February 14, 2025 | Tchaikovsky Concert Hall
Subscription Series № 27: «National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia»
Soloists: Anna Tsybuleva, piano
Angel Wong, piano
Conductor – Arsenty Tkachenko
Karłowicz. “Stanislaw and Anna of Oswiecim” (“Stanisław i Anna Oświecimowie”) – tone poem, Op. 12
Poulenc. Concerto for two pianos and orchestra in D minor, FP 61
Prokofiev. “Romeo and Juliet” suite
Gershwin. “Porgy and Bess” - a symphonic picture (arr. Robert Russell Bennett)

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All works chosen by conductor Arsenty Tkachenko for the coming concert were written in the first half of the 20^th century by composers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The earliest of them will open the night – the poem “Stanisław i Anna Oświecimowie" (1906) by Mieczysław Karłowicz, outstanding Polish conductor and composer. He belonged to the Młoda Polska (Young Poland) group that united musicians who thought of renovating Polish music in the light of the latest European achievements.

Karłowicz is mostly known for his symphonic poems created in the 1903-1908 period with a great reverence to Wagner's oeuvre. Among them is the poem based on the romantic legend about Anna and Stanisław Oświecim, a kind of Polish Romeo and Juliet. In 1888 the tragic finale of the legend was depicted by famous Polish painter Stanisław Bergman (a disconsolate youth is sobbing over the coffin of his sister-bride), and the canvas stunned then 16-year-old Karłowicz. His symphonic poem became one of the works reflecting the theme of tragic love very dear to the composer's heart.

The theme is also evolved in the Romeo and Juliet ballet by Sergei Prokofiev and the Porgy and Bess opera by George Gershwin (a symphonic picture on its base was made by American conductor and composer Robert Russell Bennett). These great works treat love and death in their own way, becoming musical evidences of the epoch and the quintessence of the ingenious composer style.

The program also includes Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, a witty virtuoso opus written in the 1930s, commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac for the Festival of Modern Music in Venice. The author called the second movement of the Concerto “a poetic portrait of Mozart”.

The soloists with the NPR will be virtuoso pianists Angel Wong, winner of the S.V.Rachmaninoff Competition in Moscow, the Spanish Composers in Madrid and Premio Jaen in Jaen, the Silver Prize winner at the 17^th edition of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow) and Anna Tsybuleva (winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition and holder of other important prizes, a Yamaha artist).