The concert programme presents works by 20th- and 21st-century composers from three countries bordering the Baltic Sea: Poland, Latvia, and Finland.
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Three Pieces in an Old Style (1963) were allegedly composed in response to a friendly ‘criticism’ by Tadeusz Ochlewski, who claimed that Górecki’s music lacked melody. As the title of this short cycle suggests, the composer refers to the styles of past eras: modal elements appear in all three movements; the third uses a melody from an anonymous 16th-century song, while the second pulses with the rhythm of an old folk dance.
In Vox Amoris, a one-movement fantasy for violin and string orchestra (2009), Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks gives voice to love as ‘the most powerful force in the world’. The violin and orchestra – ‘the best combination for a “love story”’, as the composer put it – create a narrative that is initially subtle and lyrical, but then gains dramatic momentum in the climactic cadenza, resolving into a calm, melancholic conclusion.
The second part of the concert features Sibelius’s monumental Symphony No. 2 (1902), which his contemporaries interpreted as a voice in Finland’s struggle for independence – a view the composer himself denied. Written shortly after the death of his daughter, Sibelius described it as a ‘confession of the soul’. The second movement, including motifs of death and resurrection, can be heard as a musical portrayal of grief and the search for consolation. The victory of hope over darkness is also symbolised by the triumphant finale following the dramatic third movement.
organiser: National Centre for Culture Poland
