6.10.2018, 6 p.m.
Bielsko-Biała Cultural Centre

Chopin’s youth came during the years of the greatest bloom of music in the brillante style, so called from the adjective that frequently supplemented the titles of his compositions (mainly for the piano, because it was this instrument that became the main feature of the salons and concert stages) and which indicated their “brilliance,” understood as a virtuosity of fast scales and passages, a richness of ornaments, and features that musicians loved to show off. Of course, this fashion did not bypass Warsaw. Famous virtuosos gave concerts here, and sheet music of the fashionable repertoire was also extensively imported. Chopin’s works from the Warsaw period are also fundamentally maintained in the brillante spirit. Chopin liked this genre very much, as it allowed him to show his dazzling pianistic technique. Among his last tributes to it (although there are already clear tendencies to overcome the brillante stereotypes, which he finally said goodbye to during the Paris period) were two piano concertos, a testament to his compositional skills and symbolically closing his studies (formally completed earlier) with Józef Elsner at the Warsaw School of Music. The masterpieces were created in short intervals, between 1829 and 1830. Contrary to the opus numbering (resulting from the order of printed editions), the Concerto in F‑minor op. 21 was the first to be completed. In both works, the first movement is maintained in a sonata form, while the final movement is a free, especially virtuosic roundabout (here, elements of folklore stylisation come to the fore, in the Concerto in F minor – a kujawiak).
In each of the two works, the middle section plays a special role. In the brillante era, this part often had the character of a concise “lyrical episode” with a song-like, sentimental character. However, for Chopin these episodes are the most important elements of musical and emotional narrative – it is here that he seems to be fully sing his feelings (for the beautiful Konstancja Gładkowska), which Tadeusz Zieliński wrote about as follows: “It would be difficult to find an equally suggestive and passionate example of a passionate and touching confession of love encompassed in sound within existing the music literature. The Warsaw premiere of the Concerto in F‑minor (The National Theatre, 17 March 1830, conducted by Karol Kurpiński) aroused great enthusiasm among the audience and critics. As the temporal distance widened, it became clear that these works went far beyond the trivial conventions of their time, opening the way from the still highly classicist brillante concerto to the truly romantic incarnation of this genre.
The work will be performed by renowned Italian pianist Albert Nosè, who, among his numerous achievements, also prides himself on the 5th place among the winners of the 14th International Chopin Piano Competition in 2000.
Mieczysław Karłowicz was lucky to grow up in an atmosphere of a happy and prosperous home, both materially and spiritually. His father was the famous ethnologist and linguist Jan Karłowicz, also a great musician, who recognized his son’s great talent early on and skilfully managed his development. Mieczysław attended violin and music theory lessons, studying privately at the Warsaw Conservatory. In 1895, he began his studies in Berlin, initially hoping for a career as a violin virtuoso. However, when these plans did not come to fruition, Karłowicz focused on his composing studies with Heinrich Urban.
Towards the end of his studies, the ambitious artist began composing a piece which, according to the traditional principles of conservatory education of composers, was to be the final test of his skills – a symphony. He was fascinated by the idea of programme music (later realized in masterful symphonic poems). He understood it in psychological and symbolic terms, not in terms of “narrative”. It was not supposed to paint stories, places or characters with sounds, but rather to convey the states of the soul. The new work corresponded to the classical-romantic framework of the four-movement cycle, and its ideological basis was an extensive programme (published before its Lviv premiere in 1903), written in the “Young Poland” style, which today may seem a bit pretentious. It speaks of the anguish of the soul, which has lost its sense of existence (part I), its dreams of sunlight (part II), the madness of temporal pleasures (part III), and finally, of the awakening of the soul outside the “eternal watchword” and the triumph over adversity (part IV).
Attempts were made to make detailed analyses of the work, assigning almost every motif of the symphony to individual sentences of a literary text, but this seems to be a pointless exercise, especially since the literary commentary was most probably added ex post. Karłowicz’s Rebirth Symphony is perfectly communicative, even without the knowledge of the programme, it speaks to the listener with a great power of emotions and moods, varying between tragedy, melancholy, pathos, and euphoric joy. It was in this composition that Karłowicz’s individual style became fully crystallized, although he himself, always dissatisfied with his own achievements, also considered his wonderful symphony to be the fruit of his musical “apprenticeship” and did not intend it for print.

Performers:
Alberto Nose | piano
Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra
Mirosław J. Błaszczyk | conductor

Programme:
Fryderyk Chopin | Piano concerto in F minor, op. 21
Mieczysław Karłowicz | Symphony in E minor “Rebirth”

More detailes: fkpbb.pl

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