It Shall Certainly Not Bend and Crush Me Completely

IT SHALL CERTAINLY NOT BEND AND CRUSH ME

COMPLETELY

Beethoven Symphonies

Nos. 4 & 5

WELCOME TO OUR 2025/26 SEASON AT THE SOUTHBANK CENTRE.

Celebrating 40 fantastic years of making music.

1986. It was the year of the Westland Affair, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal at the World Cup in Mexico, the premiere of Harrison Birtwistle’s opera The Mask of Orpheus… and in late June Wham! was at number 1 in the UK charts with The Edge of Heaven.

On 26 June, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment first stepped onto a stage.

The first of our two seasons marking this milestone features a kaleidoscope of old favourites and new combinations. It features some of our best-loved partnerships and celebrates our shared history. Handel and Bach, Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms and Dvořák are all composers who have been at the heart of our journey.

The challenges faced by the OAE and all our colleagues are varied, but we remain absolutely focused on the mission of sharing the highest quality music with the widest audience possible. What continues to shine after 40 years is the golden thread of a story of friends united by a profound love of the art of music.

IT SHALL CERTAINLY NOT BEND AND CRUSH ME COMPLETELY

Beethoven Symphonies

Nos. 4 & 5

7.00pm Sunday 8 February

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Programme

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770

– 1827)

Symphony No. 4

Adagio – Allegro vivace

Adagio

Allegro molto e vivace – Trio. Un poco meno allegro –Tempo I – Un poco meno allegro – Tempo I

Allegro ma non troppo

– Interval (20 minutes) –

Symphony No. 5

Allegro con brio

Andante con moto

Allegro –

Allegro – Tempo I – Allegro – Presto

ORCHESTRA OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Matthew Truscott leader

Adam Fischer conductor

The OAE’s 40th anniversary seasons in 2025 / 26 and 2026 / 27 are made possible with the support of The Forty Circle.

Free pre-concert talk at 6.00pm in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Violins I

Matthew Truscott*

Kati Debretzeni*

Rodolfo Richter

Alice Evans

Rebecca Livermore

Daniel Edgar

Dominika Feher

Huw Daniel*

Violins II

Julia Kuhn

Andrew Roberts

Iona Davies

Claire Holden

Nia Lewis

Claudia Delago-Norz

Henry Tong

Debbie Diamond

Violas

Max Mandel*

John Crockatt*

Anne Sophie van Riel

Martin Kelly

Annette Isserlis

Kate Heller

Cellos

Andrew Skidmore

Catherine Rimer

Ruth Alford

Gerard Flotats

Double basses

Christine Sticher*

Cecelia Bruggemeyer

Carina Cosgrave

John-Henry Baker

Flutes

Lisa Beznosiuk*

Rosie Bowker

Flute / Piccolo

Neil McLaren

Oboes

Daniel Bates*

Leo Duarte

Clarinets

Katherine Spencer*

Sarah Thurlow

Bassoons

Fergus Butt

Sally Jackson

Contrabassoon

Christopher Rawley

Horns

Richard Bayliss

Martin Lawrence

Trumpets

David Blackadder*

Phillip Bainbridge

Trombones

Philip Dale

Tom Lees

Adam Crighton

Timpani

Adrian Bending*

*OAE Principal Players

‘Only one Beethoven’

Laura Tunbridge

How to start? It is a question answered in strikingly different ways by Beethoven in his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. Symphony No. 4 begins with a slow introduction that gradually wends its way to an Allegro vivace. Symphony No. 5 begins abruptly with the famous four-note motto. While stylistically these two symphonies might seem to belong to different periods of Beethoven’s output, surprisingly their composition overlapped.

Beethoven had originally intended to offer a Fourth Symphony to publishers Breitkopf und Härtel along with the Third Symphony, the ‘Eroica’. However, Beethoven became distracted by other projects: piano sonatas, the Triple Concerto, and what eventually became the opera Fidelio. He jotted down ideas in C minor in his sketchbooks – which found their way into the Fifth Symphony – and even some motifs that ended up in the Sixth Symphony, but the Fourth seems to have been far from his mind until the summer of 1804. Only two years later, during a summer stay at Prince Lichnowsky’s castle, did work properly begin.

