STUTZ

Thursday 9 January 2020 7.30–9.45pm

Barbican

LSO SEASON CONCERT

MENDELSSOHN VIOLIN CONCERTO

MANN
Wagner Overture and Venusberg Music
from ‘Tannhäuser’
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto
Interval
Brahms Symphony No 1

Nathalie Stutzmann conductor

Alina Ibragimova violin

6pm Barbican
LSO Platforms: Guildhall Artists
Welcome  News
elcome to tonight’s London
Symphony Orchestra concert at
the Barbican, the first of the new
year. We are delighted to welcome Nathalie
Stutzmann, known to many for her singing,
and increasingly now as a conductor, for
her LSO debut. Her programme tonight
showcases composers from the Romantic
era, opening with extracts from Wagner’s
opera Tannhäuser and concluding with
Brahms’ First Symphony.
It is a great pleasure to welcome back
soloist Alina Ibragimova for Mendelssohn’s
Violin Concerto. Alina Ibragimova is a great
friend of the LSO, making her debut with
the Orchestra in 2007 at the BBC Proms and
joining us regularly on the Barbican stage in
later seasons. Ahead of tonight’s concert,
she gave a recital of music by J S Bach at
2 Welcome
LSO St Luke’s as part of BBC Radio 3’s
‘Bach Up Close’ Lunchtime Concert series.
Thank you to our media partner Classic
FM for recommending this concert to
their listeners, and to the Guildhall School
musicians who performed chamber music
before tonight’s concert. These recitals,
which complement the repertoire in the
LSO’s season, take place throughout the
year and are free to attend.
I hope that you enjoy the performance and
that you will join us again soon. In January
and February, Sir Simon Rattle conducts
a series of concerts bringing together the
music of Alban Berg with Beethoven’s
Seventh and Ninth Symphonies, and the
oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, in
Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year.
Kathryn McDowell CBE DL
Managing Director
LSO STRING EXPERIENCE SCHEME
We are delighted to appoint 14 players to
this year’s LSO String Experience cohort.
Since 1992, the scheme has been enabling
young string players from London’s music
conservatoires to gain experience playing in
rehearsals and concerts with the LSO. They
will join the Orchestra on stage for concerts
in the new year.
LSO DISCOVERY IN TOKYO
In November 2019, LSO players Amanda
Truelove and Robert Turner, and musical
animateur Rachel Leach, visited Tokyo
to lead workshops for young people with
learning disabilities at the British Council in
Japan. Many thanks to All Nippon Airways
for providing flight support.
On Our Blog
WHAT HAPPENS AT AN
LSO SINGING DAY?
On one of the first drizzly Sundays in
autumn, LSO Choral Director Simon Halsey
rehearses Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount
of Olives in a singing day at LSO St Luke’s.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR OUR 2018/19
LSO JERWOOD COMPOSER+ ARTISTS?
We talk to Daniel Kidane and Amir Konjani
about their time as LSO Jerwood Composer+
artists and their future plans, and hear from
incoming composers Hollie Harding and Des
Oliver about their experience so far.
•  Read more at lso.co.uk/blog
WELCOME TO TONIGHT’S GROUPS
We are delighted to welcome
Gerrards Cross Community Association,
Hertford U3A, IES Abroad and
Linda Diggins and Friends to tonight’s
concert.
Please ensure all phones are switched off.
Photography and audio/video recording
are not permitted during the performance.
9 January 2020
Tonight’s Concert In Brief
he Overture and Venusberg Music
from Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser
have been performed as a concert
staple ever since Mendelssohn conducted
them together as a stand-alone piece in
Leipzig in 1846. The work rises to an ecstatic
frenzy – representing the mountain of Venus
– in music that Wagner requested be cut
from theatrical productions, since it was
‘as a prelude to the drama, too much’.
Following this, Alina Ibragimova joins the
Orchestra to play Mendelssohn’s Violin
Concerto, another piece that has enjoyed
huge popularity. What is remarkable about
the piece is its tuneful immediacy combined
with innovations devised by a
people-pleasing Mendelssohn: a down-to-
business opening for solo violin, and the
seamless joining of its movements through
masterful tricks of orchestration.
The final piece is Brahms’ First Symphony,
composed 30 years later. At this time,
there was a widespread view (expressed
by Wagner) that music ought to be about
something other than just music, which is
reflected in Wagner’s music dramas and
Liszt’s symphonic poems. It is an idea
Brahms didn’t subscribe to when writing
his First Symphony. Like Mendelssohn’s
Concerto, Brahms’ Symphony doesn’t refer
Coming Up The LSO at the Barbican
to literature, myth or any other non-musical Wednesday 15 January 6.30pm Sunday 19 January 7pm
topics, but he nevertheless wrote rich, Thursday 13 February  7.30pm
complex and original music that packs an HALF SIX FIX
emotional punch. • BEETHOVEN & BERG RATTLE: BEETHOVEN 250
CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES
PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Berg Seven Early Songs
Beethoven Symphony No 7 Berg Violin Concerto
Alison Bullock is a freelance music writer Beethoven Christ on the Mount of Olives
whose interests range from Machaut to Sir Simon Rattle conductor
Messiaen and beyond. She is a former editor Dorothea Röschmann soprano Sir Simon Rattle conductor
for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Lisa Batiashvili violin
the LSO. Supported by the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Elsa Dreisig soprano
Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican Pavol Breslik tenor
George Hall writes widely on classical music David Soar bass
and especially opera for such publications as London Symphony Chorus
The Stage, BBC Music Magazine, Opera and Simon Halsey chorus director
Opera Now. Thursday 16 January 7.30pm
Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican
Andrew Huth is a musician, writer and RATTLE: BEETHOVEN 250
translator who writes extensively on French, BEETHOVEN & BERG Thursday 30 January 7.30pm
Russian and Eastern European music.
Berg Seven Early Songs NOSEDA: RUSSIAN ROOTS
Andrew Stewart is a freelance music Berg Passacaglia SHOSTAKOVICH NINTH SYMPHONY
journalist and writer. He is the author Berg Three Pieces for Orchestra
of The LSO at 90, and contributes to Beethoven Symphony No 7 Prokofiev Symphony No 1 ‘Classical’
a wide variety of specialist classical Mozart Violin Concerto No 3
music publications. Sir Simon Rattle conductor Mussorgsky Prelude to ‘Khovanshchina’
Dorothea Röschmann soprano Shostakovich Symphony No 9
Part of Beethoven 250 at the Barbican Gianandrea Noseda conductor
Christian Tetzlaff violin
Tonight’s Concert 3
Richard Wagner Overture and Venusberg Music from ‘Tannhäuser’  1845  /  note by George Hall
agner first became interested
in combining elements of two
medieval German legends following
his departure from Paris – where he had
made almost no impression – in 1842. The
resulting narrative linked a competition
between minstrels (or ‘Minnesingers’) at
Wartburg (a medieval castle overlooking
the Thuringian town of Eisenach) around
the year 1207, to the somewhat later figure
of the poet and minstrel Tannhäuser, who
was active 1245–65. The opera’s full title,
in fact, is Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg
auf Wartburg (‘Tannhäuser and the Singing
Competition at Wartburg’).
In Wagner’s libretto, drafted between June
1842 and April 1843, the minstrel, who has
spent some time at the court of Venus
(the ‘Venusberg’, transferred to Germany
following the decline of the Greek gods),
enjoying the delights of sexual love, returns
to Wartburg and duly takes part in the
competition. However. his frank hymn to
love and open admittance of his dalliance
with the pagan goddess lead to his
banishment and subsequent pilgrimage to
Rome to seek absolution.
The overture was the last part of the score
to be completed in April 1845, in preparation
for the work’s successful premiere at the
4 Programme Notes
Royal Theatre in Dresden. It contains two
main thematic elements, opening with the
sturdy, fervent chorale of the pilgrims’ hymn
before being superseded by the restless,
sensuous and exultant music associated
with Tannhäuser’s sojourn in Venus’ realm
of erotic delight; these two elements
alternate throughout.
— ‘Venusberg Music’, which we hear tonight in
‘Venus lies on a couch, the head of the half-kneeling Tannhäuser in her lap.
The whole cave is illuminated by rosy light.’
—
But Wagner was not done with Tannhäuser,
and when a production was arranged at
the Paris Opéra in 1861, he made some
significant revisions, the most important
of which was to extend the Venusberg
sequence that immediately followed the
Overture by adding a ballet – a standard
requirement at this particular theatre.
Traditionally, the ballet would come later
in the score, though Wagner the dramatist
found no use for it there. Thus it was that
he earned the noisy displeasure of sections
of the Parisian audience – particularly the
uncouth members of the Jockey Club, who
dined before the opera and arrived late, thus written though not yet produced. But the
missing the gratification of seeing their voluptuousness of this new music was
favourite ballerinas disporting themselves in not enough to save the production, which
a sequence intended to represent an orgy. received open hostility and was withdrawn
after three performances.
Wagner’s own stage direction gives some
idea of what he visualised: ‘The stage Tannhäuser nevertheless went on to become
represents the interior of the Venusberg … one of Wagner’s most successful works,
In the distant background is a blueish lake; whether in the Dresden, Paris or later
(with a few more changes) Vienna versions.
The overture leading straight into the
the ‘Paris’ version, remains a much-admired
orchestral extract. •
in which naiads are bathing; sirens recline
on its undulating banks. To the extreme left
foreground Venus lies on a couch, the head
of the half-kneeling Tannhäuser in her lap.
The whole cave is illuminated by rosy light.
A group of dancing nymphs appears, joined
gradually by loving couples from the cave.
A train of bacchantes enters from the back
in increasingly wild dance … ’.
Cutting into the final section of the overture
and leading on without a break, Wagner’s
new music for this Venusberg section
was thrillingly erotic, after the manner
of Tristan and Isolde – which was already
9 January 2020
Richard Wagner in Profile 1813–83
funded the building of a new theatre at
Bayreuth exclusively for the performance of
STRING
FLING
Wagner’s works, and the Bayreuth Festival
was launched in 1876. Wagner’s final opera VIOLIN & CELLO CONCERTOS
Parsifal was written specifically for Bayreuth. IN THE 2019/20 SEASON
He died in Venice on 13 February 1883. •

