Voice of taxi driver: Where to?
Female passenger: Carnegie Hall, please.
[background noise]
Voice of box office: Okay, here are your tickets. Enjoy the show.
Voice of usher: Your tickets, please. Follow me.
Jeff Spurgeon: In New York City, there are lots of ways to get to Carnegie Hall. A subway, a taxi, perhaps a walk down 57th Street. You've just found another way to get to America's most famous home for classical music. Welcome to Carnegie Hall Live, the broadcast series that gives you a front-row seat to concerts by some of the greatest artists in the world. You hear the performances exactly as they happen. You are part of the audience sharing the experience of music-making at Carnegie Hall. Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon, alongside John Schaefer.
John Schaefer: Just a few yards away from us on stage are the members of the London Symphony Orchestra, the LSO, as they like to call themselves. Incredibly, this is their first performance at Carnegie Hall in 20 years. They've been here in New York, up a few blocks away at Lincoln Center, and for their hotly anticipated Carnegie return, they have brought with them their new chief conductor, Sir Antonio Pappano, who is no stranger to Carnegie Hall. Jeff, he was here in 2017-
Jeff Spurgeon: Yes, that's right.
John Schaefer: -with the Roman Group, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Jeff Spurgeon: Yes, he's director emeritus at that. Of course, he spent a lot of time in the Opera House, too. In 2019, Pappano was here with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America for a performance here at Carnegie. Then he took that youth orchestra around Europe. Musicians 16 to 19 years of age from around the United States. It's a group that gathers annually here in New York and then takes a major tour with a great conductor. You'll always hear them broadcast, too, on this Carnegie Hall Live series.
John Schaefer: Antonio Pappano tonight is conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, as we said, with the superstar pianist Yunchan Lim. Lim won the prestigious Van Cliburn competition in 2022. Last year, he sold out his debut recital here in the big hall at Carnegie. He will be joining the LSO to play Rachmaninoff's Evergreen Piano Concerto No. 2. We'll hear that in the first half of the program. Then in the second half, something that we don't hear that often, William Walton's Symphony No. 1, which was written in the early 1930s, and the LSO actually premiered that piece before it was even finished. We'll hear more about that later.
Jeff Spurgeon: Now, as we mentioned, Antonio Pappano is the new music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, but he has had, actually, many occasions to work with them over the years. He told us about the first time he conducted them at a recording of Puccini's opera La rondine. He said it was an overwhelming experience.
Antonio Pappano: It was like this Ferrari taking off. It was quite amazing. They have this internal combustible energy. It's linked to an excitement about making music, to a professionalism that is only British because of the history of British music making and the lack of rehearsals in the old days. All of these guys are crack sight readers. There's a quickness of response in every way. Spontaneity. Of course. I come from the opera and so you add in maybe what I bring in terms of cantabilita, the singing quality, which is so important for me, and then narrative quality, which is so important. We're developing all that together now that I'm working more deeply with them. It's a wonderful, wonderful journey.
John Schaefer: Now, if you're having trouble figuring out Antonio Pappano's accent, there's a good reason for that. He was born in London to Italian parents. Grew up at least in part here in the United States.
Jeff Spurgeon: Yes, spent a lot of time in Connecticut. That's the Connecticut Continental Accent.
John Schaefer: He is the new music director of the London Symphony Orchestra and will be starting the program with the Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, an iconic, well-loved piece which has had its share of moments in pop culture as well. It was featured in the movie The 7-Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell. Eric Carmen "borrowed" it for his pop song All By Myself. You may also recognize one of the melodies from the song Full Moon and Empty Arms recorded by Frank Sinatra.
