NOSPR / Axelrod / Gershwin / Leonard Bernstein’s great discovery

Date & Time

Fri, Feb 7, 2025, 19:30

Venue

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

There are fascinating masterpieces that are still waiting to be discovered. Even if they have become classics in their genre. Such has been the fate of compositions by Charles Ives, which are still virtually absent from Poland. This might not be so surprising when we remember that it had also been half a century or more before it was premiered in his native country. As we have just celebrated the American genius’ 150th birth anniversary, it is high time we... Read full text

Keywords: Subscription Concert, Symphony Concert

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Musicians

John Axelrod	Conductor
NOSPR
Christian Schmitt	Organ
Matthias Höfs	Trumpet
Michał Żymełka	Drums

Program

George Gershwin	Lullaby
Fazıl Say	Concerto for trumpet, organ, strings and percussion
Charles Ives	Symphony No. 2

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Last update: Tue, Feb 18, 2025, 24:10

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Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

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Finished

NOSPR / Bayona / de la Salle / Great history and the joy of music-making

Sun, Nov 17, 2024, 12:00

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

Néstor Bayona (Conductor), NOSPR, Lise de la Salle (Piano)

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This month

In Katowice

NOSPR / Todorov / A revolutionary symphony

Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 12:00

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

Najden Todorov (Conductor), NOSPR, Tine Thing Helseth (Trumpet)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s career spanned two eras – those of classicism and romanticism. As a child and teenager, he studied with Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Later, he befriended Ludwig van Beethoven, and later still the young Fryderyk Chopin, the Polish composer highly valuing his compositions and finding them inspirational for his own early work. Hummel’s Concerto in E-flat major for the trumpet was composed in 1803, with Anton Weidinger, a Viennese virtuoso of the instrument, in mind. Its premiere in a New Year concert in January 1804 was a celebration of the composer being appointed Konzertmeister to Nikolaus II, Prince Esterházy's estate. The soloist is accompanied by a small orchestra consisting of flutes, clarinets, oboes, horns, timpani and strings. The mood is bright, and the virtuosic parts are suggestively combined with lyrical ones.Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C major was composed at the same time as Hummel’s work. Its premiere to place in Vienna in 1800 and the strong impression it made helped its creator reinforce his position among the city’s musicians. Commentators pointed out the work’s innovativeness, which lay in surprising key changes, strong and unexpected rhythmical accents, as well as an increased autonomy of woodwind instruments. Paradoxically, later researchers preferred to emphasise the fact that this early work of Beethoven’s still features, quite naturally for a rather young composer, significant influence of Haydn’s and Mozart’s oeuvres. The truth lies in the middle – this is a work in which achievements of previous generations were creatively transformed by a progressively oriented composer.Oskar ŁapetaConcert duration: approximately 70 minutes

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Finished

NOSPR / Zagrosek / Mahler’s happiest symphony

Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 19:30

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

Lothar Zagrosek (Conductor), NOSPR, Olga Bezsmertna (Soprano)

The most joyous one among Gustav Mahler’s symphonies does not, by any means, renounce either the grotesque irony that is so typical for the composer or eschatological threads. Yet again, it deals with the subject of death. This time, however, it is first represented by the grotesque Ländler played by the violin in the scherzo, later to introduce us to the realm of paradise in the finale. But is this true paradise, or rather an image, ironical in its effect, that arises from the naive folk poetry of The Boy’s Magic Horn collection, which the composer uses in his symphonies for the last time?Jakub PuchalskiConcert duration: approximately 70 minutes

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Finished

NOSPR / Runtz / In the Mediterranean sun

Sun, Oct 20, 2024, 12:00

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

Dawid Runtz (Conductor), NOSPR, Ewa Jabłczyńska (Guitar), Dariusz Kupiński (Guitar), Marcin Dylla (Guitar), Justyna Sobczak-Dylla (Guitar)

It is not often that we can encounter Balkan folklore in such a spectacular form. Jakov Gotovac’s style is that of late romanticism, but he approaches folk tradition with love. This is why the Serbian kolo can be heard as early as in the first, truculent, chord of the 1927 Symphonic Dance poem. A similar flame is what characterizes the extreme movements of the Concierto andaluz for four guitars and orchestra by Joaquin Rodrigo, although the heart of this piece beats to the rhythm of the Spanish bolero. The dance is not a fast one, but it is pugnacious and lively. The central Adagio brings to mind images of the South – those who know Andalusia will hear the smell of olive groves and see the azure waves reflecting the Mediterranean sun. That was how the blind marqués de los Jardines de Aranjuez heard his fatherland in 1967.It is also under the Spanish sky that the finale of the symphonic evening, contained within the sounds of the ballet suite from Jules Massenet’s grand opera Le Cid, will take place. Seventeenth-century France was impressed by Pierre Corneille’s play about the medieval Castilian knight – similar success was achieved 200 years later by Massenet’s piece based on it (after the 1885 premiere, the opera was performed for 50 consecutive evenings. It was from Corneille and Massenet that the French took the famous and apt phrase: “beautiful like The Cid”.Maria Wilczek-KrupaConcert duration: approximately 70 minutes

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Fri, Nov 8, 2024, 19:30

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

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Finished

NOSPR / Klauza / Nizioł / The American Dream

Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 19:30

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

Michał Klauza (Conductor), NOSPR, Bartłomiej Nizioł (Violin)

The (co)creators of the works to be presented in this concert share an American connection. Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, written for the organ, was arranged for an orchestra by the exquisite conductor Leopold Stokowski, who spent most of his life in the United States, leading such ensembles as the famous Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1940, it was with them that he recorded the soundtrack for Walt Disney’s Fantasia, which has since become a legend, having prepared the symphonic version of the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor for this purpose in particular (he was awarded an honorary Oscar for his achievements). Allegedly – due to the similarity of their surnames – he was often mistaken with Zygmunt Stojowski, who left Europe for the States at the beginning of the 20th century and remained there until his death in 1946. On the other side of the pond, the latter was chair of the piano department at the New York Institute of Musical Art, also teaching at the Von Ende School of Music. The Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 22, is an early composition of his, created at the end of the 19th century. Unusually expressive, it is imbued with the Romantic spirit, its violin part glimmering with brilliant virtuosity. Henryk Wars – known in the States as Henry Vars – is predominantly recognised in his homeland as a pioneer of Polish jazz, composer of film music, and author of such smash hits as Miłość ci wszystko wybaczy, Umówiłem się z nią na dziewiątą and Zimny drań. His outstanding symphonic pieces were only discovered in the late 1990s. Among those, there was the exquisite Symphony No. 1 (1949), which blends the late-Romantic sense of drama, flawless instrumentation and a cinematic scope.Agnieszka Nowok-ZychConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 90 minutes

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This season

In Katowice

NOSPR / Alsop / Season finale. A Titan

Thu, Jun 26, 2025, 19:30

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

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Finished

NOSPR / Alsop / Requiem as a tribute

Thu, Mar 27, 2025, 19:30

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

Marin Alsop (Conductor), NOSPR, NFM Choir, Lionel Sow (NFM Choir Art Director), Pierre-Louis de Laporte (Choir preparation), Erica Eloff (Soprano), Ben McAteer (Bariton), Szymon Nehring (Piano), Zuzanna Nalewajek (Alto)

“It is with greatest ease and willingness that I am working on this Concerto and, nota bene, I feel that this is going to be a first-class trick” – these words from a letter by Karol Szymanowski are proof of how important the Symphony No. 4 was for the composer. It was his unfulfilled dream of a “true” piano concerto. One of a pianistic tour de force, the first sketches of which he dropped to focus on the Stabat Mater he was working on back then. The moving „Peasant Requiem” (such was the title Szymanowski had originally intended for the work), born out of the pain he experienced after his niece’s death, it brings together religious ecstasy and a note of the Polish folklore to be heard in a recollection of the popular Bitter Lamentations resonating in the composer’s memory.How different was that world from the instrumental Chaconne by Krzysztof Penderecki! The latter is an expressive musical tribute to the memory of the late Polish Pope. It was this piece that provided a symbolic closure for the Polish Requiem, which Penderecki had been working on for a quarter of a century – a monumental chronicle of Poland’s modern history, the melancholic finale of which contains both a nostalgia for the baroque tradition and emotions of a surprisingly romantic nature.Róża ŚwiatczyńskaConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 90 minutes

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Finished

NOSPR / Arming / Fung / Lullabies and symphonic fantasies

Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 19:30

Narodowej Orkiestry Symfonicznej Polskiego Radia, Concert Hall (Katowice)

Christian Arming (Conductor), NOSPR, Zlatomir Fung (Cello)

This year, two hundred years from the premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, it is worth remembering the Name Day Overture. Initially, it was intended to contain a choir part with the text of Schiller’s Ode to Joy. The final result turned out to be different, yet no less interesting. All the more so, since the background for the piece is to be found in the name day of Emperor Francis I and II and its dedication is one for Prince Antoni Radziwiłł. It is quite a different story with Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D major. It is a popular piece, permanently present in the repertoire, though probably less frequently played than the Concerto in C major. Equally technically challenging and equally virtuosic, but more dreamy and melancholic, its narrative flowing lightly at a leisurely pace. Haydn’s melodies are easy to remember and not easy to forget, just like the theme from a Polish folk song quoted by Panufnik in his Lullaby, a virtuosic piece using quartertones. „A gem of talent, technique and taste” – that was how Stefan Kisielewski marvelled at the composition. Martinů’s Symphony No. 6, which the composer himself called Symphonic Fantasies,might seem both moving and surprising. It brings together modern oniric sounds and distinct neoclassical elements. „It is a work without form, and yet something holds it together, though I do not know what it is,” Martinů admitted openly. One may seek this “something” on one’s own, letting oneself be captivated by this music created by a Czech master who is still to find recognition in Poland.Piotr MatwiejczukConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 90 minutes

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