Composer Profile by Andrew Stewart

DVOŘÁK VIOLIN CONCERTO
with Gil Shaham
12 March 2020

BRITTEN VIOLIN CONCERTO

with Vilde Frang
15 March 2020
agner was born on 22 May 1813 in
Leipzig. In 1829, he completed his ELGAR VIOLIN CONCERTO
first instrumental compositions, with Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider
writing the libretto for his first opera Die 29 March 2020
Feen in 1833. In 1839, Wagner moved from
Riga to Paris to escape his creditors, and was LIGETI VIOLIN CONCERTO
living in extreme poverty. with Patricia Kopatchinskaja
26 April 2020
Here, he completed Rienzi and created
The Flying Dutchman, which established BEETHOVEN VIOLIN CONCERTO
his reputation. In the 1850s, he began with Anne-Sophie Mutter
composing his cycle of the four Nibelung 28 May 2020
operas, also completing his opera Tristan
and Isolde. His financial difficulties were Plus Mozart, Stravinsky & more
removed in 1864 by King Ludwig II, a lso.co.uk/201920
dedicated Wagnerite who commissioned
Der Ring des Nibelungen. The king later

Composer Profile 5
Felix Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor Op 64  1838–44  /  note by Alison Bullock
1 Allegro molto appassionato
2 Andante
3 Allegretto non troppo
4 Allegro molto vivace
Alina Ibragimova violin
n 1825, the 16-year-old Felix
Mendelssohn met the 15-year-old
violinist Ferdinand David •; the
two prodigies would become both great
friends and musical partners. Thirteen
years later, in one of his many letters to
the violinist, Mendelssohn mentioned
that he wanted to write a violin concerto
for him; however, it was not until 1843
that he was able to give the work his full
attention, and the work was not completed
until late in 1844. Mendelssohn referred
often to David for advice on matters both
technical and artistic; the violinist made
numerous changes to the concerto, and was
responsible for its unusual combination of
technical feasibility and virtuoso gloss.
The E minor concerto’s enduring popularity
is due in no small part to its ease on the ear,
and so it is easy to forget its innovations.
The immediacy of the first theme is one
example: instead of the usual full orchestral
opening, Mendelssohn has the soloist open
the door on the concerto after barely a bar of
6 Programme Notes
introduction, playing an ardent melody. The
orchestra is allowed to introduce the wistful
second theme before the soloist takes it
over; however, the gentler mood disappears
as suddenly as it came. The central section
opens dramatically, later dissolving into
virtuosic solo figurations that turn out to
be the cadenza (written by David), whose
dancing arpeggios melt away over the
orchestra’s reprise of the main theme.
Mendelssohn, it is said, disliked applause
between movements, and therefore decided
to link the first two movements by way of a
single bassoon note that hangs in the air.
After a brief prologue, the solo violin plays
the movement’s sweet, singing main
melody. The orchestra initiates the more
agitated central section, but the mood here
is one of passion rather than disruption, and
the atmosphere soon returns to the quiet
reverence of the opening.
Once again, Mendelssohn denies the
audience the chance to shuffle in their
seats between the andante and the finale,
creating a bridge passage that refers to the
concerto’s opening theme. An unexpected
brass fanfare heralds carefree arpeggios
in the violin – and suddenly we are carried