[MUSIC - Frank Sinatra: Full Moon and Empty Arms]
Full moon and empty arms
The moon is there for us to share
But where are you? A night like this
Could weave a memory
And every kiss
John Schaefer: That is Frank Sinatra. Now, take away the voice and you have one of the melodies from this Rachmaninoff piano concerto. Jeff, we've told this story before. It's a pretty well-known tale. Rachmaninoff was in a deep depression after the disastrous premiere of his first symphony. The conductor, the composer Nikolai Alexander Glazunov was allegedly drunk during the performance. The piece was panned and for several years, Rachmaninoff couldn't write anything.
Jeff Spurgeon: Yes, very difficult for him. Finally, his mother-- It's always your mother, isn't it? Suggested that he try hypnotherapy. It worked so well that he dedicated the next composition that he completed to his therapist, Dr. Nikolai Dahl. That work is what we are going to hear in just a couple of minutes, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. It was a huge success. It established Rachmaninoff's reputation as a composer in Russia and it, of course, continued to be programmed all the time all over the world. It's such a great work.
John Schaefer: Our pianist tonight is Yunchan Lim. He was the youngest performer at the age of 18 to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition where he played not the No. 2, but the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3. That was back in 2022, and since then he has been a sought-after soloist around the world. The conductor Marin Alsop, who actually led the Van Cliburn finals, said of him, "Yunchan is that rare artist who brings profound musicality and prodigious technique organically together."
Jeff Spurgeon: The YouTube capture of that performance has had more than 16 million views and the New York Times listed it as one of the top 10 classical performances in the year 2022. Now, John and I are backstage at Carnegie Hall. The LSO out on stage and the stage door has just opened for concertmaster Andrej Power to go out. It was Cellerina Park just a moment ago who tuned the orchestra on stage. Now the concertmaster makes his entrance. This is a sold-out house at Carnegie Hall tonight. Demand for tickets for this performance was extremely great.
It's just about to begin. There they go. Pianist Yunchan Lim and conductor Antonio Pappano. The London Symphony Orchestra on their feet to greet this sold-out house at Carnegie Hall. We open this concert by the London Symphony Orchestra making their return to New York to Carnegie Hall for the first time in 20 years. It's going to be the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2. now live from Carnegie Hall.
[MUSIC - Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2]
[applause]
John Schaefer: From Carnegie Hall live, the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2. Always a crowd pleaser, but especially this performance featuring the young star South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antonio Pappano. No sooner were the final notes playing and still ringing out in the hall, then Yunchan Lim was up off the piano bench and hugging Antonio Pappano.
Jeff Spurgeon: It looked like an honestly paternal embrace that Pappano gave this young pianist who is not quite 21 years of age.
John Schaefer: Not even old enough to have a beer after this performance.
Jeff Spurgeon: Not yet.
John Schaefer: Not until later this month.
Jeff Spurgeon: Nobody doesn't deserve a beer after playing the rock too.
John Schaefer: This is Rachmaninoff. It's virtuosic. It's spiked with difficulty and yet Yunchan Lim's playing sounds so effortless.
Jeff Spurgeon: Yes. He doesn't over-pedal. He's not overpedaling on this piece. The clarity of the notes is just really something. Bouquet of flowers handed up on stage to Yunchan Lim, who is applauding quite enthusiastically the members of the London Symphony Orchestra. A number of the audience members are on their feet as well. We told you this was a sold-out concert tonight. This is a young pianist who is a phenomenon and who has enormous quantities of fans and no surprise for a virtuoso as accomplished as he is and as young as he is.
John Schaefer: Bows at center stage for Antonio Pappano and Yunchan Lim, the conductor also pointing to individual soloists who had important roles to play in that Rachmaninoff piano Concerto No. 2, full of familiar melodies. The members of the LSO in their first performance at Carnegie Hall in 20 years remaining out on stage. They are seated, and you can tell by the audience response that Yunchan Lim is back out on stage, seated at the piano and we're going to get an encore.
