April 2019 – March 2020 Season Lineup
NewsThe TMSO’s 2019 Season Lineup
Kazushi ONO, Music Director, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra
©Herbie Yamaguchi
Last works, or very late works of composers feature prominently in the lineup of what will be my fifth season at the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (TMSO) as Music Director.
Gustav Mahler, a composer deeply familiar to the TMSO, was also someone whose work predicted the future course of music. Presenting the many new ways in which music expanded its horizon post-Mahler has been one of my aspirations. In this sense, 2019 is to become a consummative milestone season preluding 2020, the year of the Olympics.
Symphonic Dances, the very last work by Sergei Rachmaninov, will feature in our April Subscription Concert. The swan song of a composer who struggled to keep up his compositional output after leaving Russia for the United States, the piece—a blend of Rachmaninov’s distinctive brand of lyricism, and grotesque, ever-metamorphosing dances—is characterized by the modernism Rachmaninov ultimately arrived at.
Symphony No. 6 by Jean Sibelius is a very idiosyncratic composition written three years before his last orchestral piece, Tapiola. The Dorian mode—one of the ecclesiastical modes—imbues the piece with nostalgia, and the constantly drifting notes create a wondrous sense of rhythm melting away. Sibelius, a near-contemporary of Mahler, was arguably the composer who perfected the state of elegant simplicity.
Our September Subscription Concert will present the Violin Concerto, the last complete piece by Alban Berg, and Symphony No. 9, Anton Bruckner’s last symphony. Berg was a well-known admirer of Mahler, and Mahler was a pupil of Bruckner (though Mahler seemed to have regarded him as a comrade). Somewhat of a parting message, both the Berg and the unfinished Bruckner, which consists of only three of the envisioned four movements due to his death, have a heavenly serenity capable of transporting audiences to a faraway world.
Symphony No. 10 by Dmitri Shostakovich will feature in our March 2020 Subscription Concert. The horn solo in the third movement has an affinity with the opening part of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erd. Likewise, the finale of Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony, based on the medieval canon Sumer is icumen in, is associated with Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 (the first movement of which was titled Summer Marches In at the time of its debut performance).
The centerpiece of our Subscription Concert program is above all the three Bruckner symphonies. We will present Symphony No. 4 “Romantic” conducted by Alan Gilbert, and Symphony No. 7 conducted by Kazuhiro Koizumi, and No. 9 myself. I hope audience members will enjoy the TMSO’s rendition of sound reverberating across distant space, followed by quietness.
TMSO’s maestro, Eliahu Inbal will be conducting Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 “The Year 1905” and Symphony No. 12 “The Year 1917” with his hallmark exuberance, no doubt adding his master touch to the pieces.
Not to be missed are Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 “Tragic” conducted by Alan Gilbert; the complete Daphnis et Chloé suites conducted by François-Xavier Roth; and Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique” conducted by Marc Minkowski. TMSO is also proud to be welcoming soloists—pianists Nikolai Lugansky, Anna Vinnitskaya, and Joaquín Achúcarro; violinists Sayaka Shoji, Veronika Eberle, Josef Špaček, and Tatsuya Yabe; cellists Dai Miyata and Edgar Moreau; and trombonist Jörgen van Rijen—who will be bringing even greater brilliance to our performances.
Our Promenade Concerts in 2019 will take audiences on a musical tour of the five continents. Amazing masterworks from countries around the world will be delivered by the TMSO, conducted by Andrew Litton, Kentaro Kawase, Eliahu Inbal, Kazuhiro Koizumi, and myself. Also in store are enthralling solo performances by Fumiaki Miura, Naoko Yoshino, Saskia Giorgini and Yusuke Yanagihara.
