has
also introduced audiences to several rarely
performed Russian operas.
Valery Gergiev’s many awards include a
Grammy, the Dmitri Shostakovich Award,
the Golden Mask Award, People’s Artist of
Russia Award, the World Economic Forum’s
Crystal Award, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize,
Netherlands’ Knight of the Order of the Dutch
Lion, Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, Valencia’s
Silver Medal, the Herbert von Karajan prize and
the French Order of the Legion of Honour.
He has recorded exclusively for Decca
(Universal Classics), and appears also on
the Philips and Deutsche Grammophon
labels. Currently recording for LSO Live,
his releases include Mahler Symphonies
Nos 1–8, Rachmaninov Symphony No 2,
Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet which won the
BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Year and
Bartók Duke Bluebeard’s Castle.
His recordings on the Mariinsky Label are
Shostakovich The Nose and Symphonies
Nos 1, 2, 11 and 15, Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture,
Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3 and
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Rodion
Shchedrin The Enchanted Wanderer,
Stravinsky Les Noces and Oedipus Rex
and Wagner Parsifal, many of which have
also won awards, including four Grammy
nominations.
The Artists
7

Yefim Bronfman
Piano
‘A marvel of digital dexterity,
warmly romantic sentiment,
and jaw-dropping bravura.’
The Chicago Tribune on
Yefim Bronfman, March 11
Yefim Bronfman is widely regarded as
one of the most talented virtuoso pianists
performing today. His commanding technique
and exceptional lyrical gifts have won him
consistent critical acclaim and enthusiastic
audiences worldwide, whether for his solo
recitals, his prestigious orchestral engagements
or his rapidly growing catalogue of recordings.
Yefim Bronfman emigrated to Israel with his
family in 1973, and made his international
debut two years later with Zubin Mehta and
the Montreal Symphony. He made his New
York Philharmonic debut in May 1978, his
Washington recital debut in March 1981 at
the Kennedy Center and his New York recital
debut in January 1982.
Bronfman was born in Tashkent, in the Soviet
Union, on 10 April 1958. In Israel he studied
with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin
Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University.
In the United States, he studied at The Juilliard
School, Marlboro and the Curtis Institute,
and with Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher
and Rudolf Serkin.
Bronfman’s 2010/11 European season
highlights included a tour with the Vienna
Philharmonic playing the concerto written
for him by Esa-Pekka Salonen and with
Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra,
a two-season project of the three Bartók
concertos. In partnership with Berlin’s
Staatskapelle and Daniel Barenboim, all three
Bartók concertos will again be featured in
Berlin, Vienna and Paris. Return engagements
in Europe include the Berlin Philharmonic,
Royal Concertgebouw, Israel Philharmonic,
Frankfurt Radio, Santa Cecilia Rome and
Munich Philharmonic.
Bronfman works regularly with an illustrious
group of conductors, including Daniel
Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph
von Dohnányi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph
Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons,
Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta,
Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov, Franz
Welser-Möst, and David Zinman. Summer
engagements have regularly taken him to
the major festivals of Europe and the US.
Widely praised for his solo, chamber and
orchestral recordings, he was awarded a
Grammy in 1997 for his recording of the
three Bartók Piano Concertos with Esa-Pekka
Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
His discography also includes the complete
Prokofiev Piano Sonatas; all five of the
Prokofiev Piano Concertos, nominated for
both Grammy and Gramophone Awards; and
Rachmaninov’s Piano Concertos Nos 2 and 3.
His most recent releases are Tchaikovsky’s
Piano Concerto No 1 with Mariss Jansons and
the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen
Rundfunks, a recital disc Perspectives to
complement Bronfman’s designation as a
Carnegie Hall ‘Perspectives’ artist for the
2007/08 season, and recordings of all the
Beethoven Piano Concertos as well as the
Triple Concerto together with violinist
Gil Shaham, cellist Truls Mørk and the
Tönhalle Orchestra Zürich under David
Zinman for the Arte Nova/BMG label. His
recordings with Isaac Stern include the
Brahms Violin Sonatas, a cycle of the Mozart
Sonatas for Violin and Piano, and the Bartók
Violin Sonatas. Coinciding with the release
of the Fantasia 2000 soundtrack, Bronfman
was featured on his own Shostakovich album,
performing the two Piano Concertos with
the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka
Salonen conducting, and the Piano Quintet.
In 2002, Sony Classical released his two-
piano recital (with Emanuel Ax) of works
by Rachmaninov, which was followed in
March 2005 by their second recording of
works by Brahms.
8 The Artists Yefim Bronfman © Dario Acosta

