Lady Jazz "didn't in any of her travels that brought her dizzying popularity meet a man who would introduce her as a distinguished guest in the circle of people of music", wrote Walter Damrosch. And he added: “Gershwin performed this miracle. He did so simply by putting on the flamboyance of the independent and free-spirited young Lady the classical costume of the concert." This is perhaps the shortest and most accurate description of George Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F major. In this work you can hear both pulsating Charleston, nocturnal melancholy with allusions to Chopin, and jazzy perpetuum mobile.
Just as Gershwin's work is almost synonymous with American music, the poetics of late Romantic English symphonism combined with truly French sonic sophistication are summed up in the works of Frederick Delius. "The Walk to the Paradise Garden" is an interlude from the opera "A Village Romeo and Juliet", which quickly gained independence. The piece illustrates a walk through the forest on a sunny summer day by the title characters. It is quiet and peaceful, the nature is amazing, but despite this, the lovers - who stand in the way of everyone and everything - decide to commit suicide.
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 by Johannes Brahms, which is sometimes called "elegiac". The composer completed it in the summer of 1885 in Mürzzuschlag, where, as he wrote, "cherries do not become sweet". The work begins with music emerging from the dark abyss and gradually builds up - in sound, pace, expression - until the finale. And this is the climax of the cycle: it is created by the passacaglia, the "dance of death", based on the ostinato bass technique: the eight-bar theme is repeated and processed thirty-two times at the same time. It is a homage to Baroque music, in particular to Bach - from his cantata BWV 150 Brahms drew the theme of his monumental passacaglia.
The solo part in Gershwin's work will be performed by Paweł Kowalski, born in Łódź. The artist's repertoire includes over forty pieces for piano and orchestra, recitals, chamber music, film music and jazz. After Krystian Zimerman, he was the first performer of Witold Lutosławski's Piano Concerto, which he performed in Warsaw under the composer's baton. He has performed in forty countries on four continents, including the Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. Swede Joachim Gustafsson, one of the most important Scandinavian bandmasters, a permanent collaborator of, among others, Danish National Opera and the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra.
