London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music
Tuesday 23 May 2017 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
London’s Symphony Orchestra
MAHLER SYMPHONY NO 9
Bernard Haitink conductor
Concert finishes approx 9pm
Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3
2
Welcome
23 May 2017
Welcome
Kathryn McDowell
Living Music
In Brief
A warm welcome to this evening’s LSO concert.
Tonight we are joined by conductor Bernard Haitink
for the first of three performances with the Orchestra
at the Barbican this season.
Bernard Haitink is a great friend of the LSO and
our relationship with him spans many years,
with his extraordinary music-making a joy for
LSO musicians and audiences alike. Most recently
the Orchestra was honoured to perform Mahler’s
Third Symphony with him at the 2016 BBC Proms.
LSO PLATFORMS: GUILDHALL ARTISTS
Before today’s concert we welcomed artists
from the Guildhall School to the stage, performing
Mahler’s Piano Quartet in A minor and Webern’s
Piano Quintet. These performances take place
before certain LSO concerts and are free to attend.
lso.co.uk/lsoplatforms
LSO LIVE NEW RELEASE
This evening we perform the last symphony that
Mahler completed, his Ninth, a deeply reflective
and emotional work written in the wake of the
death of his youngest daughter and at the onset
of his declining health.
The new recording of Mozart’s Serenade No 10
for Wind Instruments (‘Gran Partita’) by the LSO
Wind Ensemble is now available on LSO Live.
To order your copy, please visit the website:
Thank you to our media partners, BBC Radio 3,
who are broadcasting tonight’s concert live on air.
lsolive.lso.co.uk
I hope you enjoy the performance and that you can
join us again soon. On Sunday 28 May Bernard Haitink
continues his exploration of late works with Bruckner’s
Ninth Symphony and choral Te Deum, before being
joined by pianist Mitsuko Uchida on Thursday 1 June.
A WARM WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS
Groups of 10+ receive a 20% discount on standard
tickets to LSO concerts, plus other exclusive benefits.
Tonight we are delighted to welcome:
British Emunah Entertains
Marjorie Wilkins & Friends
University of Wisconsin
Kathryn McDowell CBE DL
Managing Director
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London Symphony Orchestra
Season 2016/17
The LSO’s
Family of Conductors
Summer 2017
Michael Tilson Thomas (4 & 8 Jun)
MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS:
CONDUCTOR LAUREATE
DANIEL HARDING:
10 YEARS WITH THE LSO
SIR SIMON RATTLE:
MUSIC DIRECTOR DESIGNATE
Sun 4 Jun 7pm
Stravinsky Scènes de ballet
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No 1
Tchaikovsky Symphony No 6 (‘Pathétique’)
Daniel Harding concludes his 10-year
tenure as Principal Guest Conductor
with Mahler’s Third Symphony.
Sun 9 Jul 7pm
Andrew Norman
A Trip to the Moon (UK premiere)
Sibelius Symphony No 2
Michael Tilson Thomas conductor
Lisa Batiashvili violin
Thu 8 Jun 7.30pm
Brahms Piano Concerto No 2
Nielsen Symphony No 5
Sun 25 Jun 7pm
Mahler Symphony No 3
Daniel Harding conductor
Anna Larsson alto
Ladies of the
London Symphony Chorus
Simon Halsey chorus director
Michael Tilson Thomas conductor
Yuja Wang piano
Sir Simon Rattle conductor
Guildhall School Musicians
LSO Discovery Choirs
LSO Community Choir
Simon Halsey chorus director
Supported by The Aaron Copland Fund for Music
Tue 11 & Wed 12 Jul 7.30pm
Wagner Prelude and Liebestod
from ‘Tristan and Isolde’
Bartók Piano Concerto No 2
Haydn An imaginary orchestral journey
Yuja Wang and Lang Lang’s appearances
with the LSO are generously supported by
Sir Simon Rattle conductor
Lang Lang piano
12 July supported by LSO Music Director Donors
4
Programme Notes
23 May 2017
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
Symphony No 9 in D major (1908–09)
1
ANDANTE COMODO (A LEISURELY WALKING PACE)
2
IM TEMPO EINES GEMÄCHLICHEN LÄNDLERS –
ETWAS TÄPPISCH UND SEHR DERB (IN A LEISURELY
LÄNDLER TEMPO – RATHER AWKWARD AND COARSE)
3
RONDO-BURLESKE: ALLEGRO ASSAI – SEHR TROTZIG
(VERY FAST – DEFIANT)
4
PROGRAMME NOTE WRITER
STEPHEN JOHNSON is the author
of Bruckner Remembered (Faber).
