Bernstein: Symphony No. 2, ‘The Age of Anxiety’ – programme note (LSO)

Bernstein: Symphony No. 2, ‘The Age of Anxiety’ – programme note (LSO)

Bernstein was a composer interested in juxtaposition – between the epic and the everyday, the classical and the vernacular. West Side Story sees Shakespeare removed to New York’s urban jungle. The Chichester Psalms sets ancient Hebrew texts to tunes from an abandoned Broadway musical. A symphony inspired by ‘The Age of Anxiety’ is another case in point. W. H. Auden’s Pulitzer-prize winning poem resets the tradition of a shepherd’s dialogue, or ‘eclogue’, by recounting the wartime reflections of four strangers who meet in a New York bar. Bernstein – a fan of Auden’s since at least his late teens – read the poem in 1947, the year it was published, and immediately saw musical potential.

Bach/Kurtág and Schubert – programme note (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

Bach/Kurtág and Schubert – programme note (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

There is a long tradition of transcribing J. S. Bach’s organ music for piano. Franz Liszt was one of the first to do so – part of the Romantic-era ‘rediscovery’ of Bach that saw many thousands of performances and reinterpretations of the German master’s music. György Kurtág, who turned 100 in February, began transcribing Bach in the 1970s for himself and his wife, Márta, to perform. Their joint recitals became the stuff of legend, famous for their intimate atmosphere, often given on an upright piano with the soft ‘practise’ pedal permanently depressed.

Rebecca Clarke: A Musical Odyssey – programme note (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

Rebecca Clarke: A Musical Odyssey – programme note (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

We have an American philanthropist to thank for not one but two of the works featured today. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge was the money behind 1919’s Berkshire Chamber Music Festival Competition, which promised $1,000 for the best new work for viola and piano. Famously the jury couldn’t choose between two entries – Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata and Ernest Bloch’s Suite – so Coolidge had to cast the deciding vote. She plumped for the latter but was clearly smitten with both, and later commissioned Clarke’s Rhapsody for cello and piano. The Viola Sonata is easily Clarke’s best-known work. It instantly won admirers both in the USA and the UK, and it remains a popular concert piece today.

Vers la vie nouvelle – programme note (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

Vers la vie nouvelle – programme note (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

The common thread linking each of the composers featured in today’s concert is Nadia Boulanger. Born into Parisian musical royalty in 1887, Boulanger became one of the 20th-century’s most influential composition teachers. Her sister, Lili, was an early pupil but died at just 24, leaving a precious collection of works that Nadia championed throughout her life.

A Selection of Waltzes by Chopin – programme note (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

A Selection of Waltzes by Chopin – programme note (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

Chopin was raised on the so-called ‘brilliant style’ of pianism heard in the salons and dance halls of his hometown, Warsaw. Here the waltz reigned supreme as the dance à la mode. It was foreign, exciting, flirtatious even, demanding sustained eye contact and a tight embrace. For the teenage Chopin it encompassed all that was lighthearted and playful in music-making, which goes some way to explaining his skepticism of the genre.

Ligeti: Lontano – programme note (LSO)

Ligeti: Lontano – programme note (LSO)

When György Ligeti was a child he had a recurring dream. In it, a vast network of tangled fibres hung around his bed; even the smallest movement would cause the whole structure to shudder and pulsate. Related many years later, this core memory has become a popular analogy for what the composer called ‘micropolyphony’ – music made up of many individual lines, each moving at different speeds and by varying degrees, combining to create a shimmering cluster of sound …

Mozart, Rihm and Schubert: Piano Four Hands (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

Mozart, Rihm and Schubert: Piano Four Hands (LSO St Luke‘s Spotlight)

Both Mozart and Schubert were fond of four-hands piano music. As children, Mozart and his sister Nannerl would perform duets on their tours of aristocratic Europe, while Schubert’s first surviving work – written when he was 13 – is a four-hands Fantasy. Later in life each would contribute handsomely to the genre, composing works that far outshone the domestic role it had traditionally occupied …

Stravinsky: Divertimento from The Fairy’s Kiss – programme note (LSO)

Stravinsky: Divertimento from The Fairy’s Kiss – programme note (LSO)