headlong into a movement whose technical
wizardry is peppered with flashes of wit.
Throughout this wonderful, delicate flight
of fancy, Mendelssohn introduces new
ideas and melodies. But it is the graceful,
effervescent opening melody that holds the
movement just about under control, bringing
this most inventive yet approachable
concerto to its dancing conclusion. •
A TEENAGE FRIENDSHIP
•  Ferdinand David (1810–73) first met
Mendelssohn while working as a violinist in
Königstadt in 1825. Their relationship was
cemented in 1836 when David took up the
post of Leader for the Gewandhausorchester
Leipzig, where Mendelssohn was the MENDELSSOHN ON LSO LIVE
Kappellmeister. They enjoyed a close
musical partnership through the orchestra, Explore Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s recordings
as collaborators on this Violin Concerto and on LSO Live, including his recent cycle of
in chamber settings, with Mendelssohn Mendelssohn’s symphonies.
joining David at the piano for public and
private performances. LSO Live recordings can be purchased from
the LSO Live website and the Barbican
shop, are available to stream on Spotify,
Apple Music and Primephonic, and can be
downloaded on iTunes and Amazon.
Interval – 20 minutes lsolive.co.uk
There are bars on all levels of the
concert hall; ice cream can be bought
at the stands on Stalls and Circle level.
9 January 2020
Felix Mendelssohn in Profile  1809–47  /  profile by Andrew Stewart

—
‘Even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from
town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God.’
Felix Mendelssohn
—
elix Mendelssohn was the grandson
of the Enlightenment philosopher
Moses Mendelssohn and son of
an influential German banker. Born into a
privileged family, he was encouraged to study
the piano as a boy, learned to draw from his
mother and became an accomplished linguist
and classical scholar. In 1819 he began
composition studies with Carl Friedrich Zelter.
His family’s wealth allowed their home
in Berlin to become a refuge for scholars,
artists and musicians. The philosopher Hegel
and scientist Humboldt were regular visitors,
and members of the Court Orchestra and
eminent soloists were available to perform
the latest works by Felix or his older sister
Fanny. Young Mendelssohn’s twelve string
symphonies were first heard in the intimate
setting of his father’s salon.
Mendelssohn’s maturity as a composer was
marked by his Octet in E-flat major (1825)
and concert overture to Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826). In 1829,
Mendelssohn revived Bach’s St Matthew
Passion exactly 100 years after its first
performance. Soon after, a trip to London
and the Scottish Highlands and nearby
islands inspired the overture The Hebrides. In
1830, he travelled to Italy at the suggestion
of Goethe and while in Rome started his
so-called ‘Scottish’ and ‘Italian’ symphonies.
In 1835, he was appointed conductor of the
Leipzig Gewandhaus, greatly expanding
its repertoire with early music and his own
works, including the E minor Violin Concerto.
Two years later he married Cecile Jeanrenaud
and in 1843 founded the Leipzig Conservatory.
His magnificent biblical oratorio Elijah,
commissioned for and first performed at
the 1846 Birmingham Musical Festival, soon
gained a place alongside Handel’s Messiah
in the hearts of British choral societies and
audiences. He died in Leipzig in 1847. •

