We invite you to the opening of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic season, conducted by Pinchas Steinberg. He was born in 1945, and his mother was Polish. The conductor is currently Artistic Director of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. His achievements include performances at the Vienna Opera, he also directed other excellent orchestras: ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and Orchester de la Suisse Romande. Early in his career, he studied violin with Jascha Heifetz and composition with Boris Blacher. One of his friends has been Krzysztof Jakowicz.

The first piece in the program will be A Little Suite by Witold Lutosławski, an early composition from 1950. A version for chamber ensemble was written at that time, but Grzegorz Fitelberg liked the work so much that he suggested that Lutosławski prepare an orchestral version, which the composer gladly agreed to. In this form, A Little Suite was first performed under the baton of Fitelberg during the Festival of Polish Music in 1951. The brilliant, colourful orchestration and a variety of moods, combined with the catchiness of folk tunes from the Rzeszow region, made the work quickly become very popular. Polish music lovers still remember well the excellent conducting performances of maestro Stanisław Skrowaczewski, who was especially appreciated for his interpretations of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies. Skrowaczewski, whose 100th birth anniversary falls this year, also dabbled in composition, and the European premiere of his Triple Concerto for violin, clarinet, piano and orchestra will be a reminder of this fact. This work, completed in 1991, was performed for the first time in Honolulu under the composer’s baton. It consists of five movements, strongly differentiated in terms of tempos and moods.

The evening will be crowned by a four-movement early symphonic poem by Richard Strauss entitled Aus Italien, written in 1886. The twenty-two-year-old Strauss visited Rome, Naples, Bologna, Sorrento, Salerno and Capri, and began working on the work while traveling. The inspirations taken there, however, had their price – in the fourth movement of the colourful poem, the artist quoted a melody he heard in Naples, because he thought it was a folk tune. It was a song called Funiculì, Funiculà by Luigi Denza, who sued the composer for using it without permission. Denza won the lawsuit and the author of Aus Italien had to pay him damages.