LPO 2014/15 season at Royal Festival Hall by London Philharmonic Orchestra

London Philharmonic Orchestra 2014/15 Concert Season at Southbank Centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Royal Festival Hall

2014 Highlights

September

October

November

December

Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Vladimir Jurowski opens the season with works from two Russian giants: Prokofiev and Shostakovich. See page 04

Key works by Rachmaninoff are explored as the year-long festival of the composer’s music – Rachmaninoff: Inside Out – gets underway. See page 05

Yannick Nézet-Séguin presents masterpieces by three great composers from the Austro-German tradition: Brahms, Schubert and Richard Strauss. See page 14

Vladimir Jurowski conducts works by Rachmaninoff’s contemporary Stravinsky, alongside the UK premiere of Harrison Birtwistle’s Piano Concerto, performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. See page 21

2015 Highlights

January

February

March

April

May

Soprano Barbara Hannigan joins Vladimir Jurowski and the Orchestra for a world premiere from Composer in Residence Magnus Lindberg. See page 25

Under the baton of Vasily Petrenko, the year-long festival Rachmaninoff: Inside Out continues with an opportunity to hear the composer’s rarely performed Piano Concerto No. 4, alongside Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony. See page 28

Three premieres by Julian Anderson, Magnus Lindberg and James Horner are presented alongside music by Rachmaninoff and his contemporaries. See page 34–37

Legendary pianist Menahem Pressler – a founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio – joins Robin Ticciati to perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. See page 40

The final FUNharmonics family concert of the season, That’s all Folk! USA!, takes the audience on an American musical adventure. See page 48

Welcome to our 2014/15 season We are delighted to be celebrating the music of one of Russia’s most treasured composers – Serge Rachmaninoff. Our year-long festival – Rachmaninoff: Inside Out – explores the composer’s major orchestral masterpieces including the symphonies and piano concertos, alongside some of his less well-known music such as the cantata Spring, a semi-staged performance of his opera The Miserly Knight and a selection of songs arranged by Vladimir Jurowski’s grandfather.

We have a glittering roster of guest musicians joining us this season including Christoph Eschenbach, Barbara Hannigan, Vasily Petrenko, Marin Alsop, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Maria João Pires, Lars Vogt and Robin Ticciati. We are particularly looking forward to welcoming revered pianist Menahem Pressler in his 92nd year, and in contrast will champion many young and talented artists including Pavel Kolesnikov, Alexandra Soumm, Behzod Abduraimov, Igor Levit, Ray Chen, Ilyich Rivas and Narek Hakhnazaryan.

Having celebrated the music of the 20th century as part of The Rest Is I hope you will join us for another Noise Festival in 2013, we are pleased sparkling season of concerts. to continue our commitment to new music with premieres of works by Harrison Birtwistle, outgoing Composer in Residence Julian Anderson, new Composer in Residence Magnus Timothy Walker AM Lindberg, Colin Matthews and James Chief Executive and Artistic Director Horner, a double-Oscar winner for his famous score to the film Titanic.

A selection of this season’s concerts will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 bbc.co.uk/radio3

' I write the music which I hear playing inside me'

A year-long exploration of the composerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life and music

Rachmaninoff

ÂŠ photos courtesy of the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out 02

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

Rachmaninoff might have had a gift for long, spontaneous and instantly memorable melodies, but he was a creator of intense orchestral drama, colour and darkness too.

Six outstanding conductors led by Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Vladimir Jurowski preside over this season’s journey through Rachmaninoff’s major works with orchestra including the three symphonies and the piano concertos in all existing versions. An opera, In an age of artistic objectivism, a cantata and the unforgettable Rachmaninoff was often viewed as out-of-date and hyper-emotional. But choral symphony The Bells join a selection of works by Rachmaninoff’s he remained resolute. ‘A composer’s contemporaries to shed further light music should express his love affairs, on a composer whose true brilliance his religion, the books that have influenced him, the pictures he loves’, can only be unlocked by new, Rachmaninoff once said, and the same uncompromising live performances. sincerity is stamped through his music in all its impeccable craftsmanship. Most of all, Rachmaninoff believed In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation his music spoke of his native country, the Russia he loved but was forced to leave. Russia cuts a haunting yet An Official UK - Russia Year of Culture 2014 Event beautiful path through his works, from the mysterious weave of his Third Piano Concerto to the glistening brilliance and thrusting darkness of his opera The Miserly Knight.

Rachmaninoff performances for your diary Friday 3 October The Isle of the Dead/Piano Concerto No. 1 (original version)/Symphonic Dances See page 5 Wednesday 29 October Piano Concerto No. 3/ Symphony No. 2 See page 7

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

For much of the first half of the 20th century, Serge Rachmaninoff was a worldwide celebrity. But for all his fame and success, the musical establishment poured scorn on the composer’s music while the public, who claimed to adore it, barely knew it at all. Only when the true brilliance of his symphonies, operas and lesserknown works was belatedly exposed was Rachmaninoff seen as more than an astounding concert pianist.

Friday 7 November Piano Concerto No. 4 (final version) See page 12 Friday 28 November Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini See page 15 Wednesday 3 December Symphony No. 1 See page 20 Wednesday 21 January The Miserly Knight See page 22 Saturday 7 February Three Russian Songs/Spring See page 26 Wednesday 11 February Piano Concerto No. 2/The Bells See page 27 Friday 13 February Piano Concerto No. 4 (original version) See page 28 Wednesday 25 March Piano Concerto No. 1 (final version) See page 36 Wednesday 29 April Piano Suites/10 Songs/ Symphony No. 3 See page 43

September

Wednesday 24 September 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Magnus Lindberg Chorale Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 Vladimir Jurowski conductor Jean-Efflam Bavouzet piano In 1943, at the height of the war, Dmitri Shostakovich began work on his Eighth Symphony, a musical canvas in which he attempted to confront and understand the catastrophic violence and suffering Russians were being forced to witness daily. In the Symphony’s chilling Allegro is Shostakovich’s vision of the machine of war; the music driven forward by tension, not through tunes but through mechanical and demonic rhythms. To open the season, Vladimir Jurowski also conducts Prokofiev’s scurrying Third Piano Concerto and Chorale – a luminous masterpiece after Bach by new Composer in Residence Magnus Lindberg, one of the greatest orchestral craftsmen alive.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

See page 24 for an introduction to Magnus Lindberg. Concert generously supported by the Sharp Family.

Series discounts See page 57

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet 04

6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Magnus Lindberg conducts the LPO’s Foyle Future Firsts in the London premiere of his stunning piece Souvenir, described in the New York Times as ‘shivering, diaphanous and pungent’.

Free pre-concert event

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

October

Friday 3 October 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Rachmaninoff The Isle of the Dead Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 (original version) Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances Vladimir Jurowski conductor Alexander Ghindin piano The spirit of Russia permeated everything Rachmaninoff wrote, even after his final exile to America. There, in 1940, the composer composed his last orchestral score, the Symphonic Dances. A strange sense of foreboding pervades these compelling orchestral choreographies, but there’s optimism, too: in the last dance, against a baleful quotation from the death-themed plainchant Dies Irae, Rachmaninoff quotes the striving ‘Alleluia’ from his own All-Night Vigil. Rachmaninoff wasn’t about to let the forces of death win through, but he appears a long way here from the 17-year-old student who, in a period of total inspiration one summer, wrote a dashing, impassioned First Piano Concerto full of the joys of youth. In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

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Vladimir Jurowski Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor 05

October

Friday 24 October 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Wagner Prelude to Act 1, Lohengrin Beethoven Triple Concerto Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Maria João Pires piano Augustin Dumay violin Antonio Meneses cello Tchaikovsky was on the brink of emotional collapse in the summer of 1888: hounded by a homophobic society, tortured by a loveless existence and paranoid as to the worth of his artistic abilities. And yet his Fifth Symphony was the most honest, dramatic and optimistic of his turbulent final three. If Tchaikovsky’s symphonic journey to his hoped-for redemption is music straight from the heart, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto appears to be born more of the head. Here is a concerto all about balance, precision and beauty, but still making room for a lively Polish folk dance in its gregarious finale.

