1 April programme PDF - London Symphony Orchestra

Sunday 1 April 2012 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Mahler Symphony No 3
Semyon Bychkov conductor
Christianne Stotijn mezzo-soprano
Ladies of the London Symphony Chorus
Tiffin Boys’ Choir
Please note, there will be no interval during tonight’s performance
Concert ends approx 9.15pm
Semyon Bychkov © Sheila Rock; Christianne Stotijn © Marco Borggreve
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London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music

Welcome News
Welcome to this LSO concert conducted by Semyon Bychkov and
featuring mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn.
Semyon Bychkov returns to the LSO after a successful debut with
the Orchestra in March 2010, prompting The Telegraph to write
‘Semyon Bychkov breezed into the Barbican … with a programme
that sparkled from the start’. Noted for his Mahler, Wagner and
Strauss in particular, we look forward to his interpretation of Mahler’s
mighty third symphony.
Semyon Bychkov will conduct alongside Dutch mezzo-soprano
Christianne Stotijn. Christianne trained as a violinist, only fully turning
to singing some twelve years ago. To complete the picture, it is a
pleasure to welcome the Ladies of the London Symphony Chorus
and Tiffin Boys’ Choir.
Coming up we have a return from LSO Principal Guest Conductor
Daniel Harding (12 April) and later in the month, Sir Colin Davis
conducts one of his favourite operas in concert version – Weber’s
Der Freischütz.
Kathryn McDowell
LSO Managing Director
BMW LSO Open Air Classics: just over a month away
On Saturday 12 May 2012, at 6.30pm in Trafalgar Square, the LSO and
Principal Conductor Valery Gergiev will perform Stravinsky’s Fireworks,
The Firebird and The Rite of Spring as part of a ground-breaking
new series of annual outdoor summer concerts, in a three-year
partnership with BMW. 100 young musicians from East London will
also perform The Lite of Spring, an arrangement of Stravinsky’s work
by Gareth Glyn. Presenter Paul Rissmann will guide us through the
evening. The concert is free and no booking is required – turn up
early to beat the crowds!
lso.co.uk/openair
Solo Bach at LSO St Luke’s
May sees four solo Bach recitals at LSO St Luke’s as part of our regular
BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert series. Bach’s timeless works are
a monument to the birth of classical music as we know it today.
To perform masterworks including the Cello Suites and selected
Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier we welcome
Cédric Tiberghien (piano), Pieter Wispelwey (cello), Isabelle Faust
(violin) and Mahan Esfahani (harpischord). If you haven’t yet
experienced a lunchtime concert, or enjoyed the stunning setting
of LSO St Luke’s (or the equally enticing café), now’s your chance.
Tickets are just £10 (£9 concessions).
lso.co.uk/lunchtimeconcerts
Music’s better shared!
The LSO offers great benefits for groups of 10+ including 20% off
standard ticket prices, a dedicated Group Booking phone line and
priority booking, free interval hot drinks and, for bigger groups,
the chance of a private interval reception. To reserve tickets, call
the dedicated Group Booking line on 020 7382 7211. If you have
general queries, please call LSO Groups Rep Fabienne Morris on
020 7382 2522. At tonight’s concert, we are delighted to welcome:
Conservatorio Profesional de Música ‘Miguel Fleta’
de Monzón, Spain
2 Welcome & News Kathryn McDowell © Camilla Panufnik

Mahler the Man
by Stephen Johnson
Mahler’s sense of being an outsider, coupled with a penetrating,
restless intelligence, made him an acutely self-conscious searcher
after truth. For Mahler the purpose of art was, in Shakespeare’s famous
phrase, to ‘hold the mirror up to nature’ in all its bewildering richness.
The symphony, he told Jean Sibelius, ‘must be like the world. It must
embrace everything’. Mahler’s symphonies can seem almost over-full
with intense emotions and ideas: love and hate, joy in life and terror of
death, the beauty of nature, innocence and bitter experience. Similar
themes can also be found in his marvellous songs and song-cycles,
though there the intensity is, if anything, still more sharply focused.
