Witold Lutosławski World Days is a special initiative to commemorate the great Polish composer – Witold Lutosławski. Between the anniversaries of his birth and his death, as part of the international multi-year project, concerts will be held, during which the master’s greatest works will be performed. On 27 January 2023, the winner of the 8th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Garrick Ohlsson will perform at the NFM.

Augusta Holmès was a French composer whose work was unfairly forgotten until the beginning of the 21st century. She was among the greatest composers of the 19th century – she perfected her skills under the watchful eye of César Franck, she was also in a close relationship with Ferenc Liszt and Camille Saint-Saëns. Andromède, a symphonic poem written in 1883, will open the concert. The next piece in the programme is Sinfonia Concertante No. 4 op. 60 for piano and orchestra, composed by Karol Szymanowski over the course of just a few months in 1932. Although he dedicated the work to his friend, the great pianist Arthur Rubinstein, he probably wrote it with himself in mind. “I am working on this concerto with the greatest ease and willingness (once again, I am asking you to keep secret the fact that it is a concerto – you could call it the 4th Symphony) and by the way, I have the impression that it will be a first-class trick,” wrote Szymanowski in a letter to Zofia Kochańska and indeed, he was right – the premiere of the composition turned out to be a huge success.

The evening will close with the sounds of Witold Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 3, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the 1980s. Its form is the result of the composer’s experience as a listener fascinated by how the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms had expanded. However, the ideal model for him was a symphony of Joseph Haydn, which is reflected in this work. Lutosławski’s symphony is characterized by an originally thought-out two-movement form, in which the first movement is to prepare us for the coming of the second. The work was the reason why the composer was awarded the underground Solidarity Committee of Independent Culture Award 1983.