Thu 23 Jun programme - London Symphony Orchestra

Bernard Haitink © Clive Barda 

London Symphony Orchestra 

Living Music 

Resident at the Barbican 

Roman Simovic leader 

Thursday 23 June 2011 7.30pm 

Barbican Hall 

Ravel Mother Goose Ballet 

INTERVAL 

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

Bernard Haitink conductor 

Sarah-Jane Brandon soprano 

Daniela Lehner mezzo-soprano 

Sir Thomas Allen narrator 

Eltham College Choir 

Concert ends approx 9.40pm 

Recommended by Classic FM 

Download it 

LSO programmes are now available to 

download from two days before each concert 

lso.co.uk/programmes 

Thu 23 June 2011.indd 1 6/20/2011 11:50:02 AM

Welcome News 

Welcome to the final LSO concert of the 2010/11 season at the 

Barbican. It is a pleasure to welcome Bernard Haitink and tonight’s 

soloists, soprano Sarah-Jane Brandon, mezzo-soprano Daniela Lehner, 

narrator Sir Thomas Allen and the trebles of Eltham College Choir. 

I hope you enjoy tonight’s performance and that you can join us for our 

concert in the City of London Festival on Tuesday 28 June at St Paul’s 

Cathedral, and the LSO Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday 23 

August and Sunday 4 September. We look forward to welcoming you 

all back to the Barbican for the start of the 2011/12 season with Valery 

Gergiev conducting an all-Tchaikovsky gala programme featuring the 

winners of the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition. 

Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for 

your continued support of the LSO this season. 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. 

Wishing you an enjoyable summer. 

Kathryn McDowell 

LSO Managing Director 

2 Welcome & News 

Inside Out: Free lunchtime music outside LSO St Luke’s 

Enjoy a picnic and free music on the sunny lawns of LSO St Luke’s 

from 1pm on selected Fridays. On Friday 15 July we round off this 

lunchtime series with Voice Trio, a female a capella group performing 

secular and sacred music from the medieval chants by Hildegard 

of Bingen to 20th-century European folk songs. Also, join Inside Out 

artists Randolph Matthews and Byron Johnston at the Whitecross 

Street Party on Sunday 24 July performing a highly creative fusion 

of Spanish acoustic guitar and African soul. 

lso.co.uk/insideout 

Released this month on LSO Live: Sir Colin Davis’ The Seasons 

Earlier this month, LSO Live released Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten 

recorded live at the Barbican with Sir Colin Davis last year. Of Die 

Jahreszeiten, Classical Review says: ‘Davis’ affection is palpable 

at every turn of this handsomely balanced reading. The London 

Symphony Orchestra plays beautifully for him … the soloists are 

also strong, especially the pure-voiced soprano Miah Persson’. 

Find out more and buy your copy at lso.co.uk/lsolive 

Coming up at LSO St Luke’s 

It might be the end of our 2010/11 season here at the Barbican but 

there’s lots going on over the summer at LSO St Luke’s. On Saturday 

2 July, LSO Principals join the UK’s most promising young woodwind 

musicians for a concert showcasing their work at the end of the 

week-long LSO Academy, while on Thursday 7 July we welcome Indian 

violinist Kala Ramnath and composer Max de Wardener as part of 

the UBS Soundscapes: Eclectica series. Then on Monday 18 July the 

LSO St Luke’s Community Choir gives a concert which celebrates 

LSO St Luke’s and the surrounding area, and finally, the Fusion 

Orchestra and Digital Technology Group join forces on Saturday 

31 July to give a concert of genre-defying collaborations. 

lso.co.uk/lsostlukes 

Kathryn McDowell © Camilla Panufnik 


Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) 

Mother Goose Ballet (1910 orch 1912) 

1 Prelude and Spinning-Wheel Dance 

2 Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane 

3 Tom Thumb 

4 The Plain Girl, Empress of the Pagodas 

5 Conversations Between Beauty and the Beast 

6 The Fairy Garden 

Generally, composers pen a ballet first and then the suites follow. 

Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé is a classic example, but with Mother Goose 

the process worked initially in reverse. Inspired by the illustrations 

to a fairytale book, between 1908 and 1910 he wrote for the two 

children of his friends Ida and Cipa Godebski a sequence of pieces 

for piano duet – quite easy to play but not beginners’ music, so that 

Mimi and Jean who gave the public premiere in 1911 at the ages of 

six and seven must have been exceptional. The impresario Jacques 

Rouche, soon to become a long-serving director of the Paris Opera, 

was responsible for bringing about Ravel’s ballet version. He had 

been trying to get French composers to match the current Paris 

successes of Stravinsky’s new scores with the Ballets Russes, but 

Ravel – who was already working on Daphnis et Chloé for the same 

company – offered instead to make a ballet from his new duets. He 

added a prelude, introductory scene and linking music, with a scenario 

that began and ended with ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and presented the 

other stories as her dreams. It was premiered with some success at 

the Théâtre des Arts in January 1912. Just five months later Daphnis 

followed at the Châtelet, inevitably overshadowing it, and Ravel duly 

published an orchestral version of the suite which remains more 

often performed. 

