George's comment on the 41 Hours post, asking about the LPO programming for the 08-09 season, is timely. He wants to know why Vladimir Jurowski has scheduled works he's conducted recently such as the Tchaikvsoky Pathetique and the Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances.
I may be closish to my orchestra-in-law (does this make Vladimir my principal-conductor-in-law?) but I'm not privy to their decision-making processes. In the speeches at the launch, however, Vladimir and MD Tim Walker announced that one important theme in the season will be Tchaikovsky, the influences upon him and his influence on his successors. I guess you can't do that without those two works. The crucial thing, it seems, is hearing them in a different context, coming to the music from an alternative vantage point that can change the way you listen to it.
But if you think that the new season will only be about repeating war-horses, you'd better think again, fast. Here is a selection of VJ's other Festival Hall programmes:
24 September (season opening):
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.8
Mark-Anthony Turnage: Mambo, Blues and Tarantella - Violin Concerto (world premere) (with Christian Tetzlaff)
Ligeti: Atmospheres
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
27 September
Strauss: Metamorphosen
Hartmann: Gesangsszene (with Matthias Goerne)
Brahms: Symphony No.2
25 October
Tchaikovsky: Iolanta (complete, concert performance)
18 February
Vladimir Martynov: Vita Nuova (world premiere of complete opera)(with Tatiana Mongarova and Mark Padmore)
Martynov says: 'Dante's Vita Nuova is not a text about love. It is a text about text about love. Likewise, my opera Vita Nuova is not just an opera. It is an opera about the history of opera as the most important genre in European culture. It goes back even beyond the earliest operas to reveal the genre's historical prototype - a medieval miracle, but dressed in the alluring beauty of high-Romantic operatic language'.
22 April
Kancheli: Another Step
Yusupov: Cello Concerto (UK premiere)
Silvestrov: Symphony No.5
31 May
Mahler: Totenfeier
Mendelssohn: Symphony No.5
Torsten Rasch: Mein Hernz brennt (UK Premiere)
7 comments:
Oh my, that is exciting stuff, is it not. Harking back to an earlier post, I remain sceptical as to whether you could get approval of such a season on this side of the pond.
On a tangent, there is one work I would most like to hear JW conduct: Bach's Christmas Oratorio. Not at all what might immediately leap to most people's minds, but, after noting that he has a performance of it scheduled in Moscow, I discovered that it was one of his desert island discs, and also that he listed it as one of five 'inspirations', musical and literary, in an interview in the Guardian. As it keeps cropping up like that, and as it's a work very dear to me, it makes me mighty curious as to what he would do with it and why it is so obviously special for him.
Intriguing! He has an association with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment [why do I always mistype that name as 'Englishment' the first time...] and may be more likely to schedule Bach with them than with the LPO, though I can't be sure. If I ever have a chance to find out, I will do so - but it may take a while!
Well, I certainly don't mean to speak ill of Mr. Jurowski and his programming choices, since he is a very intelligent man and has very good reasons for devising his programs. I guess I'm one of those who doesn't want to see the same pieces recur every season, or every other season. I'm wondering if the same programming effect could have been achieved with Tchaikovsky 5, or Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 1, the latter of which certainly doesn't get heard that much. (Amazing how much mileage SR got out of the Dies irae in that one, even more than usual.) Clearly, programming context matters.
I'm thrilled, vicariously, that VJ is conducting RVW's 8th Symphony with the LPO. Opportunities on this side of the pond to hear Vaughan Williams symphonies are either slim or none. I have heard somewhere that the Proms will feature 6 of VW's symphonies this coming summer.
VJ is planning quite a bit of RVW for the future. He's a big fan.
Chacun a son gout.
Re the Bach again, apparently VJ has definitely not scheduled it for his OAE slots. For the time being, enthusiasts may just have to go to Moscow!
I'm a great fan of RVW myself, so bully for Mr. Jurowski that he plans more of VW's music down the line, although he'll have something to compete against with the 2-concert RVW blowout by the Philharmonia and Hickox next season. Speaking of RVW 8, I just got hold of the old video with Boult leading the LPO in RVW 8 from the 1972 RVW centenary celebration concert at the Royal Festival Hall; looking fwd to seeing that.
Ah but! You've all missed the most important. Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Gesangsszene is almost the most wonderful thing this amazing composer ever wrote, a brilliant, blistering masterpiece left (slightly) unfinished at his death. F-D did the first perf. It'll be fantastic to hear Goerne do it; I don;t think he has recorded it and I hope he does - this concert should really alert people to KAH's genius....
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