Gran Turismo

The NFM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra will present a rich cross-section of chamber works. During the concert we will listen to the compositions of the classics — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the artists will also reach for the works of an almost forgotten Polish author. There will also be contemporary music inspired by both virtual reality and early art. Acclaimed pianist Anna Rutkowska-Schock, associated with the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music, will perform together with the instrumentalists.

In 1785, the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister commissioned three piano quartets from Mozart. After receiving the first of them, however, he withdrew from the contract, considering it too difficult for his customers. Nevertheless, nine months later, the artist wrote another, Quartet in E flat major KV 493. The work was published by Artaria, whose owners probably hoped that Hoffmeister had made a mistake in assessing the effects of the Austrian's efforts and that they would be able to make a good deal out of the collaboration. They must have felt no small disappointment when, some time later, exactly the same opinion, as previously expressed by the unfortunate principal, could be read in the pages of one of the newspapers. However, this does not take away the beauty of the composition, which impresses with its subtle expression and indeed virtuoso piano part. Immediately after that, the music of the character will sound, the greatness of which was much less recognized. Witold Maliszewski was remembered for a long time above all as Witold Lutosławski's teacher. Today, however, his work is also of interest. The artist was born in Podolsk, then studied in St. Petersburg under the luminaries of Russian music: Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. His arrival in the revived Republic of 1918 was prompted by the realities of life in the East after the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution. His four-part String Quintet Op. 3 was published in 1904 in Mitrofan Bielaev's office in Leipzig. At that time, Maliszewski was clearly influenced by his teachers, only then turned to Polish folklore.

We will find a completely different circle of inspiration in the second part of the concert. The term “Grand Tour” in modern Europe was used to refer to the journey that young aristocrats and intellectuals embarked on to broaden their horizons. The concept, rooted in culture in the twentieth century, was used by automotive marketing specialists to refer to a class of expensive, comfortable cars with sporty performance. Since many of them were built in Italy, the “gran tourismo” settlement became widespread. Years later, this phrase was used by the Japanese developers of a computer game that is a car racing simulator - a sales hit that gave rise to a whole series of console productions. One of them fascinated the American artist Andrew Norman: he associated it with the painting of Italian futurists and the virtuosity of Baroque music. Using historical techniques, he brought to life a fast-paced, undeniably contemporary work. The four-part Piano Sextet will be the last to sound. The then fifteen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy drew it up in just fourteen days. He had already been proclaimed by Goethe as the new Mozart at the time. The author of the composition never published it — it was published posthumously (hence its high catalog number). The unusual cast (piano, violin, two violas, cello and double bass) indicates that the piece was intended for a specific composition of performers. It is all the more surprising how skillfully the young master used it. The brilliant, even show-stopping piano part — especially in the finale — reflects Carl Maria von Weber's fascination with Mendelssohn's Konzertstück. It makes the sextet sound almost like a piano concerto.