“If I could, I would move far to the south, where in the unexplored tropical forests you can dream of something long-belonged. It is difficult for me to leave the area of my visions, dreams of eternal beauty. It is difficult to part with it in order to turn again into an ordinary comedian and wizard, who combines the twelve sounds of scale into beautiful kaleidoscopic drawings for the amusement of people”…

This is what Karol Szymanowski wrote in a letter to a friend during his trip to Italy. Perhaps the idea of the early work presented in this program also was born out of these strange dreams. And before that, his life included Tymoshivka, a Ukrainian village near Yelysavetgrad (now Kropyvnytskyi) and a life full of music and joys. The whole family believed in his talent as a composer. Therefore, his parents sent him to Warsaw, where during his successful studies and his first piano performances, he created the “Concert Overture”. The features of Szymanowski’s style can only be foreseen in it. Yet, the public in Lviv in the first half of the 20th century highly valued this composition. In particular, for its brightness and freshness, youthful enthusiasm for the spirit of life.

The worldview of any artist is uncovered through his work. In “The Carpathian Concert”, Myroslav Skoryk, maybe for the first time so integrally and authentically gets the fantastic feeling, by which we accept the history of our people and our roots. And the lightness of the piano concerto by the Swiss-French composer Pierre Wissmer performed by the soloist Maksym Shadko and the Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Vincent Kozlovsky will give a pleasant aftertaste of neoclassical harmonies.

Artists:

• Maksym Shadko, piano
• Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra
• Vincent Kozlovsky, conductor

Program:

• Pierre Wissmer (1915–1992). Piano Concerto No. 2 (1948)
• Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937). “Concert Overture” in E major Op. 12 (1903)
• Myroslav Skoryk (1938–2020). “Carpathian Concert” (1972)

Moderator: Polina Kordovska