It’s quite a feat to devise insertions in pre-existing music that sound 

as though they were there all along. Ravel was perceptive enough 

to realise that the five pieces already had a strong character and 

a cohesion that would be undermined by, in effect, competing 

with them. For his new material he concentrated on lightness and 

deftness, and brought off a small masterpiece of perfect timing within 

the larger masterpiece of his fairytale portrayals. The delicacy of touch 

for key moments – the pricked finger, the transformation of beast into 

prince, the hint of musical exoticism for the pagoda scene, the wonder 

of reawakening – is constant. Though never a parent, Ravel knew 

what made children tick and could share their imaginative worlds in 

a way that touches adult listeners with its truth. The title of the work 

comes from Charles Perrault’s 1697 volume which first contained the 

‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Tom Thumb’ stories. ‘Laideronette’ (The Plain 

Girl, Empress of the Pagodas), a story that failed to cross the Channel, 

was written by a contemporary, and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ the 

following century. 

Programme note © Robert Maycock 

Robert Maycock writes about music for The Independent and 

magazines from BBC Music to Songlines, with special interests in 

French, contemporary and world music. His book, Glass: A Portrait, 

was published by Sanctuary in 2002. 

INTERVAL: 20 minutes 

Programme Notes 

Thu 23 June 2011.indd 3 6/20/2011 11:50:03 AM 

3

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47) 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture & Incidental Music (1826 & 1842) 

1 Overture 

2 Scherzo 

3 March of the Fairies 

4 Song with chorus: ‘Ye spotted snakes’ 

5 Andante 

6 Intermezzo 

7 Nocturne 

8 Andante 

9 Wedding March 

10 Allegro comodo 

11 Funeral March 

12 A Dance of Clowns 

13 Allegro vivace 

14 Finale 

Sarah-Jane Brandon soprano 

Daniela Lehner mezzo-soprano 

Sir Thomas Allen narrator 


Mendelssohn’s extraordinary early activity as a composer – twelve 

string symphonies, six operas, the astounding Octet for strings and 

much else besides by the time he was 16 – went hand in hand with 

a cultured upbringing that left him well versed in matters literary 

and artistic. In addition to his musical activities he wrote poems, 

painted and drew, while his parents’ home in Berlin was one of 

Germany’s most active intellectual salons, where concerts, theatrical 

performances and literary readings were frequent and guests 

included scientists, philosophers, actors, writers and musicians. 

Felix found much inspiration in these experiences, and in the summer 

of 1826, while still only 17, was moved to compose an overture based 

on Shakespeare’s enchanted comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

As originally conceived, the Overture is better described as a 

tone poem; it was not written to precede a performance of the 

play, and dutifully – though brilliantly – it includes within its sonata 

form structure clear representations of the fairies, the confidence 

and urbanity of Duke Theseus’ court, the yearning of the lovers 

4 Programme Notes 

in the wood and the rusticity of the ‘rude mechanicals’ complete 

with Bottom’s asinine braying. The work is also punctuated by 

reappearances of the four chords of the opening bars, which descend 

on the music at key moments, changing the mood like a spell. 

Mendelssohn’s overture was first performed in Stettin in April 1827, 

and quickly became one of his most popular pieces. In 1842, however, 

he was commissioned by the King of Prussia to provide incidental 

music for a production of the play, to be preceded by the overture; 

Mendelssohn obliged, and his complete score, consisting of songs, 

entr’actes and various other little snippets, was heard for the first time 

in Potsdam, October 1843. 

Remarkably, Mendelssohn seems to have had no trouble in re-creating 

the atmosphere of his teenage masterpiece 16 years on. That much 

is evident in the Scherzo, which, if a little earthier (perhaps even more 

sinister) than the fairy music of the Overture, clearly inhabits the 

same world; ‘A Dance of Clowns’, postlude to the Rude Mechanicals’ 

play, even borrows some of the Overture’s music. Elsewhere, the 

Intermezzo moves from a Schumannesque depiction of the emotional 

turmoil of the lovers lost in the wood to the clumping arrival of Bottom 

and his colleagues; the Nocturne welcomes Puck’s magical righting 

of the night’s errors and misunderstandings in one of Mendelssohn’s 

greatest melodies; two fairies prepare the bower for Titania’s slumber 

in a Song with Chorus; a solemn Funeral March marks the demise of 

the Mechanicals’ stage lovers Pyramus and Thisbe; and the marriage 

of Theseus and Hippolyta is celebrated in what has become the most 

ubiquitous Wedding March ever written. 

Programme note © Lindsay Kemp 

Lindsay Kemp is a producer for BBC Radio 3, Artistic Director of the 

Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music and an Artistic Advisor 

to the York Early Music Festival and Arts Council England; he also 

writes regularly for Gramophone magazine, amongst others. 


Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) 

Composer Profile 

Although born in a rural Basque village, Maurice Ravel was raised 

in Paris and was accepted as a preparatory piano student at the 

Conservatoire in 1889. When a full-time student, Ravel was introduced 

in 1893 to Chabrier, whom he regarded as ‘the most profoundly 

personal, the most French of our composers’. Around this time Ravel 

also met, and was influenced by, Erik Satie. In the decade following his 

graduation in 1895, Ravel scored a notable hit with Pavane pour une 

infante défunte for piano (later orchestrated). Even so his works were 

rejected several times by the backward-looking judges of the Prix 

de Rome for not satisfying the demands of academic counterpoint. 

In the early years of the 20th century he completed many outstanding 

works, including the evocative Miroirs for piano and his first opera, 

L’heure espagnole. 

In 1909 Ravel was invited to write a large-scale work for Serge 

Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, completing the score to Daphnis et Chloé 

three years later. At this time he also met Igor Stravinsky and first 

heard the expressionist works of Arnold Schoenberg. During World 

War I, he enlisted with the motor transport corps, and returned 

to composition slowly after 1918, completing La valse for Diaghilev 

and beginning work on his second opera, L’enfant et les sortilèges. 