Gustav Mahler was born the second of 14 children. His parents
were apparently ill-matched (Mahler remembered violent scenes),
and young Gustav grew dreamy and introspective, seeking comfort
in nature rather than human company. Death was a presence from
early on: six of Mahler’s siblings died in infancy. This no doubt partly
explains the obsession with mortality in Mahler’s music. Few of his
major works do not feature a funeral march: in fact Mahler’s first
composition (at age 10) was a Funeral March with Polka – exactly
the kind of extreme juxtaposition one finds in his mature works.
For most of his life Mahler supported himself by conducting, but
this was no mere means to an end. Indeed his evident talent and
I am …
three times homeless
a native of Bohemia in Austria
an Austrian among Germans
a Jew throughout the world.
energetic, disciplined commitment led to successive appointments
at Prague, Leipzig, Budapest, Hamburg and climactically, in 1897, the
Vienna Court Opera. In the midst of this hugely demanding schedule,
Mahler composed whenever he could, usually during his summer
holidays. The rate at which he composed during these brief periods
is astonishing. The workload in no way decreased after his marriage
to the charismatic and highly intelligent Alma Schindler in 1902.
Alma’s infidelity – which almost certainly accelerated the final decline
in Mahler’s health in 1910–11 – has earned her black marks from
some biographers; but it is hard not to feel some sympathy for her
position as a ‘work widow’.
Nevertheless, many today have good cause to be grateful to
Mahler for his single-minded devotion to his art. T S Eliot – another
artist caught between the search for faith and the horror of
meaninglessness – wrote that ‘humankind cannot bear very much
reality’. But Mahler’s music suggests another possibility. With his ability
to confront the terrifying possibility of a purposeless universe and
the empty finality of death, Mahler can help us confront and endure
stark reality. He can take us to the edge of the abyss, then sing us
the sweetest songs of consolation. If we allow ourselves to make
this journey with him, we may find that we too are the better for it.
Programme Notes
3

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
Symphony No 3 in D Minor (1895–96)
Part One
1 Kräftig: Entschieden (Powerful, Resolute)
Part Two
2 Tempo di Menuetto – Sehr mässig (At a very moderate pace)
3 Comodo: Scherzando – Ohne Hast (Unhurried)
4 Sehr langsam (Very slow) – Misterioso
5 Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck
(At a jaunty tempo with bold expression)
6 Langsam – Ruhevoll – Empfunden
(Slow – Peaceful – With Feeling)
Christianne Stotijn mezzo-soprano
Ladies of the London Symphony Chorus
Tiffin Boys’ Choir
4 Programme Notes
‘It’s all very well, but you can’t
call that a symphony.’
William Walton’s brusque dismissal of Mahler’s Third Symphony
may strike some readers as provincial today. But there was a time
when musically minded people would have agreed with him. After
the symphony’s 1904 Viennese premiere, a critic stated that Mahler
ought to be sent to jail for perpetrating such an insult to the intelligent
listener. But amid the scandalised, outraged comments one can find
equally impassioned praise. After hearing that same 1904 Viennese
performance, the young Arnold Schoenberg (who had at first been
hostile to Mahler) told the composer that the symphony had revealed
to him ‘a human being, a drama, truth, the most ruthless truth!’.
It isn’t hard to see why the Third Symphony should provoke such
extreme reactions. In concept – and in some of its content – it is
Mahler’s most outrageous work. The forces may be smaller (slightly)
than those used in Symphony No 2 (‘Resurrection’) or the so-called
‘Symphony of a Thousand’ (No 8), but in other respects it is incredibly
ambitious. Mahler is quoted as saying that ‘the symphony must be
like the world. It must embrace everything’, in which case the Third is
his most ‘symphonic’ work. ‘Just imagine a work of such magnitude
that it actually mirrors the whole world’, Mahler wrote to the singer
Anna von Mildenburg, ‘My [third] symphony will be something the
like of which the world has never heard!’. In this music, he wrote,
‘the whole of nature finds a voice … Some passages in it seem so
uncanny that I can hardly recognise them as my own work’.
At first Mahler thought of giving the Third Symphony a title. It was
to be called ‘Pan’, after the Greek god of nature, or ‘The Joyful
Science’, after one of Nietzsche’s philosophical works, Die fröhliche
Wissenschaft. The Third Symphony contains, in its fourth movement,
a setting of lines from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus
Spake Zarathustra), the work which first puts forward the ideal of
the ‘Superman’, the man who can embrace life – nature – in all its
fullness, whether glorious or terrible. This message struck chords
in Mahler himself, as he noted after writing the symphony’s second
movement: ‘It always strikes me as odd … think only of flowers,

little birds, and woodsy smells. No one knows the god Dionysus,
the great Pan. There now! You have a sort of programme – that is,
an example of how I make music. Everywhere and always it is only
the voice of nature!’.