[MUSIC - Yunchan Lim: Franz Liszt's Petrarch sonnet No. 104]
[applause]
Jeff Spurgeon: That's how you put a Carnegie Hall audience in the palm of your hands. Pianist Yunchan Lim, after a wild ovation for that Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, he returned to the Carnegie Hall stage for a performance of one of Franz Liszt's Petrarch sonnets, as they're called. The house was hushed. John, I heard so many, not echoes but ancestral sounds of the Rachmaninoff in that list work.
John Schaefer: Absolutely, yes. For a composer who was known for fiery displays of virtuosity at the keyboard. Liszt also created a lot of works that had a more romantic and even contemplative sound. Certainly, the three Petrarch sonnets fit into that category. Yunchan Lim just played sonnet number 104. A somewhat unconventional choice for an encore, but beautifully performed and rapturously received here by a sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall.
Jeff Spurgeon: A great proportion of that audience is on its feet too, as we come to the end of the first half of this Carnegie Hall live broadcast with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Antonio Pappano. In the second half, we'll enjoy the Symphony No. 1 of William Walton. In the meantime, the stage still belongs to the young South Korean virtuoso, Yunchan Lim.
[applause]
Jeff Spurgeon: It's intermission here at this broadcast of the London Symphony Orchestra from Carnegie Hall live. This is Classical New York, WQXR 105.9 FM at HD Newark, 90.3 FM WQXW Ossining, and WNYC FM HD 2 New York. Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon alongside John Schaefer and we are joined now by one of the members of the London Symphony Orchestra. We are delighted to welcome Maxine Kwok to the microphones. Thanks for spending a little time with us at intermission.
Maxine Kwok: Oh, thank you for inviting me. It's a great pleasure.
Jeff Spurgeon: You've been with the orchestra for a little while now.
Maxine Kwok: It's my 25th year in orchestra.
Jeff Spurgeon: Congratulations. You haven't been in Carnegie Hall for a little while.
Maxine Kwok: Yes, it's been 20 years actually since we've played here, which is quite something.
Jeff Spurgeon: Do you remember the last time you were here?
Maxine Kwok: I do remember. Of course, I remember the first time I was here. I was 18 years old, and that was 30 years ago. It's been a long time and we're just so thrilled to be back here.
Jeff Spurgeon: How's the old place sounding to you?
Maxine Kwok: Amazing. I mean it is an incredible place. The history of the place is so special. Everybody knows Carnegie Hall. It's a wonderful wide stage. Not the easiest place to play, I have to say.
Jeff Spurgeon: Tell us about that.
Maxine Kwok: I think it can be quite a challenge across-- It's a big stage actually, so hearing yourself across the stage can actually be quite challenging. I think it's because we're used to dryer acoustic in London, but it gives such a warm, generous sound.
John Schaefer: You're not just a member of the orchestra in the string section, you're also the vice chair of the board.
Maxine Kwok: That's right.
John Schaefer: This has been part of the LSO's history is the musicians as a kind of self-administering. Tell us a little bit about what you do when you're wearing that hat.
Maxine Kwok: Yes, the orchestra is self-governing. It's basically player-led. A board that is elected by the players. That means you're representing your fellow colleagues and friends, which is wonderful. It does mean you deal with a lot of day-to-day functions in the orchestra. Whether it's to do with concerts, how they're managed. Day-to-day gripes that players have, that kind of thing. It can be a challenge to balance both things. You're dealing with something just before you're about to walk on stage. It's an interesting and a really worthwhile thing to do.
Jeff Spurgeon: A fascinating way to run an orchestra, too. Do the members of the board-- They represent the body at large. It's not like you have somebody from the strings and somebody from the brass.
Maxine Kwok: We currently do. We're nine playing members of the board. We're actually quite well represented across. We have brass, percussion, woodwind, and strings. It really doesn't have to be. We just all have to be very aware of the different needs of the players, which is the most important thing.
Jeff Spurgeon: You also then are responsible-- The players are responsible for auditions for new members of the orchestra.