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Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Maria João Pires 06

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Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

October

Wednesday 29 October 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 Vassily Sinaisky conductor Pavel Kolesnikov piano In 1906 Rachmaninoff and his family left a politically turbulent Russia behind and escaped to Dresden. Here the composer relaxed, attended concerts and experienced one of the most productive periods of his life. Among its first fruits was his Second Symphony, a work that unlocked a new emotional power within Rachmaninoff and saw him master both the orchestra and the symphonic form with flowing themes, vital rhythms and sumptuous textures. Three years later, preparing to leave Dresden for Moscow and then America, Rachmaninoff wrote his most imposing concerto – the combination of lyricism, subtlety, excitement and virtuosity that formed his now-legendary Third Piano Concerto.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Acclaimed film director Tony Palmer discusses the enduring popularity of Rachmaninoff’s music.

Pavel Kolesnikov 07

Kristina Blaumane Principal Cello

‘ One of the season’s most rewarding and unforgettable concerts.’ The Times, Nov 2013

November

Saturday 1 November 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Mahler Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) Jaap van Zweden conductor Elizabeth Watts soprano Alice Coote mezzo soprano London Philharmonic Choir In 1894, Gustav Mahler attended the funeral of his friend and colleague, the conductor Hans von Bülow. ‘The mood in which I sat there and considered the departed was altogether in the spirit of the work that was going around my head at the time’, Mahler later recalled. That work was his Second Symphony, and when the organ struck up Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s hymn The Resurrection, Mahler knew how his new symphony would end. He created what is for many a supreme vision of human suffering, despair, hope and elation; a piece in which, Mahler said, ‘you are clubbed down and then borne up to dizzy heights on angels’ wings’.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Jaap van Zweden 10

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Please note there will be no interval during this performance.

Sibelius The Bard Sibelius Violin Concerto Sibelius Lemminkäinen Suite (Four Legends of the Kalevala)

November

Wednesday 5 November 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Osmo Vänskä conductor Alexandra Soumm violin At the dawn of the 20th century, a wave of artistic activity swept through Finland in the hope that a creative awakening would lead to independence from Russia. Like many others, Jean Sibelius turned to the country’s folk poetry, creating four symphonic poems on the story of Lemminkäinen, a Don Juan-like figure from Finnish folklore who met with a savage death only for his dismembered body to be reassembled and revived by his mother. Osmo Vänskä, one of the greatest living exponents of Sibelius’s music, conducts works by his compatriot including the four Lemminkäinen ‘legends’ imbued with a sense of light and momentum, alongside the dark, melodic Violin Concerto.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Musicians from the LPO join students from London Music Masters’ innovative music education programme, the Bridge Project, for a musical celebration. Tonight’s soloist, violinist Alexandra Soumm, works regularly with the students as an Award Holder with LMM, acting as an inspirational role model.

Alexandra Soumm 11

November

Friday 7 November 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 4 (final version) Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 1 (Winter Daydreams) Osmo Vänskä conductor Nikolai Lugansky piano Torn from his homeland and eight years into a ten-year musical silence, Rachmaninoff was asked by a colleague why he no longer composed. ‘How can I compose without melody?’ he replied. But two years later, he picked up his pen once more and delivered the last of his four piano concertos – a work of magnetic impulse, fascinating psychological undertones and no shortage of those long, burgeoning melodies that make Rachmaninoff’s music so distinctive. His own final, revised version of the Concerto is performed here by Nikolai Lugansky, one of the finest Rachmaninoff pianists around, and is followed by the icy delicacy of Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony, Winter Daydreams.

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Osmo Vänskä 12

Series discounts See page 57

In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

Pierné Overture and Suite, Ramuntcho* Poulenc Concerto for two pianos and orchestra Ravel Rapsodie espagnole Debussy La mer

November

Wednesday 12 November 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Juanjo Mena conductor Katia Labèque piano Marielle Labèque piano Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena makes his London Philharmonic Orchestra debut in four distinct musical works from France, and the odd French glance over the border to Spain. The surging currents and surface spray of Debussy’s La mer stand in total contrast to the punchy, knockabout attitude of Poulenc’s acerbic Concerto for two pianos. Ravel’s lifelong affection for Spain radiates through every bar of his red-hot Rapsodie espagnole, and to begin comes music by France’s precursor to Serge Rachmaninoff, Gabriel Pierné. His incidental music to Pierre Loti’s 1897 novel-turned-play Ramuntcho is full of the passion, fervour and local colour of the play’s Basque Country setting.

*Supported by Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française.

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Katia Labèque & Marielle Labèque 13

November

Wednesday 19 November 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 Schubert Symphony No. 8 (Unfinished) R Strauss Don Juan Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Lars Vogt piano

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Yannick Nézet-Séguin 14

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Brahms’s first Piano Concerto spoke of the love and yearning of a young man. When he came to write his second 22 years later, Brahms was a changed being. Gone was any sense of confident swagger – the sort that propels Strauss’s Don Juan forward. In its place was a feeling of pregnant expectation more akin to that which opens Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. Lars Vogt joins Yannick Nézet-Séguin for a performance of Brahms’s strangely intimate yet wholly magisterial concerto – for some, his ultimate musical summation of human civilisation.

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

November

Friday 28 November 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Wagner Overture, Tannhäuser Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 David Zinman conductor Behzod Abduraimov piano When Serge Rachmaninoff heard the famous Caprice in A minor by the mysterious ‘devil’s violinist’ Paganini, he fell under the spell of its tonal to-and-fro and swaggering rhythmic shape. In 1934, Rachmaninoff set about examining, twisting, refracting and elaborating the tune into his spectacular Rhapsody that, once finished, proved diabolical in the truest sense of the word. Some 50 years earlier Tchaikovsky had felt a strange external presence, too: the weighty hand of fate upon his shoulder. Tchaikovsky’s response was a symphony completely unlike anything he had created before: the most gripping and fevered symphonic tussle with fate since Beethoven’s Fifth. In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

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Behzod Abduraimov 15

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC; This haunting, arresting performance at the Royal Festival Hall by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, will surely be treasured and esteemed, ineradicably etched in the minds and hearts of all present.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Opera Today, Oct 2013

Gareth Newman Bassoon

Rachmaninoff and his contemporaries

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out Rachmaninoff and his contemporaries

Rachmaninoff was a conductor and pianist born into the golden age of conducting and virtuoso pianism. But Rachmaninoff’s Europe was alive with compositional trends, too: he was one year older than Schoenberg and nine years older than Stravinsky, the two most influential composers of the 20th century. But he was a year younger than one of the most extraordinary musical visionaries of all time, Alexander Scriabin. Rachmaninoff attended the Moscow Conservatory with Scriabin, and came to admire and play his classmate’s music. At one performance of Scriabin’s elegant Piano Concerto (3 December) Rachmaninoff conducted. Scriabin’s music soon took off in the direction of intoxicating and all-embracing monoliths such as The Poem of Ecstasy (28 January), which took the expressive qualities of Romanticism to their absolute limits – and beyond.

