Symphonic Concert of the Conducting Workshops at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music
Symphonic concert
Once again, we have the opportunity to underscore our mission of developing the skills of young musicians—not only members of the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra, but, in the case of this concert, also students of orchestral conducting from the classes of esteemed professors at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music. The concert will be conducted—unusually—by as many as four young conductors, participants in the workshops, who will divide between them the movements of two magnificent and demanding late-Romantic symphonies, working under the artistic supervision of Professor Antoni Wit. Our Orchestra has performed many times with this world-renowned conductor (also a member of the POSI Artistic Council), most recently on January 10 of this year—which, as always, was a source of great joy and satisfaction for us.
Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 (1888), with its conceptual trajectory (“per aspera ad astra”—through hardships to the stars), is sometimes compared to Beethoven’s famous symphony of the same number; here, however, the emotional span between the tragic opening and the triumphant finale is even more pronounced. One may also observe an analogy in the way the entire work is developed from a single characteristic motif (sometimes, as in Beethoven’s case, called the “fate motif”): a sombre melody, recurring in various contexts, first heard in the low register of the clarinet at the beginning of the piece. The E minor Symphony is also an “emblematic” work—one of those most characteristic of its composer’s style (and, more broadly, of the neo-Romantic idiom of Russian music)—and it has enjoyed unbroken popularity since its premiere.
Shortly after his fiftieth birthday, Antonín Dvořák accepted an invitation from the United States to lead the conservatory in New York. Among his students was the African American baritone Harry Burleigh, who was among the first to introduce spirituals into concert halls. It was Burleigh who acquainted Dvořák with this music, echoes of which soon appeared in the composer’s “New York” works, including the Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, begun at the turn of 1892 and 1893. Dvořák also recalled that Native American music served as another source of inspiration, although he probably knew it only superficially, perhaps through popular “Wild West” shows. The culture of America’s Indigenous peoples also inspired him through Longfellow’s famous epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. The premiere took place on December 16, 1893, at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Anton Seidl and proved a dazzling success. The finale, with its stirring and majestic brass theme, made a particularly strong impression. The composer admitted that he avoided direct quotations, instead striving to convey the spirit of America and its “boundless landscapes” through references to characteristic rhythmic and melodic gestures and scales of African American and Native American music. Even the title added at the last moment before the premiere, From the New World, suggests rather that the symphony was “written in America” than that it “depicts America.”
Details and tickets: Calendarium