Maxine Kwok: Yes, that's absolutely true. Of course, people apply for the job, we listen to their auditions. We are a bit more like in America now. It's all behind a screen and things, and new members come in and do trials and then hopefully become members of the LSO.
John Schaefer: Maxine, one of the things that we read in your bio is that your hobbies include tap dancing, hula hoops, and Star Wars. Now, Star Wars figures large in the history of the LSO.
Maxine Kwok: Yes. This is actually why I wanted to be a member of the LSO.
John Schaefer: Is that true?
Maxine Kwok: Yes, very much so. My dad is a huge fan. I grew up hearing the music, and when I realized it was a London Symph Orchestra, that was my goal. That was it. I was like, "I'm going to be in this orchestra." Amazingly, some of the first sessions I ever did were Star Wars ones in 1999 or 2000 for The Phantom Menace.
Jeff Spurgeon: That must have been incredibly surreal.
Maxine Kwok: Yes, it was very surreal and a very special time.
John Schaefer: You have a new era that's begun recently with Sir Antonio Pappano taking the reins as chief conductor. Tell us about working with him and what's been going on.
Maxine Kwok: Oh, Sir Antonio Pappano is-
John Schaefer: He won't hear this later, so you can really tell us the truth.
Maxine Kwok: I'll call him Antonio then. [chuckles] He's a wonderful human being, the most incredible musician. Obviously, he's this wonderful opera conductor, which means everything about him has to do with lyricism, the line of music. He's just a wonderful person to be around. His energy, you can see on the stage. He's completely 100% committed and just a lovely person to be around. It's a real pleasure for us and a joy to work with him.
Jeff Spurgeon: Thank you so much. Maxine Kwok is one of the violinists and one of the board members of the London Symphony Orchestra. Thank you for being with us. You've got a big story to tell in music of William Walton in just a few minutes. We'll give you a chance to get rested for that.
Maxine Kwok: Thank you very much for having me.
Jeff Spurgeon: Thanks so much for being with us here on this broadcast from Carnegie Hall live.
John Schaefer: Now, Antonio Pappano conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in the second half in a single work. It is Sir William Walton's Symphony No. 1. During intermission, we thought we would give you a little bit of the history of this remarkable orchestra.
Jeff Spurgeon: The London Symphony Orchestra traces its origins back to 1904 and a rebellion against a famous conductor, Sir Henry Wood. He's the man who started the Proms Concerts, a great festival known today as the BBC Proms. It happened this way. The standard practice among orchestral musicians in London in the early 20th century was you agreed to play a concert, but if you got a better gig, you could send a substitute in place of yourself, or a deputy, as they called it, to play the concert that you had promised to perform in. Good players were in high demand around London in that time, but nobody likes it when an important member of the team is absent. Frankly, neither did Henry Wood.
Clive Gillinson: One day, he turned up for rehearsal, and there was only one person he knew, and he said, "Thank goodness there's at least one person I know." The guy said, "I'm terribly sorry, Sir Henry. I can do this rehearsal, but I can't actually do the concert. I'll be sending a deputy in for the concert." He said, "That's the end. No more deputies." At that point, I think about 15 or 16 of his best players left because they wanted to create an orchestra where they would control their own destiny. That was the LSO that they created.
John Schaefer: That is the voice of Clive Gillinson, the executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall. Clive knows the LSO very well, as we'll explain further in a moment. The LSO toured the United States for the first time very successfully in 1912. In a story that has been part of LSO lore for over a century, the orchestra was supposed to come here on the Titanic, but they had to change their schedule at the last minute, wound up taking another ship.
They were a band of independent musicians, but they managed themselves through the ups and downs of the next couple of decades. In 1935, they first played music recorded for a motion picture. That began a lucrative, let's call it, side career for the LSO, playing film scores. They have played some of the most famous ever, including, of course, the John Williams music for Star Wars. It was the innovative and independent nature of the LSO that initially attracted a young English cellist who was just out of school in 1970 named Clive Gillinson.
