Sunday 17 April programme - London Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music
Resident at the Barbican
Carmine Lauri leader
Sunday 17 April 2011 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Falla El amor brujo
Michael Daugherty Fire and Blood (UK premiere)
INTERVAL
Stravinsky The Firebird – Suite
Kristjan Järvi conductor
Vadim Gluzman violin
Concert ends approx 9.15pm
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Kristjan Järvi © Peter Rigaud

Welcome News
Welcome to this evening’s LSO concert at the Barbican conducted
by Kristjan Järvi. The performance sees the continuation of the LSO’s
spring/summer season of ‘Classic Tales’. Järvi will return to the LSO
on Sunday 5 June for a concert performance of Bernstein’s brilliantly
sardonic opera on Voltaire’s novel Candide.
Violinist Vadim Gluzman makes his LSO debut this evening performing
the UK premiere of Michael Daugherty’s Fire and Blood, and I am
delighted to welcome Mr Daugherty who is in the audience tonight.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your continued
support of the LSO. In times of reductions in public funding it is ever more
important that the LSO is able to generate income from many different
sources. Your commitment to our music-making is deeply appreciated
and I hope that we can continue to count on your support.
I hope you enjoy tonight’s performance and that you can join us
for our next concert on 5 May when François-Xavier Roth conducts
a programme of American classics and a new commission by Tim
Garland, the well-known British jazz saxophonist and composer.
Kathryn McDowell
LSO Managing Director
2 Welcome & News
Classic Tales: music-making meets story-telling
From now until the end of the season, the LSO presents a series
of concerts that all have tales to tell. From this evening’s El amor brujo
and The Firebird to Candide and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in June,
join us for a collection of pieces that take as their inspiration some
of the most sensational myths, fairytales and historical events ever
committed to paper. Turn to page 10 for an article on the series.
LSO Aftershock
Straight after the Barbican concert on Thursday 5 May, the LSO will
celebrate the launch of ‘Aftershock’. On the Stalls foyer, DJs Gabriel
Prokofiev and Richard Lannoy will perform 20 minute sets of remixed
classical sounds, inspired by the works being performed in concert
moments beforehand: the classical, jazz, American and Cuban infused
influences of Gershwin, Copland and Tim Garland. In between sets,
there will be live acts with LSO musicians. The night will end at midnight
with the bar open throughout.
Find out more at lso.co.uk/aftershock
Released this month on LSO Live: Gergiev’s Debussy
Following LSO Live’s recent release of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast and
Symphony No 1 with Sir Colin Davis, you can now buy the next release
on the label: Debussy’s La mer, Jeux and Prélude à l’après-midi d’un
faune recorded live at the Barbican with Valery Gergiev last year. Of
La mer, The Independent says: ‘Gergiev and the LSO at their best: a
sensual, supremely unhurried reading’.
Find out more and buy your copy at lso.co.uk/lsolive
Kathryn McDowell © Camilla Panufnik

Manuel de Falla (1876–1946)
El amor brujo (Love, the Magician) (1914–15)
1 Dance of Terror
2 Ritual Fire Dance
3 Dance of the Game of Love
Manuel de Falla was one of the few Spanish composers to make an
impact on the European musical scene. His father was Andalusian,
his mother from Catalonia, so he inherited two different Iberian
traditions – one the Arabic inflections of Moorish Spain, and the
other, the lively, clean-cut, but still strongly nationalistic elements
of the north.
His 1914 ballet El amor brujo (Love, the Magician) represents a fusion
of these two traditions. Falla conceived it as a ‘gitaneria’, with dances,
songs and spoken dialogue, accompanied by a small instrumental
ensemble, and featuring the Andalusian gypsy folk-singer Pastora
Imperio, who danced and sang the main role. Then he rewrote it as
a ballet score in two scenes, scored for a normal theatre orchestra
with a substantial piano part.
The story concerns a beautiful gypsy girl called Candelas who lives in
the caves of the Sacromonte near Granada. Candelas has a problem –
she is haunted by the ghost of her dead lover. Every time she is
about to kiss her new boyfriend, the ghost has an inconvenient habit
of popping up between them. Candelas expresses her terror in an
agitated dance, but then decides she needs to exorcise her spectral
stalker. She draws a magic circle on the ground and performs the
celebrated ‘Ritual Fire Dance’ to ward off evil spirits. But when that
doesn’t work she eventually remembers that her former boyfriend
could never resist a pretty face, so she brings along her charming
friend Lucia. Sure enough, the ghost is so smitten that he leaves
Candelas and Carmelo to celebrate their happiness in the ‘Danza del
juego de amor’ (Dance of the Game of Love).