Rachmaninoff on Stravinsky’s The Firebird

Alexander Scriabin

Igor Stravinsky once fell for the heady perfumes of Scriabin’s scores but soon snapped out of it. Stravinsky’s music shows just how different his own take on Russian folkore was to that of Rachmaninoff. In the often austere, percussive and patterned music of Stravinsky’s later years – Orpheus, Requiem Canticles (6 December, 24 January) – was the very opposite of the soulful exploration of church themes and song melodies that Rachmaninoff pioneered. Both were exiled out of Russia, but both found constant inspiration in Russia’s musical soil.

Igor Stravinsky

There are striking passages in the music of Gabriel Pierné (12 November) that seem to anticipate Rachmaninoff by some years (Pierné was ten years older than his Russian counterpart) but Rachmaninoff’s handling of the orchestra surely had some effect on later French music, particularly the deeply felt and consistently colourful orchestrations of Ravel and Debussy. They might have taken orchestral colour from Rachmaninoff, but his fellow Russian Dmitri Shostakovich – from whom we hear two symphonies this season – felt more the sheer ferocity that lies in much of Rachmaninoff’s orchestral writing.

See pages 2–3 for information about Rachmaninoff: Inside Out.

Rachmaninoff and his contemporaries

"Lord, how much more than genius this is – it is real Russia"

December

Wednesday 3 December 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

Szymanowski Concert Overture* Scriabin Piano Concerto Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 1 Vladimir Jurowski conductor Igor Levit piano Among the crowd of self-serving music critics who queued up to dismiss Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony in 1897, there was one opposing voice. Nikolay Findeisen wrote of the Symphony’s ‘beauty, novelty and inspiration’, recognising its huge emotional range and the highly alluring way in which Rachmaninoff captures a sense of impending tragedy right from the first page (perhaps inspired by his own desperate love for a married woman). It’s easy to see the influence Rachmaninoff had on his younger classmate at the Moscow Conservatory, Alexander Scriabin. When he wrote his Piano Concerto in 1896, Scriabin was deeply in love, too, and it shows in the music’s fluent elegance and supreme delicacy.

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In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation. *Supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music programme, and by the Polish Cultural Institute in London.

Series discounts See page 57

Igor Levit 20

6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Professor Stephen Downes, a specialist in 20th-century music, looks at the often overlooked influence of Scriabin.

Free pre-concert event

Stravinsky Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920 version) Harrison Birtwistle Piano Concerto (UK premiere)* Messiaen Oiseaux exotiques Stravinsky Orpheus

December

Saturday 6 December 2014 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano When Olivier Messiaen’s teacher suggested he listen to birdsong, he unlocked an obsession that would span Messiaen’s career and reach a culmination in Oiseaux exotiques, a musical exploration of birds from the delicate tweets of the Laughing Thrush to the penetrating cry of the Prairie Chicken. ‘The composer must renounce colouristic orgies in order to develop healthy concepts’, Igor Stravinsky once said. His ballet score Orpheus is an essay in refinement and restraint, but his Symphonies of Wind Instruments from 27 years earlier reflects the animal wind and brass colours of Messiaen’s birds. After that, in the composer’s 80th birthday year, comes the first UK performance of Harrison Birtwistle’s Piano Concerto.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall The LPO’s creative ensemble for teenagers, The Band, plays its first set of the season. Taking the works of Stravinsky, Messiaen and Birtwistle as inspiration, The Band will work alongside LPO musicians to create and perform their own strikingly original music.

*Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bayerische Rundfunk Musica Viva, Casa da Musica Porto, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The London Philharmonic Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and PRS for Music Foundation.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard 21

January

Wednesday 21 January 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

Wagner Das Rheingold (orchestral excerpts) Rachmaninoff The Miserly Knight (semi-staged) Sung in Russian with English surtitles

Pushkin’s semi-autobiographical poem The Miserly Knight, which tells of a stifled son pushing against his selfish father, drew from Rachmaninoff some of his richest, most atmospheric and emotionally fascinating music. Underneath the opera’s five highly characterised voices is a dark, surging and obsessive orchestra whose music seems to spring directly from Pushkin’s words. Before Rachmaninoff’s brooding Wagnerian prelude, Vladimir Jurowski conducts excerpts from the opening opera of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the first realisation of those glistening, churning structures that make the Ring’s music so magical. In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Director Annabel Arden discusses her semi-staging of The Miserly Knight.

Sergei Leiferkus as The Baron in The Miserly Knight, Glyndebourne Festival, 2004 © Mike Hoban

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Vsevolod Grivnov Albert Maxim Mikhailov Servant Viacheslav Voynarovskiy Moneylender Albert Shagidullin The Duke Sergei Leiferkus The Baron Annabel Arden director

Stravinsky Requiem Canticles Verdi Requiem

January

Saturday 24 January 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Maija Kovalevska soprano Ildikó Komlósi mezzo soprano Dmytro Popov tenor Vyacheslav Pochapsky bass London Philharmonic Choir Orféon Pamplonés For Giuseppe Verdi it was the deaths of his fellow composer Gioachino Rossini and the literary giant Alessandro Mazzoni. For Igor Stravinsky it was the death of the revered poet TS Eliot. Verdi’s musical commemoration came in the form of a highly charged Requiem that was so forthright and hard-hitting in its expression of grief, faith and judgment that many thought it too dramatic for performance in church. Stravinsky wrote his short Introitus for male voices in memory of Eliot, which led soon thereafter to a setting of Requiem verses that couldn’t be more different to Verdi’s. Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles focused on ritual rather than expression; on calm detachment rather than overwhelming grief.

We are grateful to an anonymous donor for supporting the participation of Orféon Pamlonés in this concert.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Maija Kovalevska 23

Magnus Lindberg

Magnus Lindberg – Composer in Residence We are delighted to introduce our new Composer in Residence, Magnus Lindberg.

In a country of composers, Magnus Lindberg has proved himself the most consistently inventive, impressive and inspiring creator of orchestral music currently at work. ‘My favourite instrument is the orchestra’ said the Finnish musician at the start of his career, and orchestral music has become the backbone of his output. As an eager, hungry youth, Lindberg went in search of influences, immersing himself in French spectralism, Japanese drumming and German punk rock. In the latter he found ‘an expression of such violence that I wanted to blow something similar into the symphony orchestra.’ A string of propulsive, hard-hitting works for large orchestra with added elements (often electronic) followed – usually with an equally hardhitting, single-word title – as Lindberg perfected and individualised his orchestral craft. The mellowing of Lindberg’s style since the late 1990s has been described by the composer as ‘the difference between cutting stone and shaping clay’. But don’t expect that to lessen his music’s impact: Lindberg’s scores remain vivid and often brutally moody; behind the softer sounds and simpler textures, he has discovered a notable orchestral ‘glow’ together with a lyricism and sonority that lift his music onto another level. The Second Piano Concerto, first performed as part of his unprecedented three-year tenure as the New York Philharmonic’s Composer in Residence, was even said to echo the ‘voluptuous colours of Ravel’.

Lindberg maintains, though, that ‘only the extreme is interesting.’ His ability to weave orchestral instruments together and inject a large ensemble with fissile, nervous tension arguably remains unsurpassed. From the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s new Composer in Residence, we hear Chorale (24 September), Second Piano Concerto (21 March) and a world premiere for soprano and orchestra (28 January).

Debussy Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien (symphonic fragments) Magnus Lindberg Work for soprano and orchestra (world premiere)* Wagner Prelude to Act 1, Tristan und Isolde Scriabin The Poem of Ecstasy

January

Wednesday 28 January 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Barbara Hannigan soprano The musical visionary Alexander Scriabin couldn’t find a strong enough literary inspiration for the culmination to his symphonic journey, The Poem of Ecstasy. So he wrote his own. The resulting poem told of the universe being ‘embraced by enveloping flames’ only to free itself through divine power, ‘resounding with the joyful cry, I am!’ But Scriabin’s outlandish words pale next to the swirling colours and heady perfumes of his music. A concert of intense musical creations including a world premiere from new Composer in Residence, Magnus Lindberg, ends with Scriabin’s extraordinary symphonic vision of ‘the soaring flight of the spirit’.

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*Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall New Composer in Residence Magnus Lindberg talks about his new role with the Orchestra and his latest work premiered this evening.

Concert generously supported by the Sharp Family.

Barbara Hannigan 25

February

Saturday 7 February 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

Rachmaninoff Three Russian Songs Rachmaninoff Spring Enescu Symphony No. 3 Vladimir Jurowski conductor Andrei Bondarenko baritone London Philharmonic Choir Nikolay Nekrasov’s poem The Verdant Noise told of a jealous husband intent on murdering his unfaithful wife, only to be stopped in his tracks by the onset of spring. The idea of rebirth, renewal and the fresh blossoming of life swerved the murderous husband and inspired Rachmaninoff to create his first large-scale choral work – his cantata Spring – where choral fervour and orchestral glistening make for some of the composer’s most affecting and descriptive music. After it, Vladimir Jurowski conducts Romanian George Enescu’s emotionally intense Third Symphony – a brooding, heroic and triumphant work for huge symphony orchestra and wordless chorus written at the height of the First World War.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event

Andrei Bondarenko 26

4.00pm – 6.00pm Royal Festival Hall Rex Lawson and Denis Hall, of the Pianola Institute, give a unique performance of Rachmaninoff piano rolls.

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

February

Wednesday 11 February 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Stravinsky Symphony in Three Movements Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 Rachmaninoff The Bells (Choral Symphony) Vasily Petrenko conductor Jorge Luis Prats piano Anna Samuil soprano Daniil Shtoda tenor Alexander Vinogradov bass London Philharmonic Choir Konstantin Balmont’s Russian take on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Bells was a perfect find for Rachmaninoff. It combined his fascination with fate and eternity with ideas ripe for musical conversion – the mysterious sound world of bells and his own preoccupation with the twisting, haunting plainchant theme, the Dies Irae. His setting of the poem in a vast choral symphony depicted the silvery brightness of birth, the golden browns of marriage, the dark stillness and muted serenity of peace through death. Vasily Petrenko conducts The Bells after the fascinating syncopations of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements and Rachmaninoff’s own soaring, life-changing Second Piano Concerto.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall LPO musicians have been working with GCSE music students from south-east London to explore the music of Rachmaninoff. They will perform their own new works for ensemble – Rachmaninoff out of Rotherhithe!

In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

Anna Samuil 27

February

Friday 13 February 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 4 (original version) Shostakovich Symphony No. 4 Vasily Petrenko conductor Alexander Ghindin piano As the full force of the Soviet regime positioned itself in direct opposition to his work, Dmitri Shostakovich gave birth to one of his most unusual symphonies. Deeply personal, Mahlerinspired sentiments were spiked by grotesque marches and gallops. Shostakovich knew he was headed for trouble and withdrew the piece before its premiere, only conceding at its eventual performance in 1961 that it ‘stood much higher than my recent [symphonies].’ The imposing Fourth Symphony is heard tonight after Rachmaninoff’s exalted Fourth Piano Concerto, played in its original uncut version. In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

JTI FRIDAY SERIES

Series discounts See page 57

Vasily Petrenko 28

6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Vasily Petrenko explores the impact of Rachmaninoff on a Russian conductor.

Free pre-concert event

Beethoven Overture, Leonore No. 3 Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 Beethoven Symphony No. 7

February

Saturday 21 February 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Marin Alsop conductor David Fray piano In the third of his piano concertos, Beethoven reached for new dramatic tools. His orchestra took in the warmth, strength and colour of added clarinets, trumpets and drums. For the first time in a concerto, Beethoven opted for the darkness of a controlling minor key. But after the argument of its first movement, the weightlessness of its central Largo and the vigorous wit of its finale, Beethoven’s Concerto discovers the radiance of C major. There’s little of that journey to enlightenment in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, just music animated by the power of rhythm as none had been before, and described by one conductor as ‘a festive paradise untouched by mortality’.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall Animate Orchestra is an ‘orchestra for the 21st century’ run by the LPO with Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and four boroughs from south-east London. Tonight’s concert features dance music created by the orchestra in response to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, the ‘apotheosis of the dance’.

Marin Alsop 29

Martin Hobbs Horn

‘ The performance had a real edge-of-your-seat excitement.’ The Guardian, Sep 2012

February

Wednesday 25 February 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Beethoven Overture, Egmont Schumann Overture, Scherzo and Finale Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Beethoven Symphony No. 5 Christoph Eschenbach conductor Ray Chen violin

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Ray Chen 32

Series discounts See page 57

In 2008 an unknown Taiwanese-Australian won one of the biggest prizes in music: the Yehudi Menuhin Competition for violinists. A year later, he won another: the legendary Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. The violinist was Ray Chen, and the Menuhin jury praised his performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto for its freshness, spontaneity and infectious delight. Chen performs the Concerto here, after impassioned overtures by Beethoven and Schumann and before the most famous symphony of all: Beethoven’s depiction of fate knocking at the door of a mortal, and the mortal winning an extraordinary and uplifting victory over it.

March

Wednesday 11 March 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Elgar Introduction and Allegro Ireland Piano Concerto Walton Symphony No. 1 Andrew Manze conductor Piers Lane piano One day in 1930, John Ireland heard a piano student practising down a corridor at the Royal College of Music. Ireland was struck by the student’s combination of poetry and technique, and when he discovered who the mystery pianist was, he was enthralled by her physical presence and beauty too. Ireland captured his sudden infatuation for the pianist Helen Perkin in his sparkling Piano Concerto, and it’s easy to hear how the pianist inspired the composer to heights of brilliance, virtuosity and flair. Alongside the Concerto, Andrew Manze conducts the emotional outpouring that is William Walton’s First Symphony and Elgar’s poised Introduction and Allegro for strings.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Supported by the John Ireland Charitable Trust.

Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Andrew Manze directs the LPO’s Foyle Future Firsts in more English music – a series of jewel-like arrangements, realisations and recreations of Henry Purcell’s music by 21st-century masters: George Benjamin, Oliver Knussen, Peter Maxwell Davies and Manze himself.

