NOSPR / Lawrence Foster / Peter Jablonski by Von Weber, Bacewicz, Berlioz, Od (2022/2022), Dirigent Lawrence Foster, NOSPR, Katowice, Poland

Weber’s Die Freischütz is a gateway to romanticism: a folkloristic-fantastical subject, a classical form exploding with dramatic contrasts, and the whole thing not devoid of a sense of humour. The overture is bursting with enthusiasm, just like the Berlin audience that hailed this opera a national work, a symbol of unity for a Germany divided into several dozen states. The idea of national music also received an enthusiastic embodiment 130 years later in the Piano Concerto of Grażyna Bacewicz. Here the composer gives an elusive, quixotic response to the increasingly forceful political pressure in Stalinist Poland, rebuilding after the aggression of the German Third Reich. Folklore filtered by modernity is combined with virtuosity of a Romantic intensity. Excerpts from Berlioz’s dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette, rooted in the ideas of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, remind us of the supranational culture of Europe that we are helping to forge.