The motivation to concentrate on composing the Fourth Symphony probably came from a commission from Count Franz von Oppersdorff, whose castle Beethoven and Lichnowsky visited in 1806, to hear a performance of the Second Symphony. Apparently, the Count once broke up an argument between Beethoven and Lichnowsky over the composer’s refusal to play for visiting French soldiers. Beethoven may have previously contemplated dedicating the ‘Eroica’ Symphony to Napoleon, but the toll of war had left its mark – and he had never been one to kowtow to his supposed superiors. He wrote to Lichnowsky afterwards: ‘Prince, you are who you are by accident of birth; I am who I am through my own efforts. There have been, and will be, thousands of princes; there is only one Beethoven’.

There may have been only one Beethoven, but his symphonies demonstrate – as well as his unbending will and determination – his multifaceted character and creative inventiveness. The Fourth Symphony requires a slightly smaller orchestra than the Third Symphony – there are only two horns, not three, and only one flute – and is markedly shorter in duration. In the already mentioned introduction to the first movement, Beethoven explores an uncharted harmonic itinerary, moving at what composer Carl Maria von Weber considered a glacial pace (‘Every quarter of an hour we hear three or four notes’, he complained). After that disorientating start, the Fourth Symphony settles into a fairly conventional layout of three movements in the same key (B flat major), with a slow second movement in the related key of E flat.

What such an outline does not convey is the liveliness of this music and its thematic and harmonic verve. Elements of the introduction’s chord sequences are recalled later in the first

movement, and a long timpani roll underneath the strings ratchets up the tension before the release of the coda. The third movement Scherzo expands from what had become the standard three-part form to a five-part structure, adding a second ‘Trio’. Donald Tovey described the horns in the coda as ‘blowing the whole away’ – a sign of how they would come to be used in the Fifth Symphony.

While the string writing in the Fourth Symphony is intricate and the violins never seem to rest, prominent roles are also given to

the woodwind. The clarinet’s melody in the second movement can be singled out for its beauty or, in Hector Berlioz’s words, its ‘celestial sweetness’. The final movement has a sense of Haydn-like playfulness perhaps best captured in Beethoven’s description of it as ‘aufgeknöpft‘ (unbuttoned). Traditional roles are overturned by, for instance, giving the first theme in the recapitulation to the bassoon and then to the clarinet in the coda; thematic material is even given to the cellos and double basses. Three pauses at the very end of the Symphony seem to add a near comic postscript to the whole.

The first, private performances of the Fourth Symphony took place in the Lobkowitz Palace in Vienna in March 1807. The first public performances happened in the autumn, at Vienna’s Burgtheater. Publication of the Fourth Symphony in Vienna, however, was delayed until April 1809, by which time it had been – somewhat unfairly – overshadowed by the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.

‘The realm of the infinite’ Oppersdorff commissioned Beethoven’s next symphony as well, which was fully drafted by early 1808 and then went through protracted revisions. However, the dedication of the Fifth Symphony was given to two of Beethoven’s longstanding patrons, Prince Lobkowitz and Count Razumovsky. As illustrated by the example of the Fourth Symphony, Lobkowitz had often given Beethoven access to rooms where he might rehearse and give private performances of his music. He may have done the same for the Fifth; he certainly bought the rights to six months’ exclusive use of the Symphony before its first public performance, despite Oppersdorff having commissioned the work.

The premiere of the Fifth Symphony took place on a cold December night in 1808 in the Theater an der Wien. It was an especially long concert programme consisting entirely of works by Beethoven. The first half began with the premiere of the Sixth Symphony, followed by the aria ‘Ah! Perfido’, the Gloria from the Mass in C, and the Fourth Piano Concerto (played by Beethoven). The Fifth Symphony started the second half of the concert, after which came the Sanctus and Benedictus of the Mass in C, a solo piano improvisation by Beethoven, and the Choral Fantasy. Underrehearsed and tiring for both players and audience members, the concert was more a feat of endurance than an impressive musical experience; however, on its publication, the Fifth Symphony was swiftly recognised as a major achievement by critics.

