The NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, conducted by Samy Rachid, will perform Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, dating from his earlier period, juxtaposing it with two selections from the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The solo part will be performed by Swedish virtuoso Daniel Lozakovich. Born in 2001, this violinist signed a contract with the Deutsche Grammophon at the age of fifteen, paving the way for a brilliant, dynamically developing career. He has released five albums and has also performed at important events – one of which was a performance with the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France for the reopening of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, which had been rebuilt after a fire.

The long-lived and incredibly hard working Max Bruch was a significant figure in German musical life in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although a sculpture of the artist still adorns the façade of Cologne’s town hall, fate also linked him to Wrocław – it was here that Bruch lived and worked from 1883 to 1890. His three-movement Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor is one of the German composer’s most popular works. It was composed in 1866, when he was twenty-eight years old. Although he later wrote many other compositions (including two further violin concertos), none of them equalled this one in fame. It is light, sunny, full of charm and energy, and the solo part is decidedly more lyrical than showy. The composer’s remarkable melodic inventiveness played a significant role in the work’s success.

Unlike Bruch’s oeuvre, whose works in the contemporary performance canon can be counted on the fingers of one hand, the place of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s pieces in the repertoire is secure and unchallenged. During the concert, we will hear the Divertimento K 136, written by the barely sixteen-year-old Salzburger. This cheerful, three-movement piece is – like Lozakovich’s playing in the first part of the evening – an example of the genius of youth. The genre of eighteenth-century popular music also included the serenade. It is precisely this type of composition that Mozart’s famous Symphony in D major K 385, “Haffner” is derived from. The Austrian composer wrote it to provide the musical setting for the knighthood ceremony of Sigmund Haffner, a family friend. Later, when he decided to present the work at a concert in Vienna, is was to be heard in a modified shape. Until today, the Symphony embodies the lightness of the Classical style.