Clive Gillinson: I'd always wanted to join the LSO because I thought it was the most exciting, enterprising, innovative orchestra in London. I went there. We worked with Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, and Previn. It was a wonderful time, and Colin Davis.
Jeff Spurgeon: After a few years, Clive joined the board of directors of the LSO, just like Maxine Kwok, whom we heard from a few minutes ago. Clive became the managing director of this self-governing orchestra in 1984. As with any large organization, there were some challenges.
Clive Gillinson: It was a very, very different era for orchestras. There was a lot of conflict. Orchestras and conductors tended to be having a battle for supremacy. It was the same all around the world between orchestras and conductors. The LSO had very successfully managed to chase away almost all the great conductors. I felt one of the first jobs in coming back in was to try and get some of the great conductors in. Over a period, I managed to get in Sir Georg Solti, Pierre Boulez, Rostropovich, plus many others.
John Schaefer: Actually, Clive Gillinson did such a good job with the LSO that he was declared a Freeman of the City of London, which is a largely honorific title, but it does have one very specific benefit, and that is that as a Freeman of the City of London, Clive Gillinson is legally allowed to drive his sheep over London Bridge. I am not making that up.
Jeff Spurgeon: I wonder if he's ever taken advantage of that privilege.
John Schaefer: He has not. The LSO also needed to deal with at least a little bit of that players-first policy that began the orchestra in the first place.
Clive Gillinson: That sense that the orchestra existed to serve the players was something that had carried all the way through. It was a problem because if you don't serve the music first, if you're serving the players first, it's a disaster.
Jeff Spurgeon: A system of double principles was created in the LSO to allow top players to be both accountable to the orchestra and enjoy solo and chamber music work. Thus, the LSO kept its essence even while experiencing some change.
Clive Gillinson: That didn't get rid of the independence of spirit. The LSO, I think, always remained an orchestra that was innovative, very independent, also trying very new and interesting things. We created our own record label. Music education project, that was one of the first times any orchestra had done that. All of those things. We were always at the front edge of new developments in that way.
John Schaefer: Clive Gillinson was managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra for 21 years, stepping down only when he decided to take his current job as executive and artistic director here at Carnegie Hall. He has headed the team here at 57th Street & 7th Avenue in New York since 2005.
Jeff Spurgeon: We're at intermission at this concert by the London Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. We mentioned earlier that even though the LSO hasn't been at Carnegie in 20 years, its conductor in tonight's concert, Sir Antonio Pappano, was here just a few years ago in 2019 with a Carnegie Hall project of Clive Gillinson, the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America. Let's hear a little bit of those teenage performers and Sir Antonio Pappano.
[MUSIC - Richard Strauss: An Alpine Symphony]
John Schaefer: That's the NYO USA, the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, a Carnegie Hall production with an excerpt of Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony, recorded here at Carnegie Hall back in 2019, and the conductor was Antonio Pappano.
Jeff Spurgeon: The musicians who played that music were teenagers between 16 and 19 years of age.
John Schaefer: Quite something.
Jeff Spurgeon: We are in the midst of intermission at this LSO concert at Carnegie Hall, and we're getting ready to hear a work that has been recorded a great deal over time and is well-known in England but not so much in this country, the Symphony No. 1 of English composer William Walton. Now, this is a work that was premiered sort of, by the London Symphony in 1933. They premiered it, but it wasn't finished yet. Conductor Antonio Pappano tells us that story.
Sir Antonio Pappano: The Walton Symphony is a very, very important piece of music because there's a history with the LSO. The LSO played the first three movements at the premiere, and then, it was another orchestra that played the complete piece. The energy of it, the rhythm of it, the emotion of it really shocked everyone at the time. Its rigor also shocked people at the time. The structure of it, especially the first movement, but not only, is airtight. It's like Beethoven.
