Prayers

Kolja Blacher is a phenomenal violinist and conductor, a former close associate of Claudio Abbad himself. On the occasion of his next visit to Wrocław we will listen to works by Joseph Haydn, Maurice Ravel and Noam Sheriff. The latter is a composer who was once a pupil of Boris Blacher — the artist's father, who will not only perform solo parts this evening, but will also conduct the NFM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra. The whole program will become a testament to the extraordinary versatility of the musicians.

Sheriff, who died in 2018, began a successful career as a creator, conductor and educator after college. In this first role, he became famous for combining Eastern and Western traditions and using atonal sound language. This description fits perfectly with the 1983 composition Prayers, rooted in Jewish traditions, which will open the evening. This will be followed by Joseph Haydn's Violin Concerto in C major, a composition composed by an Austrian in 1765. It was written with the Italian virtuoso Luigi Tomasini in mind — the concertmaster of Prince Esterházy's court orchestra. The work can hardly be counted among those representing the classical style — it is distinguished by the use of basso continuo, the absence of wind instruments and contrasting themes in the cast. Each of the three parts is kept in the form of a sonata allegra. The first captivates with a joyful, marching character and a bright violin register. In the middle link, the soloist impresses with a singing, even operatic line against the background of pizzicato accompaniment. The whole thing is crowned with a dance, show-stopping finale, full of the famous, contagious weather of the spirit that the composer was characterized by.

Haydn is known as the “father of the string quartet.” Maurice Ravel reached for this genre only once — in 1903. The then twenty-eight-year-old artist was inspired — as he later admitted — by an analogous work written a decade earlier by Claude Debussy. Writing his String Quartet in F major, the still studying artist hoped that it would bring him the prestigious Prix de Rome award. He also presented his first link at a composition competition at the Paris Conservatory. However, the work was rejected by the guilds that decided to award both honors, as a consequence of which Ravel finally left the walls of the university. According to an oft-cited anecdote, Debussy himself became acquainted with the piece and later wrote to a younger colleague: “I swear to you in the name of the gods of music and my own, do not move a single note that you wrote down in your Quartet.” The work went down in history surrounded by a nimbus of delight. We will listen to it in an elaboration for string orchestra.