Programme note © Wendy Thompson
Wendy Thompson is Executive Director of Classic Arts Productions,
the major supplier of independent programmes to BBC Radio 3,
including Private Passions and Classical Collection.
London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music
Kristjan Järvi in Season 11/12
Sat 15 Oct 2011 7.30pm
Steve Reich 75th
Birthday Celebration
Steve Reich
Three Movements
The Four Sections
Clapping Music
The Desert Music
Kristjan Järvi conductor
Synergy Vocals
Thu 9 Feb 2012 7.30pm
Bernstein
John Adams Chairman Dances
Bernstein Three Dance Episodes
from ‘On the Town’
Copland Clarinet Concerto
Milhaud La création du monde
Bernstein Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
Ellington Harlem
Kristjan Järvi conductor
Eddie Daniels clarinet
Tickets from £10 on sale now
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Programme Notes
3

Michael Daugherty (b 1954)
Fire and Blood (UK premiere) (2003)
1 Volcano
2 River Rouge
3 Assembly Line
Vadim Gluzman violin
In 1932, Edsel Ford commissioned the Mexican modernist artist
Diego Rivera (1886–1957) to paint a mural representing the
automobile industry of Detroit. Rivera came to Detroit and worked
over the next two years to paint four large walls of the inner courtyard
at the Detroit Institute of Arts. His extraordinary Detroit Industry
murals have inspired me to create my own musical fresco for violin
and orchestra. It was Rivera himself who predicted the possibility of
turning his murals into music, after returning from a tour of the Ford
factories: ‘In my ears, I heard the wonderful symphony which came
from his factories where metals were shaped into tools for men’s
service. It was a new music, waiting for the composer ... to give it
communicable form’.
Volcano
Before coming to Detroit, Rivera lived in Mexico City surrounded by
volcanoes. Fire is an important element in his murals, which depict
the blaze of factory furnaces like erupting volcanoes. Volcanic fire was
also associated with revolution by Rivera, an ardent member of the
Mexican Communist party. He saw the creation of the Detroit murals
as a way to further his revolutionary ideas. The music of the first
movement responds to the fiery furnaces of Rivera’s imagination.
The violinist plays virtuosic triple stops (three strings at once), while the
orchestra explodes with pulsating energy. The composition alternates
between repeated patterns in a complex 7/4 time and polytonal
passages that occur simultaneously in different tempos. It concludes with
an extended violin cadenza accompanied by marimba and maracas.
River Rouge
At the Ford River Rouge Automobile Complex, located next to the
Detroit River, Rivera spent many months creating sketches of workers
and machinery in action. He was accompanied by his young wife,
the remarkable Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1906–54). She lived
in constant pain as a result of polio in childhood and a serious bus
4 Programme Notes
accident at the age of 18 in Mexico City. Many of her self-portraits
depict the suffering of her body. During her time with Rivera in Detroit,
Kahlo nearly died from a miscarriage, as depicted in paintings such as
Henry Ford Hospital and My Birth. The colour of blood is everywhere
in these works. She also had a passionate and playful side: she loved
wearing colourful traditional Mexican dresses and jewellery, drinking
tequila and singing at parties. Kahlo’s labours, grief and zeal for life
added another perspective to Rivera’s industry. This movement is
dedicated to Frida Kahlo’s spirit. The solo violin introduces two main
themes. The first theme is dissonant and chromatic, flowing like a red
river of blood. The second is a haunting melody that Kahlo herself
might have sung, longing to return to her native Mexico. The orchestra
resonates with floating marimbas and string tremolo, echoing like a
mariachi band in the distance. The orchestration is colourful, like the
bright tapestries of her dress. While death and suffering haunt the
music, there is an echo of hope.
