Groundbreaking stories

The evening's program opens with one of the most important works of the turn of the century, often considered the beginning of musical modernism in the 20th century: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun by Claude Debussy. The composer was inspired by the symbolist poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, in which a mythical woodland creature, a faun, reminisces about a dreamlike encounter with nymphs. Debussy does not illustrate the plot but instead creates a sensual, colorful soundscape full of suspension, fluidity, and impression. This work is regarded as one of the starting points of musical modernism.

Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun performed by hr-Sinfonieorchester conducted by Alain Altinoglu:

The second part of the concert features a rarely performed piece by Bohuslav Martinů, the Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra from 1931. The composer, a Czech living in Paris, experiments here with the concerto form: no single soloist but an entire quartet is engaging in dialogue with the orchestra. The chamber musicians' parts are not subordinate to the larger ensemble – on the contrary, they create an independent narrative layer. In Szczecin, this unique work will be performed by the Karłowicz Quartet, known for their expressive ensemble playing and sense of style.

The evening concludes with Arnold Schoenberg's expansive symphonic poem Pelleas and Melisande, Op. 5, based on the drama by Maurice Maeterlinck. It tells the story of a tragic love triangle: Melisande becomes the wife of Golaud but falls in love with his younger brother Pelleas. The ending is catastrophic. Schoenberg presents this tale not as an opera but as an orchestral narrative, with dramatic tension and a rich musical texture. The piece was composed before his move to atonality. Still, one can already hear the stretching of tonal boundaries and his characteristic dense musical language.

All of this under the baton of  Alexandre Bloch, artistic director of the Orchestre National de Lille, who regularly appears with leading European ensembles. A program that blends different musical languages – French impressionism, Central European neoclassicism, and Viennese expressionism – but in each of these works, the most essential element remains the story.

Excerpt from Schoenberg's Pelleas et Mélisande performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Lahav Shani: