Time 19:00
Nowa Miodowa Concert Hall in Warsaw, Rakowiecka 21
BUY TICKET
“Something solemn and grand can be felt in it” – wrote the periodical Gazeta Korrespondenta Warszawskiego i Zagranicznego in 1816 of the overture to Karol Kurpiński’s opera Jadwiga, Queen of Poland. Indeed, the fanfare-like character of the work provides a splendid prelude to a musical tale about the beginnings of the reign of the woman king on the Polish throne. In a broader sense, however, the piece is an example of superbly crafted symphonic writing. It reveals the intuition for instrumentation and true dramatic talent of the nineteenth-century composer who was able to inscribe what is national and familiar into the finest Classical models.
Among the masters whose music particularly inspired Kurpiński was undoubtedly Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. According to Alfred Einstein, Mozart’s piano concertos are “the peak of all his instrumental achievement”. The Concerto in E-flat major, KV 482, was written towards the end of 1785, at a time when the composer’s mind was filled with the musical images of The Marriage of Figaro. In the lively and brilliant outer movements, Mozart refers back to his earlier works in the genre, while the central Andante captivates with its originality, power of expression, and varied sound palette. It is no wonder that it was this slow movement – unusually – that the Viennese audience wished to hear again at one of Mozart’s concerts.
The second part of the concert will feature what is arguably the most famous of Ludwig van Beethoven’s nine symphonies. The moving “fate motif” that opens the Fifth Symphony is one of the most distinctive passages in the history of music and, in a simplified form, has become part of popular culture. All the more reason, then, to immerse oneself in the work as a whole: a piece that combines formal perfection with that indefinable quality which carries the listener, as E. T. A. Hoffmann aptly put it, “into the spirit kingdom of infinite ”.
Marta Dziewanowska-Pachowska
PROGRAM
Karol Kurpiński (1785–1857) – Ouverture to the opera Jadwiga, Queen of Poland
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) – Piano concerto No. 22 in E-flat major KV 482
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Allegro
— intermission —
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) – Symphony No. 5 in C minor Op. 67
I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo. Allegro
IV. Allegro
PERFORMERS
ELŻBIETA KARAŚ-KRASZTEL GRAND PIANO
THE ORCHESTRA OF THE POLISH ROYAL OPERA
MARTA GARDOLIŃSKA CONDUCTOR
Duration: approx. 1 h 40 mins (with an intermission)
