Katowice Culture Nature Festival / Tapestries of Sound and Emotion / NOSPR / Asbury / Dalene - NOSPR

Two castles stand opposite one another: from one emerges a princess, and from the other – a prince. The latter soon falls in love with the former. A fairy separates them with a barrier of forest and water. In an attempt to attract the princess’s attention, the prince places his crown on a stick and wraps it in his cloak. The princess becomes enamoured of the wooden puppet, plunging the prince into despair. Moved by the real prince’s suffering, the fairy finally brings the princess into his arms. This is the plotline of The Wooden Prince (1917) by Béla Bartók, in which the lyricism of human emotions is reflected in the music through the distorting mirror of the puppet.

Two layers, which fall out of synchrony and differ not only in their sonic material but also in temperament, define the effect used by Witold Lutosławski in Mi-parti (1976), a work that anticipates his mature experiments with the so-called ‘chain form’. The work’s title comes from a term denoting the asymmetry of colours and tailoring in the attire of medieval pages, perhaps borrowed from legends of fairy-tale princes.

Two outer movements of Adès’s Concentric Paths (2005) frame a substantial central section – a passacaglia of sorts that serves as the work’s narrative climax. Built from recurring, circular passages, it carries a melody stretched across so vast an arc that the violin appears almost ready to gasp for air. Much like a princess dancing by a stream.

Two compositions, the final ones in Rautavaara’s oeuvre, performed three years after his death. The first one, Sérénade pour mon amour (Serenade to My Love), much as the other one, Sérénade pour la vie (Serenade to Life), draws upon the material from earlier vocal works. In the solo line, one senses the song of a despairing prince, wandering amidst the meanders of orchestral accompaniment.

Within each of these musical tapestries, love, sorrow, and fairy tale are interwoven with a delicacy finer than silk.

Dorota Kozińska

Concert duration (intermission included): approximately 90 minutes

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