‘I will seize fate by the throat. It shall certainly not bend and crush me completely’ wrote Beethoven around the time of composing the Fifth Symphony. Whether the opening musical motif embodies Fate knocking at Beethoven’s door or the birdcall of the yellowhammer is perhaps of less concern than the sense that this is music which, as ETA Hoffmann’s 1810 review put it, enters ‘the realm of the infinite’; it ‘sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain’. There are few more iconic openings to a Symphony, and few pieces from the early nineteenth century that pursue a motivic idea as untiringly as the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth.

The thematic cohesion of the first movement only begins to unravel at the end of the recapitulation, as the main motif is broken down between winds and strings. A plaintive oboe solo seems to imagine another world and, as the E flat major horn calls are recalled, it appears that the movement could turn to the major in

Beethoven 5th Symphony Holograph manuscript 1807 licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

the coda. Beethoven instead reverts to C minor. Similarly extreme contrasts mark the second movement, which begins with an A flat major theme in the strings that is repeatedly interrupted by a C major, militaristic flourish from trumpets and timpani. Horn calls in the third movement return to the rhythmic motif of the start, suggesting that Beethoven conceived the symphony as a coherent whole. C major reappears in the fugal trio section but there seems to be no escape from the four-note rhythm or C minor, as a transition leads towards the last movement.

C minor was the key of Beethoven’s first published composition, the Dressler Variations (1781), and of his last piano sonata, Op. 111 (1822), and of many works in between. The reason why he was drawn to C minor so often is unknowable. However, it has become associated with the ‘heroic’ Beethoven (the funeral march movement of the ‘Eroica’ is also in C minor). As pianistscholar Charles Rosen explained, C minor gives us Beethoven ‘in the most extroverted form, where he seems to be most impatient of any compromise’. Yet it was not just a question of dwelling in the minor. Both the Dressler Variations and Op. 111 end by moving to the major, as does the Fifth, his first symphony to begin in a minor key. There is a long tradition of C major being associated with light and openness, as in the emergence from chaos in Haydn’s Creation. In Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the move to the major at the start of the finale seems to herald a defiant triumph over adversity, which is confirmed by the prolonged C major of the coda.

Beethoven enhances the impact of the finale by introducing trombones, not only for the first time in the Fifth, but for the first time in any of his symphonies . He had previously only used trombones in operatic and choral music, for instance to emphasise the gloom of Florestan’s dungeon. Other composers had experimented with including the trombone before, but none were as famous or influential (they included Michael Haydn, Joseph Krottendorfer, and Joachim Eggert). After the Fifth Symphony, Beethoven went on to use trombones in several largescale works, including the Sixth and Ninth Symphonies and the Missa solemnis, and they became a regular feature of symphonic brass sections. Trombones were not the only innovation in the instrumentation of the finale of the Fifth: so too was their combination with piccolo and contrabassoon. Beethoven pointed

out he could have added a third timpani as well but decided instead to stick with these new wind and brass, which ‘will make more noise than 6 timpani and indeed better noise’.

Richard Wagner conducted Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in Dresden in 1848. Revolutions were erupting across Europe. Wagner illustrated the power of this music to lift the spirits and to rally a determination not to be crushed by fate. He recalled: ‘King and court were depressed, and the entire audience felt a dark sense of foreboding at the imminent danger and upheavals. […] It was then that the violinist Karol Lipiński whispered to me: “Just wait – it will all pass at the first bow-stroke of the C-minor Symphony!” And he was right: the symphony began what cheering, what enthusiasm!’

Adam Fischer

Born in Budapest, Adam Fischer is one of the leading conductors of our time. In 1987, he founded the Austrian-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonie with musicians from his two home countries, Austria and Hungary, as well as the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt as an international centre for the performance of Haydn’s music.

Whether in Bayreuth, at the Metropolitan Opera, or at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, with the Vienna or Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, or at the Salzburg Festival, Adam Fischer is recognised by audiences and musicians alike as a mediator between music and the outside world. In 2022, he was awarded with the International Classical Music Award for his lifetime achievements.

