London Philharmonic Orchestra

The Chevalier

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Chevalier
The life and music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Concert Threatre Works
St Martin-in-the-Fields. 21 March 2023


The composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) has been having a well-deserved resurgence in recent years with several performances of his music, generally from period instrument orchestras. This “unique piece of concert theatre” from Bill Barclay’s Concert Theatre Works at St Martin-in-the-Fields contrasted episodes from Bologne’s eventful life with extracts from his music from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Matthew Kofi Waldren, with Braimah Kanneh-Mason as the violin soloist. The very sparse programme note was nothing more than an advertising flyer (view here) and gave precious little information. It did bill it as a “concert version”, although it looked pretty well staged to me. I gather it was a reduced version of a show that was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, premiered and toured in the USA and was first performed in the UK at the Snape Maltings on 19 March.

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LPO: 2001 New Century, New Sounds

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

2001: New Century, New Sounds
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski
Royal Festival Hall, 8 February 2020

Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C major
Péter Eötvös: Snatches of a Conversation for trumpet, speaker and ensemble
Scriabin: Symphony No. 2 in g minor

The first concert of London Philharmonic Orchestra’s fascinating 2020 Vision project celebrated Beethoven’s 250th birthday with “a conversation between the past, the present and the future of music”. Their opening programme contrasted pieces from 1801, Subsequent programmes over the next few months will cover successive years in each of the three centuries. They opened with an adventurous programme of Beethoven, Scriabin and Péter Eötvös. Although Beethoven’s 1st Symphony was published in 1801, compositional sketches go back to 1795, and it was first performed the year earlier in April 1800 in the Hoftheater nächst der Burg in Vienna. It was something of a calling-card for Beethoven who had only recently arrived in Vienna. But it made an excellent start to the LPO’s New Century, New Sounds series of concerts. Continue reading →

LPO Isle of Noises: Handel & Purcell

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Isle of Noises
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The Schütz Choir, Sir Roger Norrington
Royal Festival Hall, 30 January 2019

Handel: Suites from The Water Music 
Purcell: Dido and Aeneas

The London Philharmonic Orchestra opened their year-long series Isle of Noises (a celebration of British music) with a concert that, by all the normal conventions of concert programming over the past 50 years or so, shouldn’t have happened. Since the early music period-instrument revolution, and as the pioneering work of the early period specialists took root, most traditional orchestras took fright and stopped performing any music from Mozart or before. Gone were the days of a Mozart concerto opening a concert that would finish with Mahler. In recent years, some of those same early music specialists have enthused modern instrument players and orchestras, by far the most prominent being Sir Roger Norrington, perhaps most notably for his work with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Continue reading →

Enescu: Oedipe

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Georga Enescu: Oedipe
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski
Choir of the George Enescu Philharmonic, Romanian Radio Children’s Choir
Royal Festival Hall, 23 September 2017

A pupil of Faure and a teacher of Yehudi Menuhin, the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu occupied a key, but usually overlooked, position in the musical world of the first half of the last century, a time of musical experimentation that he, by and large, avoided. Oedipe was his only opera and has been largely forgotten since its first performance in 1936 in Paris. It took him around 2o years to write. According to Menuhin, he kept the score by his bed so that he could jot down ideas easily.

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Unusually amongst the many tellings of the Oedipus myth, Enescu covers the whole of Oedipus’s life, from birth to apparent death. Edmond Fleg’s libretto (much reduced from his original version, which would have entailed an opera spanning two evenings) draws on Oedipus Rex for Act 3 and uses part of the plot of Oedipus at Colonus for Act 4.  Continue reading →

LPO: Haydn’s Creation

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Haydn: The Creation
London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir, Sir Roger Norrington
Royal Festival Hall. 4 February 2017

This continuation of the Southbank ‘Belief and Beyond Belief’ series of concerts featured Joseph Haydn’s 1798 Creation. As with two of the pieces in the previous London Philharmonic Orchestra concert (reviewed here), it focussed on the beginning of the world, in this case as depicted in the late Bronze Age writings of the Old Testament. Haydn once said that when he thought of God he could write only cheerful music, and this is evident in his often seemingly irreverent take on God’s creation. Sir Roger Norrington has a similar twinkle in his eye, and was an ideal conductor for Haydn’s often (but perhaps not always intentionally) amusing moments.

As well as his pioneering work in the interpretation of music of earlier times, Norrington is also an enthusiastic supporter of audiences. He has a winning way, which he used on this occasion for another of his themes – applause. Continue reading →

LPO: Rebel, Milhaud, Adams

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Belief and beyond Belief: Rebel, Milhaud, Adams
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski
Royal Festival Hall, 28 January 2017

Jean-Féry Rebel: Simphonie nouvelle – Les élémens 
Darius Milhaud: La Création du monde
John Adams: Harmonielehre

During 2017, the Southbank Centre and the London Philharmonic Orchestra are presenting the ‘Belief and Beyond Belief’ festival, “exploring what it means to be human” through “the music, art, culture, science, philosophy, ritual and traditions that have risen out of religion in its many guises”.  The link between those aspirations and the music heard in this concert was perhaps a little vague, but nonetheless this was an adventurous bit of programming from the LPO and Vladimir Jurowski, drawing together three completely different musical worlds (French baroque, 1920s jazz-era Paris and 1980s America) involving, in effect, three different orchestras. If there was a theme, it was perhaps the way that three very different composers tried to draw inspiration from apparent chaos. Rebel starts by depicting the chaos of the beginning of the world, as understood by 18th century cosmology; Milhaud combined creation myths with the seemingly chaotic world of 1920s Paris jazz; while Adams moved himself out of a creative block created by the chaotic post-Schoenberg clash between musical minimalism and complexity. Continue reading →