"Pianissimo" / sensory concert

"Pianissimo" / sensory concert

West Side Story / The Hexatonic’s concert

With one reed or two – the soft sound of the „wood”, i.e. woodwind instruments, is indispensable in orchestral music. Bringing together the related sounds of the oboe, the clarinet, the bassoon, and the saxophone, also has its deep tradition in chamber music. And what was not written for these instruments, can be arranged for them, thanks to the breadth of opportunities they offer. The hexatonic scale present in the name of the ensemble, i.e. that with six notes per octave, is also known as the blues scale, without which there would be no jazz. Hence the sentiment for music by Debussy and Ravel, in whose pieces a similar scale can be found. Not to mention the composing oeuvre of Leonard Bernstein, for whom jazz was as important an influence as the great European classics. While all these tropes may be traced down in the programme of the Hexatonic concert, one thing remains certain: a sound that caresses the ear. Adam Suprynowicz Concert duration: approximately 90 minutes

Sensory-Friendly Family Concert "Espressivo" / The WHOOP Group

NOSPR / Schumann / Zehetmair / A concert the netherworld called for

Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto was created in the ailing composer’s final years and was later considered lost for a long time. Written for the famous violinist Joseph Joachim, it seems permeated with inner struggle and a sense of resignation. The violinist never performed the piece publicly. After Schumann’s suicidal attempt and his confinement to an asylum, where he died after a short time, Joachim deemed the form of the piece to be an expression of its creator’s madness and put it in his drawer forever to remain there. Legend has it, but witnesses also confirm, that eighty years later Robert Schumann appeared to the participants of a seance held in London by Erik Kule Palmstierna, the Envoy of Sweden to the United Kingdom. The spirit ordered Joachim’s great-nieces, the violinists Jelly d’Arányi and Adila Fachiri, who were present at the table, to find and perform the lost piece. Although it was indeed recovered, the concerto was seized by the Nazis, who entrusted Georg Kulenkampff and the Berliner Philharmoniker with premiering it. The concert in Berlin took place in 1937, when Arnold Schönberg had already been forced to emigrate to the United States. His innovative creativity was not understood there, but the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra led by another emigrant, Otton Klemperer, gladly accepted his orchestral arrangement of an early piece by Johannes Brahms – the Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor,Op. 25. Schönberg justified his orchestration of the chamber piece as follows: „1. I like this piece, 2. It is rarely played, 3. It is always played really badly, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, as a result of which the strings cannot be heard. I wanted to hear everything and I have achieved this.” Do we need a better recommendation?Adam SuprynowiczConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 110 minutes

Masecki / Markowicz / A fresh look at Brahms’ music

Johannes Brahms is considered a restorer of German chamber music and the one who gave it its shape in the second half of the 19th century. His works constitute a point of reference without which it is difficult to imagine a chamber music festival or concert series. It is similarly difficult to think seriously about a violin repertoire devoid of his sonatas, even if the composer himself called them “sonatas for piano and violin”. The intention here is not to push the violin away to the background, but rather to emphasise the piano being a full partner in the duo. Thus, the creation of this unique, intimate dialogue and the construction of the consistent form that will eventually appear to the listener as a complete (master)piece require two artists. This evening, a fresh artistic perspective is guaranteed thanks to the participation of two exceptional instrumentalists who are also composers themselves, which gives them their own sense of narrative and meaning in music. This will be their Brahms. Adam Suprynowicz Concert duration: approximately 70 minutes

Turicum Quartet / Menuet of the witches

Joseph Haydn has been called “Papa Haydn”, both affectionately and pejoratively. Meanwhile, he was a composer whose mastery and unpredictability went hand in hand. Let us appreciate the emotional glimmering of the music, its surprising turns, sense of humour (the “menuet of the witches” quite unlike the court dance), or the finale inspired by music of the Romani people living in the borderlands of Austria and Hungary, where the composer spent most of his life. The spirit of Austria-Hungary is also referenced – already after the fall of the dual monarchy – in the modernist parodying miniatures by Erwin Schulhoff, who enhanced them with motifs of his native Czechia. Even though Szymanowski knew the capital of Austria-Hungary, he did not like it; his String Quartet No. 1 represents a different direction, as Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz wrote: “Never before has any of his works breathed such a scorching air of the South; not the heat of the Sicilian south or the mourning of the Greek heat, in which Pan’s flute kills hearts – but the juicy and ripe heat which smells like the crops of Ukraine.” Adam Suprynowicz Concert duration: approximately 60 minutes

