After more than a decade as Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis recently became their President, with Russian maestro Valery Gergiev taking charge in his place. Gergiev has inherited the LSO in top condition and it's clear from his plans for his first complete season as Principal Conductor that he intends to cherish and sustain their history and musicianship.
The big concert series of the season is a complete cycle of Mahler's symphonies, starting on 24 September 2007 with the Third and concluding in July 2008 with an irresistible performance of the gargantuan Eighth (the 'Symphony of a Thousand') at St Paul's Cathedral. The symphonies are paired with contrasting works from the twentieth century by Strauss, Sibelius and Schoenberg, and on 5 June 2008 Gergiev has programmed the 'Adagio' from Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony alongside a complete rendition of the elegiac Ninth.
He may have stood down as Principal Conductor, but Colin Davis will be performing as many concerts as before. He appears prominently in three concert series. Belief explores music with a spiritual background, and Sir Colin conducts the Mozart Requiem (3 October 2007), Haydn's Creation (7 October), Tippett's A Child of Our Time (18 December) and, most interestingly, the world premiere of Catholic composer James MacMillan's Passion (27 April 2008), which has been commissioned to celebrate Sir Colin's eightieth birthday.
The conductor also heads a number of concerts entitled Pure, each of which considers various works by a single composer. Pure Beethoven juxtaposes the Eroica Symphony (which Davis performed with memorable insight at the Proms two years ago) with the Third Piano Concerto, featuring Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin (27 September 2007). Three days later, Pure Mozart presents two of the composer's late works, the Requiem and the B flat Piano Concerto, K595, while December brings Pure Berlioz and Pure Tippett, two composers with whom Davis has long been associated.
The final series featuring Colin Davis is called Pairs, which, as the title suggests, unites pieces of music by composers who are deemed to be connected in some way. Davis explores symphonies by the Austrian composers Bruckner and Schubert on 23 May and 1 June 2008. More excitingly, my season highlights are the two Pairs proposed by Bernard Haitink. On 8 and 10 June 2008, he performs Mozart's Piano Concerto No 24 K491 (played by the great Alfred Brendel) with Strauss symphonic poems, while one of the world's finest sopranos, Dame Felicity Lott, sings some of Strauss' Orchestral Songs alongside Haitink's interpretations of Ein Heldenleben and Mozart's G minor Symphony, K183/K173db.
A highlight for many will be concert performances of Britten's Billy Budd led by Principal Guest Conductor Daniel Harding (who also conducts Act II of Janá?ek's Jen?fa in October) and sung by Ian Bostridge (in conjunction with a Barbican survey of the latter's career, December 2007). For me, though, the prospect of Pierre Boulez conducting Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle (11 May 2008) is more exciting. Conductor Laureate André Previn returns in two concerts with his ex-wife, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, firstly with the British premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina's Violin Concerto (27 October 2007) then with the Brahms Violin Concerto (22 June 2008).
John Eliot Gardiner will no doubt add a touch of period performance practice in his two Beethoven concerts in January and February 2008, while Vasily Petrenko conducts Rachmaninov and Shostakovich and Yuri Temirkanov takes on Prokofiev and Shostakovich in February 2008. Violinist Midori performs two recitals at LSO St Lukes (6 March and 15 May 2008) and the Tchaikovsky and Britten Concerti in April 2008. And Antonio Pappano, Marin Alsop and Richard Hickox return in November 2007 in a series of works by American composers.
This is an impressive line-up by an orchestra that still ranks amongst the world's finest.