NOSPR / Foster / Ioniță / Katowice Kultura Natura Festival by Beethoven, Dvořák, Bloch, E., Od (2023/2023), Dirigent Lawrence Foster, NOSPR, Katowice, Poland

This musical soirée begins with the exquisite late overture In Nature’s Realm (1891) by Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904), a composer exceptionally sensitive to the beauties of nature – and not just of his native Bohemia. This music ‘breathes’ differently than the Czech master’s wonderful, better-known symphonies. In Nature’s Realm opens the musical triptych ‘Nature, Life and Love’, and is complemented by the exuberant Carnival and the dramatic Othello. The central point in our concert is the rhapsody Schelomo (1916) for cello and orchestra by Ernest Bloch (1880–1959), rarely performed in Poland – a musical portrait of the biblical king Solomon. Before the First World War, Bloch, an American composer of Swiss origins, all but unknown in Poland (unlike in the West), was seeking an authentic ‘Jewish style’ in music. Schelomo was originally intended as a song cycle, but before the composer could choose a suitable language, a cellist friend ‘suggested’ to him that the words of Solomon would be best conveyed by the sound of a solo cello. As indeed it turned out… And we end with a work so familiar to us all: the ‘Pastoral’ Sixth Symphony in F major (1808) by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), his ‘recollections of country life’. Familiar? So let’s listen once more! After all, it is a mark of truly great works that they continually reveal to us hitherto unknown facets. It is well worth the experience!