As to that ‘programme’, Mahler was prepared to be more specific.
He described the symphony’s six movements as follows:
Summer marches in
What the flowers of the meadow tell me
What the animals of the forest tell me
What night tells me (mankind)
What the morning bells tell me (the angels)
What love tells me.
A plan emerges, in which each movement seems to aspire higher
than the one before it: the awakening of elemental nature leads
ultimately to transcendent love. But around the time of the Third
Symphony Mahler seems to have lost faith in titles and literary
programmes. Let the music speak for itself – or in the words of
the Bible, ‘He that hath an ear, let him hear’. This undoubtedly made
it harder for earlier audiences to grasp the Third Symphony’s
meaning, but modern listeners may be thankful for the freedom
Mahler gives them. After all, the music is vividly suggestive. If we
can forget old-fashioned notions of what a symphony ‘should’ be,
and set our minds free to explore its imaginative riches, then the
Third Symphony can explain itself with a logic that is part musical,
part dreamlike, but always compelling.
Nevertheless, some preparation is needed for the symphony’s
extraordinary proportions. The first movement is vast: around 35
to 40 minutes in most performances – longer than the next four
movements put together. Attempt to make sense of its structure
along traditional formal lines and you will soon get lost. In essence
it alternates three kinds of music: the dark, primordial sounds of the
opening (described by Mahler as ‘Pan awakes’), pastoral sounds
(murmurous wind and string trills, woodwind birdcalls), and gaudy
military march music (brass fanfares, dotted rhythms and plenty
of percussion). Eventually it is the latter music which dominates
‘summer marches in’. The ‘flowers of the meadow’ minuet that
follows is on a much more intimate scale, with hints of folk music,
delicately scored. The naïve exuberance of the ‘animals of the forest’
third movement is twice interrupted by solos from a distant post-horn,
sounding magically through hushed high strings – a nostalgic memory,
or perhaps an evocation of primal innocence. Near the end of this
movement comes a ferocious fortissimo outburst for almost the
whole orchestra. Pan is revealed again.
Mankind’s struggle to make sense of the world, its joy and grief,
is the subject of the Nietzsche setting, almost all of it delivered
in an awe-struck pianissimo. Then the sound of bells (literally and
impersonated by the boys’ choir) introduces the angels’ song of
childlike rapture at God’s forgiveness of the apostle Peter. Finally
comes the symphony’s true slow movement. An intense hymn-like
theme for strings alternates with music that seems more troubled,
searching. Sounds from earlier in the symphony return, then the
hymn builds to a radiant major-key climax. Mahler revealed to Anna
von Mildenburg that he had in mind a motto for this movement:
‘Father, see these wounds of mine! Let no creatures of yours be lost!’
(Vater, sieh an die Wunden mein! Kein Wesen lass verloren sein!).
His next words probably say more than any about the message
he embedded in his Third Symphony. ‘I could almost call this [the
finale] ‘What God tells me’. And truly, in the sense that God can
only be understood as love. And so my work begins as a musical
poem embracing all stages of development in a step-wise ascent.
It begins with an inanimate nature and ascends to the love of God’.
Programme Note © Stephen Johnson
Stephen Johnson is the author of Bruckner Remembered (Faber). He
also contributes regularly to the BBC Music Magazine, and broadcasts
for BBC Radio 3 (Discovering Music), Radio 4 and the World Service.
Programme Notes
5

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No 3: Libretto (part two, movements four and five)
Sehr langsam (Very slow) – Misterioso
O Mensch! Gib Acht!
Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?
‘Ich schlief, aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht.
Die Welt ist tief,
Und tiefer, als Tag gedacht.
Tief ist ihr Weh!
Lust, tiefer noch als Herzeleid!
Weh spricht: Vergeh!
Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit!
Will tief, tiefe Ewigkeit.’
Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck
(At a jaunty tempo with bold expression)
Es sungen drei Engel einen süssen Gesang;
Mit Freuden es selig in dem Himmel klang,
Sie jauchtzen fröhlich auch dabei,
Dass Petrus sei von Sünden frei.
Und als der Herr Jesus zu Tische sass,
Mit seinen zwölf Jüngern das Abendmahl ass,
Da sprach der Herr Jesus: ‘Was stehst du denn hier?
Wenn ich dich anseh’, so weinest du mir.’
‘Und sollt’ ich nicht weinen, du gütiger Gott?
Ich hab übertreten die zehn Gebot.
Ich gehe und weine ja bitterlich.
Ach komm’ und erbarme dich über mich!’
‘Hast du denn übertreten die zehn Gebot,
So fall auf die Knie and bete zu Gott!
Liebe nur Gott in alle Zeit!
So wirst du erlangen die himmlische Freud’.
Die himmlische Freud’ ist eine selige Stadt.
Die himmlische Freud’, die kein Ende mehr hat!
Die himmlische Freud war Petro bereit’t,
Durch Jesum, und Allen zur Seligkeit.
‘O Mensch’ from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra
‘Es sungen drei’ from Arnim & Brentano’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn
6 Libretto
O Man! Take heed!
What does the deep midnight say?
‘I was asleep, from deep dreams I have awoken.
The world is deep,
And deeper than the day imagined.
Deep is its grief!
Joy, deeper still than heartache!
Grief says: Die!
But all joy seeks eternity,
Seeks deep, deep eternity.’
Three angels were singing a sweet song,
In blissful joy it rang through heaven.
They shouted too for joy,
That Peter was set free from sin.
And as the Lord Jesus sat at table,
And ate the supper with his disciples,
Lord Jesus said: ‘Why do you stand here?
When I look at you, you weep at me.’
‘And should I not weep, thou bounteous God?
I have broken the ten commandments.
I wander weeping bitterly,
O come and have mercy on me!’
‘If you have broken the ten commandments,
Then fall on your knees and pray to God!
Love only God all the time!
Thus will you gain heavenly joy.’
Heavenly joy is a blessed city,
Heavenly joy, that has no end!
Heavenly joy was granted to Peter,
Through Jesus, and to all men for eternal bliss.

Semyon Bychkov
Conductor
‘Bychkov showed why he
has become one of the
world’s leading conductors,
with an elegant style that
mixes calm authority and
persuasive heart.’
The Sunday Telegraph, BBC Proms 2011
Since leaving St Petersburg in the mid 1970s,
Semyon Bychkov has been a guest on the
podiums of the world’s finest orchestras.
With his time carefully balanced between
operatic and symphonic repertoire, he
enjoys long and fruitful relationships with
the orchestras and major opera houses in
London, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Berlin, Chicago
and New York.
Bychkov has held the posts of Music Director
of Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and
Orchestre de Paris, Principal Guest Conductor
of the St Petersburg Philharmonic and of
Maggio Musicale Florence, Chief Conductor
Semyon Bychkov © Sheila Rock
of WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and of the
Dresden Semperoper.
Recent highlights have included tours with
the Filarmonica della Scala in Asia and
Europe; the Concertgebouw in Europe;
and the Vienna Philharmonic in the US,
and engagements with the Cleveland and
Philadelphia Orchestras, the San Francisco
Symphony, Munich Philharmonic and
the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In the
2011/12 season, he appears with the Berlin
Philharmonic, the Chamber Orchestra of
Europe, the NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg,
the London, Chicago, San Francisco Symphony
Orchestras, the Russian National Orchestra,
Munich and Los Angeles Philharmonics,
and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionalle
della RAI Turin.
Bychkov made his Covent Garden debut
in 2003 with a new production of Elektra
and returned later that year to conduct
Boris Godunov. He has since conducted
Queen of Spades (2006), Lohengrin (2009),
Don Carlos (2009) and Tannhäuser (2010)
at Covent Garden, and Boris Godunov (2004)
and Otello (2007) at the Met, New York.
He returns to Covent Garden to conduct a
La bohème in May 2012, and will conduct
Otello at the Met in 2013. In Italy, Bychkov
conducted Tosca (1996) and Elektra (2005)
at La Scala, Milan; a new production of
Don Carlo in Torino (2006); and numerous
productions at Maggio Musicale Florence,
including award-winning productions of
Jenu˚fa (1993), Schubert’s Fierrabras (1995)
and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1997).