Assembly Line
Rivera described his murals as a depiction of ‘towering blast furnaces,
serpentine conveyor belts, impressive scientific laboratories, busy
assembly rooms; and all the men who worked them all’. Rather than
pitting man against machine, Rivera thought the collaboration of
man and machine would bring liberation for the worker. The violin
soloist in this final movement is like the worker, surrounded by a
mechanical orchestra. The music is a roller coaster ride on a conveyor
belt, moving rapidly. This perpetual motion is punctuated by pizzicato
strings, percussive whips, and brassy cluster chords. The percussion
section plays factory noises on metal instruments like brake drums
and triangles, and a ratchet turns like the wheels of the machinery.
In addition to this acceleration of multiple mechanical rhythms, the
musical phrasing recalls the undulating wave pattern that moves from
panel to panel in Rivera’s mural.
Fire and Blood was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra,
which gave the world premiere under Neeme Järvi in 2003.
Programme note © Michael Daugherty

Diego Rivera (1886–1957)
Detroit Industry (1932–33)
Michael Daugherty (b 1954)
Composer Profile
One of the most prolific composers on the US music scene today,
Michael Daugherty’s works are rich with cultural allusions and bear
the stamp of classic modernism with colliding tonalities and blocks
of sound, whilst at the same time his melodies can be eloquent
and stirring. Daugherty first came to international attention when
the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Zinman,
performed his Metropolis Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1994. Since
then, his music has made him one of the most performed living
composers in the US.
Most recently, a recording of Daugherty’s Metropolis Symphony and
Deus ex Machina performed by Nashville Symphony gained three
Grammy Awards, including Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
Alongside this Naxos also released Route 66, featuring Daugherty’s
orchestral music with Marin Alsop conducting Bournemouth Symphony.
Born in 1954 in Iowa, Daugherty is the son of a dance-band drummer
and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. He studied
composition at the University of North Texas, the Manhattan School
of Music, computer music at Pierre Boulez’ IRCAM in Paris, and
later received his doctorate from Yale University in 1986. During this
time he collaborated with jazz arranger Gil Evans in New York and
pursued further studies with composer György Ligeti in Hamburg.
After teaching composition from 1986–90 at the Oberlin College
Conservatory of Music, Daugherty became a Professor of Composition
at the University of Michigan School of Music in 1991.
Daugherty has received numerous awards and fellowships including
a Fulbright Fellowship, Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim
Foundation and the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society
of Lincoln Center. In 2005 he received the Lancaster Symphony
Orchestra Composer’s Award (Pennsylvania) and in 2007, the
Delaware Symphony Orchestra selected Daugherty as the winner of
the A I DuPont Award. Daugherty has been named Outstanding Classical
Composer at the Detroit Music Awards in 2007, 2009 and 2010.
Programme Notes
5

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
The Firebird – Suite from the ballet (1945)
1 Introduction – The Firebird and its Dance – Variation
2 Pantomime I
3 Pas de deux (Firebird and Tsarevich Ivan)
4 Pantomime II
5 Scherzo: Dance of the Princesses
6 Pantomime III
7 Rondo: The Princesses’ Khorovod
8 Infernal Dance of Kashkei
9 Lullaby of the Firebird
10 Final Hymn
The Firebird was Stravinsky’s first commission for Serge Diaghilev’s
Ballet Russes. Having settled on the exotic Russian folk-tale of
the magical Firebird as a suitable ballet subject and extracted a
scenario from his choreographer Mikhail Fokine, Diaghilev took
the bold step of approaching Stravinsky, then a young and virtually
unknown composer. His gamble paid dividends. The Firebird
was first performed on 25 June 1910 at the Paris Opéra, with the
great ballerina Tamara Karsavina in the title role. Opulent decor,
choreography and Stravinsky’s luminous score made The Firebird
an instant hit, and it remained the mainstay of the Russian Ballet’s
repertory until its disbandment.
Stravinsky later made three orchestral suites from the ballet, in 1911,
1919 and 1945. The last of these was based on the 1919 version,
in which Stravinsky – in tune with post-war austerity – had reduced
the colossal orchestra. However, to the five movements of the 1919
version, Stravinsky now added five more numbers taken from the
original score, partly to make a more versatile alternative concert
or stage version of the ballet, and also to protect his copyright,
following a successful lawsuit brought by the original Russian
publisher of the score.
A mysterious Introduction introduces the Firebird, who performs her
Dance and Variation. Prince Ivan captures her, and after a brief linking
section called ‘Pantomime’ they perform a pas de deux. Ivan releases
the Firebird in exchange for one of her magic feathers. Another short
linking passage takes him to the magician Kashkei’s palace, where
6 Programme Notes
he finds himself surrounded by captive princesses (‘Scherzo: Dance
of the Princesses’), and falls in love with the most beautiful of them.