From 1932 until his death, he suffered from the progressive effects of 

Pick’s Disease and was unable to compose. His emotional expression 

is most powerful in his imaginative interpretations of the unaffected 

worlds of childhood and animals, and in exotic tales. Spain also 

influenced the composer’s creative personality through his mother’s 

Basque inheritance, together with his liking for the formal elegance of 

18th-century French art and music. 

Felix Mendelssohn (1805–47) 

Composer Profile 

Mendelssohn was the grandson of the Enlightenment philosopher 

Moses Mendelssohn and son of an influential German banker. 

Born into a privileged, upper middle-class family, as a boy he was 

encouraged to study the piano, taught to draw by his mother and 

became an accomplished linguist and classical scholar. In 1819 he 

began composition studies with Karl Friedrich Zelter. His family’s 

wealth allowed their home in Berlin to become a refuge for scholars, 

artists, writers and musicians. The philosopher Hegel and scientist 

Humboldt were among regular visitors, and members of the Court 

Orchestra and eminent soloists were available to perform the latest 

works by Felix or his older sister Fanny Young. Mendelssohn’s twelve 

string symphonies were first heard in the intimate setting of his 

father’s salon. 

Mendelssohn’s maturity as a composer was marked by his Octet 

(1825) and concert overture to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s 

Dream (1826). In 1829 Mendelssohn revived Bach’s St Matthew 

Passion exactly a hundred years after its first performance. Soon after, 

a trip to London and the Scottish highlands and islands inspired the 

overture, The Hebrides. In 1830 he travelled to Italy at the suggestion 

of Goethe and whilst in Rome started his so-called Scottish and Italian 

Symphonies. In 1835 he was appointed conductor of the Leipzig 

Gewandhaus, greatly expanding its repertoire with early music and 

works of his own, including the E minor Violin Concerto. Two years 

later he married Cecile Jeanrenaud and in 1843 he founded the Leipzig 

Conservatory. His magnificent biblical oratorio, Elijah, commissioned 

for and first performed at the 1846 Birmingham Musical Festival, soon 

gained a place alongside Handel’s Messiah in the affections of British 

choral societies and their audiences. He died in Leipzig in 1847. 

Composer Profiles @ Andrew Stewart 

Andrew Stewart is a freelance music journalist and writer. 

He is the author of The LSO at 90, and contributes to a wide 

variety of specialist classical music publications. 

Programme Notes 


5

6 

Felix Mendelssohn 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Libretto 

1 Overture 

Narrator (Titania) 

If you will patiently dance in our round 

And see our moonlight revels, go with us. 

If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. 

2 Scherzo 

Narrator (Fairy) 

Over hill, over dale 

Thorough bush, thorough briar, 

Over park, over pale, 

Thorough flood, thorough fire; 

I do wander everywhere 

Swifter than the moones sphere; 

And I serve the fairy queen, 

To dew her orbs upon the green. 

The cowslips tall her pensioners be; 

In their gold coats spots you see. 

Those be rubies, fairy favours; 

In those freckles live their savours. 


I must go seek some dewdrops here, 

And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear. 

3 March of the Fairies 


Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone. 

Our queen and all her elves come here anon. 

Libretto 

4 Song with chorus: ‘Ye spotted snakes’ 

Narrator (Titania) 

Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; 

Then, for the third part of a minute, hence – 

Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, 

Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings, 

To make my small elves coats, and some keep back 

The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders 

At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep. 

Then to your offices, and let me rest. 

First Fairy 

You spotted snakes, with double tongue, 

Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; 

Newts, and blindworms, do no wrong; 

Come not near our fairy queen, 

Newts and blindworms, do no wrong, 

Come not near our fairy queen, 

Come not near our fairy queen. 

Hence away! Hence away! 

You spotted snakes with double tongue, 

Thorny hedgehogs be not seen, 


First Fairy, Second Fairy, Chorus of Fairies 

Philomel, with melody, 

Sing in our sweet la lullaby 

La lullaby lullaby, 

Lullaby lullaby, 

Never harm, nor spell nor charm, 

Come our lovely lady nigh. 

So, so good night 

So, so good night with la lullaby! 

So, so good night, 

So, so good night with la lullaby. 

So good night, so good night, 

Good night, good night with la lullaby! 


Second Fairy 

Weaving spiders, come not here: 

Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence: 

Beetles black, approach not near, 

Worm, nor snail, do no offence, 

Beetles black, approach not near, 

Worm, nor snail, do no offence, 

Worm, nor snail, do no offence. 


First Fairy 

Hence away! 

Second Fairy 

Hence away! 

First Fairy 

Hence away! 

Second Fairy 

Weaving spiders, come not here: 

Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence: 

First Fairy 

Hence away! 

Second Fairy 

Hence away! 

First Fairy 

Hence away! 

First and Second Fairy 

Hence away! 

First Fairy, Second Fairy, Fairy Chorus 

Philomel, with melody 

Sing in our sweet la lullaby, 

La lullaby lullaby lullaby lullaby, 

Never harm, nor spell nor charm, 

Come our lovely lady nigh. 


So, so good night with la lullaby! 


So, so good night with la lullaby, 

So good night with la lullaby, 

So good night, 

Good night with la lullaby, 

Good night, good night 

With la lullaby! 

First Fairy 

Hence away! Now all is well: 

One, aloof, stand sentinel. 

5 Andante 

Narrator (Oberon) 

What thou seest, when thou dost wake, 

Do it for thy true love take; 

Love, and languish for his sake! 

