Blissed-out visions of heaven from Mahler and Messiaen: the irrepressible Barbara Hannigan conducts and dreams her way to glory. Olivier Messiaen sends up a prayer, and the skies themselves seem to ring with majestic, multicoloured sounds. Mahler gets inside the mind of a child, in a symphony of blue skies, jangling sleigh bells and sudden, rapturous visions. It’s a wild ride to heaven, and the extraordinary Barbara Hannigan is there to show us the way tonight. As a singer, there’s nothing Hannigan can’t do, and as a conductor she drives straight to the places that other musicians wouldn’t dare. She’s been called ‘an artist who shoots straight for the heart and never misses’, and tonight the LSO’s Artistic Associate conducts a concert charged with wonder. PROGRAM Mahler: Symphony No. 4; Messiaen: L’ascension
LSO: Jonathan Stockhammer conducts Adams, Debussy & Ravel
Sunrises, seascapes and blue Californian skies: it’s all about colour as the LSO presents 20th-century favourites by Ravel, Debussy and John Adams. Dawn breaks in paradise, and in Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé you can hear every flurry of birdsong and glint of dew. Debussy gazes at the English Channel, and hears new worlds of sonic colour. And in 1980s San Francisco, John Adams imagines a supertanker rising from the sea and rocketing into the shining Pacific sky. PROGRAM Adams: Harmonielehre; Debussy: La mer; Ravel: Daphnis and Chloé – Suite No 2
LSO: Sir Simon Rattle conducts Messiaen
Sir Simon Rattle ends his final Barbican concert as LSO Music Director with Messiaen’s mind-blowing Turangalîla-Symphonie – an explosion of passionate emotion and ear-tingling sound.Imagine a starburst of love on a cosmic scale. Now add a colossal orchestra, an unstoppable pianist and a vintage electronic instrument straight out of science fiction, and you’re still not even half-way to imagining Messiaen’s mind-boggling Turangalîla-Symphonie. Betsy Jolas’ music is more understated – but it still packs a tremendous emotional punch. So what happier way for Sir Simon Rattle to bring down the curtain on his years as Music Director of the LSO, before he takes up the role of Conductor Emeritus? He’s joined by two of his oldest musical friends – pianist Peter Donohoe and ondes-martenot player Cynthia Millar – who also happen to be two of Messiaen’s supreme living interpreters. And with a new work from Betsy Jolas, he’s going out as he came in, with one eye fixed confidently on the future.
LSO: Kevin John Edusei conducts Mendelssohn & Schumann
German conductor Kevin John Edusei is regularly praised for the drama and tension that he brings to his music-making, and for his clear sense of architecture and attention to detail. In October 2020 he made his London Symphony Orchestra debut and leads the orchestra in a beautiful performance of the suite from Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Boulanger’s “D’un matin de printemps” and Schumann’s ‘Spring’ Symphony.
LSO: Michael Tilson Thomas & Yuja Wang at Barbican
Yuja Wang and Michael Tilson Thomas perform Rachmaninoff’s popular Second Piano Concerto. Rachmaninoff, destined to be a legendary pianist, found this piece challenging, yet Yuja Wang makes it sound effortless, explaining her global concert success. Michael Tilson Thomas complements her inspiring performance with two heartfelt pieces: a beautiful miniature by Edvard Grieg and the famous Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, promising a remarkable musical experience. PROGRAM Grieg: The Last Spring; Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No 2; Beethoven: Symphony No 5
LSO: Michael Tilson Thomas & Yuja Wang at St. Luke’s
With some artists, just the name suffices. ‘Yuja Wang’s pianism inspires a sense of wonder,’ noted a critic after her Barbican solo. Partnered with Tilson Thomas in Shostakovich’s playful concerto for his teenage son, she’ll sparkle. Tilson Thomas starts with a letter from America, an homage to home by a composer voicing a nation. He then embraces Tchaikovsky’s folk-inspired melodies, blending romance and symphonic genius into a thrilling experience. PROGRAM Copland: Our Town; Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No 2; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 2
LSO: Simon Rattle & Leonidas Kavakos at Barbican
The 2020s meet the 1920s, as Sir Simon Rattle conducts Sibelius, Bartók, and the world premiere of Unsuk Chin’s new Violin Concerto. A new year, and a brand-new masterpiece from Unsuk Chin, the poetic, dazzlingly original musical mind behind the opera Alice in Wonderland. She’s called it Shards of Silence, and it prepares the way for a musical journey back to the 1920s – when Sibelius and Bartók found equally astonishing, equally uncompromising new ways of listening to the world. This is Chin’s second violin concerto. Her first is already a modern classic, and she hadn’t planned to write another – but when she heard the playing of Leonidas Kavakos, she broke her own rule. Naturally, he’s the soloist for tonight’s world-premiere performance, and since history demands context (even while you’re making it) Sir Simon Rattle completes the programme with Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony and Bartók’s brutal, brilliant Miraculous Mandarin Suite. PROGRAM: Chin: Violin Concerto No 2 (workd premiere); Sibelius: Symphony No 7; Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin – Suite
LSO: Gardiner conducts Mozart & Tchaikovsky
Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts Symphony No 2 from the great Tchaikovsky and incidental music from Schubert’s Rosamunde. He is joined on stage by Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires who performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 27. PROGRAM Schubert: Entr’acte Nos. 2 & 3 from ‘Rosamunde’; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27: Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 ‘Little Russian’
LSO: Nathalie Stutzmann conducts Brahms & Beethoven
Nathalie Stutzmann dives deep into the dark heart of 19th century music, with storm-swept thrillers by Beethoven, Brahms and Franck. The stars shine most brightly when the night is at its darkest. Brahms stares tragedy in the face in his final symphony: music that wrestles beauty and hope from a lifetime of sorrow. Beethoven finds poetry among the shadows, in his moody Third Piano Concerto. And César Franck gallops through the night in a wild, supernatural sonic thriller. We’re going to hell and back – hold on tight! Nathalie Stutzmann’s concerts with the LSO always bring out the drama and emotion of romantic music, repertoire that she lives and breathes. In her own words, to inspire people, “you have to be the incarnation of the music you have in your heart.” PROGRAM Franck: Le chasseur maudit; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3; Brahms: Symphony No. 4
LSO: Gardiner conducts Schumann & Mendelssohn
Sir John Eliot Gardiner leads a journey through the Romanticism of Weber, Mendelssohn and Schumann. The Overture to Weber’s grand opera Euryanthe, which has taken on a life of its own in the concert hall, is a window onto some of the most exciting moments of the whole work. Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout then present Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin and Piano, which elegantly balances a measure of Classical restraint against rich and Romantic displays of feeling. We close with Schumann’s Third Symphony. One of the composer’s most impressive, it paints a euphoric picture of the German Rhineland in broad Beethovenian style, closing with an exhilarating finale. PROGRAM Weber: Euryanthe Overture; Mendelssohn: Concerto for violin and piano; Schumann: Symphony No 3