On the one hand, Till Eulenspiegel’ Merry Pranks, on the other hand, the sounds of the musical drama that forever changed the history of music, and the works of Vytautas Barkauskas and Witold Lutosławski will feature in the diverse repertoire of the January concert with the participation of the eminent cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson.

Vytautas Barkauskas was one of the artists active in Lithuania in the 20th-century avant-garde. In his work, he moved between free atonality and other compositional techniques, which he filtered through his idiomatic compositional language, expressed e.g. in the Konzertstück für Orchester No. 2 op. 103 from 1994. Witold Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto was written in 1969–1970 for the legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who soon premiered the work with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Downes. The brightest point of the composition is the virtuosic cello part, which Rostropovich himself perceived as demanding, although it was this part that later brought him a well-deserved triumph on the stages of the world.

Tonight’s repertoire also includes a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, completed in 1895 – Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks op. 28 – delighting with swashbuckling character, the whole spectrum of musical colours and excellent instrumentation. Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde is among the most personal of his works. The impulses for its creation were the composer’s unhappy love for his muse, Matilda Wesendonck, as well as the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Above all, the work reveals a truly revolutionary musical drama that changed the fate of the opera scene. On its basis, Wagner developed an innovative compositional language, which for some was a forerunner of atonality. During the concert, we will hear the characteristic Prelude and Liebestod crowning the work and presenting the moment when Isolde mourns the dead Tristan.