Violin, viola, clarinet and cello will feature in the programme of well-known Classical, Romantic and contemporary composers. Although these artists are recognizable figures, these pieces are performed sporadically despite their great artistic value.
The concert will begin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Duo No. 2 in B flat major for violin and viola KV 424. The artist created this composition in the summer of 1783. The lively first movement is preceded by a slow introduction, the second is based on a singing melody, and the third is a graceful set of variations on a theme of a march. Krzysztof Penderecki’s Quartet for clarinet and string trio is a composition that was first performed in 1993. The work was created without a commission, out of the heart’s need and the willingness to convey the atmosphere of Lusławice, where the artist lived and where the work was written. It consists of four movements. The first is the Notturno, a moody, dreamy image of the night. In the Scherzo, attention is drawn to a motoric simple rhythm, which gives the music great dynamism. The Serenade is in the rhythm of a waltz, and the whole thing is crowned with Abschied, a movement filled with sadness and melancholy.
Witold Lutosławski’s Bucolics is a short, five-movement series of miniatures for children, originally written for piano. It was composed in 1952, that is, at the same time as the virtuosic Concerto for Orchestra. These works are linked by the fact of using folk melodies. In the case of Bucolics, these were melodies from Kurpie collected once by Fr Władysław Skierkowski. The originality and invention with which Lutosławski developed them were lauded by the musical community. The last work in the programme is the cheerful, yet slightly melancholic Clarinet Quintet in B minor by Johannes Brahms. It is a late piece by the German composer, written in 1891. The artist discovered the beauty of the sound of the clarinet thanks to the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, for whom Brahms also wrote the Clarinet Trio op. 114 and two clarinet sonatas. The Clarinet Quintet was created during a holiday stay in Bad Ischl, situated at the foot of the Salzburg Alps.
