The concert of the Dresdner Philharmonie conducted by Krzysztof Urbański features two masterpieces that are separated by a whole century. In the first part of the evening, pianist Boris Giltburg and the orchestra will perform the Romantic Piano Concerto in A minor by Edvard Grieg – a piece as famous as the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, the incidental music for Ibsen’s drama. The moving Symphony of Sorrowful Songs will also be performed – the most famous composition by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki.
Grieg wrote his work at the age of twenty-five, fascinated by Schumann’s Piano Concerto (also in A minor) and its interpretation by Clara Schumann. Writing his concerto, Grieg reached for Norwegian folklore: echoes of the traditional halling dance and the sound of the folk fiddle hardingfele can be heard in it. The composer was never fully satisfied with the Concerto and kept returning to it, introducing changes, until his death. However, the piece very quickly gained the status of a canonical composition.
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 had to wait a dozen or so years for similar recognition. It was premiered in 1977, but until the end of the 1980s it remained – like its author – known only to a narrow group of people interested in contemporary Polish music. The breakthrough came in 1992 thanks to a recording with Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta conducted by David Zinman. The album sold over a million copies. The austere simplicity of the Silesian composer’s work gained additional meaning during the political upheaval in Poland. It touches the hearts of music lovers all over the world to this day.