He also contributes regularly to BBC
Music Magazine and The Guardian,
and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3
(Discovering Music), BBC Radio 4
and the BBC World Service.
DAS LIED VON DER ERDE
ADAGIO – SEHR LANGSAM (VERY SLOW)
When Gustav Mahler died in 1911, not quite 51 years
old, he left two works complete but unperformed:
the symphonic song-cycle Das Lied von der Erde
(The Song of the Earth) and the purely orchestral
Ninth Symphony. When these works were heard for
the first time, in the year following Mahler’s death,
listeners were struck by their intense preoccupation
with mortality – clear enough in the texts of Das Lied
von der Erde, and unmistakable in the expressive
tone of the Ninth Symphony. Alban Berg, who
adored Mahler, described the first movement as
‘the expression of an exceptional fondness for
this earth, the longing to live in peace on it, to
enjoy nature to its depths – before death comes.
For he comes irresistibly. The whole movement
is permeated with premonitions of death’.
is an orchestral cycle of six songs
sung by two alternating singers.
The texts are taken from a book
of 8th-century Chinese poetry
rendered in German by Hans Bethge
and were chosen because their
themes reflected Mahler’s weighty
preoccupations throughout this final
period of his life. The music balances
the grand scale of a symphony
with the intimacy required by song,
which made it difficult for even the
composer himself to categorise.
circulation: Mahler had known he was going to die,
and the Ninth Symphony was his ‘Farewell to Life’ –
the title his teacher Bruckner had given to the last
movement of his own (incomplete) Ninth Symphony.
A FAREWELL SYMPHONY?
There were good reasons why Mahler should have
been possessed by thoughts of death at this time.
He was approaching 50 when he completed his
Ninth Symphony, and a 50th birthday is an important
milestone on the road from birth to death. But Mahler
also had serious health worries. In 1908, a doctor had
diagnosed a heart lesion, a condition which could
only get worse. The previous year his elder daughter,
Maria, had died of scarlet fever. All this was wellknown in musical Vienna when the Ninth Symphony
was first performed. Before long, a story was in
But we should be careful about accepting this
reading unconditionally. Mahler may have been
shaken by the discovery of his heart problem,
but it wasn’t until the last year of his life that he
began to slacken the pace of his frantically busy
life. In 1909, the year after the ominous diagnosis,
he accepted a three-year contract to conduct the
New York Philharmonic (his first season included an
astonishing 46 concerts). And in 1910 he had begun,
and very nearly completed, a Tenth Symphony –
another big orchestral symphony, beginning where
the Ninth left off, but finding its way to a very
different, more affirmative conclusion. It could be
that Mahler thought that his days in the shadow of
death were over, for the moment at least, and that
he could now look forward to exploring new musical
directions. The Tenth Symphony is full of pointers to
possible ways ahead.
Still, when Berg wrote of the presence of death in
the Ninth Symphony, he wasn’t simply giving voice
to a personal interpretation; the music is full of
details that reinforce his words. From very early on,
almost from the opening bars, the first movement
is dominated by a two-note falling figure, like a sigh
(first heard on violins). In the finale this figure returns,
but it now falls by two steps – clearly spelling out
the leading motif from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata
‘Les adieux’ (The Farewells), a work Mahler had
played in his student days. Beethoven marked his
motif ‘Lebe wohl’ (Farewell).