John Schaefer: Walton, when he wrote this piece in the early 1930s, was in the midst of personal turmoil and, of course, Europe, in general, was in a political upheaval at the time. Walton was dealing with what was eventually going to turn into a very messy breakup with a widowed German baroness whom he loved but could not marry due to his own lower middle-class status.
Jeff Spurgeon: Amazing. The symphony was eventually finished. The romance was finished too. Then, the final completed symphony, all four movements, premiered by the BBC Orchestra a year after the LSO played the first three movements in 1933, Walton himself described this piece as so damn hard to play. Antonio Pappano tells us more about the ill-fated love story and its effect on the music that we're going to hear in just a couple of minutes.
Sir Antonio Pappano: This piece was born on the embers of a six-year-long love affair that went terribly wrong. She dumped him. This is a lashing out like no other. Famously, the second movement, the Scherzo, has the heading Presto, con malizia, presto with malice. There's hurt everywhere. He goes through some kind of purgation in the most expressive way, after him suffering seriously from writer's block, allowing him to come back rejuvenated and to conquer all this negative feeling.
There, you have a malarian aspect to the finale. Sibelius haunts the piece, there's no question, let's be honest, but it's a very exciting piece of music and needs an orchestra with the personality of the London Symphony Orchestra to even contemplate doing it.
John Schaefer: That is Conductor Antonio Pappano talking about the piece we're going to hear, the Symphony No. 1 by Sir William Walton, which we'll hear is the second half of this Carnegie Hall live broadcast. Jeff, he mentions the second movement, the Scherzo, which is marked presto con malizia, presto with malice. The third movement is Andante con malinconia, with melancholy. You hear Walton going through the stages of grief, I suppose, for this relationship.
Jeff Spurgeon: That's right.
John Schaefer: It's interesting that between the first three movements premiered in 1933, and the fourth movement premiered in 1934, that's when William Walton started doing film music. I think when you get to that fourth movement, you hear a cinematic scope to Walton's orchestration, to his writing, which feels like a result of him stepping into the world of film music.
Jeff Spurgeon: Perhaps stepping through a really miserable romantic breakup, too. That can certainly have cinematic proportions at times, as well. Some of William Walton's best-known music was written for film scores, too. It's beautiful, rich stuff. There is beautiful beauty and richness in this symphony, but oh, my goodness, there's a lot of that 'Malizia' as well. It is a very, very powerful symphony.
John Schaefer: Now, music history is full of works that we now consider to be masterpieces and revere as part of the repertoire that were just met with incomprehension or, "This madman, Beethoven." That thing. This is not one of those pieces. The first performance of the first three movements, very well received. That BBC orchestra performance in 1934, apparently the ovation for Sir William Walton at the conclusion of the symphony, lasted five minutes.
Jeff Spurgeon: He was just a young man at that time. The talent had emerged very early and was very well developed. We are going to get a fully cinematic big orchestral sound and the story of deep emotions in this symphony. You can hear the players already digging into some of the parts on stage now with the stage door not quite closed, and Sir Antonio is not in our sight just as we're sitting backstage. You hear that phone message going off. That's to remind people who are in the hall tonight at Carnegie Hall to turn off their cell phones. We are close to the beginning of this William Walton Symphony.
John Schaefer: It is a work that here in the States, we rarely get to hear. As you mentioned before, Jeff, it's not an uncommon work in England. It's been recorded many times. The LSO has performed this in their home at the Barbican in London. Bringing it here to the stage of Carnegie Hall, this is an example of Antonio Pappano championing the music of English composers during this, his initial season with this English ensemble.
Jeff Spurgeon: Yes, he's promised to do that more as well. The LSO is concluding a three-week tour across the United States with this concert here in New York City. He is making sure that this orchestra is an ambassador for English music. Of course, he brought with him that amazing pianist in the first half. Now, the stage door opens, and we are ready for William Walton. Sir Antonio Pappano on stage now with the London Symphony Orchestra. Applause for the conductor from members of the string section and that ovation for the conductor who, by the way, does not work with a baton. Just hands to lead us in William Walton, Symphony No. 1 from Carnegie Hall live.
