Set your preferred locations for a better search. You can sign up here.

NOSPR / Vermeulen / „Too many notes!” / Mozart’s arias and symphonies gala

Although Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would compose music in virtually all the genres popular in his lifetime, it was opera that he was most enthusiastic about. The concert will begin with Chaconne and Pas seul – ballet fragments from the opera seria (i.e. a serious one) Idomeneus, King of Crete, emanating pomp and circumstance, commissioned by the Munich opera theatre. Then, Ilse Eerens will perform three fragments from another one of Mozart’s works for theatre. The recitative Crudele! and the subsequent... Read full text

Keywords: Subscription Concert, Symphony Concert, Vocal Music

Artistic depiction of the event

Musicians

Dirk VermeulenConductor
NOSPR
Ilse EerensSoprano

Program

Ballet music from the opera IdomeneoWolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Give feedback
Last update: Fri, Nov 22, 2024, 12:16

Similar events

These events are similar in terms of concept, place, musicians or the program.

Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Zagrosek / Mahler’s happiest symphony

Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 19:30
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?Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 will be preceded by a concert overture, beethovenian in its style, by a Dutch colleague of the Bonn genius, one who introduced both Beethoven’s and Mozart’s music to his fatherland’s stages. No wonder, then, that it was that style exactly that Johann Wilhelm Wilms found inspirational not only for his Overture in D major, but for his symphonies as well. The exceptionally graciously led woodwind instruments remind us of the fact that the composer was also… a professional flutist.Jakub PuchalskiConcert duration: approximately 80 minutes
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Arming / Fung / Lullabies and symphonic fantasies

Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 19:30
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
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Boreyko / Tchumburidze / Serenading night and love

Fri, Jun 6, 2025, 19:30
Andrzej Boreyko (Conductor), NOSPR, Weriko Tchumburidze (Violin)
Giya Kancheli’s music arouses controversy in the world of contemporary music. Lyrical, sometimes even sentimental, immersed in the spirituality of Eastern Christianity, it remained a separate phenomenon against the background of the music composed in the countries of the former Soviet Union right before the fall of the empire and afterwards. From a Western-music-oriented perspective, its characteristic nostalgia remains unintelligible for many. The title of Chiaroscuro refers to the renaissance-baroque artistic technique of working with bold contrasts between light and dark. In Kancheli’s violin concerto, the contrasts seem to be outlining visible shapes, only sonic ones, clearly. Whether we remain on the surface of that music or let it harmonise with our emotions remains much more personal of a matter than it is in the case of the Western conventions that are closer to us.Zygmunt Krauze’s Serenade also carries with it a nostalgic charge, yet reined in with greater moderation. While listening to it, we can hear echoes of earlier popular music and an idealised elegance included within the composer’s individual language, which in turn is still ringing with echoes unism, on which Krauze would build his separateness in the early 70s. The reference to the genre of serenade, associated with night and love, is reflected in the composer’s dedication: „A ma femme Isabelle.” The personal tone of the concert will be completed with Bedřich Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor in an expressive orchestration by the legendary conductor George Szell, which brings the work’s title, “From My Life”, closer to the surface.Adam SuprynowiczConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 110 minutes
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Fournillier / Infinitely elegant. French music

Fri, Nov 8, 2024, 19:30
Patrick Fournillier (Conductor), NOSPR, Cracow Philharmonic Choir, Gabriela Legun (Soprano), Stanisław Kuflyuk (Bariton)
For most of the 19th century, the French romanticism was seeking a way of its own, trying not to fall within the orbit of German influence – César Franck, however, eventually preferred to yield to the inspiration to be found in those, simultaneously finding a voice of his own in the Symphony in D minor. It was, of course, characterised by a high density of harmony, but also by refined and gripping themes, as well as a specific melancholy and an unusual multiplicity of timbres in a sonically opulent orchestra. Thus, he created a work perceived as one of the most excellent symphonies of the century.Gabriel Fauré belongs to the next generation already, one turning towards the French clarity. This is not yet impressionism, but it is already a music shining with its inner brilliance, esoteric and ethereal, and at the same time infinitely subtle and elegant. There is also a gentle glow, that of the soft and warm autumn sun, to be found in his Requiem, exceptional in the whole history of music. This mass for the dead originated as a mass indeed: for the liturgies in the church that Fauré played the organ and gave concerts in. The terror of death turns into what is more like nostalgic reflection, looking into the netherworld with bright eyes, not expecting any shock whatsoever.Jakub PuchalskiConcert duration: approximately 100 minutes
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Alsop / Requiem as a tribute

Thu, Mar 27, 2025, 19:30
Marin Alsop (Conductor), NOSPR, NFM Choir, 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
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Dybał / Dervaux / The fate motif and cinematic suspense