Adam Fischer acquired his profound understanding of the opera world and his unusually broad repertoire by taking his first steps as répétiteur (Graz). This led him to positions as general music director (Freiburg, Kassel, Mannheim and Budapest). His international breakthrough came in 1978 when he took over from Karl Böhm, conducting “Fidelio” at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Since then, he has led thrilling opera evenings at the world’s leading opera houses. His closest links are with the Vienna State Opera, where he was appointed Honorary Member in 2017.

Together with the Danish Chamber Orchestra, where he has been Chief Conductor since 1998, he has developed their very own unique style. With awardwinning recordings of all Mozart symphonies and a complete Beethoven recording, Adam Fischer ventured into new territory in terms of musical interpretation, which attracted great international acclaim. Their recording of all Brahms’s symphonies (Naxos 2022) received great critical acclaim. Their most recent project is the recording of Haydn’s Paris and London symphonies for Naxos.

In 2006, Adam Fischer embarked on a new path when he founded the Wagner Days in Budapest: together with Gábor Zoboki, the architect of the Palace of Arts (MÜPA), he realised his idea of performing Wagner’s work in a concert hall using the entire space in an all-encompassing artistic experience. The Budapest Wagner Days under Adam Fischer’s artistic leadership have established themselves as a world-class Wagner opera festival, which The New York Times called the “Bayreuth on the Danube”.

As Principal Conductor of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, Adam Fischer began a Haydn-Mahler cycle in 2015 which was also received with international enthusiasm. In addition to excellent reviews in all relevant media, his Mahler recordings with the orchestra received the highest distinctions with the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Award and the OPUS KLASSIK 2019 for best orchestra recordings of the year.

Adam Fischer regularly uses his success and his broad international audience to convey important messages about humanity and democracy. For his commitment, he has received – among others –the renowned Wolf Prize of the Wolf Foundation in Jerusalem and the Gold Medal in the Arts from the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington. He has been a member of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights for more than twenty years and since 2016, he has awarded the annual Human Rights Award of the Tonhalle Düsseldorf. Adam Fischer is also an Honorary Member of the Musikverein für Steiermark in Graz. He holds the honorary Austrian title of Professor, and he has received the Order of Dannebrog from the Queen of Denmark.

Besides his regular activities with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Danish Chamber Orchestra, and the Budapest Wagner Days, selected highlights of the 2025 / 26 season include appearances with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Vienna Philharmonic (Mozart Week Salzburg), Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Opera highlights include Cosi fan tutte and The Magic Flute at the Vienna State Opera.

We are going to start our own orchestra

Jan Schlapp, a founding player, recalls the OAE’s beginning

I find it difficult to untangle the many strands of myth and memory that surround the beginning of the OAE. My personal memory is of my late husband, cellist Timothy Mason, coming home after a day of rehearsals in 1985, fired up with enthusiasm, saying “We are going to start our own orchestra and it is going to be player-led”. Busy as I was with two very young children I was initially less than enthusiastic because it seemed an almost impossible idea – where would the money come from? How would we organise it? Who would be involved?

The seed of the idea had been planted by regular conversations between the bassoonist, Felix Warnock, the violinist Marshall Marcus, and Tim, about how to break free from the status quo of London period orchestras. We had little say in any of these orchestras and we felt a bit underappreciated. But more important was the fact that we couldn’t tap into what was going on the continent. The BBC were broadcasting several of the continental giants of period performance such as Harnoncourt, Kuijken, Brüggen, Leonhardt, Christie and Koopman, but we couldn’t access their knowledge and experience. Their way of exploring baroque music was different from our English directors and fascinating to us, because of their intellectual seriousness and their depth of knowledge about

instruments, phrasing, repertoire and style. They had been involved in period instrument performance much longer than us and we wanted to be free to absorb it all. At that time we had no way of inviting them to come to work with us in the UK.

Gradually, in discussion with all interested parties, the idea of a player-led orchestra took shape. Sponsorship was found. Everyone would be paid the same, there would be at least three leaders, and there would be an artistic committee elected by the players who would lead on concerts and repertoire. And out of this “organised chaos” as Marshall put it, came our first London concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in June 1986 with Sigiswald Kuijken directing a programme moving from Rameau to Haydn. This marked the beginning of OAE’s journey. Forty years on, that journey continues today, still with the same ethos and the shared excitement of discovery.