Be it ounce, or car, or bear, 

Pard, or boar, with bristled hair, 

In thy eye that shall appear 

When thou wak’st, it is thy dear; 

Wake, when some vile thing is near. 

Narrator (Puck) 

Churl, upon thy eyes I throw 

All the power this charm doth owe: 

When thou wak’st, let love forbid 

Sleep his seat on thy eye-lid 

So awake, when I am gone; 

For I must now to Oberon. 

Narrator (Hermia) 

Hermia awakes in the woods… 

Help me Lysander, help me! Do thy best 

To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast! 

Ay me, for pity, what a dream was here! 

Lysander, look how I do quake with fear. 

Libretto 


7

Me thought a serpent ate my heart away, 

And you sat smiling at his cruel prey. 

Lysander! What, removed? Lysander! Lord! 

What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word? 

Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear. 

Speak of all loves! I swoon almost with fear. 

No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh: 

Either death or you I’ll find immediately. 

6 Intermezzo 

(Hermia seeks Lysander, and loses herself in the wood.) 


What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here, 

So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen? 

What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor; 

An actor too perhaps, if I see cause. 

On the ground 

Sleep sound. 

I’ll apply 

To your eye, 

Gentle lover, remedy. 

When thou wak’st 

Thou tak’st 

True delight 

In the sight 

Of thy former lady’s eye: 

And the country proverb known, 

That every man should take his own. 

In your waking shall be shown: 

Jack shall have Jill; 

Naught shall go ill; 

The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well. 

8 Libretto 

7 Nocturne 

(Instrumental) 

8 Andante 


May all to Athens back again repair, 

And think no more of this night’s accidents 

But as fierce vexation of a dream, 

But first I will release the Fairy Queen. 

Be, as thou wast wont to be; 

See, as thou wast wont to see: 

Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower 

Hath such force and blessed power. 

Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen! 

Narrator (Oberon / Titania) 

Titania, music call;… 

Music, ho, music! 

Such as charmeth sleep! 

Sound, music! 

And will tomorrow midnight solemnly 

Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly 

And bless it to all fair prosperity. 

There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be 

Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity. 


Then my Queen, in silence sad 

Trip we after night’s shade. 

We the globe can compass soon, 

Swifter than the wand’ring moon. 

Narrator 

Enter Theseus and all his Train. 

Narrator (Theseus) 

Go, bid the huntsmen 

Wake the lovers with their horns. 


Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. 

Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love 

Accompany your hearts! Away, with us to Athens! Three and three, 

We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity. 

9 Wedding March 


Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have, 

To wear away this long age of three hours 

Between our after-supper and bedtime? 

Where is our usual manager of mirth? 

What revels are in hand? 

Go, bring the players in; and take your places, ladies. 

10 Allegro comodo 

Narrator (Prologue) 

Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show; 

But wonder on, till truth makes all things plain, 

Narrator (Prologue) 

Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall, 

And finds his trusty Thisby’s mantle slain; 

Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, 

He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast. 

And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade, 

His dagger drew, and died. 

11 Funeral March 

Narrator (Bottom / Theseus) 

Will it please you to see the Epilogue, 

Or to hear a Bergomask dance? 

Let your Epilogue alone. But come, your Bergomask! 

12 A Dance of Clowns 


The iron tongue of midnight hath told me twelve. 

Lovers, to bed; ‘tis almost fairy time. 

I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn 

As much as we this night have overwatched. 

This palpable gross play hath well beguiled 

The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed. 

A fortnight hold we this solemnity 

In nightly revels and new jollity. 

13 Allegro vivace 


Now the hungry lion roars, 

And the wolf behowls the moon; 

Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, 

All with weary task fordone. 

Now the wasted brands do glow, 

Whilst the screech owl, screeching loud, 

Puts the wretch that lies in woe 

In remembrance of a shroud. 

Now it is the time of night 

That the graves, all gaping wide, 

Every one lets forth his sprite, 

In the churchway paths to glide; 

And we fairies, that do run 

By the triple Hecate’s team 

From the presence of the sun, 

Following darkness like a dream, 

Now are frolic. Not a mouse 

Shall disturb this hallowed house. 

I am sent, with broom, before, 

To sweep the dust behind the door. 

Libretto 


9

14 Finale 

Choir of Fairies 

Through this house give glimmering light, 

By the dead and drowsy fire, 

Ev’ry elf, and fairy sprite, 

Hop as light as bird from brier; 

And this ditty, after me, 

Sing and dance it trippingly. 

First, rehearse this song by rote: 

To each word a warbling note, 

Hand in hand, with fairy grace, 

Will we sing and bless this place. 

Thro’ this house give glim’ring light, 

By the dead and drowsy fire, 

Ev’ry elf and fairy sprite 

Hop as light as bird from brier. 

And this ditty, and this ditty, 


Sing and dance it trippingly, etc. 

And this ditty, and this ditty, 

And this ditty, and this ditty, after me, 

Sing and dance it trippingly, etc. 

First Fairy 

First, rehearse the song by rote: 

To each word a warbling note, 



Tutti 


First Fairy 


We will sing and bless this place, etc. 

10 Libretto 

Tutti 

Thro’ this house give glim’ring light, 

By the dead and drowsy fire: 

Ev’ry elf and fairy sprite, 

Hop as light as bird from brier. 


Sing and dance it trippingly, 

Sing and dance it, sing and dance it, 

Sing and dance it, sing and dance it! 

Oberon 

Now, until the break of day, 

Through this house each fairy stray. 

