During the concert of the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra conducted by Christian Danowicz, the music of four prominent composers: Dmitri Shostakovich, Jerzy Fitelberg, Eugène Ysaÿe, and George Gershwin will be performed. The featured works were written in the 1920s or 1930s. The musicians will be joined by two excellent violinists – Karolina Podorska and Magdalena Ziarkowska-Kołacka.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Prelude and Scherzo op. 11 is one of his most surprising works. It was written at the turn of 1925, and the composer intended it for a string octet, which is why researchers have hypothesised that it was modelled on the famous Octet in E flat major by Felix Mendelssohn. The Russian composer initially intended to write a five-movement suite for the same line-up but was driven away from working on it by the writing of Symphony No. 1. When he completed the symphony, Shostakovich limited himself to the two-movement form for the Prelude and Scherzo. The composer dedicated this expressive and original work to the memory of his deceased friend, the poet Volodya Kurchavov.

Next, we will hear the Concerto for String Orchestra by Jerzy Fitelberg, who was the son of Grzegorz Fitelberg – a conductor, friend and promoter of Karol Szymanowski’s work. Jerzy quickly began to gain a strong reputation in the music world as a composer. In 1940, he migrated to the United States, where he died eleven years later. His piece, full of energy and expressive rhythms, is an arrangement of his String Quartet No. 2. Amitié is a piece for two violins and strings. It was written by Eugène Ysaÿe, and although history has remembered him as one of the greatest virtuosos active at the turn of 20th century (he was even given the nicknames “violin king” or “tsar”), he was also a composer. Amitié is one of eight poems for violin and other instruments.  It is a cheerful, lyrical dialogue between two soloists, spun over sparse accompaniment. Karolina Podorska and Magdalena Ziarkowska-Kołacka will join the orchestra as soloists.

The concert will be crowned by a performance of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Suite, arranged for strings and violin by Igor Frolov. The author of Porgy and Bess, first performed in Boston in 1935, boldly broke conventions and wove elements of jazz into his compositions.