Composer Profile 7
Johannes Brahms Symphony No 1 in C minor Op 68  1876  /  note by Andrew Huth
1 Un poco sostenuto – Allegro
2 Andante sostenuto
3 Un poco allegretto e grazioso
4 Adagio – Allegro non troppo ma con brio
ew works have taken so long
in the making as Brahms’ First
Symphony, for its keenly awaited
performance on 4 November 1876 marked
the end of a process that had begun some
20 years earlier. At the time, though, only
Brahms’ closest friends were aware of
this. For the majority of his audience, the
symphony came as a great and important
statement by a composer considered to
be the heir of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,
Schubert and Schumann, and who upheld
the traditional values of ‘pure’ music in the
face of Liszt and of Wagner •, whose Ring
cycle had been staged for the first time
in its entirety just three months earlier at
Bayreuth. But Brahms himself sensibly
avoided musical politics as much as he
could; and whatever the Symphony meant
to his listeners, to the composer himself
its significance was rooted in the troubled
period when, as an unknown 20-year-old,
he had first encountered Robert Schumann
and his wife Clara.
The couple were amazed by the music
the young composer played to them, and
8 Programme Notes
shortly afterwards, Schumann published Once the idea of a symphony had taken root
the famous article that proclaimed Brahms in his mind (and in Clara’s mind, too) there
to be the long-awaited Messiah who would was no turning back. Brahms was good at
bring to fulfilment all the best tendencies covering his tracks, and so we cannot be sure
— Brahms was cautious because he was so
‘You can’t imagine what it is like to have that giant
marching along behind you.’
— by the very highest standards. He
in German music. Within months, however, when he actually began the composition of
Schumann’s mental health collapsed; he what was to become the First Symphony. It
attempted suicide and was confined to an has been suggested that it was as early as
asylum, where he died in 1856. the mid-1850s, although nothing definite is
known of it until 1862, when he sent Clara
In the meantime, Brahms became closely the first movement. But 14 years passed
attached to Schumann’s wife Clara, and much before the work was finally completed, and
of the music from these years expresses the even after the first performance, Brahms
turmoil and stress he suffered on account of made a number of changes to the two
this impossible and unfulfilled relationship. middle movements.
Schumann’s generous tribute made Brahms’
name widely known, but it also had an Brahms was the sort of man who found
intimidating effect, raising expectations outright hostility easier to cope with
that the self-critical young man often than praise. He laughed when Hugo Wolf
doubted he could meet; at the same time, described his symphonies as ‘nauseatingly
it was a challenge he could hardly ignore. stale, profoundly mendacious’; but he felt
In 1854, he began a sonata for two pianos, real annoyance and embarrassment when
which then became the draft of a symphony Hans von Bülow extolled the First Symphony
in D minor before the music was finally as ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’. As late as 1870,
absorbed into the First Piano Concerto and when much of the symphony had been
the German Requiem. composed, he was still protesting to the
conductor Hermann Levi, ‘I shall never write
a symphony. You can’t imagine what
it is like to have that giant [Beethoven]
marching along behind one.’
painfully aware of his mighty predecessor,
and because he knew that any symphony of
his, when it appeared, would be judged
determined not only to produce a work
containing the very best of himself, but
also a work deliberately and consciously
unlike anything that Beethoven might ever
have composed. In fact, the two composers
were profoundly different in character.
Beethoven was consciously creating the
future; Brahms’ often radical innovations
came from resolving the tensions between
past and present. In contrast to Beethoven’s
dynamic striving outwards, the music of
Brahms usually shows a spontaneous
and passionate nature turned in on itself.
Brahms has a richer sound, owing to his
denser orchestral texture, more complex
harmony and tighter integration of musical
motives – but this same richness demanded
from him a rigid control of his material.
All this, and indeed the passionate
strength of the symphony as a whole, is
summed up in the introduction to the first
9 January 2020