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MAHLER SYMPHONY NO 9
ON LSO LIVE
Programme Notes
5
FIRST MOVEMENT
In the first movement the two-note sigh emerges after
a short passage in which cellos and low horn spell
out a strange, faltering rhythm, which the conductor
Leonard Bernstein compared to Mahler’s faltering
heartbeat. The exquisite long violin melody, which
grows from the first sighing figures, returns many
times during the course of this long movement.
Between its appearances there are contrasting
episodes: impassioned, frantic, resigned, eerie by
turns. One passage introduced by the ‘faltering heart’
rhythm on horns, followed by sinister drum taps,
is clearly a funeral march.
THIRD MOVEMENT
All this is brusquely thrust aside by the Rondo –
or ‘Burleske’ as Mahler subtitled it. Brilliantly,
sometimes garishly scored, this is the movement
in which Mahler shows off his contrapuntal skills;
but a lot of it has a sarcastic tone: confirmed by
Mahler’s dedication of this movement ‘To my
brothers in Apollo’– a raspberry directed at the
academics who found fault with his compositional
techniques. At the heart of this movement is an
extraordinary bittersweet episode, introduced
by a syrupy slow tune on a solo trumpet. But the
movement ends as it began, full of sound and fury.
Towards the end of the movement comes a sinister,
skeletally scored passage, in which Mahler treats
his large orchestra as though it were a much
smaller chamber ensemble. But it is the sense
of the sweetness of life which prevails in the final
bars, the orchestration wonderfully delicate and
imaginative to the very last note.
FINALE
Finally comes the Adagio. In placing the slow
movement last, Mahler may have been thinking of
Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ symphony, or again of
Bruckner’s Ninth – both works are overshadowed by
thoughts of death. But what he achieves is utterly
personal. The first theme (full strings) spells out
Beethoven’s ‘Farewell’ theme in full, and there’s also
a passing echo of the once-popular funeral hymn
‘Abide with me’, which Mahler might have heard on
one of his visits to New York. This richly sonorous
music for the full strings alternates with weird,
sparsely scored passages – more skeletal sounds.
Eventually the ‘Farewell’ theme builds to a massive,
desperate climax, which seems to be striving for the
transcendent glory of the Eighth Symphony (there’s
even a quotation from it on horns). The striving is
in vain, and the rich textures thin out into the nearemptiness of the final bars: the silences between the
slow, quiet phrases are almost unbearably poignant.
At last the music fades into nothingness.
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SECOND MOVEMENT
After this, the second movement is a surprise.
Suddenly we are transported to an Austrian beergarden, with coarse, heavy-footed dance tunes.
In fact three kinds of Ländler (country cousin to
the sophisticated Viennese Waltz) alternate in this
movement: the ‘leisurely’ first theme, a faster,
rough-edged dance tune, and a gentle, sentimental
slow waltz, leading off with a return of the first
movement’s ‘two-note sigh’. Comical though a
lot of this music is, there is something disquieting
about it, especially so in the coda, where the first
Ländler tune takes on a more sinister expression.
6
Mahler the Man
23 May 2017
Mahler the Man
by Stephen Johnson
I am …
homeless
a native of Bohemia in Austria
an Austrian among Germans
a Jew throughout the world.
three times
Mahler’s sense of being an outsider, coupled with
a penetrating, restless intelligence, made him an
acutely self-conscious searcher after truth. For Mahler
the purpose of art was, in Shakespeare’s famous
phrase, to ‘hold the mirror up to nature’ in all its
bewildering richness. The symphony, he told Jean
Sibelius, ‘must be like the world. It must embrace
everything’. Mahler’s symphonies can seem almost
over-full with intense emotions and ideas: love and
hate, joy in life and terror of death, the beauty of
nature, innocence and bitter experience. Similar
themes can also be found in his marvellous songs
and song-cycles, though there the intensity is,
if anything, still more sharply focused.
Gustav Mahler was born the second of 14 children.
