Osmo Vänskä, fot. Kaapo Kamu
Special concerts
Curtis Symphony Orchestra Philadelphia
31.05.2017
Wed.
7:00 PM
NFM, Main Hall
Programme:

M. Ravel Daphnis iand Chloé Suite No. 2 
K. Penderecki  Double Concerto for violin and viola 
***
J. Brahms  Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor Op. 15 

In partnership with the Ludwig van BeethovenAassociation

Performers:

Osmo Vänskä – conductor
Benjamin Schmid – violin
Roberto Diaz – viola
Peter Serkin – piano
Curtis Symphony Orchestra

 

Curtis on Tour, the Nina von Maltzahn Global Touring Initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music

Venue:
NFM, Main Hall
plac Wolności 1, 50-071 Wrocław
Pricelists:
from 25 to 200 zł

A “collective marvel” (Philadelphia Inquirer), the Curtis Symphony Orchestra embodies the sheer joy of music-making. Honing their craft under celebrated conductors, 100 young musicians perform with a fresh exuberance that makes each work new. 

Maurice Ravel began composing Daphnis and Chloe, for Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, in 1909 and completed the score in 1912. The ballet was first presented on June 8, 1912, in Paris. It is the largest orchestral work Ravel composed. “My intention in writing [Daphnis and Chloe],” Ravel revealed, “was to compose a vast musical fresco in which I was less concerned with archaism than with reproducing faithfully the Greece of my dreams, which is very similar to that imagined by French artists at the end of the eighteenth century.”

Ravel called his work a “choreographic symphony in three parts.” The story of the ballet was adapted from the fifth-century Greek author Longus. Daphnis and Chloe, who were abandoned as children and raised by shepherds, had fallen in love. In the first part Daphnis earns Chloe’s kiss, but she is then abducted by pirates! Pan and his warriors must rescue Chloe in the second part and in the third the lovers are reunited. Ravel arranged two sets of symphonic sections of the ballet for the concert hall and the second suite premiered for the first time on April 30, 1914. “The work is constructed symphonically out of a small number of themes,” Ravel said, “the development of which ensures the work’s homogeneity.” Daphnis and Chloe did not succeed as a ballet, due to the bickering of the Artistic leadership. However, the lush music, most notably in the second suite, made an immediate impression on listeners and it has since become a symphonic staple.

Krzysztof Penderecki is a composer and conductor, born on November 23, 1933, in Dębica. He comes from a multi-cultural family with Armenian, German, and Polish roots. He started his musical training with piano lessons but was more interested in his father’s violin. As a student, he went to Kraków to study composition. Penderecki studied composition first with Franciszek Skołyszewski and then with Artur Malawski and Stanisław Wiechowicz at the Academy of Music in Kraków. In 1958, he began lecturing in composition, and in 1972, he became a professor. He also gave lectures as an assistant professor in Essen at the Folkwang-Hochschule and at Yale University. From 1987 to 1990 he was the artistic director of the Kraków Philharmonic Hall, and since 1993 he has been the artistic director of Festival Casals in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Starting in 1997 he became the music director of Sinfonia Varsovia, and in 1998 he began advising the Beijing Music Festival. Since 2003 he has served as the Artistic Director of the Sinfonia Varsovia. He regularly works with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonia Iuventus, the Beethoven Academy Orchestra, Sinfonietta Cracovia, and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hi most successful works include Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), St. Luke Passion (1966), Cello Concerto No.2 (1983) written for Mstislav Rostropovich, Polish Requiem (1984), Symphony No.3 (1995), Violin Concerto No.2 written for Anne-Sophie Mutter (1995), Symphony No.7 The Seven Gates of Jerusalem (1997) and the Double Concerto (2012). Also a prominent film composer, Penderecki wrote music for one full-length feature film The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Wojciech Jerzy Has, and his work can also be found in Kubrick’s The Shining, Friedkin’s The Exorcist, The Mask by the Quay brothers and Shutter Island by Martin Scorsese.

Johannes Brahms completed his First Piano Concerto early in 1858 and was the soloist at the first private performance on March 30, 1858 as well as at the first public performance on January 22, 1859, both took place in Hanover. This was Brahms’s first major orchestral work, longer than Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto and it occupied Brahms for at least five years. It is a dramatic piece deeply embedded with Brahms’s grief over Robert Schumann’s breakdown and death, as well as the conflict of his relationship with his widow, Clara. Thus, it may not be a surprise that a critic at the second performance, in Leipzig, wrote that the Concerto "cannot give pleasure," for it contains, "the shrillest dissonances and most unpleasant sounds." Nonetheless, after the harsh composition of the first movement, the Adagio presents a different world. "I am painting a gentle portrait of you," Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann, regarding the piece. This concerto is a result of patient deliberation as Brahms was reluctant to take on the writing of a symphony. However, there was grandeur about the early sketches of the composition that only an orchestra could answer, thus after five years of work and intense emotion the “symphony with solo piano” was created.     

 

Alixandra Porembski, English Language Annotator   

NFM Audio Player - obsługa komponentu Event

NFM Video Panel - obsługa komponentu Event

Co-organisers:

NOTE! This site uses cookies and similar technologies.

Like most websites, we use cookies to facilitate online booking and to ensure we give you the best possible experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume you're happy to receive cookies. You can learn more about changing your settings in our Privacy Policy. Learn more

Accept & close
Newsletter Melomana
We announce new concerts, we remind you about the start of ticket sales, we let you know about the last vacancies
Register