NOSPR / Marta Gardolińska / Linus Roth - NOSPR

Mieczysław Karłowicz dedicated his Violin Concerto to Professor Stanisław Barcewicz, in token of his ‘devotion and gratitude’. Although the tragically killed composer initialled trained as a violinist, he was not a stage type, but rather a versatile young man, eager to learn, who found his vocation as a composer. The virtuosic, but musically valuable Concerto was first performed in Berlin, Vienna and Warsaw, each time arousing positive reactions from listeners, but critical opinions which were ‘so much at odds with each other, so utterly contrary to one another, that one involuntarily asks oneself whether such criticism has any raison d’être at all’. Although Dvořák did not dedicate his Seventh Symphony to Brahms, he wrote it under the sway of the master’s Third Symphony. He was worried that his new work would not satisfy Brahms’s requirements, although that now seems unjustified, since this is considered by many to be the finest work in the composer’s oeuvre and is appreciated for its subtle depth of expression, rich melodic writing, orchestration and perfect formal design.

Duration of the concert: approx. 80 minutes