A music festival began one September in Warsaw, following the death of Joseph Stalin. The goal was to share new music – from the West – and from Polish Composers!
We’ll hear some of the leading composers from Poland, including Witold Lutoslawski, Andrzej Panufnik, and Krzysztof Penderecki on today’s What’s New!
Since 2015, Krzysztof Urbanski has been principal guest conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg. They are currently preparing together the inauguration in January 2017 of Hamburg's new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie, a major musical event in Germany! Stateside, Urbanski leads the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. We'll hear the NDR and Krzysztof's latest Alpha Classics release, Witold Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra.
In an interview given in 1973, Lutoslawski expressed surprise at the continuing interest in his early Concerto for Orchestra, calling it “the only serious piece among the folk-inspired works” of the period immediately following the war. On another occasion he said, “I wrote as I was able, since I could not yet write as I wished.”
We'll also hear from composer Krzysztof Penderecki in an 2007 interview in upstate New York. The show includes Henryk Gorecki's Harpsichord Concerto with Mahan Esfahani; and several works by Sir Andrzej Panufnik.
What’s New is a production of WBAA Classical, a listener supported broadcast service of Purdue University.