After a further linking passage the princesses perform a Round Dance,
but Kashkei and his minions arrive and take Ivan prisoner in an exotic
Infernal Dance. Ivan uses his magic feather to summon the Firebird,
who puts Kashkei and his retinue to sleep in a hypnotic Lullaby. In the
Finale, Ivan destroys the magic egg shell in which Kashkei keeps his
evil soul. The spell is broken, the captives are freed, and the Prince
marries his chosen princess in a radiant, hymn-like epithalamium.
Programme Note © Wendy Thompson
Valery Gergiev’s Stravinsky next season with the LSO
Fri 11 May 2012 7.30pm
Stravinsky Mass; Concerto in D major;
The Firebird – complete ballet
with Leonidas Kavakos violin
London Symphony Chorus
Sun 13 May 2012 7.30pm
Stravinsky Renard; The Soldier’s Tale
with LSO Chamber Ensemble
Tue 15 May 2012 7.30pm
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring; Oedipus Rex
with Gentlemen of the London Symphony Chorus
Thu 17 May 2012 8pm, LSO St Luke’s
UBS Soundscapes: Eclectica – Stravinsky
with LSO Chamber Orchestra
Sun 15 Jul 2012 7.30pm
Stravinsky Petrushka
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Kristjan Järvi
Conductor
Estonian-born and American-raised,
conductor Kristjan Järvi is a unique musical
personality pushing classical music borders
with fresh ideas, charisma and technical
prowess. His name has become synonymous
with artistic and cultural diversity, embodied
in his roles as Artistic Advisor to the Basel
Chamber Orchestra and Founder and Music
Director of New York’s Absolute Ensemble.
His imaginative programming has been
embraced by leaders of classical, jazz and
world music spheres alike. Järvi’s authentic
commitment to all genres is reflected in
his collaborations with Arvo Pärt, Tan Dun,
John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, HK Gruber,
Renée Fleming, Joe Zawinul, Benny Andersson,
Goran Bregovic, Paquito d’Rivera, Eitetsu
Hayashi and Marcel Khalife.
Kristjan Järvi has actively sought the
commission of over 100 new works.
Premieres in the 2009/10 Season included
works by Indian composer Nitin Sawhney
with the London Symphony Orchestra,
Daniel Schnyder with the Lausanne Chamber
Kristjan Järvi © Peter Rigaud
Orchestra, James MacMillan with the London
Symphony Orchestra and Tim Garland with
the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Kristjan Järvi is a dynamic and enterprising
music educator. He is Founding Conductor
and Music Director of the Baltic Youth
Philharmonic. With the support of former
German chancellor Schroeder, Valery Gergiev,
Kurt Masur, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marek
Janowski and Mariss Jansons, the Baltic Youth
Philharmonic aims to become an education
and performance hub for the Baltic region.
Kristjan Järvi is highly sought after as
a conductor. He appears regularly and
exclusively in London with the London
Symphony Orchestra, with which he
toured the US, Europe and Asia in the
2009/10 season. Further guest conducting
engagements in this and last season include
concerts with the Dresden Staatskapelle,
Bayerische Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra,
Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, NDR Hamburg,
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra,
Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra,
Orchestre National de France, Orchestre
de Paris, Accademia Nazionale di Santa
Cecilia Rome, National Symphony Orchestra
(Washington DC), Sydney Symphony, and
NHK Symphony Japan.
Kristjan Järvi is also a passionate recording
artist with 30 albums to his name. He has
received a list of accolades, including
a Swedish Grammy for Best Opera
Performance, the German Record Critics Prize
for Best Album and a Grammy Nomination.
The 2009 Chandos release of Bernstein’s epic
Mass was met with widespread acclaim
and was Gramophone magazine’s Editor’s
Choice. Other recent releases include
Haydn’s ‘Paris’ Symphonies, Schmidt’s
Das Buch mit Sieben Siegeln, Mahler’s
arrangement of Beethoven Symphony No 9,
Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream;
and Absolute Zawinul, the late Joe Zawinul’s
last studio recording.
