The universe has always aroused human interest. It continues to this day, especially now, when we are witnessing new discoveries and our possibilities of learning about the universe are improving. Artists alike, including composers, have been fascinated and inspired by it. This evening we will hear two works whose subject is celestial bodies – Asteroid 4179: Toutatis by Kaija Saariaho and the famous Planets op. 32 by Gustav Holst. The programme will be crowned with Bela Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1 – the composer after whom one of the asteroids orbiting the Sun was named.

Asteroid 4179: Toutatis is an orchestral work by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. (4179) Toutatis is a small asteroid named after the Celtic god Teutates. It is one of the potentially dangerous asteroids that could theoretically hit Earth. The fact that its orbit runs the closest to our planet has inspired the artist, who in a small work shows this fragment of the cosmic abyss in an intriguing way.

The universe stimulates various creators, but is also, in a sense, created by them, or rather structured – one of the asteroids discovered on 12 March 1988 by Jeff Alu at the Palomar Observatory in California was named after the Hungarian composer Bela Bartók. During the concert performed by Gidon Kremer, we will hear the impressive Violin Concerto No. 1, completed by Bartók in 1908. The work waited a long time to see the light of day, as the composer gave the score to Stefi Geyer – a violinist for whom he felt enormous, never-to-be-reciprocated love. At the express request of the woman, the manuscript was not released until after her death in 1956.

The highlight of the programme will be the famous orchestral suite of Gustav Holst Planets op. 32, consisting of seven movements called by Holst “a series of atmospheric images” – Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. For Holst, the source of inspiration were the texts of Alan Leo, a researcher of the influence of planetary movement on human life and a horoscope expert. The suite, full of extra-musical references and intertextual symbolism, remains to this day the most important work of the composer.