Nowa Miodowa. Sinfonia Iuventus
Symphonic concert
The opportunity for talented secondary school students to collaborate with a young but fully professional orchestra is a particularly valuable (and often new) artistic experience for them. The stars of the second concert of this season’s “Nowa Miodowa” series are not newcomers – they already have competition successes and significant concert appearances to their credit, which enables them to confidently enter into a dialogue with the orchestra. Together, they will create an inspiring environment where talent can flourish and where the first serious challenges become a source of joy and self-confidence – often decisive for one's future artistic path. The concert will be conducted by Wojciech Rodek, Director of the director of the Jerzy Semkow Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra.
For Edvard Grieg, the Piano Concerto in A minor remained an isolated work for this instrumentation. He composed it as a very young artist, but even then he was able to give the classical form (which also clearly references Schumann's concerto in the same key) an expression of a distinctly Nordic identity. The violent strike of the kettledrums and the immediate entry of the piano open the work with tremendous energy. The lyrical and contemplative middle section has been compared to visions of mist rising above a northern landscape. The finale brings a blaze of dancing rhythms with Scandinavian features. For the pianist, the concerto is a great challenge, requiring both sonic power and poetic delicacy. The premiere took place in 1869 in Copenhagen with Edmund Neupert as the soloist. The concert became one of the milestones in Grieg's career: it confirmed his international fame and cemented his position as Norway's national composer. The work will be performed by Zuzanna Michałowicz, a sixth-year student at the Zenon Brzewski Secondary Music School in Warsaw, where she studies under Prof. Marek Bracha. From 2019 to 2023, she was a student of Prof. Irina Rumiancewa-Dabrowski.
Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major – the only one in his oeuvre – was composed at a time when the author was regaining his balance after a personal crisis; springtime on Lake Geneva brought him peace and an unexpected surge of creative energy. This experience gave rise to a work of extraordinary emotional amplitude – one of the most distinctive and virtuosic concertos of the era. It develops from the clearly outlined themes of the first part, through the lyrical, quasi-vocal Canzonetta, to the finale pulsating with a dance rhythm. For soloists, this is one of the most difficult challenges in the violin repertoire: its emotionally charged expression, dazzling, elaborate cadences and alternation of cantilena with bravura make it a work particularly loved by soloists, allowing them to showcase their entire artistry, as well as by audiences. It premiered in 1881 in Vienna (to poor reviews from critics, which did not harm the work's later fame), with Adolf Brodsky as the soloist. In Tchaikovsky's oeuvre, this concerto became a symbol of his romantic sensibility and one of the most important instrumental works in his oeuvre. Oriana Wojciechowska, a 17-year-old violinist from Gdańsk, who studies in Prof. Janusz Wawrowski's class at the Zenon Brzewski Secondary Music School in Warsaw, will showcase her skills.
The Lithuanian Rhapsody, Op. 11, by the prematurely and tragically deceased (in a catastrophic avalanche in the Tatra Mountains) Polish neo-Romantic composer Mieczysław Karłowicz, is one of his most personal works – a musical journey through the land of childhood, reflecting both nostalgia and the spirit of Lithuanian and Belarusian melodies. The composer arranged the Rhapsody from successive images: a dark, reflective introduction is followed by pastoral and lyrical reminiscences, and the whole is crowned with lively final episodes pulsating with the rhythms of folk dances. This multicoloured structure creates a symphonic panorama that freely combines stylised references to folklore with the late Romantic grandeur of a perfectly orchestrated work. The premiere took place in 1909 in Warsaw under the baton of Grzegorz Fitelberg, just two weeks after the death of the composer, who never heard his work... In Karłowicz's oeuvre, Rhapsody is an important testament to his mature style – orchestral craftsmanship, masterful command of form and emotional depth.
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