Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin / Jurowski / Karizna / Katowice Kultura Natura Festival - NOSPR

All (musical) roads lead to Vienna!

Dating from before the Second World War (1938), the Symphonic Variations (1938) by Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994) were designed to crown his studies in composition, but were rejected by his professor as a diploma piece. For us today, the Variations are a particularly interesting work: they display the young composer’s fascinations at that time, but many details also presage his future individual way of ‘thinking’ in musical material.

A different problem is posed by the late Second Cello Concerto (1966) of Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975), the composer’s sixth and final instrumental concerto. This is a remarkable, bizarre work, written for the brilliant Mstislav Rostropovich, in which the soloist pursues an endless ‘game’ with the orchestra. The emotions here range from one extreme to another: from a moving lamentoso to moments of revelry – even buffoonery. Could it be the musical self-portrait of a composer writing a piece for his sixtieth birthday?

And finally Franz Schubert (1797–1828), with his final ‘Great’ Symphony in C major (1825–1828), supposedly the ‘most Viennese’ of all Viennese symphonies. Yet symphonies were written in the capital of the Habsburg Empire by the Classics (and their numerous predecessors), and after Schubert by Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler, to name but a few. The opening Andante, emerging out of the initial ‘call’ of the horns, already seems to paint for us the landscape of that wondrous city. And later we immerse ourselves in the whirl of riotous entertainment, wander through locations on the banks of the Danube and through neighbouring hills, make merry in Grinzing… We rejoice in being alive! A musical feast!

Stanisław Kosz

translated by John Comber

Duration of the concert (including break): approx. 120 minutes