[MUSIC - William Walton: Symphony No. 1] [applause]
Jeff Spurgeon: From Carnegie Hall Live, you've heard the London Symphony Orchestra and their chief conductor, Sir Antonio Pappano, bring you the Symphony No. 1 of English composer William Walton. An exorcism in some ways, perhaps of a broken love affair or expression of frustration with it, and perhaps a little release from it in that amazing fourth movement. Walton wrote this work during a difficult time in a relationship with a woman who outclassed him in society, the Baroness Irma von Doernberg, to whom the work is dedicated, and William Walton said this awful, tempestuous work was all her fault.
John Schaefer: [laughs] The second movement marked con malizia, with malice, and the third movement with melancholy.
Jeff Spurgeon: Just as you said John, that fourth movement sounds like the start of a movie.
John Schaefer: It's very cinematic, and this, of course, from a composer who wrote a fair amount of film music, actually appeared in a film himself. Well, maybe not a film, a miniseries in the '80s about Wagner, in which he had a brief role as the King of Saxony, and the Queen was played by his wife, Lady Walton.
Jeff Spurgeon: Oh, wow. Very appropriate then.
John Schaefer: The tragedy of the love story that produced this Symphony No. 1 was followed eventually by a long marriage to Susana, the composer, and Lady Walton lived on an island off the coast of Italy, where Lady Walton famously created a set of gardens, and to this day, those gardens are used as a kind of musical retreat, a residency center for musicians. Antonio Pappano applauding the members of the LSO pointing out different individual soloists, two timpanis in the last movement.
Jeff Spurgeon: Each of them surrounded by a half dozen kettle drums, and so it was an amazing display of percussion at the end of that, a couple of tam-tams being sounded as well. A great percussive conclusion to that Symphony No. 1 of William Walton. Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon alongside John Schaefer. On stage at Carnegie Hall now, individual members of the London Symphony being asked to stand, sections being recognized, and now the entire London Symphony Orchestra back in Carnegie Hall after playing a few other places in New York City for the last couple of decades. First time they've returned to this performance space in 20 years with their new chief conductor, Sir Antonio Pappano.
John Schaefer: The Walton Symphony No. 1, a work that we do not get to hear very often on these shores, it was premiered here at Carnegie Hall, the first American performance, back in 1936 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Jeff Spurgeon: Just a couple of years after the final work itself was first performed in London.
John Schaefer: Antonio Pappano now back out on stage, sold-out house here at Carnegie Hall. He's back out at the podium, facing the orchestra, now facing the audience. No one has left yet. Members of the LSO now standing to bask in the approval of this Carnegie Hall audience that has waited 20 years to see them in this famous hall.
Jeff Spurgeon: More credits from the orchestra to individual members and sections of the London Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble begun in a state of rebellion by a group of musicians in 1904 who didn't want the conductor telling them how to run their careers, so they split from Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra and started themselves up, and here they are 121 years later at Carnegie Hall.
John Schaefer: The members of the LSO now retaking their seats, and it looks pretty obvious that we are going to have an encore.
Sir Antonio Pappano: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for this response because the Walton Symphony owes so much to Sibelius replay, Valse Triste of Sibelius.
[applause]
[MUSIC – Jean Sibelius: Valse Triste]
[applause]
John Schaefer: It's an encore from the London Symphony Orchestra and their conductor, Sir Antonio Pappano. He told us that The Walton Symphony No. 1 was haunted by the specter of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Well, there you had Sibelius's Valse Triste, Sad Waltz.
