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Simply... Philharmonic!2: French Suites

Date & Time
Mon, Dec 2, 2024, 19:00
Maciej Skrzeczkowski, photo: Piotr Grzybowski In his periodical Historisch-Kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik, German music theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg published a letter on the differences between Italian and French music. In it, he mentions George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann as German composers whose work, in Marpurg’s opinion, resembled the French style. It should come as no surprise that he did not mention Bach in his text; after all, Johann Sebastian never left his homeland and had no... Read full text
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Musicians

Maciej SkrzeczkowskiHarpsichord

Program

French Suite No. 4 in E flat Major, BWV 815.3Johann Sebastian Bach
French Suite No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 813.2Johann Sebastian Bach
French Suite No. 1 in D minor, BWV 812Johann Sebastian Bach
French Suite No. 6 in E Major, BWV 817Johann Sebastian Bach
French Suite No. 3 in B Minor, BWV 814.3Johann Sebastian Bach
French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816Johann Sebastian Bach
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Last update: Fri, Nov 22, 2024, 12:41

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Simply... Philharmonic!2: Concerti grossi, Op. 6 (Part I)

Tue, Dec 3, 2024, 19:00
Filharmonia Narodowa, Chamber Music Hall (Warszawa)
Kore Orchestra, Stefano Rossi (Skrzypce), Stefano Rossi (Solista), Jesenka Balić Žunić (Skrzypce), Jesenka Balić Žunić (Solistka), Tormod Dalen (Wiolonczela), Tormod Dalen (Solista), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Harpsichord), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Art Director)
Kore Orchestra, photo: Grzesiek Mart Ladies and Gentleman, due to reasons beyond the Warsaw Philharmonic, Alexis Kossenko will not perform in the concert on 3 December 2024. Concerto in C major, TWV 51:C1 and Concerto in D major, TWV 51:D1 by Georg Philipp Telemann will be replaced in the programme by Overture in B flat major TWV 55:B5. Other pieces in the programme and performers remain unchanged. George Frideric Handel composed the cycle of 12 Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 in a surprisingly short period of time: he started at the end of September 1739, and by the end of October he considered the work finished. Like the earlier Organ Concertos, Op. 4, the Concerti Grossi were written to be performed during the intervals in concerts of oratorio works and English masques. Their composition was also influenced by the urgings of Handel’s publisher, John Walsh, thanks to whom the composer wrote with publication in mind. Although they were largely original works, they did not lack references to Handel’s own work (two of the Concerti – Nos. 9 and 11 – were adaptations of earlier organ concertos) and to other composers, such as Domenico Scarlatti. They were scored for two violins and cello in the concertino group and a four-part string ensemble with harpsichord as ripieno. These were identical forces to Arcangelo Corelli’s 12 Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, the earlier success of which was certainly noted by Handel. However, they did not gain their opus number until 1741, with their second edition. That was the first time that scores had been published exclusively to the order of those who had paid a pre-release subscription to them. The list of their subscribers was headed by as many as six members of the British royal family. Simply… Philharmonic! Project 2: The figure of Johann Sebastian Bach is associated mainly with Leipzig. He moved there in 1723, taking up the post of cantor at St Thomas’s, and remained there for the rest of his life. Although Bach never left the German states, he was certainly familiar with the greatest achievements of the French and Italian composers of his time. Born in the city of Halle, not far from Leipzig, was Bach’s peer George Frideric Handel. Handel’s path as a composer began in his hometown, from which, after a stay in Hamburg, he went to Italy. He then returned to Germany, before eventually ending up in England. Connections with the Electorate of Saxony in the first half of the eighteenth century can also be found with other composers. Christoph Graupner studied in Leipzig, and the student ensemble Collegium Musicum, which gave public concerts, was founded in this city by Georg Philipp Telemann. In Dresden, the court flautist was Joseph Joachim Quantz, and the aforementioned Telemann, after leaving Leipzig, became Kapellmeister in the service of Erdmann II Promnitz in Sorau (now Żary) – a privy councillor to the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II. It is not surprising that so many eminent artists had links to this region, since one of the finest ensembles in Europe was active at the Wettin court in Dresden at that time. Daniel Laskowski Stefano Rossi I skrzypce, solista Joanna Gręziak I skrzypce Agata Habera I skrzypce Jesenka Balić Žunić II skrzypce, solistka Alicja Sierpińska II skrzypce Vida Bobin-Sokołowska II skrzypce Anna Wieczorek altówka Tormod Dalen wiolonczela, solista Matylda Adamus wiolonczela Rafał Gorczyński kontrabas Joanna Boślak-Górniok klawesyn, kierownictwo artystyczne
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Simply... Philharmonic!2: Concerti grossi, Op. 6 (Part II)