NOSPR / Alsop / Sumino / Inauguration of the season 2024/2025

We invite you to a live broadcast of the concert on Polish Radio 2.Samuel Barber began composing the Symphony No. 1 in1935, at the age of twenty-five. At the end of 1942 and at the beginning of 1943, he made significant amendments to the score, eventually to dedicate it to Gian Carlo Menotti – his university friend and later life partner. Commenting on this symphonic debut, he admitted that the intention behind it was a polemical dialogue with the classical tradition: „The form of my Symphony in One Movement is a synthetic treatment of the four-movement classical symphony. It is based on three themes of the initial Allegro non troppo, which retain throughout the work their fundamental character.”The concept of the Concertino by the twenty-nine-year-old Władysław Szpilman– that of a single-movement “small concerto” – is similarly untypical. His first and only composition for piano with orchestra was created in the Warsaw ghetto in 1940. Hence the “compactness” of the form. The graceful character, references to jazz and subtle allusions to Chopin permeate the melodies and harmonic language of the Concertino, showing Szpilman as akin to Prometheus, one who brings light into the darkest places of human despair and sorrow.In the case of the forty-year-old Johannes Brahms, one could call his Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a, a “protodebut”. The story of how long Brahms, filled with doubt, was preparing for his Symphony No. 1 (1876), is one of the most frequently discussed aspects of his biography. The 1873 Variations are a significant step in this process. They constitute a prototype of the symphonic idea and texture, and simultaneously a tribute and a token of admiration for the author of TheCreation of the World. „He was quite someone!” was how Brahms wrote about Haydn a year before his own death. “Oh, how pitiful are we against someone like him!”With his Rhapsody in Blue (1924), today, Gershwin is an iconic figure, standing like the Colossus of Rhodes, towering over the borderline between two orders – those of classical music and jazz. However, when the twenty-six-year-old was entering the conservative realm of American concert halls with his slightly nonchalant Broadway gait, he was crossing a line no one had ignored in such an ostentatious manner before. Paul Whiteman organised the Experiment in Modern Music concert in order to prove that the relatively new form of music called jazz deserved being recognised as a serious and sophisticated form of art. The Rhapsody proved that being first and brave is worth the risk!Andrzej SułekConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 90 minutes

Chopin and Bach / Hayato Sumino’s piano recital

Bach and Chopin. Two worlds, two geniuses, two points of reference for the tradition of the keyboard. The former is the essence of spirituality, the musical structure and the richness of the baroque world. The latter symbolises musical romanticism. Chopin scholars emphasise the fact that he renewed Bach’s mastery of counterpoint and finesse of ornament, using them as foundations upon which he built a musical world of his own, still much beloved everywhere around the world. Their music serves as the basis for a fantasy of one’s own, and as material to be reworked, for artists for whom playing others’ music is not enough. The twenty-nine-year-old Japanese pianist Hayato Sumino follows in the footsteps of the wonderful eccentric, Friedricha Gulda, whose scandalising improvisations opened secret passages between classical music and jazz. On the sidelines, they are supported by the ghost of Maurice Ravel, who defined the concept of stylisation for the 20th century. In this concert’s programme, you can hear the neverending expansion of the musical universe. Adam Suprynowicz Concert duration (intermission included): approximately 100 minutes

NOSPR / Arming / Fung / Lullabies and symphonic fantasies

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

Silesian String Quartet / British Fantasy on the 110th anniversary of the birth of Andrzej Panufnik

“Music is the expression of emotions and feelings. I hold as my ideal a piece in which poetic content is combined with excellence of musical craftmanship. Poetry alone does not determine the musical value of a piece, just as craftmanship alone risks falling into a pitfall of using worn-out formulas. Enduring beauty is only born from a balance of both” Andrzej Panufnik (1952) Silesian String Quartet – 45 years of experience, more than 150 first performances of chamber works, thousands of concerts in the world's most famous concert halls, more than 60 albums, more than 20 nominations, 10 ‘Fryderyk’ statuettes and the most important – the ‘musical Oscar’, i.e., the Gramophone Classical Music Award. The ensemble specialises in the discovery, promotion and recording of Polish music and is famous for its first performances under the guidance of composers. Ditching the traditional hierarchical model of performing music, the ensemble emphasises exchange and collaboration with other musicians. This season, the artists will introduce the work of Sir Andrzej Panufnik on the 110th anniversary of the birth of the only Polish composer to be awarded a title of nobility by Queen Elizabeth II. The programme will be complemented by works by native British artists, i.e., Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar. It includes one of the most beautiful chamber works of the 20th century – Edward Elgar's Piano Quintet in A Minor. Imbued with mystery, the piece was inspired by the charming yet somewhat murky atmosphere of the woods surrounding the cottage at Flexham Park in Sussex, near Brinkwells, where Elgar created his compositions. The impact of this setting is perceptible in the music, which impresses with its richness of expression and power of sound. The late Romantic style of the piece adds to its unique character, full of deep, dark tone, enhancing the impression of mystery and longing. [Alexandra Kozowicz]Concert duration (intermission included): approximately 120 minutes