Happy Birthday, Karol Szymanowski
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Born 122 years ago today, the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski is honored toward the end of the evening with two works, a piano sonata, and an orchestral tarantella.
Violinist Gil Shaham will delight you with his sparkling performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No, 2; wait till you hear the rather tipsy finale, a Spanish-inflected waltz with castanets clicking merrily! The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble brings us a short and sweet suite of Percy Grainger works: “Molly on the Shore”; “Shepherd’s Hey!”; and “Handel on the Strand.” Handel, but not on the Strand, appears as Andrew Manze conducts the Academy of Ancient Music in an authentic instruments version of the Concerto Grosso No. 1 in G. Paul Creston, who was born 79 years ago this coming Sunday, is represented by his Partita for Flute, Violin, and Strings, with Scott Goff on flute and Ikka Talvi on violin, the Seattle Symphony conducted by Creston’s pupil and advocate Gerard Schwarz. Creston started every day by performing Bach on his piano, and this work might be called Creston’s “Brandenburg Concerto.” Johannes Brahms’s sunny Symphony No. 2 is played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the legendary Willem Mengelberg.
Karol Szymanowski wrote his Piano Sonata No. 2 at a time when he was musically occupied with the study of the works of Reger and Richard Strauss. Rubinstein, whose technique the composer had in mind, performed the work throughout Europe to great acclaim, but tonight we hear the great British pianist Martin Jones. Szymanowski’s Tarantelle, op. 28, a short work for orchestra, follows.K
Violinist Gil Shaham will delight you with his sparkling performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No, 2; wait till you hear the rather tipsy finale, a Spanish-inflected waltz with castanets clicking merrily! The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble brings us a short and sweet suite of Percy Grainger works: “Molly on the Shore”; “Shepherd’s Hey!”; and “Handel on the Strand.” Handel, but not on the Strand, appears as Andrew Manze conducts the Academy of Ancient Music in an authentic instruments version of the Concerto Grosso No. 1 in G. Paul Creston, who was born 79 years ago this coming Sunday, is represented by his Partita for Flute, Violin, and Strings, with Scott Goff on flute and Ikka Talvi on violin, the Seattle Symphony conducted by Creston’s pupil and advocate Gerard Schwarz. Creston started every day by performing Bach on his piano, and this work might be called Creston’s “Brandenburg Concerto.” Johannes Brahms’s sunny Symphony No. 2 is played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the legendary Willem Mengelberg.
Karol Szymanowski wrote his Piano Sonata No. 2 at a time when he was musically occupied with the study of the works of Reger and Richard Strauss. Rubinstein, whose technique the composer had in mind, performed the work throughout Europe to great acclaim, but tonight we hear the great British pianist Martin Jones. Szymanowski’s Tarantelle, op. 28, a short work for orchestra, follows.K