movement, which was added at a late stage
of composition. Many of the work’s most
vital ideas are heard here, briefly and in
embryonic form, and it casts its dark shadow
over the main body of the movement. The
two central movements are both lighter and
shorter than their equivalents in Beethoven,
reflecting the lyrical side of Brahms’ nature
that came from Schubert and Schumann.
As a result of this relative lightness, a far
greater weight of expectation is thrown onto
the finale. This was the movement that gave
Brahms the greatest trouble and delayed
the work’s completion for so long, for it was
a formidable task to balance the power of
the opening movement and to resolve the
overall tensions of the symphony.
A year before finishing the symphony,
Brahms completed another work begun in
the 1850s, a turbulent Piano Quartet in the
same key of C minor. It suggests that in
his early forties he had finally determined
once and for all to come to terms with
the emotional drama of his twenties. We
might well wonder whether the change in
his personal appearance at this time – 1876
was also the year that he grew the heavy
grizzled beard that dominates all his later
photographs – was merely coincidental. •
THE WAR OF THE ROMANTICS
In the mid-18th century, a schism formed
between ‘New German School’ composers
Liszt and Wagner, and a group of
‘conservative’ composers represented by
Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann and the
Leipzig conservatoire that had been founded
by Mendelssohn.
Musical structure, programme music
and absolute music were the topics
of contention, and at the heart of the
disagreement was a debate on whether the
symphony was still viable as a genre; in the
works of Beethoven, it had developed from
a musical form meant for entertainment
to one that expressed ideas about
society, morality and culture. For decades
afterwards, the composers who followed
grappled with the question ‘What next?’
Liszt and his circle favoured styles and
forms that blended music with narrative
and visual ideas, whereas Brahms made
the case for the continued relevance of the
utterly musical symphony. Composers from
both sides looked back on Beethoven as a
hero: the conservatives seeing him as an
unsurpassable peak, the progressives as a
new beginning in music.
Johannes Brahms in Profile 1833–97
ohannes Brahms was born
in Hamburg, the son of an
impecunious musician; his mother
later opened a haberdashery business to
help lift the family out of poverty. Showing
early musical promise, he became a pupil of
the distinguished local pianist and composer
Eduard Marxsen and supplemented his
parents’ meagre income by playing in the
bars and brothels of Hamburg’s infamous
red-light district.
In 1853 Brahms presented himself
to Robert Schumann in Düsseldorf,
winning unqualified approval from the
older composer. Brahms fell in love with
Schumann’s wife, Clara, supporting her
after her husband’s illness and death. The
relationship did not develop as Brahms
wished, and he returned to Hamburg; their
close friendship, however, survived.
In 1862 Brahms moved to Vienna where
he found fame as a conductor, pianist and
composer. The Leipzig premiere of his
German Requiem in 1869 was a triumph,
with subsequent performances establishing
Brahms as one of the emerging German
nation’s foremost composers. Following
the long-delayed completion of his First
Symphony in 1876, he composed in quick
succession the Violin Concerto; the two
piano Rhapsodies, Op 79; the First Violin
Sonata and the Second Symphony. His
subsequent association with the
much-admired court orchestra in Meiningen
allowed him freedom to experiment and de­
velop new ideas, the relationship crowned by
the Fourth Symphony of 1884.
In his final years, Brahms composed a
series of profound works for the clarinettist
Richard Mühlfeld, and explored matters of
life and death in his Four Serious Songs. He
died at his modest lodgings in Vienna in
1897, receiving a hero’s funeral at the city’s
central cemetery three days later. •
Composer Profile 9
Nathalie Stutzmann conductor
athalie Stutzmann’s 2019/20
season will be her second as Chief
Conductor of the Kristiansand
Symphony Orchestra in Norway and third