Jeff Spurgeon: A piece of music which also is about a haunting, a piece of incidental music written for a play that was written by Sibelius's brother-in-law, and it's about a moment, the last moments of a woman's life as she imagines herself as a young woman dancing. It's a very dark and beautiful image that goes with this work. Although the piece is, of course, much better known as the standalone work, full of rich and surprising harmonies, melody turns in places where you don't expect, and it's wonderfully arresting.
John Schaefer: The members of the LSO on stage hugging each other. This has turned out to be quite an evening as the LSO returns to Carnegie Hall for the first time in 20 years and the conductor on top, Antonio Pappano, joining us at the microphones backstage, I'm John Schaeffer alongside Jeff Spurgeon.
Jeff Spurgeon: Congratulations, Maestro, on a beautiful concert and a well-deserved beverage to conclude it.
[laughter]
Sir Antonio Pappano: Thank you so much. Wow, that Walton symphony is something rarely does a conductor have to go that far in terms of giving his all, shall we say. [laughs]
Jeff Spurgeon: The power in it is incredibly surprising, and he just keeps asking for it from you and from the orchestra all the way through it.
Sir Antonio Pappano: It's quite extraordinary.
John Schaefer: I think my favorite moment of the evening was your audible foot stomp in the brief but pregnant pause before the final restatement of the theme at the end of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto. Do you always do that when you conduct that piece?
Sir Antonio Pappano: You know what it is, is that in rehearsal, the LSO famously takes a big breath. Everybody goes, [breathing] and so I think of that and I--
[laughter]
Jeff Spurgeon: That's wonderful. That's wonderful. It appeared to be a very affectionate embrace that you exchanged with Yunchan Lim. You've been performing this work with him now for, well, the three weeks of this tour in the United States, so you guys have worked together and gotten to know each other a little bit over this time.
Sir Antonio Pappano: Yes. We only did two concerts in California a couple of weeks ago actually, before we did this one, so this one was the third. He's an extraordinary boy and the fingers are amazing. He's an experimenter too. He tries things out in performance, which is really surprising, but it keeps you on your feet, and it shows that he's an inquisitive mind and he's searching, which is a good thing for a young person.
John Schaefer: Now, you've been on the scene in London, you've been a key player on the music scene in London for many years. What is it like to now step into this first season as chief conductor of the LSO?
Sir Antonio Pappano: It's just a move down the street actually from the Opera House. No, it's much more than that.
John Schaefer: From Covent Garden, yes.
Sir Antonio Pappano: It's much more than that. I've known this orchestra since 1996. We met in Abbey Road Studios making a recording of La rondine, Puccini's La rondine, and since then I haven't stopped conducting them. That this become this, this deeper relationship has been a surprise and a wonderful gift. I'm the luckiest guy on the planet.
Jeff Spurgeon: Well, and a representative of the orchestra, express that sentiment in return at the conclusion of your rehearsal before this concert tonight, so it seems like a wonderful, wonderful beginning and a wonderful showcase for English music that you brought us tonight in that Walton symphonies.
Sir Antonio Pappano: Thank you so much.
Jeff Spurgeon: It was a great thrill to hear. Enjoy the beer and relax and enjoy your trip back home, and thank you so much.
Sir Antonio Pappano: Thank you.
Jeff Spurgeon: Sir Antonio Pappano with us here at the microphones of Carnegie Hall Live, and you hear the stagehands moving the chairs out of the way, so we'd better get out of the way too, I think.
John Schaefer: That wraps up our broadcast of Carnegie Hall Live. Our thanks as always to Clive Gillinson and the staff here at Carnegie Hall. WQXR's team includes engineers George Wellington, Duke Marcos, Bill Siegmund, Neil Shaw, and Noriko Okabe. Our production team, Eileen Delahunty, Lauren Purcell-Joiner, and Laura Boyman. Our project director is Christine Herskovits. I'm John Schaefer.
Jeff Spurgeon: I'm Jeff Spurgeon. Carnegie Hall Live is a coproduction of Carnegie Hall and WQXR in New York.
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