We invite you to the concert of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic and Bomsori Kim - an outstanding violinist of the young generation. The musicians will perform works by Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff – composers active in the Romantic era.

The first will be the Academic Festival Overture op. 80 – a composition inherently associated with Wrocław. Johannes Brahms composed it as an expression of gratitude after receiving the honorary doctorate of the University of Wrocław in 1879. In this extremely effective and perfectly orchestrated work, the composer included quotations from various songs, including the student anthem Gaudeamus igitur. This quotation made the piece is a symbol with which the university community identifies itself. The premiere of the Overture took place on 4 January 1881 at the Wrocław (Breslau) Concert House under the baton of the composer.

The Violin Concerto in D major by Piotr Tchaikovsky was written at a similar time – it was composed in the 1870s in just a few weeks, during the artist’s stay in Switzerland. The Russian composer went there to regain his spiritual balance after a nervous breakdown caused by his disastrous marriage and breakup with his wife. The concert is one of the most famous and at the same time the most difficult works of violin literature. It was originally dedicated to Leopold Auer, but the virtuoso, due to the technical difficulties in the work, refused to perform it. Instead, the young violin virtuoso Adolf Brodsky took up the challenge. Although the composition evoked mixed feelings at the time – the famous music critic Eduard Hanslick described it as “too long and pretentious” – today it belongs to the main repertoire of violin music. The concert will end with Symphony No. 2 in E minor op. 27 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is the most famous orchestral work of this composer. After the badly received premiere of Symphony No. 1 in D minor in 1897, the artist felt a creative block and fell into depression. The psychotherapy he undertook helped him to compose a larger work – it was the famous Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. A few years later, he moved to Dresden, where he secretly worked on another piece – Symphony No. 2. Its enthusiastic reception during the premiere in Sankt Petersburg boosted the artist’s self-esteem and faith in his own abilities.