To the best bride bed will we, 

Which by us shall blessed be; 

And the issue, there create; 

Ever shall be fortunate. 

So shall all the couple three 

Ever true in loving be; 

And the blots of nature’s hand 

Shall not in their issue stand; 

Never mole, hare-lip, nor soar, 

Nor mark prodigious, such as are 

Despised in nativity, 

Shall upon their children be. 

With this field dew consecrate, 

Ever fairy take his gait! 

And each several chamber bless, 

Through this palace, with sweet peace: 

And the owner of it blest 

Ever shall it in safety rest. 

Trip away; 

Make no stay; 

Meet me all by break of day. 


Tutti 

Trip away; make no stay; 

Meet him all by break of day. 


If we shadows have offended, 

Think but this and all is mended – 

That you have but slumb’red here 

While these visions did appear. 

And this weak and idle theme, 

No more yielding but a dream, 

Gentles, do not reprehend. 

If you pardon, we will mend. 

And, as I am honest Puck, 

If we have unearned luck 

Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue, 

We will make amends, ‘ere long: 

Else the Puck a liar call. 

So, good night unto you all. 

Give me your hands, if we be friends, 

And Robin shall restore amends. 

Performance edition of the Mendelssohn adapted and edited by Ara Guzelimian 

Box Office 

020 7638 8891 (bkg fee) 

lso.co.uk (reduced bkg fee) 


Living Music 

Opera and Choral Highlights 

Season 2011/12 

Sun 9 & Tue 11 Oct 2011 7.30pm 

Britten War Requiem 

Gianandrea Noseda conductor 

Fri 4 Nov 2011 7.30pm 

Honegger Joan of Arc at the Stake (concert performance) 

Marin Alsop conductor 

Sun 6 Nov 2011 7.30pm 

Einhorn Voices of Light 

Marin Alsop conductor 

Thu 19 & Sat 21 Apr 2012 7.30pm 

Weber Der Freischütz (concert performance) 

Sir Colin Davis conductor 

Thu 19 Apr 

Libretto 


11

Bernard Haitink 

Conductor 

‘There is no safer pair of hands in 

this music than Bernard Haitink.’ 

The Independent, Jun 2011 

With an international conducting career 

that has spanned more than five decades, 

Amsterdam-born Bernard Haitink is one of 

today’s most celebrated conductors. 

Principal Conductor of the Chicago 

Symphony Orchestra from 2006–2010, he 

was for more than 25 years music director 

of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. 

In addition, Bernard Haitink has previously 

held posts as music director of the Dresden 

Staatskapelle, the Royal Opera, Covent 

Garden, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 

and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. 

He is Conductor Laureate of the Royal 

Concertgebouw Orchestra and Conductor 

Emeritus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, 

and has made frequent guest appearances 

with most of the world’s leading orchestras. 

In the 2010/11 season, Bernard Haitink 

conducted the opening concerts of the 

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s season 

in Amsterdam, followed by performances 

of Tristan und Isolde at Zürich Opera. 

He began a Brahms Cycle with the Chamber 

Orchestra of Europe at the Lucerne Piano 

Festival in November 2010 which continued 

in this year’s Lucerne Easter and Summer 

festivals. Further concerts with the COE 

this season included Beethoven cycles 

at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and 

the Salle Pleyel, Paris. Other highlights of 

2010/11 included concerts with the Berlin 

Philharmonic, Symphony Orchestra of the 

Bayerischer Rundfunk, LSO and Chicago 

Symphony. 

Bernard Haitink has recorded widely 

for Philips, Decca and EMI with the 

Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Berlin and 

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras and the 

Boston Symphony Orchestra. His discography 

includes many opera recordings with the 

Royal Opera, Glyndebourne, the Bavarian 

Radio Orchestra and Dresden Staatskapelle. 

He has recorded extensively with the 

London Symphony Orchestra for LSO Live 

(the complete Brahms and Beethoven 

symphonies) and with the Chicago Symphony 

on their ‘Resound’ label. Bernard Haitink’s 

recording of Janáček’s Jenufa with the Royal 

Opera received a Grammy Award for best 

opera recording in 2004, and his Shostakovich 

Symphony No 4 recording with the Chicago 

Symphony was awarded a Grammy for Best 

Orchestral Performance of 2008. 

Bernard Haitink has received many 

international awards in recognition of his 

services to music, including an honorary 

Knighthood and the Companion of Honour 

in the United Kingdom, and the House Order 

of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands. 

He was named Musical America’s Musician 

of the Year for 2007. 

Bernard Haitink in 2011/12 season 

Sun 10 Jun 2012 7.30pm 

Purcell Chacony in G minor 

Mozart Piano Concerto No 20 

Schubert Symphony No 9 (‘The Great’) 

with Maria João Pires piano 

Thu 14 Jun 2012 7.30pm 

Purcell arr Steven Stucky 

Funeral Music for Queen Mary 

Mozart Piano Concerto No 23 

Bruckner Symphony No 7 

with Maria João Pires piano 

Tickets from £10 

Choose your own seats online at 

lso.co.uk or call 020 7638 8891 

12 The Artists Bernard Haitink © Clive Barda 


Sarah-Jane Brandon 

Soprano 

Winner of the 2009 Kathleen Ferrier 

Competition, soprano Sarah-Jane 

Brandon studied at the Royal 

College of Music. 