Piers Lane 33

March

Saturday 14 March 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Julian Anderson Violin Concerto* (world premiere) Ravel Daphnis et Chloé (complete ballet)** Vladimir Jurowski conductor Carolin Widmann violin London Philharmonic Choir For his 1912 ballet depicting the pure, enduring love of the hero and heroine Daphnis and Chloé, Michel Fokine knew who to ask for music of the utmost atmosphere and clarity: Maurice Ravel. Fokine knew that Ravel’s highly reactive imagination would respond to the passion, colour and foreign exoticism of the Greek-based story, and he was right. Ravel delivered his most magnificent score, an orchestral tapestry full of unforgettable moments – not least the heat-soaked Greek sunrise. Vladimir Jurowski conducts this rare performance of the complete ballet score, after the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Julian Anderson. *Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin and Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The London Philharmonic Orchestra gratefully acknowledges financial support from PRS for Music Foundation and the Boltini Trust.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

**Supported by Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française.

Series discounts See page 57

Carolin Widmann 34

6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Julian Anderson discusses his new Violin Concerto.

Free pre-concert event

March

Saturday 21 March 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Prokofiev Chout (excerpts) Magnus Lindberg Piano Concerto No. 2 (UK premiere) Stravinsky Petrushka (1911 version) Vladimir Jurowski conductor Yefim Bronfman piano One day in 1911, Igor Stravinsky was writing a simple piano piece when he was hit by an idea: a piano, representing the Russian folk puppet Petrushka, which would suddenly spring to life and ‘exasperate the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios’. This was the starting point for his big stylistic breakthrough: the haunting ballet Petrushka in which Stravinsky would depict his homeland with ‘quick tempos, major keys, smells of Russian food, sweat and glistening leather boots’. It’s heard here against the more luscious piano-orchestral soundscape of Magnus Lindberg’s Second Piano Concerto, given its UK premiere this evening, and excerpts from Prokofiev’s own satirical ballet for Diaghilev, Chout (The Buffoon).

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Dame Monica Mason, former Director of the Royal Ballet, discusses the Golden Age of Russian Ballet.

Vladimir Jurowski 35

March

Wednesday 25 March 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall

Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

Mozart Symphony No. 36 (Linz) Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 (final version) Dvorˇák Symphony No. 8 Ilyich Rivas conductor Dmitry Mayboroda piano After the dark clouds and ominous skies of Antonín Dvorˇák’s Seventh Symphony, in his Eighth the composer articulated his pleasure of life and enchantment with human existence in the most blissful symphony he wrote – a work overflowing with joyous fanfares and the beauty of the natural world. Things must have seemed pretty rosy to the 17-year-old Rachmaninoff in 1890 too. On the country estate at Ivanovka that summer, visited by three beautiful sisters who demonstrated an insatiable interest in his music, he began work on the first of his piano concertos and delivered an astonishing, impassioned work brimming with confidence and ardour.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Ilyich Rivas 36

Series discounts See page 57

In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

March

Friday 27 March 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet (Fantasy Overture) James Horner New work for four horns (world premiere) Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade Jaime Martín conductor David Pyatt horn John Ryan horn James Thatcher horn Richard Watkins horn When his older brother started sending letters back home from naval adventures in the Far East, Rimsky-Korsakov fell in love with the faraway land he’d never see. The composer eventually made it as far as Istanbul on a family holiday, but his spellbinding orchestral adventure after The Arabian Nights was as great a tribute to his beloved land of the Orient as anyone could hope to make, and the greatest piece of musical storytelling ever created. Hear Rimsky-Korsakov’s sultry, dramatic and captivating portrayal of the young Sultana Scheherazade’s stories here, alongside Tchaikovsky’s own slice of orchestral fantasy and a new work by James Horner, the double Oscar-winning composer for Titanic.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.00pm – 6.45pm The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall The young musicians of In Harmony Lambeth and musicians from the LPO present a performance of new and familiar orchestral repertoire.

JTI FRIDAY SERIES

Jaime Martín 37

‘ I emerged feeling as if my brain had been pulled through my ears, savagely jumped on, and then squeezed back in, albeit upside down … a breathtaking combination of skill and energy.’ The Guardian, Nov 2013

Rachel Masters Principal Harp

April

Wednesday 15 April 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 Bruckner Symphony No. 4 (Romantic) (Nowak edition) Robin Ticciati conductor Menahem Pressler piano

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Robin Ticciati 40

Series discounts See page 57

Anton Bruckner suggested that the evocative opening of his Fourth Symphony might depict ‘a medieval city at dawn … the magic of the forest, the rustling of the leaves, the song of the birds’. He may be known as a religious and pious man, but Bruckner’s most evocative and engaging symphony is a work charged as much with the thrust of heartfelt human impulse as with supreme spiritual fulfilment. Robin Ticciati conducts the Symphony after Beethoven’s most soothing, elegant Piano Concerto under the fingers of Menahem Pressler, a revered elder statesman among piano soloists.

April

Friday 17 April 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Debussy Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune* Lalo Symphonie espagnole Brahms Symphony No. 1 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conductor Augustin Hadelich violin Did Brahms love Clara Schumann, the widow of his mentor? He almost certainly tried to. After a seemingly irreconcilable argument in September 1868, Brahms wrote to Clara from the Swiss Alps, scribbling a tune he’d heard played by a shepherd boy. ‘High on the mountain, deep in the valley, I greet you a thousandfold’, wrote Brahms, and the beautiful little tune became the radiant horn-call that soars over strings in the finale of his First Symphony like sunlight breaking through clouds. Clara inhabits the whole monumental orchestral tapestry, not only in the special musical ‘motto’ Brahms wove into it, but also in the anguished love that infuses every bar. *Supported by Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

JTI FRIDAY SERIES

Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall ‘A ray of sunshine in the light French mist’: French music expert Roger Nichols explores the music of Édouard Lalo.

Augustin Hadelich 41

April

Saturday 25 April 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Wagner Overture, The Flying Dutchman Beethoven Symphony No. 4 Janácˇek Glagolitic Mass Tomáš Netopil conductor Andrea Danková soprano Karen Cargill mezzo soprano Kor-Jan Dusseljee tenor Jochen Schmeckenbecher baritone London Philharmonic Choir Orfeó Català

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Tomáš Netopil 42

Series discounts See page 57

In his masterful Glagolitic Mass, Leoš Janácˇek set about creating a celebration of the God he glimpsed in the physical world around him. Inspiration struck in the misty Luhacˇovice woods. ‘Its moist scent was the incense’, wrote the composer, ‘I felt a cathedral grow out of the giant expanse of woods … Now I hear the voice of each arch-priest in the tenor solo, a maiden angel in the soprano – and in the choir I hear our people.’ After a storm-tossed overture by Wagner and Beethoven’s radiant Fourth Symphony, we hear all the blazing fanfares, raw outcries and hushed humility of Janácˇek’s Mass inspired by the wonder of life.

April

Wednesday 29 April 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Rachmaninoff: Inside Out

Rachmaninoff (arr. Butsko) Piano Suites, Four movements Rachmaninoff (arr. Jurowski) 10 Songs Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 3 Vladimir Jurowski conductor Vsevolod Grivnov tenor A deep sadness colours Rachmaninoff’s third and final symphony. For music journalist Robert Angles, it stemmed from ‘the grief of a deeply patriotic man forcibly separated from the land of his birth’. In 1935 Rachmaninoff knew he’d never return to Russia, but still his Symphony finds moments of dignity and optimism, of brilliance and vitality. Here it forms an appropriate ‘farewell’ to Rachmaninoff following our seasonlong exploration of his music. Vladimir Jurowski precedes the Symphony with Yuri Butsko's arrangements of some of the composer's scintillating piano suites and a selection of Jurowski's grandfather’s own orchestrations of ten of Rachmaninoff’s most touching songs.