Read Jan’s full article about how the OAE was founded on our blog at oae.co.uk/start

A seat with a view

Steven Devine (Keyboard)

As a harpsichordist, I wasn’t even thinking of joining an orchestra. I was playing for chamber groups and doing a lot of my own conducting – generally having a lovely time – and suddenly I got this phone call to go to New York at three days’ notice to play the Brandenburg Concertos with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Somebody had dropped out, so I said yes, and flew over. We had a guest director – Rachel Podger – and I just loved the way that the group coalesced around Rachel. I think if it had been any other group, I’d probably have carried on avoiding orchestras, but actually, I was really impressed by the OAE’s willingness to explore different sound worlds – to see what happens.

I think the OAE had decided at that time that it wanted to create its own distinctive sound that guest directors would be invited to work with, and that meant having a resident keyboard team. That must have been in around 2007 and after that, they invited Rob Howarth and myself to join the orchestra as guest principals. We were called principal keyboard players, but actually it was very fluid, which suited us both brilliantly. One of the things about being a harpsichordist and a keyboard specialist is that it’s quite a personal thing. We’re improvisers, primarily, and the way we improvise can seriously change the sound of an ensemble – hopefully in a good way!

And nine times out of ten it’s absolutely wonderful. We work with some amazing people, so if the guest conductor has a particular sound in mind we can adapt, and I think that’s a really brilliant, brilliant thing. The really great directors are the ones that listen carefully to what we do, and then say, “Oh, that’s nice, but can you try something else?” And then it becomes a really happy two-way collaboration. A perennial favourite of mine is Adam Fischer, who just seems to take delight in what the orchestra does, every time he stands in front of us. Rudolf Lutz I found really interesting, because he is a very fine horn player and a very fine keyboard player, but he didn’t want to play. He really left us to it, and then he would have the most wonderful raised eyebrow when we did something he liked. It’s lovely to be encouraged like that! Steven was talking to Richard Bratby.

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Imogen Charlton-Edwards (Chair)

Daniel Alexander

Emma-Jane Azkoul

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Adrian Frost

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Roger Mountford

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Crispin Woodhead

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Mark Allen

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Caroline Steane

Season identity by Hannah Yates

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Breaking Bach pairs hip hop dancers with Bach’s complex rhythms in a bold collaboration with Kim Brandstrup and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Stream it now.

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THANK YOU

This looks like a long list, doesn’t it? But these generous people and organisations provide OAE with around half of our income every year. Contact us on development@oae.co.uk if you would like to join us as a supporter.

Principal Patrons

Imogen Charlton-Edwards*

Denys and Vicki Firth*

Adrian Frost and Stephanie Bickel*

Sir Martin and Lady Smith OBE*

Dr Tony Trapp MBE

Season Patrons

Mark and Susan Allen*

Julian and Annette Armstrong*

Bruce Harris*

Nigel Jones and Françoise Valat-Jones*

Selina and David Marks*

Philip and Rosalyn Wilkinson*

Mark and Rosamund Williams*

Project Patrons

Victoria and Edward Bonham Carter

Ian S Ferguson CBE and Dr Susan Tranter

Aria Patrons

Joanna and Graham Barker

Steven Larcombe

Peter and Veronica Lofthouse

Stanley Lowy

Alison McFadyen

Peter Rosenthal

Maarten and Taina Slendebroek

Caroline Steane

Lord and Lady Stirrup

Eric Tomsett

Mr J Westwood

* denotes members of The Forty Circle. The Forty Circle provide exceptional philanthropic support to the 2025 / 26 and 2026 / 27 seasons.

Chair Patrons

Daniel Alexander KC

Principal Cello

Katharine Campbell Violin

Anthony and Celia Edwards

Principal Oboe

Claire Espiner

Cello

Anna Flynn in memory of James Flynn

Co-Principal Lute / Theorbo

Paul Forman

Co-Principal Cello / Co-Principal Horn

Jonathan Gaisman Viola

Jane Gilbert Principal Flute

Andrew Green KC and Jennifer Hirschl

Principal Clarinet

Melanie J. Johnson

Christina M

Principal Flute

Michael and Harriet Maunsell

Principal Keyboard

Jenny and Tim Morrison

Second Violin

Andrew Nurnberg

Co-Principal Oboe

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Viola

Professor Richard Portes CBE FBA

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Colin Singer

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Jan Schlapp - Rehearsal Soup Patron

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Thank you to OAE Friends, Supporting Friends and supporters who wish to remain anonymous.

