The NFM Wrocław Philharmonic concert conducted by Christoph Eschenbach will be an encounter with ballet music by two notable composers active in the first half of the 20th century. One of them is Bohuslav Martinů, who, together with Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček, is considered one of the greatest Czech composers. Germany’s Paul Hindemith was also an excellent and versatile artist. They have much in common – both left very extensive work and were interested in many forms and genres. Both also began their careers as enfants terribles, ostentatiously disregarding conventions and introducing elements of pop music into their works.

Although the catalogue of Bohuslav Martinů's works published in 1968 by the Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich includes as many as 384 items, his works rarely appear in concert programmes in Poland. In his early years, the artist drew inspiration from the work of Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy, but in the late 1920s he followed in the footsteps of Igor Stravinsky and Kurt Weill, who were keenly interested in popular music, including jazz. Martinů quickly began to use jazz in his works, such as Le Jazz, the ballet La revue de cuisine and the mini-opera Larmes de couteau. Another strongly jazzy work by the composer is the ballet Échec au roi from 1930 – a colourful, witty, dynamic work, full of expressive rhythms and intriguing orchestral ideas. It features a narrator who moves on a mat imitating a chessboard.

The most famous composition inspired by the poetry of the French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé is Claude Debussy’s L’après-midi d’un faune. Paul Hindemith's less frequently performed ballet Hérodiade was also based on the work of this writer. The artist composed this piece in 1944 at the request of the famous choreographer and dancer Martha Graham and called it an “orchestral recitation”, because the parts of the individual instruments are a “verbatim” (adapted to the rhythm and prosody of the French language) record (syllable by syllable) of the dialogue between the titular character, the cruel Herodias, who demanded the execution of John the Baptist, and her guardian. The composer strongly opposed the idea of ​​presenting the work in the form of a song or melo-declamation, arguing that the voice could distract the audience from the action on stage. This does not prevent some performers from occasionally adding the “missing” vocal part to the music. It should be remembered, however, that such “supplements” are not in accordance with the author's intentions.