French composer Guillaume Connesson (b. 1970) says of himself that he belongs – fortunately – to a generation of artists who do not have to take a clear stance on musical tradition or progress, and do not feel bound to any one artistic direction. What permanently defines his creative attitude is his belief in the power of the direct, aesthetic impact of music, rather than theoretical or ideological speculation. He is interested in writing music that is emotionally engaging and sounds appealing, capturing the attention of a wide audience.

The second part of the concert will feature a programme that is very diverse in style and genre, consisting of choral and orchestral works. It will open with the sixteenth-century madrigal Fire! Fire! My Heart by Thomas Morley, one of the most outstanding representatives of English Renaissance music, who wrote several sets of highly regarded madrigals and canzonettas, and will close with a four-part song by contemporary American composer Frank Ticheli – Earth Song, a piece with a sublime message of peace. The first of the orchestral compositions is Claude Debussy’s symphonic triptych La mer, from 1905, which evokes the fleeting moods of the sea and is one of the French impressionist’s most important and popular works. The second is Atmosphères, from 1961 – an outstanding avant-garde work in which György Ligeti incorporated his original concept of musical structure, avoiding traditional melodic lines and metrical structures in favour of dense, static, constantly transforming ‘sound masses’.

Robert Losiak