as Principal Guest Conductor of the RTÉ
National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.
Her inaugural concert with the Kristiansand
Symphony Orchestra was chosen as
Norway’s Concert of the Year 2018 by the
Norwegian press. She will also be this
season’s Artist-in-Residence with the
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Nathalie is considered one of the most
outstanding musical personalities of
our time, with parallel careers as a
world-renowned contralto and as a rising
star conductor. Charismatic musicianship,
combined with the rigour, energy and
fantasy that characterise her style. As a
conductor, her core repertoire focuses on the
Romantic era — ranging from Beethoven,
Brahms and Dvořák through to the larger
symphonic forces of Mahler, Strauss,
Tchaikovsky and Wagner — as well as
French Impressionism.
Having begun the season with her BBC
Proms debut, in which she performed
Wagner, Brahms and Mozart with the BBC
National Orchestra of Wales, Nathalie
will also debut with the LSO, Los Angeles
10 Artist Biographies
Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Atlanta rank of Chevalier. She is also a Chevalier de
Symphony Orchestra, and the Bamberger l’ordre national du Mérite and an Officier des
Symphoniker in 2019/20. She also returns to Arts et des Lettres in France. •
the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras,
Rotterdam, Oslo, Royal Liverpool and
Royal Stockholm Philharmonics, and the
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.
Nathalie is also gaining a reputation as
an opera conductor. This season she will
conduct Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades
at La Monnaie in Brussels. She recently
conducted critically acclaimed performances
of Boito’s Mefistofele at the 2018 Chorégies
d’Orange festival in Provence. This followed
an equally noted production of Wagner’s
Tannhäuser (2017) at Monte Carlo Opera.
Nathalie started her studies at a young age
in piano, bassoon and cello, and studied
conducting with the legendary Finnish
teacher Jorma Panula. She was mentored
by Seiji Ozawa and Sir Simon Rattle, who
says, ‘Nathalie is the real thing. So much
love, intensity and sheer technique. We
need more conductors like her.’ In addition
to conducting, Nathalie continues to keep
engagements as a singer, performing song
recitals and concerts with her Stutzmann
Camerata. In January 2019, she was admitted
into the Ordre National de la Légion
d’Honneur (France’s highest honour) at the
9 January 2020
Alina Ibragimova violin
erforming music from across
history on both modern and period
instruments, Alina Ibragimova
has a reputation as one of the most
accomplished and intriguing violinists. This
is illustrated by her prominent presence at
the BBC Proms since 2015: in addition to
concerto performances from the standard
repertoire, her Proms appearances have
included a concert with a Baroque ensemble
and two late-night Royal Albert Hall
recitals featuring Bach’s complete Partitas
and Sonatas, about which The Guardian
commented, ‘The immediacy and honesty
of Ibragimova’s playing has the curious
ability to collapse any sense of distance
between performer and listener.’ In the 2018
BBC Proms, Alina gave the world premiere
of Rolf Wallin’s Violin Concerto with the
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted
by Edward Gardner. 2018/19 saw her focus on
Shostakovich’s Concertos Nos 1 and 2, which
she performed and recorded with Vladimir
Jurowski and the State Academic Symphony
Orchestra of Russia.
This season, Alina has debut engagements
with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Vancouver
Symphony and Barcelona Symphony
Orchestras and will return to the LSO and
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. She also
tours with the Sinfonietta Riga, Ensemble
Resonanz and the Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment with whom she is recording
the three violin concertos by Michael Haydn
for Hyperion Records.
In the 2018/19 season, Alina made her
debut with the Royal Concertgebouw
Orchestra, leading to an immediate repeat
invitation. She also played concertos with
