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)