Philip Cobb
Trumpet
As a youngster, Philip regularly featured as a soloist on both the
cornet and the trumpet throughout the UK and abroad alongside his
brother Matthew and their father Stephen. In more recent years he
has appeared as a soloist in his own right, and was recently featured
as a solo performer in London’s Royal Albert Hall, as well as at the
International Trumpet Guild conference in Boston, US.
Philip is a former student of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama,
having studied with Principal Trumpet of the London Philharmonic
Orchestra, Paul Beniston, and also with renowned trumpet soloist
Alison Balsom. Shortly after graduation and following trials with
the London Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras, Philip accepted
his current position as Principal Trumpet with the LSO.
In 2006 Philip competed in the prestigious Maurice André International
Trumpet Competition. With former prize winners going on to achieve
international acclaim as both soloists and orchestral performers,
Philip was awarded one of the major prizes in the competition as
the Most Promising Performer. He was also awarded the ‘Candide
Award’ at the London Symphony Orchestra’s Brass Academy in 2008.
In September 2007 Philip released his debut solo CD, Life Abundant,
with the Cory Band and Organist Ben Horden.
Gergiev’s Tchaikovsky
Further your Tchaikovsky experience
and join Valery Gergiev and the LSO on
a journey through the quintessentially
Romantic composer’s complete
symphonies.
Wed 21 Sep 2011
All-Tchaikovsky programme featuring
the winners of the XIV International
Tchaikovsky Competition
Sun 25 Sep 2011
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 4
Brahms Piano Concerto No 1
with Nelson Freire
Thu 24 Nov 2011
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 5
Sofia Gubaidulina Fachwerk
with Geir Draugsvoll
Prokofiev Symphony No 1 (‘Classical’)
Thu 23 Feb 2012
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6
(‘Pathétique’)
Shostakovich Violin Concerto No 1
with Sarah Chang
Tickets from £10 on sale now
Box Office
020 7638 8891 (bkg fee)
lso.co.uk (reduced bkg fee)
London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music
The Artists
9

10
The Symphonies of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
by Andrew Huth
Tchaikovsky’s symphonies
are both musical and human
dramas, and he took the
writing of them very seriously.
He certainly didn’t see the symphony as an abstract formal idea.
Defending the Fourth in a letter to his favourite pupil Sergei Taneyev,
he wrote ‘I should be sorry if symphonies that mean nothing should
flow from my pen, consisting solely of a progression of harmonies,
rhythms and modulations’. He went on to call the symphony
‘the most purely lyrical of musical forms. Shouldn’t a symphony
reveal those wordless urges that hide in the heart, asking earnestly
for expression?’.
That is a very Romantic, 19th-century point of view, just what we’d
expect from so volatile and emotional a composer as Tchaikovsky.
What it doesn’t reflect is the intellectual effort he devoted to each
of his six symphonies. He hated theorising, particularly in public, and
distrusted verbal explanations, but the fact remains that in order to
express those ‘wordless urges’, he had to think deeply and carefully
about the ‘harmonies, rhythms and modulations’ which are essential
to large-scale form and structure. It was often a difficult process for
him. A letter written to his brother Anatoly while he was composing
the First Symphony could stand for all his troubles. He complains
about his nerves (‘...in an awful state because of my symphony, which
is not going well at all...’); to habitual self-doubt he adds a touch of
Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies
self-pity (‘...the thought that I am going to die soon and will not have
time to finish my symphony’) and, for good measure, includes the sort
of resolution he was to make and break until the end of his life
(‘Since yesterday I have stopped drinking vodka, wine and strong tea’).
The First Symphony turned out to be full of natural, spontaneous
talent, and contains everything that listeners have always prized in
Tchaikovsky’s music. Later works would be more subtly composed;
but from the beginning there is colour, drama, melody, and an
unmistakable personality in this music. Mendelssohn and Schumann
are the closest models for its overall shape, although the music never
sounds like either of these, or indeed any other German composer:
Tchaikovsky was particularly careful not to recall the procedures or
gestures of Beethoven, who was in many ways his exact opposite as
both man and musician.
With the Second Symphony, it seemed that the young Tchaikovsky
had identified himself closely with the aims of the Russian Nationalist
composers. They greatly admired its vigorous, clear orchestration,
especially the fresh wind writing; but what they most prized was
the way in which Tchaikovsky found apparently endless ways of

