Performers
- Valentine Michaud soprano saxophone
- Radosław Soroka clarinet
- Aleksander Romański clarinet
- Sinfonia Varsovia
- Young Performers from music schools
- Julien Masmondet conductor
Programme
Anders Hillborg Clarinet Concerto Peacock Tales, Millenium version for soprano saxophone and orchestra [16’]
Georges Bizet Symphony No. 1 in C major [30’]
I. Allegro vivo
II. Adagio
III. Allegro vivace – Trio
IV. Allegro vivace
Concert description
Classicism, as its name implies, developed the greatest number of traditional forms and genres of classical music. Its noble models of the four-movement symphony and the three-part instrumental concerto were reached for by composers of all later eras – some only to be contradicted; for art abhors schematism, and true artistry lies in skillfully combining the familiar with the new and inventive.
Thus encapsulated in a single link, Andreas Hillborg’s Peacock Tales is not only a virtuoso clarinet concerto, but also a musical picture and story. The essence of the classical genre is competition. Here, the soloist leads the narrative while entering into dialogues with the orchestra, which adds to the mood and spices up the story. And this is a story full of bird noises, lyricism, marching rhythm and grotesque. Georges Bizet’s Symphony No. 1, on the other hand, would certainly have been the work of Mozart himself, if only he had created in Romanticism. Bizet imbued the traditional arrangement with youthful energy, as he wrote the work when he was only 17! Even then the melodic inventiveness of the master of operatic arias was already evident – especially in the themes of the second and third movements of the work.
– Karolina Dąbek (pisanezesluchu.pl)