Arts Council England Review highlights OAE residency

We were grateful for the opportunity to participate in Baroness Margaret Hodge’s wide-ranging independent review of Arts Council England that was published in December 2025. The review should be an important contribution to the conversation to shape a sustainable future for the UK’s cultural sector and its relationship with government. Many of Baroness Hodge’s practical recommendations around funding, touring and developing the nation’s cultural offer would represent positive steps forward. Those in positions of authority and influence should be urged to make purposeful decisions for change and progress.

The role of education featured prominently (see Section F of the report), highlighting the importance of linking access to music and culture as part of

daily life from a young age to enjoying the lifelong benefits of live performance and a thriving talent pipeline. We were particularly heartened that the report highlighted our residency at Acland Burghley School as a model for partnership working that can redefine the dynamic between cultural organisations and communities. Recommendation 11 “to create a joint fund that would support improvements to the cultural offer in schools” in particular is to be wholeheartedly welcomed. It is incumbent on us all to nourish the cultural roots of our young people. Being based in a school, we see on a daily basis how meaningful creative enterprise is empowering young people to realise their full potential whilst enabling the Orchestra to deliver world-class performances of Mozart and Beethoven.

“There are many excellent initiatives to bring culture into schools that could be replicated. For example, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has moved its offices into a Camden secondary school enabling the orchestra to enjoy an economical home with rehearsal facilities and enabling the school to brilliantly enrich not just its music education, but also to use music to enhance its physics and maths teaching.”

ACE INDEPENDENT REVIEW BY BARONESS MARGARET HODGE

Scan the QR code and read the full report

Full of Surprises!

“Fantastic!

Brimming with positivity. Brill musicians. Orchestras in schools – is this the future of classical music?

Hope so!”

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Read our Education Review 2024 / 25

Over the past 25 years, the OAE’s Education department has grown in stature and reach to involve thousands of people nationwide in creative music projects. Our work, inspired by each season’s programming, brings our repertoire, instruments and players to people of all ages across England. This makes for a vibrant, challenging and engaging programme where everyone, from players and animateurs to composers, participants, teachers, partners and stakeholders, all have a valued voice.

From our base in Acland Burghley School in north London, we travel the length of England to deliver our work. In 2024 – 25 we visited Darlington, Consett (County Durham), Leeds, York, King’s Lynn, Brighton, Guildford, Cambridge and Ipswich, as well as the London boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Camden, Greenwich, Harrow, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth, Newham, Merton and Wandsworth.

Read the review on our website at oae.co.uk/discover or scan the QR code

HELP THE OAE GET TO 2066

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has spent four decades redefining classical performance. From pioneering new approaches to historically informed music-making to collaborating with the world’s leading conductors and soloists, the OAE has consistently remained at the forefront of musical innovation. As we mark this milestone, your support will help shape the next forty years of music-making to 2066.

Donate to our OAE at 40 Campaign

The funds raised through the OAE at 40 Campaign will support our 40th Anniversary Seasons, enabling extraordinary programming and collaborations with world-class artists and conductors. Your generosity will also sustain our pioneering partnership with Acland Burghley School, our national education programme and community operas, and our commitment to nurturing the next generation of emerging artists through our Rising Stars programme and Ann and Peter Law Experience Scheme.

Every gift, no matter the size, helps us achieve this ambitious vision and directly supports our Anniversary Seasons across 2025 / 26 and 2026 / 27 carrying the Orchestra confidently through the years to come. oae.co.uk/support-us/oae-at-40

Beethoven left his legacy to us, and you can do the same.

By including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in your will, you can help secure our future for years to come. Legacy gifts enable us to perform at the highest level, both on the concert platform and in schools across the country, ensuring that exceptional music continues to inspire audiences of all ages.

