NOSPR / Kirill Karabits / Valeriy Sokolov by Mozart, Strauss, Silvestrov, De (2023/2023), Director musical Kirill Karabits, NOSPR, Katowice, Poland

Program Valentin Silvestrov Elegy for string orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Violin Concerto in A major, K. 219 Richard Strauss ‘Eine Alpensinfonie’ [An alpine symphony], Op. 64 Kirill Karabits has been linked to Valentyn Sylvestrov’s Elegy for strings from the start: it was he who conducted the work’s first ever performance, in Kyiv, in 2002. This work is close to a Romantic aesthetic, with long, songful phrasing and a mournful tone. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s radically different Violin Concerto in A major, K. 219, bursting with joy, is perhaps the most popular of the composer’s five violin concertos. Written by the 19-year-old Mozart, it is often called the ‘Turkish’, on account of the stylisation of janissary music in the finale. Completed 140 years later, Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, Op. 64 transports the listener into a highland setting. It depicts a trek from dawn till dusk across rocky outcrops, and is filled with ecstatic delight at the beauty of nature. Somewhere in the background, however, lurks a tone of reflection, especially in the ‘Elegy’ section, as a tribute to Gustav Mahler, who had died a few years earlier.