Bychkov made his Paris Opera debut with
Ballo in Maschera (2007) and returned to
conduct Tristan und Isolde (2009); at the
Vienna State Opera he has conducted
Elektra (2000), Tristan und Isolde (2001),
Daphne (2003) and Lohengrin (2005), and
Der Rosenkavalier (2005) at the Salzburg
Festival. He opened the 2011/12 season of
the Teatro Real Madrid with highly acclaimed
performances of Elektra, and will return to
the house in 2016 for Parsifal.
Bychkov’s recent recording of Strauss’ Alpine
Symphony coupled with Till Eulenspiegel
(Profil) follows a series of benchmark Strauss
recordings including Ein Heldenleben
and Metamorphosen (Avie), Daphne with
Renée Fleming (Decca) and Elektra with
Deborah Polaski (Profil). Also with WDR
Sinfonieorchester Köln are recordings of
Mahler, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, the
complete cycle of Brahms Symphonies,
and Verdi’s Requiem. Both the Brahms and
Rachmaninov symphonies (Symphony No 2,
Symphonic Dances and The Bells) are also
available on DVD (Arthaus). Winner of BBC
Music Magazine’s Record of the Year 2010,
Bychkov’s recording of Wagner’s Lohengrin
was committed to disc following staged
performances at the Vienna Staatsoper and
concert performances in Cologne.
The Artists
7

Christianne Stotijn
Mezzo-soprano
‘Her instrument is a fine
one … her musical manner
and emotional steering
were quietly confident and
ultimately compelling.’
Igor Toronyi-Lalic, The Arts Desk, on
Christianne Stotijn & the LSO, October 2009
Mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn, a native
of Delft in The Netherlands, completed her
solo violin studies in 2000, after which she
followed an intensive vocal course with Udo
Reinemann at the Amsterdam Conservatory.
She furthered her vocal studies with Jard van
Nes, Noelle Barker and Dame Janet Baker.
Over the years Christianne has won numerous
awards, including the prestigious ECHO Rising
Stars Award 2005/6, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust
Award in 2005, and the Nederlands Muziekprijs
in 2008. Additionally she was selected as
BBC New Generation Artist in 2007.
Accompanied by pianists Joseph Breinl
and Julius Drake, with whom she has a
longstanding duo partnerships, she performs
regularly in the world’s leading concert
venues, including the Wigmore Hall in
London, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw’s
Main Hall and Recital Hall, Vienna’s
Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Carnegie Hall
in New York, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Salzburg
Mozarteum, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in
Brussels, Kennedy Center in Washington and
Atlanta’s Spivey Hall. Christianne made her
Berlin Philharmonic debut in a performance
of Schoenberg’s Das Buch der Hängenden
Gärten, accompanied by Mitsuko Uchida.
The conductor Bernard Haitink has had a
profound influence on Christianne Stotijn’s
career. After successful performances of
Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with the Orchestre
National de France and the Concertgebouw
Orchestra, Haitink invited her to perform
Mahler’s Symphony No 2 at the BBC Proms,
Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 at the Lucerne
Festival, the Rückert-Lieder with the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra, the Matthäus-Passion
with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and
Das Lied von der Erde with the LSO.
Christianne has also worked with world-class
conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Vladimir
Jurowski, Ivan Fischer, Gustavo Dudamel,
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jaap van Zweden, Marc
Minkowski, René Jacobs, Charles Dutoit and
Andris Nelsons, and orchestras including the
Berlin Philharmonic, LSO, Royal Concertgebouw
Orchestra, Orchestre National de France,
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, London
Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and
the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen
Rundfunks.
Christianne Stotijn also appears regularly on
the stage. She has sung the role of Pauline in
Pique Dame at the Paris Opera, Ottavia in
Poppea at the Nederlandse Opera and Cornelia
in Giulio Cesare at the Théâtre de la Monnaie
in Brussels and De Nederlandse Opera.
Christianne sang the title role in Tamerlano at
the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and
Ottavia in Poppea at the Teatro Campoamor
in Oviedo and the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao.
She has worked with opera directors
including Graham Vick, Emilio Sagi, Pierre
Audi and Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann.