Everyone who chooses to leave a gift to the OAE in their will is invited to join the 1986 Society, named in tribute to the year the Orchestra was founded. Members enjoy exclusive benefits, including an invitation to an annual behind-the-scenes event offering insight into how your support brings our work to life.

If you would like to discuss leaving a legacy with the OAE, please contact Hattie at hattie.rayfield-williams@oae.co.uk or call 020 8159 9318.

“I have remembered the OAE in my will, confident that the future will be a bright one.”

MARGARET FAULTLESS, OAE VIOLINIST AND LEADER

BECOME A FRIEND

Love our Southbank Centre concerts?

Join us as a Friend of the OAE today and help bring exceptional music to life. As a Friend, you’ll experience concerts like never before, gaining both front-row access and behind-the-scenes insights. Enjoy priority booking for our entire season, attend open rehearsals, and connect with our musicians at exclusive membership events. For just £50 a year, you can enjoy these benefits and be a part of our 40th anniversary celebrations, supporting an ambitious and inspiring 2025 / 26 Season.

To become a Friend, scan the QR code, visit oae.co.uk/support-us or contact us at development@oae.co.uk or 020 8159 9317

Thursday 26 February, 7.00pm

Royal Festival Hall

MOZART’S WORLD: THE LAST SYMPHONIES

MOZART Symphony No. 39 | Symphony No. 40 | Symphony No. 41 ‘Jupiter’

Through the summer of 1788 Mozart was consumed in a burst of inspiration. It produced the three remarkable symphonies that turned out to be his last. Rarely heard together, Robin Ticciati takes us inside Mozart’s bold, stormy and divine creations. conductor

in London

Gramophone has been the world’s leading authority on classical music recordings since 1923. With 13 issues a year, every edition will enrich your classical music knowledge with more than 100 expert reviews of the latest recordings, plus in-depth artist interviews and features about composers past and present.

Southbank Centre Season 2025/26

Thursday 26 February, 7.00pm

Royal Festival Hall

MOZART’S WORLD:

THE LAST SYMPHONIES

Symphony No. 39

Symphony No. 40

Symphony No. 41 ‘Jupiter’

Robin Ticciati conductor

Sunday 29 March, 7.00pm

Queen Elizabeth Hall

ST JOHN PASSION

JS BACH

St John Passion

Hilary Cronin soprano

Helen Charlston mezzo-soprano

Jonathan Hanley tenor

James Way Evangelist (tenor)

Peter Edge Christus (baritone)

Choir of the Age of Enlightenment

Johanna Soller conductor

Celebrating 40 years of the OAE

Wednesday 27 May, 7.00pm

Royal Festival Hall

THE CREATION

JOSEPH HAYDN

Die Schöpfung (sung in German)

Samantha Clarke soprano

Nick Pritchard tenor

Krešimir Stražanac bass-baritone

Choir of the Age of Enlightenment

Václav Luks conductor

Wednesday 3 June, 7.00pm

Queen Elizabeth Hall

LIFE OF THE SEA

Join our latest community musical adventure.

Wednesday 10 June, 7.00pm

Royal Festival Hall SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE

BERLIOZ

Harold In Italy Symphonie fantastique

Timothy Ridout viola

Sir Simon Rattle conductor

Wednesday 24 June, 7.00pm

Queen Elizabeth Hall

VIENNA 1897:

BRAHMS’ LAST CONCERT

BRAHMS

Symphony No. 4

DVOŘÁK

Cello Concerto

JOSEPH HAYDN

Symphony No. 73 ‘La Chasse’

Steven Isserlis cello

Maxim Emelyanychev conductor

OAE TOTS: Sailing Away

Royal Festival Hall for 2 to 5 year olds and their grown-ups

Tuesday 31 March

THE NIGHT SHIFT

Chamber music down a local pub

Next gigs:

Tuesday 10 February at Brixton Blues Kitchen

Monday 16 March at The George Tavern

BACH, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING at Kings Place

Mission: to explore our place in the cosmos guided by the intergalactic genius of JS Bach. Each monthly event features one of Bach’s cantatas, and other choral and instrumental works, alongside a talk by an eminent astronomer.

Next event: Sunday 22 February at 11.30am

WHAT’S ON