An accomplished pianist, Kristjan Järvi
studied piano at the Manhattan School
of Music and conducting at the University
of Michigan. In 2007 Musikfest Bremen
honoured Kristjan Järvi and the Absolute
Ensemble with the Deutsche Bank Prize
in recognition of Outstanding Artistic
Achievement.
The Artists
7

Vadim Gluzman
Violin
Vadim Gluzman, lauded by both critics and
audiences as a performer of great depth,
virtuosity and technical brilliance, has
appeared throughout the world as a soloist
and in a duo setting with his wife, pianist
Angela Yoffe. He appears regularly with major
orchestras such as the London Philharmonic,
Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic,
San Francisco, Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston,
Vancouver and Seattle Symphony orchestras,
Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Deutsches
Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Minnesota
Orchestra, Munich, Dresden and Czech
Philharmonic orchestras, the Stuttgart Radio
Orchestra, NHK and KBS orchestras, among
others.
Gluzman has collaborated with some of
the world’s most prominent conductors,
including the late Yehudi Menuhin, Neeme
Järvi, Andrew Litton, Marek Janowski, Itzhak
Perlman, Peter Oundjian, Paavo Järvi, Rafael
Frühbeck de Burgos, Yan Pascal Tortelier
and Hannu Lintu. He has also performed
at many festivals such as Verbier, Ravinia,
Lockenhaus, Pablo Casals, Colmar, Jerusalem,
the Schwetzinger Festspiele and Festival de
Radio France.
In Summer 2010 Vadim Gluzman appeared
at Ireland’s West Cork Chamber Music
Festival and at Music in the Mountains
Festival in Colorado, as well as with the
Pacific Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra
(Minnesota Orchestra Sommerfest) and the
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.
During this season, Vadim Gluzman performs
throughout the US, Australia, Canada, the UK
and across Europe. Among the highlights
of the season are his recital debut at
Wigmore Hall, a tour of Australia, a tour
with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra that
includes a performance at Carnegie Hall,
and appearances with the San Francisco
and Toronto symphony orchestras.
A highly acclaimed recording artist, Vadim
Gluzman’s recordings are released exclusively
on BIS Records. His most recent album,
featuring Korngold’s Violin Concerto as well
as a Concerto by Lithuanian composer Balys
Dvarionas with Neeme Järvi conducting was
selected Disc of the Month by Classics Today
on its release. A recording of Bernstein’s
Serenade, Barber’s Violin Concerto and
Bloch’s Baal Shem Suite with the São Paolo
Symphony Orchestra conducted by John
Neschling was chosen by The Strad magazine
as a Selection of the Month.
Other recordings include the Glazunov and
Tchaikovsky violin concertos with Andrew
Litton conducting the Bergen Philharmonic
(a Classic FM magazine Disc of the Month
as well as a Selection of the Month by
The Strad magazine), and Fireworks, a
collection of virtuoso violin show pieces.
Born in 1973 in the Ukraine, Vadim Gluzman
began studying the violin at the age of seven.
Before moving to Israel in 1990, he studied
under Roman Sne, Zakhar Bron and later
under Yair Kless in Tel Aviv. He also studied
in the US with Arkady Fomin and at The
Juilliard School with the late Dorothy DeLay
and Masao Kawasaki. Early in his career, he
enjoyed the encouragement and support
of Isaac Stern and in 1994 he received the
prestigious Henryk Szeryng Foundation
Career Award. Vadim Gluzman plays a 1690
ex-Leopold Auer Stradivari, on extended
loan to him through the generosity of the
Stradivari Society of Chicago.
