1 April programme PDF - London Symphony Orchestra

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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
Page 1: Sunday 1 April 2012 7.30pm Barbican
Page 5 and 6: little birds, and woodsy smells. No
Page 7 and 8: Semyon Bychkov Conductor ‘Bychkov
Page 9 and 10: On stage First Violins Roman Simovi
Page 11 and 12: Tiffin Boys’ Choir Since its foun

1 April programme PDF - London Symphony Orchestra

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