Koncert oratoryjny by Dvořák, Sa. 04 März 2023, Ab (2023/2023), Dirigat Andrey Boreyko, Filharmonia Narodowa, Warschau, Polen

Antonín Dvořák started composing the Stabat Materafter the shock he experienced at the news of his daughter's death in 1875. He resumed his interrupted work in the autumn of 1877, when the cruel fate again experienced him with the departure of two more children. The author created perhaps the most extensive arrangement of the Marian hymn in the entire musical literature. He achieved monumentalism through emphatic repetitions of text phrases and slow, "conductive" tempos dominating the composition. It is a work full of concentration, tenderness and a contemplative character. The impression of homogeneous form is not diminished by the fact that the composer uses very diverse means here – he appears as a great symphonist: the orchestra part is particularly important in his oratorio and treated with mastery. Twenty stanzas were arranged in the form of ten (unsymmetrical) links with solo and ensemble parts, in various ways juxtaposed with choral fragments. The work had its premiere on 23 December 1880 in Prague (cond. Adolf Čech), two years later its performance in Brno was conducted by the young Leoš Janáček. The presentation was a particular successStabat Mater at London's Royal Albert Hall (it was also Dvořák's very successful foreign debut as a conductor) and in Birmingham in 1884. Piotr Maculewicz