His parents were apparently ill-matched (Mahler
remembered violent scenes), and young Gustav
grew dreamy and introspective, seeking comfort
in nature rather than human company. Death was
a presence from early on: six of Mahler’s siblings
died in infancy. This no doubt partly explains the
obsession with mortality in Mahler’s music. Few
of his major works do not feature a funeral march:
in fact Mahler’s first composition (at age ten) was
a Funeral March with Polka – exactly the kind of
extreme juxtaposition one finds in his mature works.
For most of his life Mahler supported himself by
conducting, but this was no mere means to an end.
Indeed his evident talent and energetic, disciplined
commitment led to successive appointments
at Prague, Leipzig, Budapest, Hamburg and
climactically, in 1897, the Vienna Court Opera.
In the midst of this hugely demanding schedule,
Mahler composed whenever he could, usually
during his summer holidays. The rate at which he
composed during these brief periods is astonishing.
The workload in no way decreased after his marriage
to the charismatic and highly intelligent Alma Schindler
in 1902. Alma’s infidelity – which almost certainly
accelerated the final decline in Mahler’s health in
1910/11 – has earned her black marks from some
biographers, but it is hard not to feel some sympathy
for her position as a ‘work widow’.
Nevertheless, many today have good cause to
be grateful to Mahler for his single-minded devotion
to his art. T S Eliot – another artist caught between
the search for faith and the horror of meaninglessness –
wrote that ‘humankind cannot bear very much reality’.
But Mahler’s music suggests another possibility. With
his ability to confront the terrifying possibility of a
purposeless universe and the empty finality of death,
Mahler can help us confront and endure stark reality.
He can take us to the edge of the abyss, then sing
us the sweetest songs of consolation. If we allow
ourselves to make this journey with him, we may
find that we too are the better for it.
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Artist Biographies
7
Bernard Haitink
Conductor
Bernard Haitink’s conducting career began 62 years
ago with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in his
native Holland. He went on to be Chief Conductor
of the Concertgebouw Orchestra for 27 years,
as well as Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival
Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and
Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic,
the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra. He is Patron of the Radio Philharmonic,
and Conductor Emeritus of the Boston Symphony,
as well as an honorary member of both the Berlin
Philharmonic and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
Conductor Emeritus
Boston Philharmonic Orchestra
Honorary Conductor
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Honorary Member
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Honorary Member
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Conductor Laureate
European Union Youth Orchestra
2016 marked the 50th anniversary of Bernard Haitink’s
first appearance at both the BBC Proms and the
Lucerne Festival. These occasions were celebrated
with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Proms,
and both the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and the
Chamber Orchestra of Europe in Lucerne. He also
toured with the European Union Youth Orchestra,
of which he is Conductor Laureate, marking the 40th
anniversary of their creation. The 2016/17 season
began with the Berlin Philharmonic and has seen
him continuing his close association with the
Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra
of Europe, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, L’Orchestre
National de France, Orchestra Mozart, the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra and the London and
Boston Symphony Orchestras. He will also revisit
and conduct Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the
orchestra and chorus of La Scala, Milan. This summer
he appears at the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna
Philharmonic, and with the Chamber Orchestra of
Europe at the BBC Proms and Lucerne Festival.
He is committed to the development of young
musical talent, and gives an annual conducting
masterclass at the Lucerne Easter Festival. This
season in addition he gives conducting classes
to students at the Hochschule der Kunst, Zurich,
and leads performances with the orchestra of
the Royal College of Music.
Bernard Haitink has an extensive discography
for Phillips, Decca and EMI, as well as the many
new live recording labels established by orchestras
themselves in recent years, such as the London
Symphony, Chicago Symphony and Bayerischer
Rundfunk. He has received many awards and
honours in recognition of his services to music,
including several honorary doctorates, an honorary
Knighthood and Companion of Honour in the United
Kingdom, and the House Order of Orange-Nassau
in the Netherlands.
