he program of the concert included interesting repertoire surprises, almost unknown in Poland. "Two Pictures" op. 10 (1910) is one of the early compositions by the author of The Miraculous Mandarin, in which the style of the "real" Béla Bartók is nowhere to be found. This otherwise charming piece is closer to the sound of Claude Debussy, whose music the Hungarian artist became acquainted with shortly before composing Op. 10. On the other hand, Josef Suk's works clearly echo the musical language of his teacher and father-in-law, Antonín Dvořák, although Suk cannot be denied that he has developed his own style. In the composer's homeland one can often hear the Symphonic Poem "Prague" op. 26 from 1904, while in Poland this great work remains almost completely unknown. Too bad, everyone who loves Prague (who doesn't love this city?)
The excellent music of Mieczysław Weinberg, after years of oblivion, has returned for good to the world's philharmonic stages and opera stages relatively recently. The works of this Polish-Jewish-Russian composer also have an impressively rich discography today. It has been included in the repertoire of the world's greatest artists. "He was not a composer who would belong to the history of 'innovative' music, and at the same time, for various reasons, including political ones, he had no chance of entering the popular repertoire" (Danuta Gwizdalanka). However, in the 21st century, it turned out that his music sounds extremely current. It is both emotionally intense and formally rich. An example is the Cello Concerto op. 43 from 1956, written for Mstislav Rostropovich - a work "painfully elegiac,
Weinberg's concerto will be performed in Łódź by an excellent cellist of the young generation, Maciej Kułakowski (born 1996), a soloist, chamber musician and orchestra musician. There is, among others laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and the 10th International Witold Lutosławski in Warsaw. The conductor's stand will be Chuhei Iwasaki, who was born in Tokyo and has been active in the Czech Republic for years, a graduate of the Music Conservatory in Prague. Since the 2021/2022 artistic season, he has been the artistic director of the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra.
