NOSPR / Alsop / Lewis / Lovers’ adventures in antiquity - NOSPR

From the precision of classical drawing to a blaze of orchestral colours. The concert begins with the Introduction and Capriccio by Grażyna Bacewicz, a post-war neoclassical diptych awarded an honourable mention at the Karol Szymanowski Competition. Later, there comes Beethoven from his Promethean period – that of searching for new routes of formal development and means of musical expression. His Piano Concerto No. 4 is already astonishing at the very beginning, with the lonely meditative piano. It is in the intimate dialogues of the middle Andante, however,that some seek the metaphysical. Romanticists found it in the character of Orpheo, begging the Furies to give his lover back to him. It is worth finding out where today’s interpretations lead us.

We are bound not to be disappointed by Richard Strauss in his quasi-slapstick tale of a picaresque folk hero. After a series of bravado-filled adventures, his Till Eulenspiegel will try to dupe death once again. Will his trick work this time as well? The final feast for the senses will be served by Maurice Ravel, illustrating Longus’ idyll with the colours of pastoral love in the second one of the orchestral suites from his Daphnis and Chloé. This will be framed with what is probably the most famous picture of dawn known in the history of music and the final bacchanalia crowning the lovers’ adventures in antiquity.

Róża Światczyńska

Concert duration: approximately 100 minutes