MUSIC OF EUROPEAN CAPITALS

A song as a gift — this is a wonderful approach we could use when going to a concert. Instead of something tangible, give yourself a musical experience. Camille Saint-Saëns took it quite literally and in 1886 he composed a Waltz — Caprys for his friend, pianist Caroline de Serres, on the occasion of her wedding. In Wedding Cake, the wedding gift turns into a brilliant, dancing fireworks of piano and orchestra. In the 2nd Piano Concerto in G minor s kala k ontrastów j est greater: the beginning sounds almost like improvisation in the spirit of Bach's organ fantasies, the second part is a playful scherzo, and the finale is the madness of operetta oblivion — hence the famous saying that “it starts like Bach and ends like Offenbach”. There is a pinch of malice in this statement, but history has shown that the concert, written in 1868, is among the most popular works of the French composer. A counterbalance to the romantic and somewhat crazy vision of Saint-Saens can be one of the late symphonies of Joseph Haydn — a master of form and at the same time a composer who knew how to contain lightness and wit in precisely defined symphonic architecture. The 98th Symphony in B major was created in 1792 and belongs to the cycle of the so-called London symphonies. Haydn began writing it a few weeks after Mozart's death and it is possible that it was in this way that he paid tribute to Wolfgang Amadeus, who was 24 years younger. Although the oldest of the Viennese classics went down in history as the author of as many as 104 symphonies, it is worth remembering that he also had opera works in his oeuvre. We will recall this chapter of Haydn's work with an overture from his last opera entitled The Philosopher's Soul or Orpheus and Eurydice, which will open the entire concert.

photo: Igor Andruch