8
The Orchestra
23 May 2017
London Symphony Orchestra
On stage
FIRST VIOLINS
Roman Simovic Leader
George Tudorache
Lennox Mackenzie
Clare Duckworth
Nigel Broadbent
Ginette Decuyper
Jörg Hammann
Maxine Kwok-Adams
Claire Parfitt
Laurent Quenelle
Harriet Rayfield
Sylvain Vasseur
Rhys Watkins
Eleanor Fagg
Julia Rumley
Alain Petitclerc
SECOND VIOLINS
David Alberman
Thomas Norris
Sarah Quinn
Miya Väisänen
David Ballesteros
Richard Blayden
Matthew Gardner
Julian Gil Rodriguez
Naoko Keatley
Belinda McFarlane
William Melvin
Iwona Muszynska
Andrew Pollock
Paul Robson
VIOLAS
Edward Vanderspar
Gillianne Haddow
Malcolm Johnston
Regina Beukes
Anna Bastow
Julia O’Riordan
Robert Turner
Jonathan Welch
Samuel Burstin
Stephanie Edmundson
Maya Meron
Claire Newton
CELLOS
Rebecca Gilliver
Alastair Blayden
Jennifer Brown
Noel Bradshaw
Eve-Marie Caravassilis
Daniel Gardner
Hilary Jones
Miwa Rosso
Hester Snell
Deborah Tolksdorf
DOUBLE BASSES
Colin Paris
Patrick Laurence
Matthew Gibson
Thomas Goodman
Joe Melvin
Jani Pensola
Hugh Sparrow
Marco Behtash
FLUTES
Gareth Davies
Alex Jakeman
Patricia Moynihan
Fiona Paterson
PICCOLO
Sharon Williams
OBOES
Olivier Stankiewicz
Rosie Jenkins
Maxwell Spiers
COR ANGLAIS
Christine Pendrill
CLARINETS
Andrew Marriner
Sarah Thurlow
Chris Richards
E-FLAT CLARINET
Chi-Yu Mo
BASS CLARINET
Katy Ayling
BASSOONS
Rachel Gough
Joost Bosdijk
Lois Au
CONTRA BASSOON
Dominic Morgan
Your views
Inbox
HORNS
Timothy Jones
Angela Barnes
Jonathan Lipton
Philip Woods
Tim Ball
SUN 7 MAY – SIR MARK ELDER & ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER
TRUMPETS
David Elton
Phil Cobb
Gerald Ruddock
Niall Keatley
Luís The Shostakovich was AMAZING.
TROMBONES
Peter Moore
James Maynard
BASS TROMBONE
Christian Jones
TUBA
Leslie Neish
TIMPANI
Antoine Bedewi
PERCUSSION
Neil Percy
David Jackson
Sam Walton
Paul Stoneman
Mary Heyler Mark Elder/Anne-Sophie Mutter/Tchaikovsky –
delicious combination @londonsymphony
SUN 14 MAY – NIKOLAJ ZNAIDER
Martin Glancy Wonderful concert tonight by
@londonsymphony. Sublime.
Chris Baraniuk INCREDIBLE performance of Tchaikovsky’s
Fifth Symphony tonight by @londonsymphony. Just wonderful.
Daniel Shao Greatly enjoyed Mozart and Tchaikovsky
tonight @londonsymphony – two kindred spirits!
HARPS
Bryn Lewis
Ruth Holden
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 15 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.
The Scheme is supported by
Help Musicians UK, The Polonsky Foundation,
Fidelio Charitable Trust, N Smith Charitable
Settlement, Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust, Barbara
Whatmore Charitable Trust and LSO Patrons.
London Symphony Orchestra
Barbican
Silk Street
London
EC2Y 8DS
Performing in tonight’s concert are
Ting-Ru Lai (Viola), Yaroslava Trofymchuck
(Cello) and Salvador Morera Ortells
(Double Bass).
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Ranald Mackechnie, featuring LSO
Members with 20+ years’ service.
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Photography
Ranald Mackechnie, Chris Wahlberg,
Clive Barda
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