presenting his folk-like material, inventing accompaniments and
variations that preserved the original character of the melodies while
showing them off from ever-varying perspectives. The Third, however,
marks a step away from Nationalism towards a more objective and
international style. With its five movements, it is actually closer to
Tchaikovsky’s idea of a suite than a symphony, and its somewhat
detached emotional character has caused it to be the least known of
the six – unjustly, for it was an important step towards the remarkable
achievements of the last three symphonies.
‘Shouldn’t a symphony reveal
those wordless urges that
hide in the heart, asking
earnestly for expression?’
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
In each of these works Tchaikovsky had to discover a new kind of
balance between the demands of symphonic structure and his
personal lyrical style. Expressive melody is always the most striking
feature, and the melodic current that leads the listener through these
large structures is designed to articulate an inner drama. The original
features of the Fourth are mainly concerned with the material itself
(the ‘harmonies, rhythms and modulations’), and the symphony’s overall
shape reveals an almost desperately-willed progress from internal to
external, from the self-obsessed first movement, through reflections of
the past and the outer world, to images of ‘the people’ in the finale –
something which may very well reflect Tchaikovsky’s admiration for
Tolstoy, whose Anna Karenina had recently been serialised.
Ten years separate the Fourth from the Fifth, a period during which
Tchaikovsky’s life had become more stable and his audience more
international. The Fifth is more self-contained, more consciously
related to Western symphonic traditions, and aims (with some
curiously ambiguous results) to be more balanced emotionally.
There is little sign of the traditional German fondness for close
motivic relationships, but the clinging melancholy and nostalgia
that is so much a part of Tchaikovsky’s character is set within a
traditionally classical structure that balances inward melancholy
against an aspiration towards outward-looking strength.
Tchaikovsky’s great achievement in the Sixth was to devise a
structure which seems to arise from the nature of the melodic ideas
themselves. It is a drama of contrasts, or in the terms Tchaikovsky
himself was obviously thinking of, personal passion struggling
against hostile forces. Questions of the correct balance between
lyrical expression and formal balance, between Western and Russian
approaches, are irrelevant in the face of this music’s overwhelming
emotional effect. In the 19th century a symphony beginning in a minor
key was generally planned as a darkness-to-light affair. The slow-
to-slow, darkness-to-darkness of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth contradicts all
expectations, and its bleak message is conveyed with a power that
leaves one in no doubt either of Tchaikovsky’s musical mastery or the
strength of his feelings. It is one of those rare works which open up
new areas of musical experience.
Article © Andrew Huth
Send us your thoughts on
tonight’s concert
Using a smartphone QR code reader,
scan this barcode to be taken to our
mobile site Reviews page, or visit
londonsymphonyorchestra.mobi
Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies
11

On stage
First Violins
Gordan Nikolitch Leader
Carmine Lauri
Lennox Mackenzie
Nigel Broadbent
Ginette Decuyper
Jörg Hammann
Michael Humphrey
Maxine Kwok-Adams
Claire Parfitt
Harriet Rayfield
Colin Renwick
Ian Rhodes
Sylvain Vasseur
Alina Petrenko
Erzsebet Racz
Sarah Sew
Second Violins
Evgeny Grach
Sarah Quinn
Miya Vaisanen
David Ballesteros
Matthew Gardner
Belinda McFarlane
Iwona Muszynska
Philip Nolte
Paul Robson
Caroline Frenkel
Oriana Kriszten
Katerina Mitchell
Stephen Rowlinson
Julia Rumley
12 The Orchestra
Violas
Edward Vanderspar
Gillianne Haddow
Malcolm Johnston
Regina Beukes
German Clavijo
Richard Holttum
Robert Turner
Nancy Johnson
Martin Schaefer
Michelle Bruil
Philip Hall
Caroline O’Neill
Cellos
Timothy Hugh
Floris Mijnders
Alastair Blayden
Jennifer Brown
Mary Bergin
Noel Bradshaw
Daniel Gardner
Hilary Jones
Amanda Truelove
Susan Sutherley
Double Basses
Rinat Ibragimov
Nicholas Worters
Patrick Laurence
Michael Francis
Jani Pensola
Simo Vaisanen
Benjamin Griffiths
Adam Wynter
Flutes
Gareth Davies
Adam Walker
Patricia Moynihan
Piccolo
Sharon Williams
Oboes
Emanuel Abbühl
Emmanuel Laville
Katie Bennington
Clarinets
Andrew Marriner
Chris Richards
Chi-Yu Mo
Bassoons
Fredrik Ekdahl
Joost Bosdijk
Horns
Timothy Jones
David Pyatt
Angela Barnes
Jonathan Lipton
Estefanía Beceiro Vazquez
Trumpets
Roderick Franks
Gerald Ruddock
Nigel Gomm
Trombones
Dudley Bright
James Maynard
Robert Holliday
Bass Trombone
Paul Milner
Tuba
Patrick Harrild
Timpani
Nigel Thomas
Percussion
Neil Percy
LSO String
Experience Scheme
Established in 1992, the
LSO String Experience
Scheme enables young string
players at the start of their
professional careers to gain
work experience by playing in
rehearsals and concerts with
the LSO. The scheme auditions
students from the London
music conservatoires, and 20
students per year are selected
to participate. The musicians
are treated as professional
’extra’ players (additional to
LSO members) and receive
fees for their work in line with
LSO section players. Students
of wind, brass or percussion
instruments who are in their
final year or on a postgraduate
course at one of the London
conservatoires can also
benefit from training with LSO
musicians in a similar scheme.
The LSO String Experience
Scheme is generously
supported by the Musicians
Benevolent Fund and Charles
and Pascale Clark.
Yutaka Shimoda (second
violin), Ilona Bondar (viola)
and Vladimir Waltham (cello)
all took part in rehearsals and
will be performing in both
concerts as part of the LSO
String Experience scheme.
List correct at time of
going to press
See page xv for London
Symphony Orchestra members
Editor Edward Appleyard
edward.appleyard@lso.co.uk
Print
Cantate 020 7622 3401
Advertising
Cabbell Ltd 020 8971 8450