8 The Artists Vadim Gluzman © John Kringas

On stage
First Violins
Carmine Lauri Leader
Lennox Mackenzie
Nicholas Wright
Ginette Decuyper
Jörg Hammann
Michael Humphrey
Maxine Kwok-Adams
Claire Parfitt
Colin Renwick
Ian Rhodes
Sylvain Vasseur
Julia Rumley
Erzsebet Racz
Gabrielle Painter
Gordon Mackay
Hilary Jane Parker
Second Violins
Evgeny Grach
Thomas Norris
Miya Väisänen
Matthew Gardner
Iwona Muszynska
Philip Nolte
Andrew Pollock
David Worswick
Katerina Mitchell
Deborah Gruman
Hazel Mulligan
Stephen Rowlinson
Samantha Wickramasinghe
Victoria Hands
Violas
Paul Silverthorne
Gillianne Haddow
German Clavijo
Lander Echevarria
Richard Holttum
Robert Turner
Jonathan Welch
Natasha Wright
Michelle Bruil
Elizabeth Butler
Caroline O’Neill
Anna Dorothea Vogel
Cellos
Timothy Hugh
Jesper Svedberg
Alastair Blayden
Jennifer Brown
Mary Bergin
Noel Bradshaw
Daniel Gardner
Keith Glossop
Minat Lyons
Penny Driver
Double Basses
Colin Paris
Nicholas Worters
Patrick Laurence
Michael Francis
Thomas Goodman
Jani Pensola
Paul Sherman
Rupert Ring
Flutes
Gareth Davies
Eilidh Gillespie
Piccolo
Sharon Williams
Oboes
Gordon Hunt
Ruth Contractor
Cor Anglais
Christine Pendrill
Clarinets
Chris Richards
Chi-Yu Mo
Bassoons
Daniel Jemison
Christopher Gunia
Horns
Timothy Jones
Angela Barnes
Jonathan Lipton
Estefanía Beceiro Vazquez
Hugh Seenan
Trumpets
Philip Cobb
Gerald Ruddock
Trombones
Katy Jones
James Maynard
Bass Trombone
Paul Milner
Tuba
Patrick Harrild
Timpani
Nigel Thomas
Percussion
Neil Percy
David Jackson
Antoine Bedewi
Sam Walton
Harp
Karen Vaughan
Piano
John Alley
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.
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
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The Orchestra
9

Classic Tales
Music-making meets story-telling this spring and summer at the LSO
Music is generally considered to be a more abstract art than painting
or sculpture. But the earliest Western music was originally allied to
words, and once composers discovered how the expressive and
affective qualities of music could enhance and reflect the meaning of
words, it was a short step to realising that purely instrumental music
could evoke images from the real world, such as the sounds of battle
or the hunt, the cries of birds and animals, the rippling of water, the
slithering of skaters on a frozen pond.
By the early 19th century, with a greatly expanded instrumental
palette at their disposal, composers became more innovative in their
alliance of music to story-telling. Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony
and Berlioz’s extraordinary Symphonie fantastique paved the way for
the tone-poem and other 19th- and 20th-century orchestral genres
which portrayed legendary or historical people and events, as well
as natural phenomena. Tonight’s concert, and three others coming
up, all show how music can illustrate narrative, whether romanticised
versions of the life-stories of real people (Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, the
Wild Western outlaw Billy the Kid, the Mexican artists Diego Rivera
and Frida Kahlo), folk or fairy tales (Aladdin, Peer Gynt, Mother Goose,
The Firebird), or stories concerning ritual and magic (El amor brujo,
Fire and Blood, A Midsummer Night’s Dream).
lso.co.uk/classictales
10 Classic Tales
Prokofiev’s score for Eisenstein’s epic 1940s film Ivan the Terrible
brings to life scenes from the reign of the 16th-century Russian
autocrat who created a vast empire out of disparate multi-ethnic
Asiatic regions, and became the first Tsar of all the Russias. Prokofiev’s
music evokes the grandeur and terror attending the birth of a nation,
with brutal battle scenes, liturgical processions, drinking and wedding
songs rubbing shoulders with broad folksong-based melodies
representing the endless steppes of the emergent Motherland.
Sun 3 Apr
Prokofiev Violin Concerto & Ivan the Terrible – oratorio
Xian Zhang conductor | Leila Josefowicz violin | LSC
Processions, dances and celebrations also feature in two Nordic
suites drawn from theatrical music (7 April) – one, tinged with
sensuous Oriental exoticism, that the Danish composer Carl Nielsen
made from his 1919 stage music to Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
(the well-known story taken from the 1001 Nights), and another from
Grieg’s earthy music for Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt (1874–75), the tale
of an amoral peasant who rampages around Norway, forsaking his
sweetheart and his old mother, abducting other men’s brides, getting
chased by mountain trolls, shipwrecked in the Mediterranean and
seduced by a sultry North African beauty, and finally, as an old man,
coming home after years of weary wandering to find his faithful first
love still waiting for him.