Wed, Dec 4, 2024, 19:00
Filharmonia Narodowa, Chamber Music Hall (Warszawa)
Kore Orchestra, Stefano Rossi (Skrzypce), Stefano Rossi (Solista), Jesenka Balić Žunić (Skrzypce), Jesenka Balić Žunić (Solistka), Tormod Dalen (Wiolonczela), Tormod Dalen (Solista), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Harpsichord), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Art Director), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Klawesyn), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Kierownictwo artystyczne)
Kore Orchestra, photo: Grzesiek Mart Ladies and Gentleman, due to reasons beyond the Warsaw Philharmonic, Alexis Kossenko will not perform in the concert on 4 December 2024. Concerto in G minor, QV 5:206 by Johann Joachim Quantz and the fragments of the Overture in F major, GWV 447 by Christoph Graupner will be replaced in the programme by Concerto in D minor, RV 525 and Concerto in A minor, RV 522 from the collection L’Estro Armonico by Antonio Vivaldi. Other pieces in the programme and performers remain unchanged. Simply… Philharmonic! Project 2: The figure of Johann Sebastian Bach is associated mainly with Leipzig. He moved there in 1723, taking up the post of cantor at St Thomas’s, and remained there for the rest of his life. Although Bach never left the German states, he was certainly familiar with the greatest achievements of the French and Italian composers of his time. Born in the city of Halle, not far from Leipzig, was Bach’s peer George Frideric Handel. Handel’s path as a composer began in his hometown, from which, after a stay in Hamburg, he went to Italy. He then returned to Germany, before eventually ending up in England. Connections with the Electorate of Saxony in the first half of the eighteenth century can also be found with other composers. Christoph Graupner studied in Leipzig, and the student ensemble Collegium Musicum, which gave public concerts, was founded in this city by Georg Philipp Telemann. In Dresden, the court flautist was Joseph Joachim Quantz, and the aforementioned Telemann, after leaving Leipzig, became Kapellmeister in the service of Erdmann II Promnitz in Sorau (now Żary) – a privy councillor to the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II. It is not surprising that so many eminent artists had links to this region, since one of the finest ensembles in Europe was active at the Wettin court in Dresden at that time. Daniel Laskowski
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Simply... Philharmonic!4: Jadran Duncumb

Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 19:00
Filharmonia Narodowa, Chamber Music Hall (Warszawa)
Jadran Duncumb (Lute)
Jadran Duncumb, fot. Jørn Pedersen The standard method of writing out lute works was to use tablature notation. It was convenient for the performer, thanks to the clear indication of the string and the fret from which the sound should be made. However, tablature notation was not the most precise, as it did not stipulate the duration of notes. Johann Sebastian Bach was not a lutenist, so he could not adopt a performer’s perspective when composing his lute pieces. Consequently, he wrote them out in classical scores, and the existing tablatures of his works were certainly not written by Johann Sebastian himself. We may speculate that, in assigning a work to the lute, Bach wanted to maintain a degree of control over the musical material, as he did with works for other instruments. Moreover, some of the lute compositions are arrangements of earlier works: the Suite in G minor, BWV 995, for example, evolved from its cello counterpart BWV 1011 (then in the key of C minor). Perhaps, when writing these works, Bach was thinking not only of the lute, but also of the Lautenwerk – a keyboard instrument with gut strings whose sound imitated the lute. A document prepared after the composer’s death, in 1750, shows that he owned two such instruments. The existing lute works certainly testify that this instrument, still popular in the eighteenth century, was important to Bach. Simply… Philharmonic! Project 4: If one were to assign a specific instrument to each country of particular importance on the musical scene of Baroque Europe, the viola da gamba would certainly fall to France. Such an attempt to find national connections to instruments was also made by the eighteenth-century gambist Hubert Le Blanc, who opened his treatise on the instrument with the statement: The Divine Intelligence, among its many gifts, has endowed mortals with Harmony. The violin fell to the Italians, the flute to the Germans, the harpsichord to the English, and the basse de viole to the French. Although the roots of the French school of gamba playing can be traced to England (the first chordal compositions were written there, and the English are credited with popularising the instrument on the Continent), it was in France that some of the instrument’s greatest virtuosos worked and its construction was perfected. Foreign musicians also trained in France, such as the German gambist Ernst Christian Hesse. One instrument related to the viola da gamba is the lute, and works for lute were taken as models for gamba compositions by Antoine Forqueray, among others, a musician contemporary of Marin Marais. In their time, the eminent lute player, theorist and guitarist Robert de Visée, who was also a gamba player, worked in the ensemble of King Louis XIV at Versailles, as Jean Rousseau mentions in one of his letters. The similarity between the gamba and the lute may also have been noticed by Johann Sebastian Bach, as is suggested by the aria ‘Komm süsses Kreuz’ from the St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, in which the composer envisaged a solo part for viola da gamba. In the original version, however, the solo instrument there was the lute. Daniel Laskowski
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Simply... Philharmonic!3: Krasne barszo

Wed, Feb 19, 2025, 19:00
Filharmonia Narodowa, Chamber Music Hall (Warszawa)
La Morra, Doron Schleifer (Vocals), Ivo Haun de Oliveira (Vocals), Matthieu Romanens (Vocals), Corina Marti (Clavicimbalum), Corina Marti (Organetto), Corina Marti (Recorders), Michał Gondko (Lute), Michał Gondko (Art Director), Vojtěch Jakl (Vielle)
La Morra, photo: Dirk Letsch In the first half of the fifteenth century, the leading musical centre in the Republic of Poland was the country’s capital at that time – Cracow. The most valuable completely preserved musical source from that period is a manuscript codex held in the National Library in Warsaw, known as Kras 52. It contains works by the pre-eminent Polish composer of the time, Nicholas of Radom. His compositions were also included in another manuscript, which was lost during the Second World War. However, it was fragmentarily preserved in the form of microfilm and manuscript transcriptions from the original. Little is known about the life of Nicholas of Radom. He was most probably associated with Cracow. It is also known that a musician named Nicholas [Mikołaj] worked as a harpsichordist at the court of Władysław II Jagiełło’s last wife, Queen Sophia of Halshany. However, we cannot be certain that this was Nicholas of Radom. The name was also mentioned more than once in the list of students of Cracow Academy. Peter of Grudziądz (It. Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz) was also associated with early Jagiellonian Cracow. He too began his studies at Cracow Academy, in 1418, obtaining a Master of Liberal Arts degree twelve years later. His compositions enjoyed considerable popularity, both in the fifteenth century and over the next two centuries. They then fell into oblivion for many years, only to be rediscovered in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Simply… Philharmonic! Project 3: Both historical eras and cultural centres are often associated with outstanding individuals who represent the art created in a given place and time. However, confining ourselves to the individual perspective often distorts the full picture of the artistic reality of the time. For Baroque Italy, such a point of reference is certainly Antonio Vivaldi. Although he was an outstanding violinist, he also wrote concertato works not intended for string instruments, as did another violinist, Georg Philipp Telemann, who today remains in the shadow of the great Baroque luminaries from Saxony – Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Unlike Vivaldi, Telemann was a multi-instrumentalist, also experienced in playing wind and keyboard instruments. Francesco Landini can be considered a symbol of Florence, and also of the entire Italian output of the Trecento. He too delighted his contemporaries with his performance art, specialising in organ. The most outstanding composer of the Polish Republic of the first half of the fifteenth century known to us today was Nicolaus of Radom. Very little is known about his life, but he can certainly be associated with his activities in early Jagiellonian Cracow. Daniel Laskowski
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Simply... Philharmonic!3: Specchio del mondo

Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 19:00
Filharmonia Narodowa, Chamber Music Hall (Warszawa)
La Morra, Doron Schleifer (Vocals), Ivo Haun de Oliveira (Vocals), Matthieu Romanens (Vocals), Corina Marti (Clavicimbalum), Corina Marti (Organetto), Corina Marti (Recorders), Michał Gondko (Lute), Michał Gondko (Art Director), Vojtěch Jakl (Vielle)
La Morra, photo: Dirk Letsch Around the middle of the fourteenth century, the previously dominant musical centres of Italy – Milan and Verona – began to lose their position to Florence. Gherardello da Firenze is considered to be the earliest composer associated with this city. Although he was a clergyman, it is mainly his secular works that have survived to our times. However, the most important Florentine Trecento composer is considered by scholars to be Francesco Landini, slightly younger than Gherardello, who at the time composed the largest number of works written in Florence. Interestingly, during his lifetime, Landini was known mainly as an outstanding organist, working at the Florentine convent of Santa Trinita and later at the Basilica of San Lorenzo. In the surviving musical sources associated with Landini, his name often appears with an annotation referring to his instrument. Admiration for Francesco’s playing was expressed in 1389 by the lawyer and writer Giovanni Gherardo da Prato, in his work Il Paradiso degli Alberti, describing Florence at the time. An organetto (portative organ) even accompanies Landini on his tombstone portrait. Perhaps his outstanding talent as a performer and appreciation during his lifetime explain why a relatively large number of his works have survived to this day. However, they are exclusively secular compositions. Simply… Philharmonic! Project 3: Both historical eras and cultural centres are often associated with outstanding individuals who represent the art created in a given place and time. However, confining ourselves to the individual perspective often distorts the full picture of the artistic reality of the time. For Baroque Italy, such a point of reference is certainly Antonio Vivaldi. Although he was an outstanding violinist, he also wrote concertato works not intended for string instruments, as did another violinist, Georg Philipp Telemann, who today remains in the shadow of the great Baroque luminaries from Saxony – Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Unlike Vivaldi, Telemann was a multi-instrumentalist, also experienced in playing wind and keyboard instruments. Francesco Landini can be considered a symbol of Florence, and also of the entire Italian output of the Trecento. He too delighted his contemporaries with his performance art, specialising in organ. The most outstanding composer of the Polish Republic of the first half of the fifteenth century known to us today was Nicolaus of Radom. Very little is known about his life, but he can certainly be associated with his activities in early Jagiellonian Cracow. Daniel Laskowski
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Simply... Philharmonic!4: André Lislevand, Kore Orchestra

Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 19:00
Filharmonia Narodowa, Chamber Music Hall (Warszawa)
André Lislevand (Viola da gamba), Kore Orchestra, Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Harpsichord), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Art Director)
André Lislevand, photo: Cezary Zych; Orkiestra Kore, photo: Grzesiek Mart According to eighteenth-century accounts, the French violinist Jean-Baptiste Volumier, as concertmaster of the Dresden court orchestra, turned it into one of the best ensembles in Europe. After Volumier’s death in 1728, the position of concertmaster was taken over by violin virtuoso Johann Georg Pisendel. Before obtaining this position, Pisendel had developed his violin skills partly in Venice, where he studied with and befriended Antonio Vivaldi. Their friendship resulted in mutual dedications of works, as well as Pisendel’s transcribing of Vivaldi’s compositions. He also transcribed works by other composers, such as Francesco Geminiani, whose Concerto Grosso, Op. 2 No. 2 he arranged as a Sonata à quattro. Pisendel’s talent was also appreciated by other composers (including Tomaso Albinoni), who dedicated works to Pisendel. He also passed on his outstanding skills as a teacher, and one of his most famous pupils was Johann Gottlieb Graun, composer of virtuoso concertos for viola da gamba that were also influenced by great virtuosos and were composed with the outstanding gambist Ludwig Christian Hesse in mind. Hesse, in turn, probably learned to play the gamba from his own father, Ernst Christian, who had previously studied in Paris with Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray. Simply… Philharmonic! Project 4: If one were to assign a specific instrument to each country of particular importance on the musical scene of Baroque Europe, the viola da gamba would certainly fall to France. Such an attempt to find national connections to instruments was also made by the eighteenth-century gambist Hubert Le Blanc, who opened his treatise on the instrument with the statement: The Divine Intelligence, among its many gifts, has endowed mortals with Harmony. The violin fell to the Italians, the flute to the Germans, the harpsichord to the English, and the basse de viole to the French. Although the roots of the French school of gamba playing can be traced to England (the first chordal compositions were written there, and the English are credited with popularising the instrument on the Continent), it was in France that some of the instrument’s greatest virtuosos worked and its construction was perfected. Foreign musicians also trained in France, such as the German gambist Ernst Christian Hesse. One instrument related to the viola da gamba is the lute, and works for lute were taken as models for gamba compositions by Antoine Forqueray, among others, a musician contemporary of Marin Marais. In their time, the eminent lute player, theorist and guitarist Robert de Visée, who was also a gamba player, worked in the ensemble of King Louis XIV at Versailles, as Jean Rousseau mentions in one of his letters. The similarity between the gamba and the lute may also have been noticed by Johann Sebastian Bach, as is suggested by the aria ‘Komm süsses Kreuz’ from the St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, in which the composer envisaged a solo part for viola da gamba. In the original version, however, the solo instrument there was the lute. Daniel Laskowski
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Artistic depiction of the event

Simply... Philharmonic!3: Max Volbers, Kore Orchestra

Tue, Feb 18, 2025, 19:00
Filharmonia Narodowa, Chamber Music Hall (Warszawa)
Max Volbers (Recorders), Orkiestra Kore, Jesenka Balić Žunić (Violin), Alicja Sierpińska (Violin), Anna Wieczorek (Viola), Petr Hamouz (Cello), Michał Bąk (Double bass), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Harpsichord), Joanna Boślak-Górniok (Art Director)
Max Volbers, photo: Cezary Zych; Orkiestra Kore, photo: Grzesiek Mart The instrument inevitably associated with Antonio Vivaldi is the violin. This association is natural, since he played exclusively on string instruments and it was to the violin that he entrusted the solo part in the vast majority of his concertos. However, the catalogue of Vivaldi’s complete works also includes solo flute concertos, three of which are specified as being for flautino. It is impossible to be sure exactly which instrument the composer had in mind, but the compass of the Concerto in G major, RV 443 allows it to be performed on sopranino recorder. As with Vivaldi, the most important instrument for Georg Philipp Telemann was the violin. However, he also had experience of playing wind instruments. After the death of his father, he studied keyboard instruments with organist Benedikt Christiani and independently mastered the recorder, violin and zither. Vivaldi’s concertos were certainly familiar to Telemann, but in his 1718 autobiography the German composer indicated that he was not a great admirer of the concerto genre. Telemann’s reservations were probably not so much about the genre itself as about the exaggerated virtuosity. Johann Friedrich Fasch must also have become acquainted with these works during his time in Prague as court composer to Count Wenzel Morzin. Fasch had taught himself composition by studying the works of his friend Telemann, who for Fasch was the greatest master. Simply… Philharmonic! Project 3: Both historical eras and cultural centres are often associated with outstanding individuals who represent the art created in a given place and time. However, confining ourselves to the individual perspective often distorts the full picture of the artistic reality of the time. For Baroque Italy, such a point of reference is certainly Antonio Vivaldi. Although he was an outstanding violinist, he also wrote concertato works not intended for string instruments, as did another violinist, Georg Philipp Telemann, who today remains in the shadow of the great Baroque luminaries from Saxony – Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Unlike Vivaldi, Telemann was a multi-instrumentalist, also experienced in playing wind and keyboard instruments. Francesco Landini can be considered a symbol of Florence, and also of the entire Italian output of the Trecento. He too delighted his contemporaries with his performance art, specialising in organ. The most outstanding composer of the Polish Republic of the first half of the fifteenth century known to us today was Nicolaus of Radom. Very little is known about his life, but he can certainly be associated with his activities in early Jagiellonian Cracow. Daniel Laskowski
Info & Ticket (filharmonia.pl)
Artistic depiction of the event

