LSO Discovery

With his face on the 100-mark note and a holiday in his honour, Jean Sibelius is perhaps Finland’s most famous figure. He wrote seven fantastic symphonies before retiring from public life at age 60 claiming that he could never write anything better. Then, despite living for another 30 years, he barely wrote another note. In 1903, Sibelius wrote the incidental music to a play by his brother-in-law. The play was called Kuolema (Death). Sibelius then revised the music into several stand-alone pieces and suites, the most famous of which is the ever-popular Valse Triste. Canzonetta (otherwise known as Rondino der Liebende or Lover’s Rondo) is another gentle and gorgeous slow waltz and deserves to be much better known.

_{Note by Rachel Leach}

Bohdana Frolyak is a Ukrainian composer of many works for orchestra, choir and chamber ensembles. In 1991, she graduated in Composition from Lviv Conservatory where she is currently a lecturer in the Faculty of Musical Composition. She has participated in many contemporary music festivals in Ukraine and in wider Europe.

Lux Aeterna, for string quartet and strings, was written especially for the Ukrainian Szymanowski Quartet and the Academia Lviv Chamber Orchestra. It premiered in 2011 at the international festival Szymanowski Quartet and Friends, held in Lviv. Combining string quartet with strings is fairly unusual, given the timbral similarities between these two forms. In this piece, however, Frolyak strives to present the quartet as a separate solo instrument, which organically interacts with the orchestra. The orchestra doesn’t simply carry out the role of accompaniment, but acts at one level with the quartet, forming one whole thematic and textural palette. To Frolyak, the performance of this piece today is symbolic, at a time when the world and Ukraine especially is experiencing the damaging effects of conflict.

_{Note by Bohdana Frolyak and Alice Manning}

Sergei Prokofiev began piano lessons aged three and was writing music almost before he could write words. He completed his first opera at age nine and entered the St Petersburg Conservatoire three years later eventually studying orchestration with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Prokofiev's early music was regarded as extremely modernist and avant-garde but now, looking back over those early works, audiences find a quirky mix of the old and the new. His Sonata for Two Violins in C Op 56 was written during a holiday near St Tropez in 1932. It is simpler and more lyrical than his works to date and we now see that it points at the direction he was increasingly going to take. Today we will hear the first movement, described by Prokofiev’s son as lyrical.

_{Note by Rachel Leach}

Abeyance is an impromptu based on an improvised solo from a concert of Lauri Porra’s group Flyover Ensemble. The piece appears in recorded form on Porra's album Dust and was later arranged for orchestra to be part of Flyover Symphony for orchestra and electric ensemble. The version for this concert has been rearranged from the latter version to fit a smaller string section. The title Abeyance, a state of temporary disuse or suspension, hints at the form of the piece which follows the same harmonic sequence over and over again until disappearing in nothingness without a clear resolve.

_{Note by Lauri Porra}

The two pieces from Porra in this concert are both based on solo performance – one on the electric bass and one on cello, which was Porra’s first instrument. The pieces will be performed back-to-back in the concert, and have been chosen specifically to the theme of the concert. We lie down, only to get up again represents the hope of a better tomorrow and to remind us that all things will pass, and the sun will rise again. This piece for cello soloist and ensemble starts with a solo cello intro which is joined later by the other players in a celebration of the rise of a new day. The piece appears originally as the last movement on Lauri's Cabins and Hideouts suite.

_{Note by Lauri Porra}

LSO String Ensemble

First Violins
Tom Norris (LSO Co-Principal Second Violin)
Maxine Kwok
William Melvin
Harriet Rayfield
Sylvain Vasseur

Second Violins
Ellie Fagg
David Ballesteros
Alix Lagasse
Iwona Muszynska
Miya Väisänen

Violas
Malcolm Johnston (LSO Sub-Principal Viola)
Claire Maynard
Steve Doman
Robert Turner

Cellos
Eve-Marie Caravassillis
Jennifer Brown
Laure Le Dantec

Double Basses
Matthew Gibson
Jani Pensola

About the London Symphony Orchestra

At the London Symphony Orchestra we strive to inspire hearts and minds through world-leading music-making. We were established in 1904, as one of the first orchestras shaped by its musicians.

Through inspiring music, a world-leading learning and community programme and technological innovations, our reach extends far beyond the concert hall.

Friday 20 May 12.30pm

Guildhall Orchestral Artistry

Guildhall School’s Orchestral Artistry programme is an exciting professional specialism for advanced instrumentalists seeking a career in orchestral playing, delivered in association with the LSO. Seven players from the current cohort perform music by composers including Ravel and Valerie Coleman in a concert of great contrasts and variety

Rachel Leach presenter