NOSPR / Alsop / Dueñas / Sun in the Mists - NOSPR

This concert is included in the NOSPR subscription offer.

11 June–10 July 2026 – subscription renewal period; tickets for this concert are not available for purchase.

From 20 July 2026 concert tickets will be available for purchase exclusively as part of a subscription.

From 1 September 2026 tickets will be available for general sale.

People often say that every cloud has a silver lining. Johannes Brahms, though well-versed in such sayings, was unlikely to regale his companions with this particular one. Indeed, the melancholic side of his personality served as a constant reminder that the dark clouds would, sooner or later, return – effectively smothering any silver lining. He committed the conclusions of this forecast to the pages of his Symphony No 2 – a work he described in his letters as deeply sorrowful, while critics deemed it cheerful and pastoral in a Beethovenian vein. Curiously enough, both perspectives hold true. The symphony’s bright horizon is from time to time obscured by darker mists, perhaps much as the landscape surrounding Lake Wörthersee, where Brahms composed the work in the summer of 1877. Eduard Hanslick appears to have come closest to the truth when he observed that the work ‘shines with wholesome freshness and clarity [...], it nevertheless offers something to listen to and reflect upon at every turn.’ When echoes of the Ländler mingle with those of a funeral march, it dawns on the listener why some believe the Second reveals more about Brahms than any of his other works.

Just as the clash of moods has long constituted a reliable formula for a symphony, so the balance between lyricism and virtuosity has lain at the heart of a solo concerto – even when those qualities stand in such stark contrast as they do in Samuel Barber’s work. After a lyrical Allegro and a rhapsodic Andante, the ‘perpetuum mobile’ of the final bursts forth and drives ahead relentlessly, almost alarmingly, as if to illustrate the accelerating pace of history. While it would be futile to search for explicit references to war in the Violin Concerto, the work nevertheless bears witness to the year 1939 and to the composer’s abrupt departure from a Europe increasingly consumed by tension.

What turmoil lies hidden within Mikołaj Majkusiak’s Symphony of Anxiety? Does it bear the scar of tempore belli, or will the sun eventually break through?

Piotr Mika („Ruch Muzyczny”)

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