SIR SIMON RATTLE & THE LSO AT THE BBC PROMS

Sir Simon Rattle gives his BBC Proms Debut with the LSO in Schoenbergs “Gurre-Lieder”. Starring Thomas Quasthoff & Eva-Maria Westbroek.

The new Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra Sir Simon Rattle begins his tenure with a concert at the prestigious BBC Proms. Only two weeks before the start of the new season of the LSO they will perform Arnold Schoenberg’s “Gurre-Lieder” together with a cast of outstanding singers.

Schoenberg began to work on the “Gurre-Lieder” around 1900. What started out as a modest song-cycle following the poems by Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen, soon grew into one of the most opulent musical giants of the 20th century – a cantata of Wagnerian ambition and proportions. The oratorio-style work was finally finished in 1911, and the first performance in 1913 was a great success. “Gurre-Lieder” tell the tale of the love of King Waldemar for Tove and his despair over the death of his beloved. It is a tale of a love that even death cannot vanquish, of rage against the heavens, and ultimately of consolation in a closing musical sunrise of unparalleled beauty. Schoenberg’s time as a musical revolutionary had not yet come, and so “Gurre-Lieder” represents a sumptuous swan song for the age of musical late Romanticism.


Supporting Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphonic Orchestra in their performance of Schönbergs exceptional, and exceptionally demanding, work, are the CBSO Chorus, Orfeó Català and the London Symphony Chorus, as well as a stellar ensemble of soloists, including: Thomas Quasthoff, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Karen Cargill, Simon O’Neill, Christopher Purves and Peter Hoare.