Capuçon & NFM Wrocław Philharmonic

The first visit to the Oder by the French violinist Renaud Capuçon is approaching, a musician who has recorded with Martha Argerich, Khatia Buniatishvili and his brother Gautier, a cellist, among others. Together with the orchestra under the baton of the irreplaceable Pascal Rophé, the musician will perform the famous Violin Concerto of Jean Sibelius. In the second part of the evening, the orchestral fantasy of Alexander von Zemlinsky Siren, based on the motifs of the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, awaits the audience.

The Finnish composer of all time, Jean Sibelius, in his youth intended to become a violinist. To the fact that he finally chose another profession, we owe the creation of the only concert work in his oeuvre. Completed in 1905, this piece, dedicated to this instrument, exemplifies the idiosyncratic but romantic style of the long-lived artist. Despite numerous virtuoso passages, a contemplative, austere, septentrional tone prevails here. The melody of the themes is extremely suggestive and sincere, which determines the special place of the composition in the hearts of many music lovers. Listening to the singing sound of Capuçon's violin in the recording of the work from 2025, one can get a certain idea of what he will propose this time in the lyrical passages and the dance finale.

Alexander von Zemlinsky is known primarily as a teacher, friend and brother-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg. Admittedly, the dodecaphonic school definitely overshadowed the achievements of the author of the Mermaid, who remained faithful to the romantic ideals of beauty. And yet the fact that Die Seejungfrau deserved to be present in the canon is already evidenced by the landscape of the sea depths that opens the narrative. Inspired by a fairy tale, the symphonic program fantasy was written only two years before the Sibelius Concert. It is believed that von Zemlinski's adaptation of Andersen's fairy tale was supposed to play a therapeutic role after it was abandoned by Alma Schindler in favor of Gustav Mahler. The artist did not publish a score full of ardent feelings and plastic images - it was completed by musicologists only in 1984.