Christianne Stotijn’s recordings are on
the Onyx label. Her discography to date
includes recordings of Schubert, Berg
and Wolf accompanied by Joseph Breinl,
Mahler songs accompanied by Julius Drake,
Tchaikovsky lieder accompanied by Julius
Drake, which won the BBC Music Magazine’s
Vocal Recording of 2010, and her latest Onyx
recording, Stimme der Sehnsucht – lieder by
Pfitzner, Strauss & Mahler, accompanied by
Joseph Breinl. For the MDG label, Christianne
Stotijn recorded a work close to her heart –
Frank Martin’s Die Weise von Liebe und Tod
des Cornets Christoph Rilke, which was
awarded the ECHO Klassik Award in 2008.
8 The Artists
Christianne Stotijn © Marco Borggreve

On stage
First Violins
Roman Simovic Leader
Lennox Mackenzie
Nigel Broadbent
Jörg Hammann
Claire Parfitt
Harriet Rayfield
Colin Renwick
Ian Rhodes
Sylvain Vasseur
David Worswick
Gerald Gregory
Gabrielle Painter
Hilary Jane Parker
Erzsebet Racz
Julia Rumley
Roisin Walters
Second Violins
Evgeny Grach
Sarah Quinn
Miya Vaisanen
David Ballesteros
Matthew Gardner
Belinda McFarlane
Iwona Muszynska
Philip Nolte
Ingrid Button
Raja Halder
Oriana Kriszten
Hazel Mulligan
Stephen Rowlinson
Robert Yeomans
Violas
Edward Vanderspar
Gillianne Haddow
German Clavijo
Anna Green
Richard Holttum
Robert Turner
Heather Wallington
Jonathan Welch
Natasha Wright
Michelle Bruil
Cian O’Duill
Caroline O’Neill
Cellos
Rebecca Gilliver
Alastair Blayden
Jennifer Brown
Mary Bergin
Noel Bradshaw
Daniel Gardner
Hilary Jones
Minat Lyons
Amanda Truelove
Michael Stirling
Double Basses
Colin Paris
Patrick Laurence
Matthew Gibson
Thomas Goodman
Jani Pensola
Joseph Melvin
Damian Rubido González
Simo Vaisanen
Flutes
Adam Walker
Siobhan Grealy
Eva Stewart
Piccolo
Sharon Williams
Oboes
Domenico Orlando
Fraser MacAulay
John Lawley
Cor Anglais
Christine Pendrill
Clarinets
Andrew Marriner
Chris Richards
James Burke
Bass Clarinet
Lorenzo Iosco
E-flat Clarinet
Chi-Yu Mo
Bassoons
Daniel Jemison
Joost Bosdijk
Helen Simons
Contra Bassoon
Gordon Laing
Horns
Timothy Jones
David Pyatt
Angela Barnes
Geremia Iezzi
Jonathan Lipton
Jeffrey Bryant
Nicolas Fleury
Caroline O’Connell
Kathryn Saunders
Trumpets
Philip Cobb
Gerald Ruddock
Robin Totterdell
Thomas Watson
Off-stage Flugelhorn
Christopher Deacon
Trombones
Dudley Bright
James Maynard
Bass Trombones
Paul Milner
Andrew Waddicor
Tuba
Patrick Harrild
Timpani
Nigel Thomas
Christopher Thomas
Percussion
David Jackson
Jeremy Cornes
Helen Edordu
Adam Clifford
Barnaby Archer
Benedict Hoffnung
Off-stage Percussion
Antoine Bedewi
Glyn Matthews
Nigel Bates
Harps
Bryn Lewis
Karen Vaughan
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.
Caroline Simon (second violin),
Jane Lindsay (cello) and Fatima
Aguero Vacas (double bass)
took part in rehearsals for
tonight’s concert and appear
on stage this evening.