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.

Series discounts See page 57

Free pre-concert event 6.15pm – 6.45pm Royal Festival Hall Keeping it in the family: Vladimir Jurowski looks at his grandfather’s arrangement of the songs heard tonight.

Vsevolod Grivnov 43

May

Friday 1 May 2015 | 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall Dvorˇák Cello Concerto Berlioz Symphonie fantastique Giancarlo Guerrero conductor Narek Hakhnazaryan cello Hector Berlioz was prone to overreaction, but when he saw the Irish actress Harriet Smithson playing the role of Ophelia in a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1827, he believed his life had changed forever. Berlioz fell madly in love with Smithson, and with Shakespeare too. He set about proving it in a symphony that would give birth to his own unique and uncompromising musical language: passionate, witty, enraged, high-spirited, sardonic, tormented and proud. The Symphonie fantastique was born, and it eventually won Hector Berlioz the heart of Harriet Smithson as well. JTI FRIDAY SERIES

Tickets £9 – £39 Premium seats £65 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Narek Hakhnazaryan 44

Series discounts See page 57

Subscription Series

The Pied Piper of Hamelin (world premiere)

Family Concert

Sunday 8 February 2015 12.00 noon – 1.00pm Royal Festival Hall

Vladimir Jurowski conductor Michael Morpurgo author/narrator Colin Matthews composer Michael Morpurgo (War Horse, The Mozart Question), one of the UK’s greatest living authors, and Colin Matthews, regarded as one of today’s most exciting living composers, team up to present the timeless tale of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Their story of the travelling flute player and the rich, greedy mayor is compellingly and movingly told through the eyes of a young boy – one of Hamelin’s Thief-Dogs. Suitable for children aged 7 and over. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with the generous support of the PRS for Music Foundation. Illustrations © 2011 Emma Chichester-Clark From The Pied Piper Of Hamelin by Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Emma Chichester-Clark Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd, London SE11 5HJ www.walker.co.uk

Adults tickets £14 – £18 Under 16 tickets £7 – £9 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57 45

‘ Intellectually and emotionally speaking this was a classic of its kind … the accomplishment of its execution was as exemplary as it was gripping … What an extraordinary concert.' The Arts Desk, Apr 2013

Ilyoung Chae First Violin

FUNharmonics

FUNharmonics – Concerts for all the family Royal Festival Hall Presented by Chris Jarvis Suitable for children aged 3 – 11

Chris Jarvis

Three-dimensional, multimedia, extra-sensory events! No, not the latest video game but the 80 world-class musicians of the LPO going full-tilt at some of their favourite pieces of music. We’ve got giant toads, Dixieland jazz, a massive bird and some very hungry Frenchmen. The concerts are presented by CBeebies’ Chris Jarvis and, at one hour long, are the very best way to introduce your family to the wonders of orchestral music.

Sunday 26 October 2014 | 12.00 noon – 1.00pm The Toad and the Snail

Benjamin Wallfisch conductor Composer and conductor Benjamin Wallfisch has written some new music to accompany Roald Dahl’s hilarious masterpiece of absurd verse, The Toad and the Snail.

Sunday 3 May 2015 | 12.00 noon – 1.00pm That’s all Folk! USA!

Stuart Stratford conductor Joe Townsend violin Hold on to your hats! We’re travelling, by music, down the eastern seaboard of the USA. From Brooklyn to Blue Ridge, New York to New Orleans, come and join us on our toe-tapping musical journey.

Come and join the party!

Throughout the day there are free musical events around the building offering a fun and interactive way-in to the concert. 10.00am – 2.00pm: Have a go at an orchestral instrument of your choice under expert instruction; join our music-making workshops on The Clore Ballroom, and explore Southbank Centre with our free activity sheet. 1.15pm: The music continues on The Clore Ballroom – a guest ensemble of young musicians entertains with a selection of great tunes. 48

Children £5 – £9 Adult £10 – £18 Book now 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk Series discounts See page 57

Musical stories for children Available on the Orchestra’s own label as a CD or download. Visit lpo.org.uk/recordings or order the CD on 020 7840 4242 or through all good retailers.

ÂŠ Dominic Creagh

FUNharmonics

Recordings and social media

London Philharmonic Orchestra Label

Stay Tuned

Live, studio and archive recordings from our catalogue including critically acclaimed recordings with Tennstedt, Haitink and Jurowski are available from lpo.org.uk/recordings, London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 (Monday – Friday 10.00am – 5.00pm), all good retail outlets and Royal Festival Hall shop.

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Brahms's Symphonies 3 & 4 with Jurowski LPO-0075 ‘Brahms’s Fourth was a triumph. Opening with a melody that seemed to ride the surface of a huge ocean swell teeming with undercurrents, Jurowski aimed for, and achieved, a performance of colossal proportions’ The Guardian, May 2011

Julian Anderson Orchestral Works LPO-0074 ‘Kaleidoscopic in terms of its colour, exhilarating in its energy and captivating in its lyricism’ The Sunday Times, October 2013

Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Nézet-Séguin LPO-0073 ‘Yannick Nézet-Séguin perfectly captures the yearning for lost youth and resigned acceptance of mortality that pervades Mahler’s masterpiece’ The Sunday Times, September 2013

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Visit us at lpo.org.uk Get to know more about the music and performers through podcasts, videos, online playlists, concert streaming, opportunities to listen again, and to sign up to hear about our latest recordings.

Just seen the amazing @LPOrchestra at @southbankcentre – feel punch drunk. Really truly spectacular Apr 2013

Went to Peter Grimes at RFH with @LPOrchestra and am still demolished this morning. It was one of the best things ever Sep 2013

Superlative War Requiem from @LPOrchestra. Towering, wonderful music, superbly played and sung. So moving – thank you Oct 2013

Still coming down from 'planet Poulenc' after a mesmerising performance with @nezetseguin & @LPOrchestra Oct 2013

It was an unforgettable experience. Such overwhelming music, superbly played and sung. Thank you (and thank you, Britten!) Oct 2013

We’ve got a new website!

'it packs a host of great content into an easy-to-navigate layout that will be music to the ears of classical fans.'

We’d like to tell you more about our new website, which was launched in autumn 2013.

Web user magazine, Nov 2013

With an improved look, the site has been designed to work equally well on tablets, mobile phones and larger screens. There is much to explore on the site: we've got a new series of concert introduction videos, podcasts from Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski, and sound clips of the music we’re performing, as well as information about who we are, where we perform, and the wide range of work we do in schools and the community. Other features include the ability to set personal concert reminders, read the latest news and reviews, and share your thoughts on the Orchestra’s activities with other members of the LPO community.

Our website

lpo.org.uk

Select your own seat We’re delighted to offer improved ticket booking for our London concerts, including the ability to select your own Royal Festival Hall seats to suit your preference. LPO Recordings You can now search recordings on the LPO label by composer or artist, and listen to excerpts before you buy. Your account See your recent order history, update your details and communication preferences, and renew your memberships through the Your Account area of the site. Tell us your thoughts We'd love to have your feedback, to ensure that we continue to develop and add features to the site in a way that works best for you. Please contact us on admin@lpo.org.uk or call 020 7840 4200 with any comments.