the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen
Rundfunks, Deutsches Symphonie-
Orchester Berlin, Chamber Orchestra of
Europe, London Philharmonic Orchestra,
Swedish Radio Symphony, Royal Stockholm
Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony and the
Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony.
With her long-standing musical partner, the
pianist Cédric Tiberghien, she has performed
highly successful cycles of Beethoven and
Mozart’s Violin Sonatas at Wigmore Hall.
They have also toured to Japan, Korea, North
America and Berlin, giving a debut recital at
the Pierre Boulez Saal. Highlights in their
forthcoming season include appearances at
the Beethovenhaus Bonn and Wigmore Hall,
and touring with the Doric String Quartet.
Alina is also a founding member of the
Chiaroscuro Quartet. Together, the quartet
have toured and recorded extensively since
2005 and have become one of the most
sought-after period ensembles.
Alina’s discography on Hyperion Records
includes 16 albums ranging from Bach to
Szymanowski and Ysaÿe. Her latest release,
featuring Vierne and Franck’s Violin Sonatas
and Ysaÿe’s Poème élégiaque with Cédric
Tiberghien, was referred to as ‘Simply superb
in every way’ by BBC Music Magazine.
An album featuring Brahms’ three Violin
Sonatas was released in October 2019.
Born in Russia in 1985, Alina studied at
Moscow’s Gnessinstate Musical College
before moving with her family to the UK
in 1995, where she studied at The Yehudi
Menuhin School and the Royal College
of Music. She was also a member of the
Kronberg Academy Master programme.
Alina’s teachers have included Natasha
Boyarsky, Gordan Nikolitch and Christian
Tetzlaff. Alina has been the recipient of
awards including the RPS Young Artist
Award 2010, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award
2008, the Classical BRIT Young Performer
of the Year Award 2009 and was a member
of the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme
2005-7. She was made an MBE in the 2016
New Year Honours List. Alina performs on an
Anselmo Bellosio violin kindly provided by
Georg von Opel. •
Artist Biographies 11
London Symphony Orchestra on stage tonight
Leader Second Violins Cellos Flutes Horns Timpani LSO String Experience Scheme
Carmine Lauri David Alberman David Cohen Gareth Davies Timothy Jones Nigel Thomas Since 1992, the LSO String Experience
Sarah Quinn Alastair Blayden Hannah Grayson Angela Barnes Scheme has enabled young string players
First Violins Miya Väisänen Jennifer Brown Alexander Edmundson Percussion from the London music conservatoires at
Ginette Decuyper Matthew Gardner Noel Bradshaw Piccolo Meilyr Hughes Neil Percy the start of their professional careers to gain
Gerald Gregory Naoko Keatley Eve-Marie Sharon Williams David Jackson work experience by playing in rehearsals
Maxine Kwok-Adams Alix Lagasse Caravassilis Trumpets Sam Walton and concerts with the LSO. The musicians
Elizabeth Pigram Csilla Pogany Daniel Gardner Oboes Philip Cobb Jeremy Cornes are treated as professional ‘extra’ players
Claire Parfitt Gordan Mackay Hilary Jones Olivier Stankiewicz Toby Street (additional to LSO members) and receive fees
Harriet Rayfield Belinda McFarlane Amanda Truelove Rosie Jenkins Niall Keatley Harp for their work in line with LSO section players.
Colin Renwick Iwona Muszynska Victoria Harrild Bryn Lewis
Sylvain Vasseur Paul Robson Peteris Sokolovskis Clarinet Trombones The scheme is supported by:
Rhys Watkins Hazel Mulligan Sérgio Pires Helen Vollam The Polonsky Foundation
Richard Blayden Greta Mutlu Double Basses Chi-Yu Mo Anthony Howe Derek Hill Foundation
Eleanor Fagg Erzsebet Racz Sam Loeck Idlewild Trust
Alexandra Lomeiko Colin Paris Bassoons Bass Trombone Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust
Lyrit Milgram Violas Patrick Laurence Daniel Jemison Paul Milner Thistle Trust
Hilary Jane Parker Edward Vanderspar Matthew Gibson Joost Bosdijk
Patrick Savage Gillianne Haddow Thomas Goodman Tuba
Malcolm Johnston Joe Melvin Contra Bassoon Ben Thomson
German Clavijo José Moreira Dominic Morgan
Stephen Doman Gyunam Kim
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at time of going to press.

12 The Orchestra 9 January 2020