About the Programme
The final scene of the third act in Borodin’s opera called Prince Igor; here the opening song is the Polovtsian Dances. An effective and still popular music; it is not only meant to cheer up the captive prince Igor. And Mozart! He wrote concertos for almost every instrument, which would be still perfect if he lived today and wrote Jew’s harp concertos with techno accompaniment. Whatever he touches turns meaningful, nice and communicative. He composed his bassoon concerto when he was eighteen. The virtuosity and cantilena of the work is still a beautiful task for its performer. 1913: the premier of Sacre in Paris. Honegger calls it the atomic bomb of music. Indeed: “We cannot think of music after Sacre as we did before. ... impregnated with wild sadness, the pain of the travailing Earth..., small tunes, which break out from the depth of the centuries, the wheezing of animals, deep concussions; the Georgicon of prehistoric times” – writes Jean Cocteau after its premier, where the audience played the role what it was meant to play: it objected from the beginning. The premier of the Stravinsky work turned into a scandal. By today, the composition took its proper place in our concert life.