Caleidoscope / Vive la France: Poland–France Season - NOSPR

Ask someone to describe French music and the answers would probably be similar: subtle, elegant, full of colour. There is a good deal of truth in this, but, as is so often the case, familiar associations do not tell the whole story. The programme of Vive la France therefore brings together works revealing strikingly different facets of the French style, performed by wind instruments and piano.

On the one hand, we will immerse ourselves in the music of Claude Debussy, who frees sound from rigid constraints in favour of sensuous fluidity. In his Petite Suite, the music shimmers in pastel colours, capturing fleeting moods, only to surprise us in Golliwog’s Cakewalk with a completely different, mischievous side, including a musical parody of a motif from Richard Wagner’s grandly dramatic opera Tristan und Isolde. Francis Poulenc, in turn, brings an entirely different energy to the stage. In his music, the simplicity of the classical past acquires a modern Parisian flair, while his aesthetic pulses with rhythmic vitality, sparkling humour and a touch of Parisian irony.

Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin takes us in a very different direction. Although the work was conceived as a tribute to the composer’s friends who died on the battlefields of the First World War, as well as an homage to the 18th-century tradition, there is no sense of mournful pathos or heaviness. Ravel turns away from despair towards pure, precise form and the lightness of dances from an earlier age. Completing this richly coloured landscape is the noble lyricism of Gabriel Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande suite. Its famous, gently swaying Sicilienne acquires an exceptionally warm and intimate hue in the deep sonorities of the reed instruments.

It is this diversity that takes centre stage in the concert. Although the works were written at different times and arose from different musical impulses, they are united by an extraordinary attention to sound. The concert offers an opportunity for intimate instrumental dialogues, inviting close listening and the discovery of the depth of the French spirit.

9.30 am concert – older preschool children and pupils in grades 1–3
11.30 am concert – pupils in grades 4–6

Tickets on sale from 12 March 2027 at 2.00 pm.

Tickets will be available exclusively from the NOSPR box offices.

Telephone reservations: +48 32 73 25 312, +48 32 73 25 320 and +48 32 73 25 321.

Tickets cost PLN 15 per pupil and PLN 1 for group leaders.

Concert duration: approx. 60 minutes

Please see the information on parking in the Culture Zone:
Important parking information