NOSPR / Lawrence Foster / Rudolf Buchbinder - NOSPR by Bacewicz, Beethoven, Enescu, Od (2019/2019), Dirigent Lawrence Foster, NOSPR, Katowice, Poland

Concerto for String Orchestra, Grażyna Bacewicz’s opus magnum, comes back to the NOSPR music stands exactly 69 years and 4 months after its first performance under the baton of Grzegorz Fitelberg. Although since then the members of the orchestra have changed, the piece, which Stefan Kisielewski described as “red-blooded piece of healthy and tasty music “ has retained its power to impress. For his first performance at the NOSPR, Rudolph Buchbinder has chosen Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. This piece has been nicknamed “Skylark” because of the vast and gentle landscapes drawn by the composer, for whom its premiere was also the last public appearance as the soloist with the orchestra. Georg Enescu resolved to name his symphony in E flat major (1905) Symphony No. 1 in spite of the fact that as a teenager, he wrote as many as four symphonies by way of practice. This is hardly surprising considering the fact that Enescu was the youngest student in the history of the Vienna Conservatory, where he was admitted at the age of 7! Writing his Symphony in E flat major at the age of 24, he was capable of a “mature” approach towards the late- Romantic symphonic tradition as developed by Schumann and Brahms.