Thu 7 Apr
Nielsen Aladdin – Suite | Sibelius Violin Concerto
Grieg Peer Gynt – Suite
Kristjan Järvi conductor | Julia Fischer violin

Fire, ritual and magic link three pieces on 17 April. Manuel de Falla’s
ballet score El amor brujo (Love, the Magician) is set among the gypsy
population of Granada. The story concerns the efforts of a gypsy girl
to exorcise the troublesome ghost of her former lover so that she
can get on with her life, and the centrepiece of this colourful score
is the celebrated Ritual Fire Dance performed in a cave at midnight.
Magic and fire also infuse Stravinsky’s luscious ballet score The Firebird,
based on a Russian folktale about a mythical bird who helps a prince
to release some captive princesses from a spell woven by an evil
magician. Fire and Blood for violin and orchestra by the American
composer Michael Daugherty was inspired by the exotic life stories
of the painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
Sun 17 Apr
Falla El amor brujo | Michael Daugherty Fire and Blood *
Stravinsky The Firebird – Suite
Kristjan Järvi conductor | Vadim Gluzman violin *
In 5 May’s all-American programme, two popular works by George
Gershwin complement another ballet score, this time by Aaron
Copland. Billy the Kid deals with the short life and brutal death of an
archetypal outsider – the outlaw whose lonely, peripatetic existence
is contrasted with the songs and dances of the Establishment,
represented by settlers carving out a life in the vast prairies of
the American West.
Thu 5 May
Gershwin Cuban Overture
Tim Garland Concerto for Percussion, Saxophone and Orchestra
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue | Copland Billy the Kid – Suite
François-Xavier Roth conductor | Tim Garland saxophone
Neil Percy percussion | Wayne Marshall piano
Bernstein’s musical Candide on 5 June tells a wholly improbable
but highly entertaining tale of survival against all the odds, and
Shakespeare and Mendelssohn’s enchanting fairies and a set of
miniature children’s fairytales, delicately envisioned by master-
orchestrator Ravel, form the focus on 23 June.
Sun 5 Jun
Bernstein Candide
Kristjan Järvi conductor
Thu 23 Jun
Ravel Mother Goose Suite
Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Bernard Haitink conductor
Article © Wendy Thompson
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Classic Tales
11

Inbox
Your thoughts and comments about recent performances
As a Japanese person living in
London, I very much appreciated
your comment before the
concert today at the Barbican.
Most of us here have difficulty in
watching footage on tv and the
fact we live far away from home
makes us worry more and more.
I hope music will give us strength
and people severely damaged in
Japan will get through in a few
years time.
[LSO dedicating concerts to
Japan. Shchedrin, Shostakovich
& Tchaikovsky – Valery Gergiev &
Leonidas Kavakos, 23 Mar]
12 Inbox
‘Music will give us strength’
Tamaki
‘On a Lebanese mountain’
M K Medawar
For the first time I don’t have to
go to the Barbican to watch my
favourite orchestra.
I got my LSO while sitting in
my living room in a village on a
Lebanese mountain, watching
the beautiful performance of
Mahler’s only movement of the
tenth, and the ninth symphony.
Thanks to Mezzo Satellite
Channel, and thanks to the LSO.
Hope to see more back at the
Barbican this summer.
[Mahler – Valery Gergiev, from
La Salle Pleyel, Paris, 28 Mar]
‘So privileged to be there’
Elizabeth Owen
After Kavakos’ phenomenal
playing on Thursday 24th I saw
something I’d never seen before.
The audience didn’t dash out
for their interval drinks and the
orchestra applauded. I’ve seen
genteel tapping of bows on desks
before but never musicians
applauding another. He took five
calls and then an encore.
I was so privileged to be there as
I don’t think I’ll ever witness such
playing again. Thank you.
[Shchedrin, Shostakovich &
Tchaikovsky – Valery Gergiev &
Leonidas Kavakos, 24 Mar]
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From Facebook and Twitter...
Allison Allen
[Roman Simovic] was superb,
as indeed was everyone else!
Worth the 200-mile round trip
from Suffolk! Three cheers for
the LSO.
[7 Apr, Sibelius Violin Concerto]
AmaliDfitriani
@londonsymphony
Roman Simovic is one of a kind!
AMAZING!
[7 Apr, Sibelius Violin Concerto]
thomaswilliams
The performance of Ivan the
Terrible was as wonderful
as I’ve come to expect from
@londonsymphony & @lschorus
[3 Apr, Prokofiev Violin Concerto
No 1 & Ivan the Terrible]
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