Sun, Dec 15, 2024, 12:00
Jurek Dybał (Conductor), NOSPR, Sophie Dervaux (Bassoon)
„Thus, fate is knocking on the door” – as anecdote has it, that was how Beethoven described the famous, dramatically forceful motif opening his Symphony No. 5. The initial sounds of the overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s The Force of Destiny opera have a similar effect of activating one’s imagination. They serve as a lavish introduction to a story of melodramatic love, which maestro Verdi generously decorated with the intense colours of the monumental wind section. The Italian style and a captivating narrative are also the elements that fuel Nino Rota’s Concerto for bassoon and orchestra. Born in Milan, the composer became famous thanks to the scores he wrote for giants of cinema, the likes of Fellini, Visconti and Coppola. Can we hear that the concert pieces come from the same composer whose sounds told the story of the Corleone family? Obviously! The Concerto for bassoon and orchestra is a gripping narrative led by the noble sound of the solo instrument, filled with plot twists, tightly-packed dramatic events, and even with humour.Film music has borrowed from the works of late Romanticism with abandon. After all, Nino Rota himself is also deeply indebted to Wagner or Verdi, the latter’s work also constituting the finale of this concert. Just like film music, which began to build its own prominence and storm concert halls in Nino Rota’s time, the ballet music from Verdi’s opera Don Carlos gained independence from theatre stages and, over time, found a life of its own as a concert piece. To this day, the instrumental parts inspire awe with their epic orchestration and enthralling dramatic sequences, held together by suspense of a nearly cinematic scale. Krzysztof SiwońConcert duration: approximately 70 minutes
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Webster / The Fun-Fair and the Moonrise Kingdom

Sun, Feb 23, 2025, 12:00
Angus Webster (Conductor), NOSPR
If Dvořák, Kisielewski and Britten could meet – would they find a common language? Certainly so, only that would be neither Czech, nor Polish, nor English, but the language of humour and classical proportions.The Carnival Overture is its composer’s declaration of faith in the vital power of ethnic music. Remarkably, it is the central part of the “Nature – Life – Love” trilogy. Dvořák did not approach folk themes with a scholarly studiosity. Instead, seeking inspiration in their rhythms and melodies, he created an exuberant vision of his homeland’s folklore. The Slavic pulse in Dvořák’s work was so strong that it forced its way into scores, even when, having crossed the Atlantic, the composer decided to write national music for the Americans – this might be the reason why the Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” seems to resonate with Prague nostalgia more than with echoes of the prairies. Humour is probably the most important aesthetic value in music composed by the erudite, author and politician, Stefan Kisielewski. Similarly to Dvořák, while drawing from ethnic traditions, the Polish composer also carefully listened to town life: both the sounds of its fairs and its everyday rhythm. The Fun-Fair, self-identifying in its subtitle as a single-act ballet with prologue, paints a sonic cityscape within a neoclassical framework.Benjamin Britten’s works also show an unshakable faith in the power of musical tradition. There is no dearth of tributes to the Englishman’s excellent predecessors in his oeuvre, one of the most beautiful testimonies to his faith in the heritage of British culture being The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. The piece is a cycle of variations on a very short theme from Abdelazer by the Baroque master Henry Purcell. The promise made in the title of the work is fulfilled in a pedantic presentation of each section of the orchestra and every family of instruments. The whole is intricate enough to have proven worthy of a prologue to one of Wes Anderson’s films (Moonrise Kingdom, 2012).Krzysztof SiwońConcert duration: approximately 60 minutes
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Vanoosten / Traubel / A manifesto of longing. „Eternal Songs"

Fri, Mar 7, 2025, 19:30
Victorien Vanoosten (Conductor), NOSPR, Sarah Traubel (Soprano)
The famous fate motif from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 is the musical opening of the philosophical dialogue between a creator and the Creator, fate, or destiny.Nearly all of Richard Strauss’ oeuvre is music meandering among literary texts and pretexts. His songs and operas, but also symphonic poems, clearly reference programs written either in prose or in poems. In the case of instrumental works, those were often merely sources of primary inspiration, impulses that maintained only loose relationships with the final shape of the musical narrative.For Strauss, the final decade of the 19th century is a time of symphonic poems, gradually developed and bringing the idea, initiated by Liszt, towards an apogeum. It was also then that the poem Death and Transfiguration was created (1899). Its program is a vision of a man on his deathbed recalling the happy days of his past. The motto for the composition is a poem by Alexander Ritter, but the composer keeps his distance from it: the piece is „purely a work of imagination, and no fruit of my life’s experience (I only fell ill two years later). No more than a concept, just like any other”. Indeed, the music carries with it such a universally relatable existential message that no detailed explanation is needed: it leads from suffering and agony, through a rebellion against the inevitability of death, towards an ascent to light and salvation, to reach the final transfiguration and harmony.Nearing the end of his life, Strauss such found a form of expression for existential reflection that was new and sophisticated, but at the same time classically restrained. In 1948, he completed a cycle of songs to be dedicated to Kirsten Flagstad shortly before his death. The beauty of the Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) – maintaining the atmosphere of the twilight of poetry proper created by Hermann Hesse – is that of a text perfectly integrated with the sound of the orchestra. Each song is instrumented differently, but always beautifully, adequately for the emotionally eternal messages dressed in the garb of new sound.Amidst those two works by Strauss, there stand the Eternal Songs – a poem by Karłowicz that is not only excellent, but also entirely original on the levels of musical language and aesthetics. These are actually three poems, each cleped a song. They all amount to a manifestation of the composer’s longing for comfort to be found in the universe, a manifestation that evades verbal expression.Andrzej SułekConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 100 minutes
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Hermus / Great symphonists and The Master-Singers of Nuremberg