Already in demand on the concert 

platform, recent highlights have 

included Mozart’s Requiem with 

the CBSO and Andris Nelsons, 

Mahler’s Symphony No 4 with 

the RLPO and Vasily Petrenko and 

Elijah with the LPO and Kurt Masur. Her forthcoming appearances 

include Mahler’s Symphony No 4 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra 

and Sylvain Cambreling, Berg’s Sieben frühe Lieder with the CBSO 

and Edward Gardner, Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the LPO and Yannick 

Nézet-Séguin, Aminta in concert performances of Il Re Pastore with 

the Classical Opera Company and Ian Page and Crobyle in Thais at 

this year’s Edinburgh Festival with the RSNO and Sir Andrew Davis. 

Her recital appearances include the Musée d’Orsay and Birmingham’s 

Barber Institute with Simon Lepper, the Wigmore Hall and the Buxton 

and Oxford Lieder Festivals with Gary Matthewman, the Meads Music 

Festival with James Baillieu and Trinity College Cambridge, and the 

Leeds Lieder Festival with Malcolm Martineau. 

Sarah-Jane is one of the featured young artists at this year’s Salzburg 

Festival and she will make her debut at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin in 

May next year as Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen. 

Daniela Lehner © Elisabeth Blanchet 

Daniela Lehner 

Mezzo-soprano 

Austrian mezzo-soprano Daniela 

Lehner studied in Vienna, Salzburg 

and London. She received various 

scholarships and prizes, including 

a Georg Solti Scholarship and 

First Prize in the Marilyn Horne 

Foundation Competition. Daniela 

was also a recipient of the Borletti- 

Buitoni Trust Award and was a BBC 

Radio 3 New Generation Artist. 

Recent engagements include Zemlinsky’s Maeterlinck Lieder with the 

BBCNOW under Kazushi Ono, Ramiro’s La finta giardiniera with the 

Academy of Ancient Music under Richard Egarr in London and Paris, 

Mozart’s Requiem under Sir Colin Davis in Barcelona and with the 

BBC Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and 

Zarzuela arias and Spanish songs with the BBCSO. 

A committed recitalist, Daniela has appeared at the Carnegie Hall, 

Philharmonie Berlin, Wigmore Hall, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, De Singel 

Antwerp, Kölner Philharmonie, as well as the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, 

City of London, Oxford Lieder, Danube and Schleswig-Holstein Musik 

Festivals. She has worked with leading pianists such as Mitsuko 

Uchida, Graham Johnson and Roger Vignoles, and has recently 

participated in Graham Johnson’s CD Schumann Complete Songs 

for Hyperion Records. 

In the 2011/12 season Daniela will make her role debut as Idamante 

in Mozart Idomeneo at Grange Park Opera, Dvorˇák’s Stabat Mater 

with the BBC Philharmonic and Beethoven Missa Solemnis with the 

Monteverdi Choir under Sir John Eliot Gardiner. 

The Artists 


13

Sir Thomas Allen 

Narrator 

Thomas Allen is an established 

artist of all the great opera houses. 

He has been particularly acclaimed 

for his Billy Budd, Pelléas, Eugene 

Onegin, Ulisse and Beckmesser, 

as well as the great Mozart roles 

of Count Almaviva, Don Alfonso, 

Papageno and, of course, Don 

Giovanni. His recent engagements 

have included the title role in Gianni 

Schicchi at the Los Angeles opera, at the Spoleto Festival and at The 

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Other recent roles have included 

Music Master (Ariadne auf Naxos), Peter (Hänsel und Gretel), Faninal 

(Der Rosenkavalier), Prosdocimo (Il turco in Italia) and Don Alfonso at 

the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus), 

Don Alfonso and Ulisse at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich; Eisenstein 

at the Glyndebourne Festival; Don Alfonso at the Lyric Opera of 

Chicago, at the Dallas Opera, and at the Salzburg Easter and Summer 

Festivals; and Beckmesser (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Don 

Alfonso, Music Master and Faninal at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. 

Engagements this season and beyond include Don Alfonso and 

Peter at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Music Master at the 

Metropolitan Opera, Prosdocimo at Los Angeles Opera, his debut 

at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and directing engagements with 

Scottish Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. 

Equally renowned on the concert platform, he appears in recital 

in the UK, throughout Europe, in Australia and America, and has 

appeared with the world’s great orchestras and conductors. Much of 

his repertoire has been extensively recorded with such distinguished 

names as Solti, Levine, Marriner, Haitink, Rattle, Sawallisch and Muti. 

In the New Year’s Honours of 1989 he was conferred a Commander of 

the British Empire and, in the 1999 Queen’s Birthday Honours, he was 

made a Knight Bachelor. 

14 The Artists 


Trebles 

Under the direction of Alastair 

Tighe, the Eltham College Trebles 

are drawn from the Junior and 

Senior Schools of Eltham College 

in South London. Eltham College 

is an independent boys’ day 

school, with a co-educational Sixth 

Form, and was founded in 1842. 

The College excels academically 

and has an extensive extracurricular 

programme, with music and music-making at the heart of 

the College’s endeavours. The College Trebles are one of over thirty 

ensembles which rehearse and perform regularly both at the College 

and elsewhere. 

Recently Eltham’s musicians have been heard at the Barbican, Royal 

Festival Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, Cadogan Hall, St John’s, Smith Square, 

Blackheath Halls, Eltham Palace and the Old Royal Naval College, 

Greenwich. The Trebles have recently performed and recorded with 

the London Symphony Orchestra and London Symphony Chorus, 

under the direction of Valery Gergiev and Sir Colin Davis. They have 

also performed in Basel and Paris with the Mariinsky Orchestra and 

Chorus under the direction of Valery Gergiev, and performed with 

the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle during the 

Orchestra’s residency in London earlier this year. They will be making 

their debut at the BBC Proms this summer in a performance of 

Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony. 

