A concert of the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra conducted by Marek Wroniszewski with the talented young cellist Marcel Markowski will take place on 18 January 2020 at 7.00 p.m. at the Witold Lutosławski Polish Radio Concert Studio. The repertoire will include neo-romantic works by Antonin Dvořák and Edward Elgar as well as Ludwig van Beethoven's Coriolan overture.
General Gaius Marcius Coriolanus was a symbolic character of particular importance for ancient Romans, going back to the mythical origins of the City. A conqueror of the Volsci, he eventually defected to the enemy after a conflict with the tribunes and invaded Rome. In 1804, another tragedy based on Gaius Marcius’ story was written by a now-forgotten Austrian playwright, Heinrich Joseph von Collin. It is for his version that an overture was composed in 1807 by Ludwig van Beethoven. The structure of a two-theme allegro enabled rendering the dramatic tension between the rebellious attitude of Coriolanus and pleadings of the two women.
Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No 7 in D minor, op. 70, was written for the Royal Philharmonic Society in London (1885), which highly appreciated the Czech composer’s skills. In some commentators’ views, the Seventh is even regarded as Dvořák’s finest work of this kind, his orchestral mastery and individual style characteristics at their fullest. While eventually the Ninth (‘From the New World’) was the one to achieve the greatest popularity, the Seventh has belonged to the canon of neo-romantic symphonic music ever since its premiere.
The Cello Concerto in E minor is one of the core pieces of the present-day repertoire and one of the author’s most popular works nowadays. This elegiac work was influenced by traumatic experience of the great war. Challenging on the technical level, it does not, however, dazzle the audience with its virtuosity, but rather amazes one with the richness of its thematic invention, its unique harmonic colour, and above all, with the depth of its emotional message.
Piotr Maculewicz
Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.
More information at: https://sinfoniaiuventus.pl/