April 2019 – March 2020 Season Programs
- Subscription Concert A Series
- Subscription Concert B Series
- Subscription Concert C Series
- Promenade Concert Series
- TMSO Special
(10. October 2018)
| Subscription Concert A Series (Venue: Tokyo Bunka Kaikan; 19:00) | |
| No.878 Tue. 28 May 2019, 19:00 Andrew LITTON, Conductor Barber: Second Essay, op.17 |
No.881 Tue. 16 July 2019, 19:00 KOIZUMI Kazuhiro, Conductor Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor, op.104 B.191 |
| No.884 Tue. 3 September 2019, 19:00 ONO Kazushi, Conductor Berg: Violin Concerto, “Dem Andenken eines Engels” |
No.888 Mon. 7 October 2019, 19:00 Marc MINKOWSKI, Conductor Schumann: Symphony No.4 in D minor, op.120 (1841 version) |
| No.890 Mon. 11 November 2019, 19:00 Eliahu INBAL, Conductor Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini, op.32 |
No.893 Mon. 9 December 2019, 19:00 Alan GILBERT, Conductor Liszt (arr. John Adams): The Black Gondola |
| No.896 Mon. 3 February 2020, 19:00 François-Xavier ROTH, Conductor Rameau: Les Indes Galantes, Suite |
No.898 Mon. 9 March 2020, 19:00 ONO Kazushi, Conductor Berg: Drei Orchesterstücke, op.6 |
| Subscription Concert B Series (Venue: Suntory Hall; 19:00) | |
| No.877 Fri. 26 April 2019, 19:00 ONO Kazushi, Conductor Takemitsu: A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden (1977) |
No.880 Tue. 25 June 2019, 19:00 Krzysztof PENDERECKI, Conductor Penderecki: Prelude for Peace (2009) |
| No.883 Thu. 25 July 2019, 19:00 Alan GILBERT, Conductor Mozart: Symphony No.38 in D major, K.504 “Prague” |
No.885 Wed. 4 September 2019, 19:00 ONO Kazushi, Conductor Berg: Violin Concerto, “Dem Andenken eines Engels” |
| No.889 Wed. 16 October 2019, 19:00 KOIZUMI Kazuhiro, Conductor Wagner: Siegfried Idyll |
No.894 Mon. 16 December 2019, 19:00 Alan GILBERT, Conductor Mahler: Symphony No.6 in A minor |
| No.895 Thu. 16 January 2020, 19:00 Martyn BRABBINS, Conductor Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin |
No.897 Wed. 4 March 2020, 19:00 ONO Kazushi, Conductor Berlioz: Overture to “Béatrice et Bénédict” |
| Subscription Concert C Series (Venue: Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre; 14:00) | |
| No.876 Sat. 20 April 2019, 14:00 ONO Kazushi, Conductor Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor, op.16 |
No.879 Sat. 8 June 2019, 14:00 Alejo PÉREZ, Conductor Stravinsky: Petrushka (1947 version) * |
| No.882 Wed. 24 July 2019, 14:00 Alan GILBERT, Conductor Mozart: Symphony No.38 in D major, K.504 “Prague” |
No.886 Sun. 8 September 2019, 14:00 ONO Kazushi, Conductor Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela, op.22-2 |
| No.887 Wed. 2 October 2019, 14:00 Philipp von STEINAECKER, Conductor Suppé: Overture to “Leichte Kavallerie” |
No.891 Sat. 16 November 2019, 14:00 Eliahu INBAL, Conductor Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No.1 in A minor, op.77 |
| No.892 Sun. 8 December 2019, 14:00 Alan GILBERT, Conductor Liszt (arr. John Adams): The Black Gondola |
No.899 Fri. 27 March 2020, 14:00 KOIZUMI Kazuhiro, Conductor Mozart: Overture to “Die Zauberflöte”, K.620 |
| Promenade Concert Series (Venue: Suntory Hall; 14:00) | |
| No.382 Sun. 2 June 2019, 14:00 Andrew LITTON, Conductor Loewe: Overture to “My Fair Lady” |
No.383 Sun. 20 October 2019, 14:00 KAWASE Kentaro, Conductor Sculthorpe: From Oceania (2003) (Japan Premiere) |
| No.384 Sat. 23 November 2019, 14:00 Eliahu INBAL, Conductor Shostakovich: Festive Overture, op.96 |
No.385 Sat. 8 February 2020, 14:00 KOIZUMI Kazuhiro, Conductor Verdi: Overture to “La Forza del Destino” |
| No.386 Sun. 22 March 2020, 14:00 ONO Kazushi, Conductor R.Strauss: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, op.28 |
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| TMSO Special |
| Hachioji Series Sat. 6 April 2019, 14:00 at Olympus Hall Hachioji KOIZUMI Kazuhiro, Conductor Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, op.35 |
| TMSO Special Concert in Osaka
Sun. 21 April 2019, 14:00 at Festival Hall ONO Kazushi, Conductor Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor, op.16 |
| TMSO Special Sat. 14 December 2019, 14:00 at Suntory Hall Alan GILBERT, Conductor Mahler: Symphony No.6 in A minor |
| TMSO Special “Beethoven’s 9th” Mon. 23 December 2019, 19:00 at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Tue. 24 December 2019, 19:00 at Suntory Hall Wed. 25 December 2019, 19:00 at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Leoš SVÁROVSKÝ, Conductor Beethoven: Symphony No.9 in D minor, op.125, “Choral” |
| TMSO Special Sun. 2 February 2020, 14:00 at Suntory Hall François-Xavier ROTH, Conductor Rameau: Les Indes Galantes, Suite |