The London Symphony Chorus celebrate its 50th anniversary with Haydn’s ‘nature’ oratorio The Seasons, a stellar cast of international singers and Sir Simon Rattle. The Seasons is divided in to four sections: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter charting a musical year with rousing choruses, a riotous wine tasting with dancing peasants, a loud thunderstorm, even the croaking of frogs. In his old age Haydn achieved fame and fortune in London following visits here in the 1790s. ‘Papa Haydn’ was encouraged to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation, which was performed all over Europe.
LSO: Rattle conducts Christ on the Mount of Olives
In the words of Sir Simon Rattle, Beethoven is “absolutely inescapable”, especially in the year of his 250th anniversary. Nevertheless, Christ on the Mount of Olives is a rarely heard masterpiece and Beethoven’s only oratorio, which combines the emotive force of the composer’s later Missa Solemnis with the theatre of a Bach Passion. With orchestra, chorus and soloists, it tells the story of Jesus’ prayer and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. “What Rattle made clear is that the music is full of life. It is hard to imagine this performance being bettered.” (Financial Times)
LSO Opening Night 2021: Rattle conducts 100 years of British music
Tradition is about the present – and the future – as well as the past. Sir Simon Rattle opens the new season with a concert that spans 100 years of British music. When Ralph Vaughan Williams conceived his Pastoral Symphony, it wasn’t the misty fields of an imaginary England that inspired him. He was in France, on the Western Front – where the sound of a distant trumpet unlocked a vision vast enough to transcend the noise (if not the anguish) of the First World War. But then, British music has never conformed to easy stereotypes. In this opening concert of the new season, Judith Weir reads ancient Taoist poetry, and finds ideas of radical simplicity. Peter Maxwell Davies attends an all-night party (and finds a bracing hangover cure) on his adopted home of Orkney. And because music never stands still, Sir Simon Rattle introduces the world premiere of two movements from a new choral work by Julian Anderson, inspired by the poetry of exile. Not what you might expect … PROGRAM Purcell: Remember not, Lord, our offences; Tippett: Praeludium; Julian Anderson: Two movements from ‘Exiles’ (world premiere); Judith Weir: Natural History; Vaughan Williams: A Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No 3); Maxwell Davies: An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise
LSO: Harry Christophers conducts Haydn’s Creation
Haydn’s The Creation conducted by Harry Christophers with the London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra and an all-star team of soloists in a performance sung in English to mark the 40th anniversary of the Barbican Centre. Out of chaos comes wonder; from darkness, light. Haydn’s oratorio The Creation is more than just a gloriously tuneful retelling of the Book of Genesis. Inspired by Haydn’s visits to London and the optimism of the Enlightenment, it’s a celebration of the act of creativity itself, overflowing with majesty, humour and the joy of life. With its famous depictions of Chaos through the dawning of light to a tawny lion, a flexible tiger and a nimble stag and the great chorus, ‘The Heavens are telling’, the work has been a favourite since its first performance some 224 years ago.
LSO: Gergiev conducts Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette
In this groundbreaking take on William Shakespeare’s bittersweet tragedy, Hector Berlioz combines the playwright’s influence with all the musical drama of Ludwig van Beethoven’s symphonies. PROGRAM Berlioz: Romeo et Juliette, Overture: Benvenuto Cellini