Puts: Contact

I. The Call
II. Codes. Scherzo
III. Contact
IV. Convivium

Jennifer Higdon, Nicolas Kendall, Ranaan Meyer, Charles Yang: Concerto 4-3

I. The Shallows
II. Little River
III. Roaring Smokies

1. Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35

2. Szymanowski: Roxana’s Song from the opera ‘King Roger’, for violin & piano

Szymanowski: Mythes, Op. 30

3. I. La Fontaine d’Arethuse
4. II. Narcisse
5. III. Dryades et Pan

6. Szymanowski: Nocturne & Tarantella, Op. 28

7. Stravinsky: The Firebird – II. Scherzo

What a surprise it was when my friend the pianist Julien Quentin introduced me to the music of Szymanowski several years ago. A world full of myths opened up, a landscape with fast streaming rivers where frightened nymphs timidly glanced back at lascivious satyrs with goat hooves. And full of colourful stories about the shepherd’s boy seduced by a princess, and the firebird hiding in the bushes. In the three myths I recognised Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I managed to track down the poems of Szymanowski’s countryman Tadeusz Micinski, which inspired him. In pursuit of the composer’s roots, I visited his villa Atma, where I heard the wonderful music of the mountains of Zakopane, which had moved him as well. And so ‘Myth’ came into being, an issue imbued with the Polish soul, and including, from further afield, some Russian myths as well.

Haydn: Symphony No. 95 in C minor

1: I. Allegro moderato
2: II. Andante cantabile
3: III. Menuet
4: IV. Finale: Vivace

Martinů: Incantation, Piano Concerto No. 4, H. 358

5. I. Poco allegro
6. II. Poco moderato

Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39

7. I. Andante ma non troppo – Allegro energico
8. II. Andante ma non troppo lento
9. III. Scherzo: Allegro
10. IV. Finale (quasi una fantasia) – Andante – Allegro molto