Sir Thomas Allen © Sussie Ahlberg 


On stage 

First Violins 

Roman Simovic Leader 

Carmine Lauri 

Tomo Keller 

Nicholas Wright 

Nigel Broadbent 

Ginette Decuyper 

Jörg Hammann 

Elizabeth Pigram 

Harriet Rayfield 

Colin Renwick 

Ian Rhodes 

Sylvain Vasseur 

Rhys Watkins 

David Worswick 

Second Violins 

David Alberman 

Thomas Norris 

Sarah Quinn 

Miya Vaisanen 

Matthew Gardner 

Belinda McFarlane 

Iwona Muszynska 

Philip Nolte 

Andrew Pollock 

Louise Shackelton 

Jan Regulski 

Eleanor Fagg 

Violas 

Gillianne Haddow 

Malcolm Johnston 

Regina Beukes 

German Clavijo 

Lander Echevarria 

Richard Holttum 

Robert Turner 

Natasha Wright 

Ellen Blythe 

Alistair Scahill 

Cellos 

Rebecca Gilliver 

Alastair Blayden 

Jennifer Brown 

Mary Bergin 

Noel Bradshaw 

Daniel Gardner 

Hilary Jones 

Amanda Truelove 

Double Basses 

Rinat Ibragimov 

Colin Paris 

Nicholas Worters 

Patrick Laurence 

Matthew Gibson 

Thomas Goodman 

Flutes 

Gareth Davies 

Julian Sperry 

Piccolo 

Sharon Williams 

Oboes 

Nora Cismondi 

Rosie Staniforth 

Cor Anglais 

Christine Pendrill 

Clarinet 

Chris Richards 

Chi-Yu Mo 

Bassoons 

Rachel Gough 

Joost Bosdijk 

Contra Bassoon 

Dominic Morgan 

Horns 

David Pyatt 

Angela Barnes 

Brendan Thomas 

Trumpets 

Philip Cobb 

Gerald Ruddock 

Huw Morgan 

Trombones 

Dudley Bright 

Katy Jones 

Bass Trombone 

Paul Milner 

Tuba 

Patrick Harrild 

Timpani 

Nigel Thomas 

Percussion 

Neil Percy 

David Jackson 

Antoine Bedewi 

Christopher Thomas 

Harp 

Bryn Lewis 

Celeste 

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 

Cantate 020 7622 3401 

Advertising 

Cabbell Ltd 020 8971 8450 

The Orchestra 


15

2010/11 

in your words 

From the opening concert last September when Valery Gergiev began his exploration of 

Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin, to the beginnings of his retrospective of Tchaikovsky 

symphonies, alongside last week’s highly memorable Bruckner performances with Bernard 

Haitink, to Sir Mark Elder’s Elgar The Kingdom, not to mention the UBS Soundscapes: Artist 

Portrait with violinist Viktoria Mullova, Sir Colin Davis and Mitsuko Uchida at the start of their 

Beethoven piano concertos cycle, and Sir Simon Rattle’s long-awaited return to London 

performing Messiaen and Bruckner, the LSO has had an exciting year. There’s almost too 

much to mention, but here it is in the words of those who took the time to listen to what 

we had to say. 

Thank you. We very much hope you will join us next season. 

Kathryn McDowell 

LSO Managing Director 

16 In Your Words 

It was a 198-mile round trip from 

Suffolk, worth it just to hear Andrew 

Marriner’s first note in the Strauss. 

Thank you to all LSO players and 

Maestro Gergiev for yet another 

unforgettable evening. 

Alison Allen (audience email) on 

19 Nov 10: Gergiev – Shchedrin / Mahler 

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. 

Elizabeth Owen (audience email) on 

24 Mar 11: Gergiev – Shostakovich / Tchaikovsky 


This was, in fact, more Sir Colin’s performance than Znaider’s; the sounds 

that he produced from your orchestra (as he did in the recent recording) 

were remarkable. If I hear a greater performance in the future, I shall 

consider myself truly blessed. Please thank all your musicians, and 

especially Sir Colin, for a very 

memorable evening. 

Robin Self (audience email) on 10 Nov 10: 

Sir Colin Davis – Elgar / Mendelssohn 

I’d never heard The Kingdom before. What 

a wonderful piece. The total involvement of 

the LSO, the Chorus and a spellbinding solo 

quartet had me on the edge of my seat. Mark 

Elder is one of our very finest conductors 

and how deeply he feels this music. It was a 

perfect way to spend a Sunday evening! 

Alfred Bradley (audience email) on 

30 Jan 11: Elder – Elgar 

Listening to @londonsymphony 

recording of Mahler 2 with 

Gergiev. The very recording 

which made me fall in love 

with classical music. 

MahlerMad (twitter) 

Quite possibly the best 

bassoon section on earth. 

ProperDiscord (twitter) 

If I had to give this concert stars out of five I would be 

forced to give it . The LSO last night was 

simply the best orchestra in the world. 

Henry Lamprecht (facebook) on Mon 7 Mar: Rattle – Messiaen / Bruckner 

TOTALLY UNBELIEVABLE 

Jonvox (twitter) 

In Your Words 


17

2010/11 

in the press 

Gergiev instinctively knows how 

this music breathes, he knows how 

to catch it on the wing, so to speak, 

to take the sound away and achieve 

that airiness and balletic poise that 

can be so elusive. 

