CANCELLED: NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Augustin Hadelich / Krzysztof Urbański

In the anniversary season marking the 75th birthday of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, principal guest conductor Krzysztof Urbański also turns his attention to a work that was once commissioned and given its first performance by the orchestra: at the 100th concert in the series »NDR das neue werk« in October 1966, Pierre Boulez conducted the enthusiastically received second movement, »Direct«, of Witold Lutosławski’s Second Symphony.

Urbański juxtaposes this prime example of Lutosławskis composing technique, »aleatorics«, where much is left to chance, with two deeply Romantic repertoire pieces: Tchaikovsky’s famous Violin Concerto, with associate artist Augustin Hadelich playing the solo part, and his fantasy overture »Romeo and Juliet«. The individual parts of this first great orchestral work to be written by the Russian composer were already on the music stands on 20 June 1945, the first day of work and recording in the history of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. It was an emotional start to an orchestra history that fortunately evolved much more successfully than Shakespeare’s famous tragedy about the »star-crossed lovers«.