Supporting the Orchestra

Join us Friends (from £50 – £250)

Take advantage of the chance to book before the general public and enjoy the best seats; attend exclusive rehearsals and receive inside information; and meet London Philharmonic Orchestra musicians in a private bar at London concerts. Join from just £5 per month (ten monthly Direct Debit payments) and be part of this great orchestra.

Benefactors (£500 – £1,000)

Relax in our exclusive Beecham Bar, which offers complimentary Villa Maria wines, Heineken beer, canapés and Lindt chocolates; stunning London views; and the chance to meet Orchestra musicians, management and supporters. Enjoy all the benefits of Friends as well as access to Glyndebourne performances and rehearsals and special events throughout the year.

Thomas Beecham Group (from £3,000; Chair Support at £5,000 and above)

Thomas Beecham Group Patrons are invited to endow the chair of a specific musician and enjoy a recital by that player at their home or business. They enjoy a bespoke association with the Orchestra through major supporting gifts.

Principal Conductor’s Circle (£30,000)

Members of our Principal Conductor’s Circle support Vladimir Jurowski’s artistic leadership of the Orchestra. His adventurous programming is a hallmark of our seasons and we invite generous donors to invest in this vision. Members enjoy a close relationship with the Orchestra and exclusive opportunities to meet Vladimir Jurowski.

lpo.org.uk/support/memberships 52

Legacies: Our Future in Your Hands

Love classical music and want to get more involved with London's cultural scene? Contemporaries is for London’s dynamic, culturally inquisitive young professionals, offering curated events, concerts and social activities.

A bequest may be your first gift, or the culmination of a long-term relationship with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

These pages offer just a taster of how you can get involved with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. For more information about our memberships and other ways to support the Orchestra as an individual please contact our team.

Memberships are available for one or two people and start from just £90 per year. You’ll get tickets to three ‘must see’ concerts each season and a delicious free cocktail in the Sipsmith Bar at the interval. We also host a whole range of other exciting evenings with our luxury partners such as discounted shopping events, gallery views and parties.

As a legator you have the power in your hands to make a lasting contribution to our future, ensuring that as we enter our ninth decade we can continue to inspire thousands of people, young and old, with the power of music. As well as supporting work today, bequests can help us to build our endowment fund for the future.

020 7840 4225 development@lpo.org.uk lpo.org.uk/support

Supporting the Orchestra

Contemporaries

MORE THAN MUSIC lpo.org.uk/contemporaries

lpo.org.uk/support/legacies

lpo.org.uk/support 53

Supporting the Orchestra 54

Get Involved Whether you’re looking to engage staff or clients, get involved in the community or gain brand recognition, a partnership with the London Philharmonic Orchestra is a sound business decision as well as a socially responsible one.

Even in tough economic times businesses still need ways to build new relationships with clients and key stakeholders, as well as reward staff and clients. The London Philharmonic Orchestra can offer you something extra special, as well as high-profile recognition of your support.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is a registered charity and support from businesses of all sizes plays a vital role in ensuring that the scope and quality of our work continues to grow, develop and flourish, on and off the concert platform.

Corporate entertainment packages start from just £2,500 and feature an exclusive seating area at spine-tingling performances; the opportunity to mingle with musicians and fellow guests in the Beecham Bar; wonderful wines and cuisine with stunning views of the River Thames. Let the London Philharmonic Orchestra enhance your concert experience and help create a special evening for you and your guests.

We can offer your business creative employee training and teamwork, bringing imagination, challenge and enjoyment to the workplace.

We offer lots of opportunities to involve staff and their families in all kinds of creative events, including FUNharmonics concerts and have-a-go music-making sessions to make your experience extra special.

All this, and your business can get involved in the community. We reach over 30,000 people each year through our education programmes, so there are plenty of chances to make a difference.

Our staff make your partnership easy, with a flexibility and a willingness to create bespoke events and packages to make your experience extra special.

Supporting the Orchestra

Our year-round programme means that there are regular opportunities for you to engage guests, and our wide range of concerts ensures there’s something for everyone – from Mozart to Schoenberg and Gershwin to Strauss.

For more information, ideas or inspiration visit: lpo.org.uk/corporate corporate@lpo.org.uk 020 7840 4210

Seating information

Evening Concerts Ticket prices

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Premium seats £65* *We have selected the very best seats in the front stalls to be sold at premium price to ensure you the finest acoustic and view.

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Book more, pay less: series discounts

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Book 3 – 4 concerts and receive a 10% discount Book 5 – 7 concerts and receive a 15% discount Book 8 – 10 concerts and receive a 20% discount Book 11 – 14 concerts and receive a 25% discount Book 15+ concerts and receive a 30% discount

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Group Bookings

Monday to Friday 10.00am – 5.00pm (£2.75 transaction fee) (£1.75 transaction fee)

Daily 9.00am – 8.00pm (£2.75 transaction fee)

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(£1.75 transaction fee) All ticketing staff at Southbank Centre can take typetalk calls.

In person at Royal Festival Hall Ticket Office Daily 10.00am – 8.00pm (no transaction fee) All discounts are subject to availability and cannot be combined. Royal Festival Hall has wheelchair spaces in the boxes, choir seats, side and rear stalls of the auditorium. For details of our privacy policy, please visit lpo.org.uk or call to request details.

With savings of up to 20% on ticket prices, and many other group benefits, everything has been done to help your group have an enjoyable evening with one of the world’s finest orchestras.

Seating information

London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242

Benefits include: 20% discount for groups of ten or more A pair of complimentary tickets for the group organiser for groups of 20+ Exclusive ticket offers and special promotions on selected concerts Flexible reservations until one month before the concert No booking fee or postal charge Discounted coach hire Customised free publicity material for your group. Book now 020 7840 4205, lpo.org.uk/groups or groups@lpo.org.uk Monday to Friday 10.00am – 5.00pm

Student and Under-26 NOISE Schemes

If you are a full-time student or under 26 you can get discounted tickets to selected London Philharmonic Orchestra concerts throughout the year. Students receive £4 best available tickets and under 26 year olds receive £8 best available tickets. Several concerts are also followed by a complimentary drinks reception courtesy of the Orchestra’s Principal Beer Sponsor, Heineken. Sign up to one of the free e-bulletins at lpo.org.uk/noise to get details of these fantastic offers!

Information

General

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Can I exchange my tickets?

Resident at Southbank Centre and Glyndebourne Festival Opera 89 Albert Embankment London SE1 7TP

You may exchange your tickets for another concert in the Orchestra’s 2014/15 season or exchange for a credit note. We do not offer refunds unless a concert is cancelled. The right is reserved to substitute artists and vary programmes if necessary.

Limited concessions

50% off all ticket prices for full-time students, benefit recipients (Jobseekers Allowance, Income Support and Pension Credit) and under-16s (maximum 4 per transaction. Not applicable to Family Concerts). Limited availability; appropriate ID will be checked on admission.

Access

Visitors with a disability can join Southbank Centre’s free Access Scheme. You may be eligible for tickets at concessionary prices and to bring a companion who can assist you during your visit; and to receive information in alternative formats. For information, please email accesslist@southbankcentre.co.uk, call 0844 847 9910 or visit southbankcentre.co.uk/access All ticketing staff at Southbank Centre can take typetalk calls. The auditoria are fitted with Sennheiser infrared systems. Receivers can be collected from the Cloakroom on Level 1 of Royal Festival Hall. Royal Festival Hall has level access via internal lifts and ramps, and accessible toilets. For further details please call 0844 847 9910. Royal Festival Hall has wheelchair spaces in the boxes, choir seats, side and rear stalls of the auditorium. Guide and companion dogs may be taken anywhere on site.