Edward Seckerson (The Independent) on 

12 & 15 May 11: Gergiev – Shostakovich / 

Tchaikovsky 

Genuinely special. 

George Hall (The Guardian) on 

16 Jan 11: Previn – Strauss / Vaughan Williams 

18 In Your Words 

The centrepiece of Colin Davis’ latest 

LSO concert was a performance of the 

Four Last Songs that was at once 

magisterial and at times almost 

intolerably moving. 

Tim Ashley (The Guardian) on 

20 Mar 11: Sir Colin Davis – Stravinsky / 

Strauss / Beethoven 

There’s nothing on the classical music circuit that quite 

compares to the full Valery Gergiev experience. 

Neil Fisher (The Times) on 

2 & 3 Mar 11: Gergiev – Mahler 

BLAZING yet never over the top. 

Zachary Woolfe (The New York Times) on 

27 Feb 11: Gergiev – Mahler (Avery Fisher Hall) 

The LSO rattled, thundered and charged along 

to her precise beat. 

Neil Fisher (The Times) on 3 Apr 11: Zhang – Prokofiev 

Colin Davis, the 

[LSO’s] lion in winter, 

is a passionate 

champion… 

Neil Fisher (The Times) on 

5 Oct 11: Sir Colin Davis – Mendelssohn / Elgar 

The LSO playing was 

top notch. 

Martin Kettle (The Guardian) on 

7 Mar 11: Rattle – Messiaen / Bruckner 

The vigour of Gergiev’s 

interpretation, all darting flashes 

of colour and contrast, was 

immensely appealing, and the 

finesse and panache of the playing 

were second to none. Very fine. 

Tim Ashley (The Guardian) on 

23 & 24 Mar 11: Gergiev – Shostakovich / 

Tchaikovsky 


LSO On Tour 

This summer 

LSO takes up its residency in Aix-en-Provence 

In July, the Orchestra begins a month long residency in southern 

France at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, performing Mozart’s 

La clemenza di Tito with Sir Colin Davis and Verdi’s La traviata 

with Louis Langrée, alongside three other concert performances. 

Central to the residency is a ground-breaking LSO Discovery 

Community Opera project – a creative collaboration which will 

bring together LSO musicians with the diverse communities of 

Marseille and Aix, including Slam poet teenagers, an Arabic Choir 

and Video Artists to develop their own response to Mozart’s opera – 

a work he wrote in just 18 days. 

Canada’s Black Creek Summer Festival 

For the first time in a number of years, the LSO will be performing 

three concerts in Canada as part of the Black Creek Summer Festival. 

Between 27 and 30 August, Lorin Maazel will conduct works by 

Beethoven, Copland, Gershwin, Mussorgsky and more. 

Closer to home... 

Tue 28 Jun 8pm, St Paul’s Cathedral 

The London Symphony Orchestra’s esteemed leader Gordan Nikolitch 

opens this concert, as part of the City of London Festival, with Bach’s 

Partita No 2 for solo violin, before being joined by his LSO colleagues 

and the virtuoso Tenebrae choir in Fauré’s Requiem. 

And finally, at the BBC Proms this Summer… 

Thu 23 Aug 7.30pm, Royal Albert Hall 

Prom 52 – Valery Gergiev presents Prokofiev’s Symphony No 1 & 5, 

along with Henri Dutilleux’ L’arbre des songes and Slava’s Fanfare. 

Sun 4 Sep 7pm, Royal Albert Hall 

Prom 67 – Sir Colin Davis conducts Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. 

To keep up-to-date with where we are over summer, visit: 

lso.co.uk/lsoontour 

LSO On Tour 


19

Season 2011/12 Highlights 

Valery Gergiev: Tchaikovsky and 

Stravinsky 

Whether your taste is for Stravinsky ballets 

or Tchaikovsky symphonies, Valery Gergiev 

brings together some of the most inspiring 

pieces ever written for orchestra. In the 

first part of the season he completes his 

Tchaikovsky Symphonies cycle with 

Symphonies 4, 5 and 6 (‘Pathétique’), and 

in May 2012 he starts a two-year exploration 

of Stravinsky. 

Eleven concerts conducted by Gergiev: 

21 Sep, 25 Sep, 24 Nov, 27 Nov, 30 Nov, 21 Feb, 

23 Feb, 11 May, 13 May, 15 May and 15 Jul 

20 Season 2011/12 

UBS Soundscapes: LSO Artist Portrait 

Anne-Sophie Mutter 

German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, 

subject of the LSO’s Artist Portrait this 

season, is one of the most striking violinists 

of her generation: a true pioneer in 

championing the work of contemporary 

composers, commissioning new violin music 

from the leading composers of our time and 

devising special violin projects. 

Four concerts with Anne-Sophie Mutter: 

27 Nov, 30 Nov, 19 Feb and 20 Feb 


Living Music 

Sir Colin Davis: Beethoven Piano 

Concertos and Nielsen Symphonies 

Beethoven’s piano concertos are among the 

great favourites of the repertoire and the rollcall 

of soloists who are identified with these 

works is a history of performance in our time. 

Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida continues 

to explore their beauty with the LSO and 

Sir Colin Davis. Her interpretations of the 

Beethoven concertos complement Sir Colin’s 

acclaimed cycle of Nielsen symphonies which 

he completes in December 2011. 

Beethoven and Nielsen concerts with Sir Colin: 

2 & 4 Oct; 4 & 6 Dec; 11 & 13 Dec 

Box Office 020 7638 8891 

lso.co.uk/seasonguide

Thu 23 Jun programme - London Symphony Orchestra

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?