The concert programme may be read as a musical tale of time and memory – on the ways in which music recalls, reshapes and confronts the past. From the Romantic vision of an imagined world in Carl Maria von Weber’s music, through Paul Hindemith's deliberate use of centuries-old motifs and historical forms, to the reflection on transience in Sergei Rachmaninov's late work, in which he confronts life's ultimate questions.

The overture to Weber’s opera Oberon, one of the most important works of early-Romantic music, heralds its dreamlike world: the sound of the magical horn, the subtle dialogues between instruments and melodies that foreshadow the opera’s arias combine to create a vibrant, richly contrasted narrative that transports the listener into a captivating fairy-tale world infused with an Oriental flavour.

The German composer and violist Paul Hindemith, while remaining apart from the avant-garde movements of his era, sought to restore clarity and disciplined ‘craftsmanship’ to music. He developed a modern musical language that nevertheless remained firmly rooted in tradition. In the Piano Concerto performed this evening, composed in 1945 during his wartime exile in the United States, Hindemith drew on historical models, such as the traditional three-movement form, but transformed them in his own distinctive way. His innovations were restrained and intellectual, focusing on formal construction rather than emotional expression. Particularly striking is the finale, which consists of ‘reverse’ variations: their theme – the medieval dance melody Tre Fontane – appears only at the very end.

Sergei Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, his last major work, was likewise composed in the United States during the war years. This three-movement cycle combines vigorous rhythmic energy with a nostalgic glance back at the past. Here, too, the composer turns to a motif from the Middle Ages – the melody of the Dies irae, the requiem chant whose words evoke the terrifying vision of the Last Judgement. Together with a quotation from his own setting of the Orthodox All-Night Vigil, it creates a tension between doubt and redemption, giving this brilliant work the character of a deeply personal reflection.

Piotr Maculewicz