The Scheme is supported by:
The Barbers’ Company
The Carpenters’ Company
Charles and Pascale Clark
Fidelio Charitable Trust
The Ironmongers’ Company
Robert and Margaret Lefever
LSO Friends
Musicians Benevolent Fund
The Polonsky Foundation
List correct at time of
going to press
See page xv for London
Symphony Orchestra members
Editor
Edward Appleyard
edward.appleyard@lso.co.uk
Photography
Mark Harrison, Kevin Leighton,
Bill Robinson, Alberto Venzago,
Nigel Wilkinson
Print
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The Orchestra
9

London Symphony Chorus
President
Sir Colin Davis CH
President Emeritus
André Previn KBE
Vice Presidents
Claudio Abbado
Michael Tilson Thomas
Patron
Simon Russell Beale
Guest Chorus
Director
Natalie Murray Beale
Chairman
James Warbis
Accompanist
Roger Sayer
10 London Symphony Chorus
The London Symphony Chorus was formed in 1966 and, while
maintaining special links with the London Symphony Orchestra,
has also partnered the principal UK orchestras and internationally
has worked with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras,
Boston Symphony Orchestra and the European Union Youth
Orchestra, among others.
Along with regular appearances at the major London venues,
the LSC tours extensively throughout Europe and has visited North
America, Israel, Australia and the Far East. This season’s highlights
include visits to Bonn, Paris and New York with the LSO under
Sir Colin Davis and Gianandrea Noseda, and concerts with the
BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the
London Symphony Orchestra.
The Chorus has recorded widely, with recent releases including
Haydn’s The Seasons, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast and Verdi’s
Otello, and the world premiere issue of MacMillan’s St John Passion.
The Chorus also partners the LSO on Gergiev’s recordings of
Mahler’s Symphonies Nos 2, 3 and 8, while the men of the Chorus
took part in the recent Gramophone award-winning recording of
Götterdämmerung with the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder.
In 2007, the London Symphony Chorus established its Choral Conducting
Scholarships, which enable aspiring young conductors to gain valuable
experience with a large symphonic chorus. The Chorus has also
commissioned new works from composers such as Sir John Tavener,
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Berkeley and Jonathan Dove, and
took part in the world premiere of James MacMillan’s St John Passion
with the LSO and Sir Colin Davis in 2008, and in the second London
performance in February 2010.
The London Symphony Chorus is always interested in recruiting new
members, welcoming applications from singers of all backgrounds,
subject to an audition. Open Rehearsals are also being held for those
who might be interested in auditioning.
For further information, call Helen Lawford, Auditions Secretary,
on 020 8504 0295 or visit lsc.org.uk.
Sopranos
Carol Capper
Julia Chan
Victoria Collis
Shelagh Connolly
Lucy Craig
Sara Daintree
Anna Daventry
Lucy Feldman
Lorna Flowers
Eileen Fox
Kirstin Gerking-Rabach
Maureen Hall
Sarah Hall
Jessica Harris
Carolin Harvey
Emily Hoffnung
Bethany Horak-Hallett
Gladys Hosken
Sarah Illingworth
Debbie Jones
Helen Lawford
Debbie Lee
Margarita Matusevich
Jane Morley
Dorothy Nesbit
Emily Norton
Isabel Paintin
Chen Shwartz
Amanda Thomas
Julia Warner
Choirmaster
James Morgan
Altos
Liz Boyden
Lizzy Campbell
Sarah Castleton
Rosie Chute
Janette Daines
Zoe Davis
Maggie Donnelly
Linda Evans
Lydia Frankenburg
Tina Gibbs
Yoko Harada
Lis Iles
Gilly Lawson
Selena Lemalu
Belinda Liao
Anne Loveluck
Etsuko Makita
Liz McCaw
Jane Muir
Alex O’Shea
Lucy Reay
Nesta Scott
Lis Smith
Claire Trocmé
Curzon Tussaud
Agnes Vigh
Kate Vielestra
Sara Williams
Mimi Zadeh

Tiffin Boys’ Choir
Since its foundation in 1957, the Tiffin Boys’ Choir has been one of
the few state school choirs to have been continually at the forefront
of the choral music scene in Britain.
The choir has worked with all the London orchestras and performs
regularly with the Royal Opera. Recent engagements have included
critically acclaimed performances of Carmen (Pappano), A Midsummer
Night’s Dream (Hickox) and Tannhäuser (Bychkov), Boris Godunov with
the Bolshoi Opera, Hänsel und Gretel (Sir Colin Davis), performances
of Britten’s War Requiem with Pappano and Maazel, Mahler Symphony
No 3 with Maazel, the premiere of Titanic 3D and a series of a capella
concerts at the Spoleto Festival and in the Baltic States. The choir
enjoys a partnership with the London Mozart Players, performing
most recently Haydn’s The Creation and the Fauré and Duruflé
Requiems. The choir tours annually, most recently to Australia and
New Zealand.
