Artists:

• Shiori Kuwahara - piano (laureate of the fourth place prize at the 19^th Chopin Competition)
• Izabela Matuła - soprano
• Anna Bernacka - alto
• Mariusz Godlewski - baritone
• Paweł Przytocki - conductor
• The Łódź Philharmonic Choir (preparation: Artur Koza)
• The Łódź Philharmonic Orchestra

Program:

• Fryderyk Chopin – Piano concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 [40']
  • Allegro maestoso
  • Larghetto
  • Rondo – Vivace
• Krzysztof Penderecki – Symphony No. 8 “Lieder der Vergänglichkeit” (“Songs of Transience”) [40']
  • Nachts (Joseph von Eichendorf)
  • Ende des Herbstes (Rainer Maria Rilke)
  • Der brennende Baum (Bertold Brecht)
  • Bei einer Linde (Joseph von Eichendorf)
  • Flieder (Karl Kraus)
  • Frühlingsnacht (Herman Hesse)
  • Ende des Herbstes (Rainer Maria Rilke)
  • Sag' ich's euch, geliebte Bäume (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
  • Im Nebel (Herman Hesse)
  • Der Blütengarten (Hans Bethge)
  • Abschied (Joseph von Eichendorff)
  • Vergänglichkeit (Herman Hesse)
  • Ende des Herbstes (Rainer Maria Rilke)
  • Herbsttag (Rainer Maria Rilke)
  • O grüner Baum des Lebens (Achim von Arnim)

At 6:15 PM we invite you to the Henryk Czyż Chamber Hall for a pre-concert meeting led by Karol Furtak (The Polish Radio)

Top photo: Paweł Przytocki, phot. Marcin Stępień

The final concert of this artistic season will be devoted to the memory of Elżbieta Penderecka, who – while neither a composer nor a performer – played an incredibly important role in the Polish music community as an organizer and patron of culture. The program will include the last symphony of her husband Krzysztof Penderecki entitled “Songs of Transience”. It was created in Lusławice, where the maestro lived and composed during his last years, surrounded by his beloved trees. This composition contains reflections on the passage of time and its marks. It was inspired specifically by the trees: their slow yet unrelenting growth, beauty and nobleness. “At first, the piece was supposed to be a monument to my trees” said the composer “but it turned out that its main theme is much deeper than that. After rejecting all the trivial literature, I was left with the philosophical poetry of Goethe, Hesse and Rilke on the topic of transience”. The symbolic ending of the piece reminds us of the persistence of certain values in nature and human life. The Łódź Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra will be conducted by their artistic director Paweł Przytocki. On the very same evening, we will also hear Shiori Kuwahara, who will perform Piano Concerto No. 1 of Chopin – the patron of the competition in which she received the fourth-place prize last year.

Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 11 performed by Shiori Kuwahara and the National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrzej Boreyko (recorded during the final stage of the 19th Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, beginning at 16:24):