For independent reasons the conductor must have been replaced. The concert will be conducted by Marek Wroniszewski instead of Yannis Pouspourikas.

fot. Alicja Dybowska

The clarinet is an instrument with amazing possibilities and an extensive scale, deep and nostalgic in the lower registers, yet shining with splendour on high notes. Its incredibly rich dynamic makes this instrument almost equivalent to the human voice. It can also be harnessed in feats of dazzling virtuosity, something that Szymon Klima, one of the most original talents of his generation, is certainly capable of doing. A few years ago, he became famous for an extraordinary project to “expand” the 10-minute cycle of appealing Dance Preludes (1954) by Witold Lutosławski, an improvisation inspired by this piece which resulted in concerts as well as the album Lutosławski Retuned (performed by a trio also featuring Adam Kowalewski and Piotr Wyleżoł). The March concert will feature these preludes in their original form and the artist will also perform the spectacularly expressive Clarinet Concerto (1949), the best-known work today by the somewhat forgotten, yet prolific British composer Gerald Finzi. The dance, quasi-folk idiom of Lutosławski’s Preludes will be completed by the lively third of the Dances op. 34, which Henryk Mikołaj Górecki composed in 1998 for the Rybnik Philharmonic.

A humorous short story by Yuri Tynianov in 1927 recounts an anecdote from the days of Tsar Paul I about a soldier who never really existed, but whose name appeared by mistake in military documentation and who subsequently continued to climb the professional ladder in a series of promotions. It was only when the tsar himself expressed the desire to meet this man that the clerks who had unwittingly brought him to life “killed” him off. A comedy by Aleksandr Faintsimmer from 1934 (known in Poland under the title Car szaleniec) was intended to be a satire on the dull bureaucracy of the ancien regime, but was also quickly recognised for its topicality on new and even more grotesque Soviet realities (which censors only realised after some delay – for example, in Poland the show was banned at the Polish Theatre on the basis of events that took place in… 1972!). Sergei Prokofiev, one of the pioneers of ambitious film music from the USSR, composed appealing music for this film, whose fame (in the form of a concert suite) considerably outlived the film itself (interestingly, Sting used one of its themes in his well-known song Russians from the album The Dream of the Blue Turtles, 1985). This colourful and attractive programme will be led by Marek Wroniszewski – Deputy Director of the Jerzy Semkow Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra who has been associated with this institution since October 2017, initially as the assistant conductor and then as the orchestra manager. [Piotr Maculewicz]

Organiser: Józef Elsner Opole Philharmonic

Tickets: filharmonia.opole.pl