The monumental Piano Concerto No. 2 by Johannes Brahms, one of two works of this genre written by him, is a work that phenomenally combines symphonic scope with intimacy typical of chamber music. Together with the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, they will be performed by Sergei Babayan, winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, once a musical partner of such eminent artists as Martha Argerich and Antonio Pappano. The conductor will be Jacek Kaspszyk, who in the second part of the concert, together with the Wrocław Philharmonic, will perform Mieczysław Weinberg's Symphony No. 21 “Kaddish”.
When Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 met with a rather cold reception from the audience, the artist wrote to the violinist Joseph Joachim: “the second one will sound different”. The composer did not take it up until twenty years later. The Second Piano Concerto, first presented in November 1881 in Budapest, caused a sensation. Although the press sarcastically (and not without reason) described the work as a “piano symphony”, Brahms in the same concert season visited twenty-two cities in three months, performing the concerto, and within a few months of its publication, a piano reduction from the composition was reprinted three times. Today, both of Brahms’s piano concertos are considered masterpieces. They require not only great skills from the performers, but also great artistic sensitivity.
The Symphony No. 21, written by Mieczysław Wajnberg towards the end of his life juxtaposes delicate sections with a powerful orchestral tutti, which may evoke certain associations with the style of Brahms’s work. The Symphony, completed in 1991 and full of references to other works, has an unambiguously tragic character. It is dedicated to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the title “Kaddish” is a prayer recited by Jews for mourning since the 13th century.