Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra Presented by Liszt Academy

Hand on heart, if one were asked to make a list of Polish composers, most of us would not be able to get beyond Chopin and perhaps his famous contemporaries Penderecki and Lutosławski. Our concert fills this gap in many people’s knowledge. Lukasz Borowicz, chief conductor of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Warsaw Opera, presents the two most famous Polish composers of Romanticism. Stanislaw Moniuszko, the ‘Polish Erkel’, was father of the genre of Polish national opera and a system of teaching music. His best-known opera, Halka, premiered in 1848. Karol Szymanowski, like many of his contemporaries, started to compose music under the influence of Wagner and Richard Strauss until he discovered his own sound. Symphony No. 2, which reveals varied melodies of a folk music nature, was presented in 1911. Mozart’s remarkable double concerto, written for a French aristocrat and his daughter, is performed by a Hungarian-Dutch duo. The French, gavotte-like theme of the closing movement refers to the ‘dedicatees’.