Programme Notes · London Symphony Orchestra · 29 January 2026
Treviño: Messiaen, Illés and Rachmaninoff’s Second
v3 · updated 30 September 2026 · 12 sources
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v3 · 30 September 2026 · Further reading added
- Added three recommended books: Rachmaninoff (Norris), The Rest Is Noise, Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor
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v2 · 30 September 2026 · Sources added; house-style edit
- Added 9 sources
- Removed em dashes
- Messiaen Hymne: reconstruction from memory dated 1946 (was 1947)
- Messiaen Hymne: removed a stray 'as the search results put it' attribution
- Illés bio: corrected where he studied (Basel with Müller-Siemens, Karlsruhe with Rihm)
- Illés bio: removed the unsourced claim that he teaches in Mannheim
- Vont-tér: dropped 'written for' Kopatchinskaja (only her premiere is sourced); premiere details attributed to the LSO; added 2019 completion date
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v1 · 22 June 2026 · First published
Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
Hymne (au Saint-Sacrement)12 min
About the Work
The Hymne au Saint-Sacrement (‘Hymn to the Blessed Sacrament’) is one of Messiaen’s earliest orchestral works, written in 1932 when he was just twenty-three, already the organist of La Trinité and already, unmistakably, himself. It belongs to a small group of early orchestral ‘meditations’ (with Les Offrandes oubliées and Le Tombeau resplendissant) in which the young composer first displayed his command of the orchestra and his lifelong subject: religious contemplation, here a hymn of adoration before the Eucharist.
The work has an extraordinary backstory: the original score was lost during the Second World War, and Messiaen reconstructed the entire piece from memory in 1946, a feat that shows both his prodigious musical recall and how much the work meant to him. Though early, it already shows the hallmarks of his style: glowing, sensuous harmonies, a free and flexible sense of rhythm and time, and an atmosphere of ecstatic, mystical contemplation that builds to a bubbling, sunny climax. It makes a luminous, devotional opening to the concert.
What to Listen For
Listen for the slow, contemplative, almost timeless quality of the music: Messiaen is not interested in conventional momentum or development, but in creating states of spiritual contemplation. Listen for his rich, sensuous harmonies (the young composer already finding the glowing, ‘coloured’ chords that would define his style) and for the way the music moves in waves of adoration, alternating hushed mystery with radiant, surging climaxes.
Even in this early work, you can hear the essential Messiaen: the sense of music as an act of worship, the love of bright orchestral colour, and a rhythmic freedom that makes the music seem to float outside ordinary time. At around twelve minutes it is a concentrated, glowing meditation, a window onto the spiritual world that would occupy this singular composer for the rest of his life.
Márton Illés (1975–)
‘Vont-tér’ for Violin and Orchestra21 min
About the Work
‘Vont-tér’ for violin and orchestra is a recent concerto-like work by the Hungarian composer Márton Illés, completed in 2019 and premiered by tonight’s soloist, Patricia Kopatchinskaja (the LSO notes that she gave the first performance with the WDR Symphony Orchestra in 2020). It features here as part of an LSO ‘Artist Portrait’ series spotlighting Kopatchinskaja, a violinist famed for her fearless advocacy of new music, and an ideal champion for a work of this kind.
Illés is a composer of intricate, imaginative sound-worlds, and the LSO describes Vont-tér as ‘an ethereal, playful work of kaleidoscopic sounds and effects.’ Contemporary violin writing of this sort tends to explore the full expressive and technical range of the instrument, with a whole palette of colours, textures and extended techniques alongside conventional melody, set against an orchestra used for atmosphere and shimmering detail rather than traditional accompaniment. As a relatively new piece it comes without the familiarity of the repertoire staples around it; it rewards open, curious listening.
What to Listen For
Approach this one with fresh ears. Rather than waiting for hummable themes, listen for colour, texture and gesture: the ‘kaleidoscopic sounds and effects’ the LSO promises. Listen to the extraordinary range of sounds Kopatchinskaja draws from the violin (she is celebrated for exactly this kind of fearless, exploratory playing), and to how those sounds are mirrored, answered and coloured by the orchestra.
