NOSPR / Kaspszyk / Sabadus / Among the Peaks, Amid the Clouds - NOSPR

The calendar offers a poignant symmetry: 4 December 2025 will mark 150 years since the birth of Rainer Maria Rilke, one of Austria’s most revered poets. Just over a year later, on 29 December 2026, it will be one hundred years since his death. These two anniversaries coincide with the jubilee of the Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia (the NOSPR, i.e. the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra). 

The 90th anniversary of the NOSPR is a significant occasion, and the 2025/2026 season would be incomplete without the world premiere of a work by a Polish composer. Few figures are more closely associated with the orchestra and the institution than Joanna Wnuk-Nazarowa, who ran the NOSPR for eighteen years and then devoted herself to intensive creative work. Her piece titled The Annunciation), to be premiered during the anniversary concert, is written for countertenor, large symphony orchestra and period instruments. It sets Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem Verkündigung (Annunciation), a monologue of the Archangel Gabriel who, after a long journey, reveals to Mary that she will become the Mother of God. The poetic vision is reflected in the music through the distinctive instrumentation: the vast symphony orchestra evokes the cosmos, the early music ensemble creates the intimacy of Mary’s chamber, and the countertenor becomes the voice of Archangel Gabriel himself. 

The second part of the concert remains firmly within the tradition of programme music. Richard Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony is a narrative work celebrating the beauty of nature. Divided into 22 sections, the composition depicts a day spent in the mountains. The work is distinguished by its evocative musical portrayal of the natural world: Strauss illustrates everything – from a birdsong to a violent storm. These effects are achieved not only through the use of an exceptionally large orchestral ensemble but also by means of unusual instruments such as Wagner tubas, the heckelphone, cowbells, and mechanical devices that simulate thunder and wind. 

[Julia Broniowska] 

Concert duration: aprroximately 90 minutes 

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