NOSPR/Alsop/Kanneh-Mason/From Rococo to Modernity

Before the concert, at 6.30 p.m., we invite you to the chamber hall for a meeting with the editor Piotr Matwieczuk (Program 2 of the Polish Radio), who will discuss the works performed that evening. Entrance to the lecture is free, to participate in the lecture is entitled to show a subscription card or a ticket to the concert. The lecture will also be broadcast live on YouTube.

The central place of the program is occupied by two Haydn cello concertos — similar to each other and different at the same time. The first (1765) impresses with its elegant virtuosity: it is music that gracefully tests the limits of the technique of playing the cello, and the performers of the solo part seem to say: “I check”. Listening to the second (1783), one gets the impression that melodic ideas are nobler, the sound more delicate, and the form more subtle. Although the technical difficulties of the two works are comparable, the Concerto in D major makes it seem more dreamy.

The concert program is anchored by songs from opposite poles, although the dates of their creation are only 40 years apart. The Tragic Overture (1880), in the words of Brahms, “is to be made to cry”, just as its predecessor, the Academic Overture, was laughable. The tragic one has no program, but it would be difficult to doubt that this is a story about the irreversibility of the judgments of fate and the futility of opposition to fate. Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin (1924), on the other hand, tells the story of a girl forced by stalkers to lure clients, one of whom turns out to be inflexible in the face of violence and death. However, more important than the plot is the sound portrait of the big city. The scandal at the premiere broke out because of the ballet theme, but the score itself remains equally provocative — seducing with intense colours, captivating with rhythmic madness, stacking dissonances, surprising with extreme dynamism; without compromise it exposes the nervousness and ruthlessness of the modern world.

Piotr Matwejczuk (Polish Radio)

Duration of the concert (including the break): approx. 120 minutes

More concerts as part of the S2 Symphony Concert Series.

Performers: NOSPR; Sheku Kanneh-Mason — cello

Program: Johannes Brahms — Tragic Overture Op. 81; Joseph Haydn — Cello Concerto I in C major Hob. VIIb:1; Joseph Haydn — Cello Concerto II in D major Hob. VIIb:2; Béla Bartók — Miraculous mandarin