Stravinsky was one of the 20th century’s great tastemakers. His new works generallycame as a surprise – and few more so than The Fairy’s Kiss, a ballet based on music by Tchaikovsky. The Romantic master was, at the time, firmly old hat. He seemed to embody all that Modernist Stravinsky eschewed: decadence, lyricism, sentimentality. And yet, when the work was unveiled at the Paris Opéra – performed by former Ballet Russes dancer Ida Rubinstein’s new company – it eluded these criticisms. Stravinsky, it seems, had taken the old hat and made it vintage …

Márton Illés: Vont-tér – programme note and profile (LSO)

Márton Illés: Vont-tér – programme note and profile (LSO)

Vont-tér is one of several recent pieces by Márton Ellés to spotlight a string instrument. At its core is the idea of taking the physicality of string playing to its extreme – exploring, across 15 minutes of splintered, explosive gestures, the instrument’s infinite timbral possibilities, while also avoiding what Ellés calls the ‘sweetly saturated and often overused string sound’ …

Messiaen: Hymne – programme note and profile (LSO)

Messiaen: Hymne – programme note and profile (LSO)

No matter the genre, the declared purpose of Messiaen’s music remained consistentthroughout his life: to manifest the doctrines of his deeply held Catholic faith. The Hymne is one of a sequence of early-career orchestral works inspired by these doctrines …

Thomas Adès: The Origin of the Harp for chamber orchestra – programme note (LSO)

Thomas Adès: The Origin of the Harp for chamber orchestra – programme note (LSO)

Composers have been revisiting their own material since time immemorial. For some (Handel, J. S. Bach) this was for practical reasons. For others (Brahms, Bruckner) revisions were borne of a relentless perfectionism. For Thomas Adès it was both nostalgia and curiosity that brought him back to The Origin of the Harp: ‘I wanted for some time to make a new orchestration of it for a more traditional orchestra, as the original ensemble [three clarinets, three violas, three cellos and percussion] is quite tricky to assemble, and also I was very interested to discover how to translate the music acoustically to a traditional orchestral structure.’

Thomas Adès: Aquifer – programme note (LSO)

Thomas Adès: Aquifer – programme note (LSO)

For Thomas Adès, an aquifer is analogous to the way a composer steers a musical impulse. The strength and direction of groundwater, flowing beneath us, is dictated by geology – layers of rock with varying degrees of permeability. So must musical material be channelled through a series of compositional tools: structure, harmony, orchestration and so on. It is from this process that Aquifer gets its title – representing a kind of inverse programme, in which the music informs the subject. Here, Adès enlists the full gamut of his considerable compositional technique to steer, contain and ultimately unleash a musical wave.

Freddie Mercury: profile (BBC Proms)

Freddie Mercury: profile (BBC Proms)

The musical achievements of Freddie Mercury – one of the best-known and biggest-selling bands that this country has produced – are inextricably linked to those of Queen. It was as Queen’s frontman that Mercury wrote and performed his greatest compositions, at the same time honing an infectious, outrageous stage persona that reached its pinnacle in the mid-1980s – most famously at Wembley Stadium’s 1985 Live Aid concert, which was broadcast globally to an estimated 1.5 billion people across 150 countries.

Shostakovich: A Guide to the Symphonies (LSO)

Shostakovich: A Guide to the Symphonies (LSO)

It is hard not to map biographical meaning onto Shostakovich’s music. His extraordinary life invites it. As do his own (often conflicting) comments. The symphonies in particular offer us a tantalising glimpse into his psyche – his complex relationship with the Soviet regime, his life as a member of a very precarious elite. Wavering between wild energy, wry humor and haunting desolation, they are a rich source of inference and contradiction. But, more than any of that, they demonstrate his utter devotion to music. He simply had to compose, even when the world around him was falling to pieces.

Wynton Marsalis: Symphony No. 4, ‘The Jungle’ – programme note (LSO)

Wynton Marsalis: Symphony No. 4, ‘The Jungle’ – programme note (LSO)

New York City: ‘the most fluid, pressure-packed and cosmopolitan metropolis the modern world has ever seen’, according to Wynton Marsalis. And he should know, having lived there on and off since 1979, when he arrived from New Orleans to study at the Juilliard School. Tapping into this near-40-year relationship, in 2016 the New York Philharmonic commissioned Marsalis to write a work on ‘New York-inspired themes’ for its 175th-anniversary season. The result, a sprawling, 65-minute symphony subtitled ‘The Jungle’, pays loving homage to the city, capturing its melting-pot culture and frenetic energy across six movements.