NOSPR/Alsop/Radulović/Beethoven Enlightenment

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.

It is difficult to imagine a better start than Leonora III (1806) for a concert held a week before the bicentennial of Beethoven's death. The most powerful of the overtures to Fidelia illustrates the most important in this opera and in the composer's life the idea of “following the inner voice” — as the heroine sings in one of the arias — which leads from darkness to light. This topos is included in many works of the classic, this is also how... the program of the evening is arranged. The middle of the road is the Violin Concerto in D major (1806), one of the first symphonic concertos in which the solo instrument becomes part of the orchestra, which in turn plays almost as important a role as the soloist. It is a monumental work, in the sense of the word dramatic, with an unprecedented power of expression, and at the same time it belongs to the most lyrical and sonically delicate works of Beethoven. In our journey, the final enlightenment will be the Seventh Symphony in A major (1812), perhaps the most abstract (and at the same time thrilling!) from Beethoven's symphony. This is “absolute” music, which speaks of itself and its power. It does this primarily with the help of an extremely expressive and diverse rhythmic layer. Each part of the symphony is built entirely on the basis of a different rhythmic pattern. Not surprisingly, the Seventh was called the “apotheosis of dance”, “the orgy of rhythm” and the “dithyrambic procession of Dionysus”. And it is this symphony that makes the enlightened Zarathustra descend from the peaks, “to surrender himself to the earth and its escapes.”

Piotr Matwejczuk (Polish Radio)

Duration of the concert (including the break): approx. 110 minutes

More concerts as part of the S1 symphonic concert series.

Performers: NOSPR; Nemanja Radulović — violin

Program: Ludwig van Beethoven — Leonora III; Ludwig van Beethoven — Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61; Ludwig van Beethoven — Seventh Symphony in A major, Op. 92