Listen, too, for the ‘ethereal, playful’ character: moments of delicacy and wit, shimmering textures, sudden contrasts. This is music about the interplay of the solo voice and the larger ensemble, about the discovery of new sonorities, and about atmosphere. Let it draw you into its strange and vivid world: a chance to hear a living composer’s music brought to life by the violinist who has made it her own.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943)
Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 2760 min
About the Work
Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony is one of the glories of late Romanticism: a vast, glowing, intensely lyrical work that represents the composer’s triumphant return to the symphony after disaster. His First Symphony had failed catastrophically at its 1897 premiere, sending him into a deep depression; a full decade later, having rebuilt his confidence (and living quietly in Dresden to escape the distractions of Russia), he produced this richly Romantic masterpiece. It was premiered in St Petersburg in 1908 with the composer conducting, and was an immediate and lasting success.
The symphony is everything its predecessor’s premiere was not: assured, expansive and overflowing with the long, soaring melodies and dark, autumnal Russian melancholy that are Rachmaninoff’s signature. At full length it runs close to an hour (Rachmaninoff thinks in broad, unhurried paragraphs), and it builds to one of the most famous slow movements in the repertoire, whose great clarinet melody is among the most ravishing tunes ever written. It is music to be luxuriated in: warm, passionate, nostalgic and ultimately triumphant.
What to Listen For
The symphony grows from a brooding motto in the low strings at the very opening, a germinal idea that recurs throughout the work, binding its huge span together. Listen for the first movement’s slow, dark introduction giving way to a surging, melancholy main movement, full of Rachmaninoff’s characteristic long-spun melody.
The second movement is a vigorous scherzo: listen for the striding horn theme and the energetic drive, with a broad, sweeping lyrical contrast and a chattering fugal central section. Then comes the glory of the symphony: the Adagio, opening with a great soaring melody in the violins and, soon after, the famous long clarinet solo, one of the most beautiful melodies in all music, unfolding with seemingly endless breath. Let it wash over you. The finale is a blazing, festive movement that gathers up the symphony’s themes (including a return of that ravishing slow-movement music) and drives, through surging climaxes, to a triumphant, bell-like close in the major, the hard-won affirmation of a composer who had once thought himself finished.
Tonight's Artists
Patricia Kopatchinskajaviolin
Patricia Kopatchinskaja gave the premiere of Márton Illés’s ‘Vont-tér’, so this performance, part of an LSO portrait series devoted to her, places the work in the hands of the very artist who brought it into being. Famed for her fearless, exploratory approach and her command of the violin’s full range of colours and effects, Kopatchinskaja is the ideal (indeed the originating) interpreter of this ‘kaleidoscopic’ contemporary concerto.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, born in Chișinău (then Soviet Moldova) in 1977 into a family of folk musicians, is one of the most individual and electrifying violinists before the public. Her family emigrated to Vienna when she was a child, and she trained there and in Bern. Famous for her fearless, theatrical, intensely physical music-making (she often performs barefoot), she is a passionate champion of new music and an unconventional interpreter of the classics, winning a Grammy in 2018. Her folk-music roots and her wild, characterful energy make her an especially compelling interpreter of Bartók, whose own music is steeped in the folk traditions of Eastern Europe.
Further reading
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Accessible Rachmaninoff
Geoffrey Norris, Oxford University Press 2000
A compact life of Rachmaninoff with a guide to his music, including the Second Symphony written in Dresden.
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Accessible The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
Alex Ross, Picador 2008
Alex Ross’s history of twentieth-century music gives a lively picture of Messiaen and of the modern world in which a work like Illés’s new concerto is written.
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Deeper Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor
Barrie Martyn, Routledge 2016
Barrie Martyn’s study treats Rachmaninoff as composer, pianist and conductor, with detailed discussion of the Second Symphony.