Performers
Slovak Chamber Orchestra
Ewald Danel artistic leader / violin
Program
Gustav Holst
St. Paul’s Suite for strings, Op. 29, No. 2
Ján Valach
Fantasia-Suite Sopra from the Melodiary of Anna Szirmay (arranged for strings by Ewald Danel)
Bohuslav Martinů
Serenade No. 2 for two violins and viola, H 216
Witold Lutosławski
Five Folk Melodies
Roman Berger
Songs from Zaolzie
Grazyna Bacewicz
Concerto for Strings
Slovak Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble boasting almost a six-decade-long stage tradition, brought to life by the legendary Bohdan Warchal, will perform a selection from the 20th-century composers’ works, mostly of Slovak provenance. The spectacular St. Paul’s Suite by Gustav Holst from 1913 was dedicated to St. Paul’s Girls’ School in London, where he spent the years 1909–1934 as a music teacher. The Concerto for Strings by Grażyna Bacewicz from 1948 is one of the most popular and most often played pieces of the modern Polish music for chamber ensemble. The programme of the night is complemented with Lutosławski’s Five Folk Melodies from 1945, a piece originally written for piano and later orchestrated for strings by the composer himself, then Roman Berger’s Songs from Zaolzie, commissioned by the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, Bohuslav Martinů’s dynamic miniature and a transcription of an organ work by Ján Valach.