Fri, Dec 6, 2024, 19:30
Antony Hermus (Conductor), NOSPR
If The Master-Singers of Nuremberg were stripped of their stage design and historical setting, they could constitute a metaphor of perfect order in the musical (though not only) world: the winner of the competition for the most beautiful song and its best performance would be the best and the most talented participant and the ambitious mediocre one would suffer a well-deserved defeat. In such a world, the following question would become an abstract and groundless one: why have Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Three Dances, Op. 34, not found their rightful place in the concert repertoire? Why is this work – chronologically placed halfway between Symphony No. 2 and No. 3, surprising, brilliant, written with a particular flair for timbre and expression – performed so rarely? Nonetheless, in real life, Walter’s love song does not shine in a blaze of glory at first, while the talentless Beckmesser will still trumpet his clerkish shallowness before he finally loses.Usually, however, it is the greatness of vision that wins. Such was the Wagnerian vision, which changed the course of history. Without his orchestral language, Bruckner’s, Mahler’s and Richard Strauss’ oeuvres would certainly be different from those we know today.In his Gesamtkunstwerk, Wagner lent an increasingly greater weight to the orchestra. The instrumental layer ceases to be merely a helpful scaffolding for the vocal show, beginning to explain and add to the drama happening onstage. The furthest he ever ventured away from the academic thinking about form was in the prelude to the Lohengrin (1848). In the prelude to the 1862 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Wagner decided to build a classically structured score. In a sophisticated manner, he brings together motifs taken from the operatic plot, referencing its heroes and crucial moments, simultaneously creating a score of unusual brilliance and elan, a concert masterpiece.Even though Bruckner admired Wagner, the path his symphonies open up for us is one leading to a radically different sphere of artistic expression – a sphere marked by patience and humility, but also by self-destructive uncertainty. In this Brucknerian world, The Sixth is truly exceptional. The least frequently performed, it does not belong to any period – while being the only one never amended by the composer, it also separates the “early” part of his symphonic universe from the “late” works. Amidst contrasting moods and motifs, the meandering harmonies, complicated rhythms and an orchestration fueled by an unrestrained imagination lead from darkness to light.Andrzej SułekConcert duration (intermission included): approximately 100 minutes
Artistic depiction of the event

NOSPR / Alsop / Yang / Polish sonorism and music of the north

Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 19:30
Marin Alsop (Conductor), NOSPR, Inmo Yang (Violin)
Although Sibelius’ Violin Concerto is not programmatic music, it is permeated by the same Northern colour and breadth of breath that can be found in nearly all works by the creator of Finlandia. This is because landscape is not present there merely as a decoration – as it was in 18th-century music – but to reflect the scenery of the soul. Part of the core violinistic repertoire, enclosed within the framework of classical form, for over a hundred years, the piece has not ceased to inspire a sense of wonder, not only with its mysterious atmosphere and richness of sound, but also with its symphonic elan and originality of themes. While the British musicologist Donald Tovey called the final movement of the Concerto a “polonaise for polar bears”, he granted it – and rightly so! – an honourable place among the greatest violin concertos of Romanticism. Another great classic of 20th-century music is Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, in which – as Alex Ross put it – the Hungarian composer and folklore researcher “decided to throw away his notebook and began dancing with them [peasants]. From the strings, there rise clouds of dust, setting on the feet of the frenzied dancers.”. While the musical language of this late work of Bartok’s is a softened one, its form is classicising, and the sounds are nearly euphonic, still what is the most important for his style was retained – distinct rhythms, colourful instrumentation, and subtle inspiration drawn from folklore. Piotr MatwiejczukConcert duration: approximately 110 minutes