Simply... Philharmonic!4: André Lislevand, Jadran Duncumb

Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 19:00
Filharmonia Narodowa, Chamber Music Hall (Warszawa)
André Lislevand (Viola da gamba), Jadran Duncumb (Lute), Jadran Duncumb (Theorbo)
André Lislevand, photo: Cezary Zych; Jadran Duncumb, photo: Jørn Pedersen In the programme: Antoine Forqueray, Marin Marais, Robert de Visée French gambist Hubert Le Blanc, noting in the mid-eighteenth century the declining popularity of his instrument and its displacement by the violin and cello, published the treatise Defénse de la basse de viole. In Le Blanc’s view, France was the ‘empire of the viola da gamba’, founded by Marin Marais and later expanded by Antoine Forqueray. However, those two musicians presented a completely different style. According to Le Blanc, Marais resembled an angel with his playing, while Forqueray resembled a devil. Le Blanc also outlined another opposition. He contrasted the melodiousness and tunefulness of the French style, comparing it to poetry, with the Italian style, in which he saw a significant role played by harmony and a musical reflection of prose writing. He regarded Marais as the master of the French style, claiming that his playing surpassed the beauty of singers’ voices. The melodiousness of a work must have been important to Marais, because he consistently avoided performing sonatas in the Italian style. Forqueray, on the contrary, looked for models for his compositions in the harmonic sound of pieces for lute, harp or guitar. His success, however, was based not on a complete rejection of the output of the French, but in its synthesis with the achievements of the Italian style. The ‘Gamba empire’ thus had two pillars at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one of which, to paraphrase Le Blanc, was admired for its beauty and the other for its solidity. Simply… Philharmonic! Project 4: If one were to assign a specific instrument to each country of particular importance on the musical scene of Baroque Europe, the viola da gamba would certainly fall to France. Such an attempt to find national connections to instruments was also made by the eighteenth-century gambist Hubert Le Blanc, who opened his treatise on the instrument with the statement: The Divine Intelligence, among its many gifts, has endowed mortals with Harmony. The violin fell to the Italians, the flute to the Germans, the harpsichord to the English, and the basse de viole to the French. Although the roots of the French school of gamba playing can be traced to England (the first chordal compositions were written there, and the English are credited with popularising the instrument on the Continent), it was in France that some of the instrument’s greatest virtuosos worked and its construction was perfected. Foreign musicians also trained in France, such as the German gambist Ernst Christian Hesse. One instrument related to the viola da gamba is the lute, and works for lute were taken as models for gamba compositions by Antoine Forqueray, among others, a musician contemporary of Marin Marais. In their time, the eminent lute player, theorist and guitarist Robert de Visée, who was also a gamba player, worked in the ensemble of King Louis XIV at Versailles, as Jean Rousseau mentions in one of his letters. The similarity between the gamba and the lute may also have been noticed by Johann Sebastian Bach, as is suggested by the aria ‘Komm süsses Kreuz’ from the St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, in which the composer envisaged a solo part for viola da gamba. In the original version, however, the solo instrument there was the lute. Daniel Laskowski
Info & Ticket (filharmonia.pl)