The choir has made recordings of most of the orchestral repertoire
that includes boys’ choir. Notable releases have included Mahler
Symphony No 8 (EMI / Tennstedt), which was nominated for a Grammy
Award, Puccini Il Trittico, Massenet Werther and Puccini Tosca (EMI /
Pappano), Britten Billy Budd (Chandos / Hickox), Mahler Symphony
No 3 (LSO Live / Gergiev and Telarc / Zander), and Britten War Requiem
(LPO / Masur). Members of the choir feature in DVD releases of Carmen,
La bohème, Tosca and Hänsel und Gretel from the Royal Opera House.
Tiffin School is a state grammar school and specialist Arts College
in Kingston-upon-Thames, described by OFSTED as ‘exceptional’.
The majority of the 1,200 boys in the school play a musical instrument,
and over 100 boys study Music at GCSE and A-Level. Several members
of the choir have gained university choral scholarships on leaving
Tiffin: there are ex-Tiffinians currently singing in the choirs of King’s
and St John’s Colleges in Cambridge, and Exeter, Magdalen, Oriel and
St Edmund Hall Colleges in Oxford.
Future engagements include Parsifal with the Mariinsky Opera,
Turandot at Wembley Arena and Otello at the Royal Opera House.
A tour of South Korea is planned for 2013.
Simon Toyne director
Philip Viveash assistant director
Singers
Humphrey Allen
Ollie Appleby
William Appleby
Yaamir Badhe
Ben Baker
David Dunkling
Thomas Dunne
Stefan Frost
Ben Gibson
Daniel Henderson
Anish Khanna
Tom La Frenais
Nathan Langford
Jonghyeon Lee
Tom Mitchell
Karlis Pauzers
Henry Saywell
Hugo Schuler
Jung-hoon Seo
Matthew Stevenson
Sebastian Tyrall
James Vanstone
Joseph White
Tiffin Boys’ Choir
11

LSO Season 2011/12
Michael Tilson Thomas’ Mahler
Sun 27 May 2012 7.30pm
Beethoven Piano Concerto No 3
Mahler Symphony No 4
with Yefim Bronfman piano
Elizabeth Watts soprano
Thu 31 May 2012 7.30pm
Berg Chamber Concerto
Mahler Symphony No 1 (‘Titan’)
with Gil Shaham violin
Yefim Bronfman piano
‘Tilson Thomas … ramped up
the LSO’s playing to its peak –
a first-rate performance’
London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music
Sun 3 Jun 2012 7.30pm
Mozart Violin Concerto No 5
(‘Turkish’)
Mahler Symphony No 5
with Gil Shaham violin
6pm Guildhall Artists at
the Barbican
Visit youtube.com/lso to
watch Michael Tilson Thomas
discuss these concerts
Financial Times on LSO Principal Guest Conductor,
Michael Tilson Thomas
Tickets from £10
020 7638 8891 (bkg fee)
lso.co.uk (reduced bkg fee)
London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music
Opera in Concert
Sir Colin Davis’ Der Freischütz
Thu 19 & Sat 21 Apr 2012 7.30pm
Weber Der Freischütz
Sir Colin Davis conductor
Soloists include Simon O’Neill Max | Christine Brewer Agathe
Falk Struckmann Kaspar | Sally Matthews Ännchen
with London Symphony Chorus
This April, the LSO, under the baton of its President Sir Colin Davis,
presents Carl Weber’s eerily fantastical opera Der Freischütz.
Usually translated as ‘The Marksman’ or ‘The Freeshooter’, this opera
is the Grimms’ Fairytale of the opera world with a tale that twists
and turns its way through shooting contests, magic bullets and a pact
with the devil. Heralded as one of the cornerstones of Romantic opera,
the music of the sinister Wolf’s Glen scene has long been considered
the most expressive rendering of the gruesome ever found in a musical
score – why not come along and see if you agree? If you can summon
up the courage, that is …
Thu 19 Apr
Part of UBS Soundscapes
Tickets from £10
020 7638 8891 (bkg fee)
lso.co.uk (reduced bkg fee)