The second of a series of three concerts crowning the 2019/2020 season will be a meeting with the music of Franz Xaver Richter, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, conducted by Andrzej Kosendiak.
We will open the evening with Richter's Symphony in D major, who was a composer of the Classicist era. He was one of the representatives of the Mannheim school, gathered around the prince’s orchestra operating in this city. Artists belonging to this school, contributed to the orchestra’s development and laid the foundations for the works of Joseph Haydn and Mozart. Mozart will be represented in the programme by the energetic overture to the comic opera Le Nozze di Figaro.
Hummel wrote his Concerto for Trumpet in E flat major (Concerto a tromba principale) for the virtuoso of this instrument Anton Weidinger. The artist performed this work during the New Year’s concert in January 1804. Hummel took the role of the kapellmeister of the court orchestra of Prince Nicolaus II Esterházy. The composer replaced Haydn in this position, who also wrote a trumpet concerto for Weidinger.
The evening will culminate in Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D major – completed in 1802 and dedicated to Prince Karl Alois Lichnowsky. Paradoxically, it was in this composition written for the aristocrat that Beethoven broke the convention and departed from court culture. While other symphony writers of the time customarily placed an elegant dance – minuet in the third movement, Beethoven replaced it with a brawl scherzo. This word means ‘joke’ in Italian and refers to a usually light and funny work. The finale is also kept in the same tone. Beethoven’s jokes did not appeal to Viennese critics. One of them wrote disgustedly that the new work reminds him of a dragon who writhes in convulsions and cannot die! This composition, however, survived in the repertoire and still captivates listeners with its playful mood and great load of energy.