Timothy Walker AM Chief Executive and Artistic Director HRH The Duke of Kent KG Patron Vladimir Jurowski Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor Andrés Orozco-Estrada Principal Guest Conductor Designate Pieter Schoeman Leader Magnus Lindberg Composer in Residence

T 020 7840 4200 F 020 7840 4201 Tickets 020 7840 4242 lpo.org.uk

Getting to Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is situated on the Thames Riverside between the Golden Jubilee Bridge and Waterloo Bridge. By underground to Waterloo, Embankment and Charing Cross By rail to Waterloo, Waterloo East or Charing Cross By bus to Waterloo (stopping on Waterloo Bridge, York Road, Stamford Street and Belvedere Road). For detailed bus information call 0343 222 1234 or visit tfl.gov.uk/buses

Travel information

Southbank Centre Belvedere Road London SE1 8XX

Southbank Centre has two car parks operated by CP Plus Limited: Southbank Centre Car Park – Hayward Gallery Southbank Centre Car Park – Hungerford Bridge Please note that many of the spaces in the Hayward Gallery Car Park are for Blue Badge holders only. NORTH

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There is a single tariff in both car parks for any length of time between 5pm and 1am. All other times are charged at rates based on the length of time you wish to park. For more information about parking rates and payment methods please visit southbankcentre.co.uk/visitor-info/parking or call 0844 847 9910. Parking for Blue Badge holders There is a limited number of dedicated parking bays for Blue Badge holders in the Hayward Gallery Car Park only. Visitors should display their Blue Badge clearly in their vehicle. (It's no longer necessary for Blue Badge holders to get a parking ticket validated at the Ticket Office).

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Southbank Centre car parks now operate on a Pay-by-Phone system. If you are a regular user of the car parks, you may wish to register in advance by visiting paybyphone.co.uk or calling 0300 400 7275. The location code for both car parks is 79004 and users will need to enter this when paying by phone.

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Diary

The 2014/15 season

September

October

November

December

All concerts are at Royal Festival Hall and start at 7.30pm unless otherwise stated.

Wednesday 24 September Magnus Lindberg Prokofiev Shostakovich Vladimir Jurowski conductor Jean-Efflam Bavouzet piano

Friday 3 October Rachmaninoff Vladimir Jurowski conductor Alexander Ghindin piano

Saturday 1 November Mahler Jaap van Zweden conductor Elizabeth Watts soprano Alice Coote mezzo soprano London Philharmonic Choir

Wednesday 3 December Szymanowski Scriabin Rachmaninoff Vladimir Jurowski conductor Igor Levit piano

Wednesday 5 November Sibelius Osmo Vänskä conductor Alexandra Soumm violin

Saturday 6 December Stravinsky Harrison Birtwistle Messiaen Vladimir Jurowski conductor Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano

Friday 24 October Wagner Beethoven Tchaikovsky Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor Maria João Pires piano Augustin Dumay violin Antonio Meneses cello Wednesday 29 October Rachmaninoff Vassily Sinaisky conductor Pavel Kolesnikov piano

Friday 7 November Vaughan Williams Rachmaninoff Tchaikovsky Osmo Vänskä conductor Nikolai Lugansky piano Wednesday 12 November Pierné Poulenc Ravel Debussy Juanjo Mena conductor Katia Labèque piano Marielle Labèque piano Wednesday 19 November Brahms Schubert R Strauss Yannick Nézet-Séguin conductor Lars Vogt piano Friday 28 November Wagner Rachmaninoff Tchaikovsky

The London Philharmonic Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the financial support of Arts Council England and Southbank Centre.

David Zinman conductor Behzod Abduraimov piano

January

February

March

April

May

Family Concert

Wednesday 21 January Wagner Rachmaninoff Vladimir Jurowski conductor Vsevolod Grivnov Albert Maxim Mikhailov Servant Viacheslav Voynarovskiy Moneylender Albert Shagidullin The Duke Sergei Leiferkus The Baron Annabel Arden director

Saturday 7 February Rachmaninoff Enescu Vladimir Jurowski conductor Andrei Bondarenko baritone London Philharmonic Choir

Wednesday 11 March Elgar Ireland Walton Andrew Manze conductor Piers Lane piano

Wednesday 15 April Beethoven Bruckner Robin Ticciati conductor Menahem Pressler piano

Friday 1 May Dvorˇák Berlioz Giancarlo Guerrero conductor Narek Hakhnazaryan cello

Sunday 8 February 12.00 noon – 1.00pm The Pied Piper of Hamelin Vladimir Jurowski conductor Michael Morpurgo narrator Colin Matthews composer

Wednesday 11 February Stravinsky Rachmaninoff Vasily Petrenko conductor Jorge Luis Prats piano Anna Samuil soprano Daniil Shtoda tenor Alexander Vinogradov bass London Philharmonic Choir

Saturday 14 March Julian Anderson Ravel Vladimir Jurowski conductor Carolin Widmann violin London Philharmonic Choir

Saturday 24 January Stravinsky Verdi Vladimir Jurowski conductor Maija Kovalevska soprano Ildikó Komlósi mezzo soprano Dmytro Popov tenor Vyacheslav Pochapsky bass London Philharmonic Choir Orféon Pamplonés Wednesday 28 January Debussy Magnus Lindberg Wagner Scriabin Vladimir Jurowski conductor Barbara Hannigan soprano

Friday 13 February Rachmaninoff Shostakovich Vasily Petrenko conductor Alexander Ghindin piano Saturday 21 February Beethoven Marin Alsop conductor David Fray piano Wednesday 25 February Beethoven Schumann Mendelssohn Christoph Eschenbach conductor Ray Chen violin

Saturday 21 March Prokofiev Magnus Lindberg Stravinsky Vladimir Jurowski conductor Yefim Bronfman piano Wednesday 25 March Mozart Rachmaninoff Dvorˇák Ilyich Rivas conductor Dmitry Mayboroda piano Friday 27 March Tchaikovsky James Horner Rimsky-Korsakov Jaime Martín conductor David Pyatt horn John Ryan horn James Thatcher horn Richard Watkins horn

Friday 17 April Debussy Lalo Brahms Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conductor Augustin Hadelich violin Saturday 25 April Wagner Beethoven Janácˇek Tomáš Netopil conductor Andrea Danková soprano Karen Cargill mezzo soprano Kor-Jan Dusseljee tenor Jochen Schmeckenbecher baritone London Philharmonic Choir Orfeó Català

(ages 7 and over)

FUNharmonics (ages 3 – 11)

Sunday 26 October 12.00 noon – 1.00pm The Toad and the Snail Benjamin Wallfisch conductor Sunday 3 May 12.00 noon – 1.00pm That’s all Folk! USA! Stuart Stratford conductor Joe Townsend violin

Wednesday 29 April Rachmaninoff Vladimir Jurowski conductor Vsevolod Grivnov tenor

Front cover image: Mark Templeton Principal Trombone Concert texts Andrew Mellor Design & Art Direction Chaos Design Photography Julian Calverley Printer Tradewinds (this brochure is produced on paper from a sustainable source) Information in this brochure was correct at the time of going to press. The right is reserved to substitute artists and to vary programmes if necessary. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is a registered charity No. 238045. Southbank Centre is a registered charity No. 298909.

lpo.org.uk