The Stravinsky Connection

Stravinsky:        

Symphonies of Wind Instruments

Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments

Mozart: Serenade in B-flat ‘Gran Partita’ K361

Milda Daunoraite: piano

Joanna MacGregor: conductor

Two luminous composers and a trio of masterpieces. Award-winning Lithuanian pianist Milda Daunoraite is the sparkling soloist in Stravinsky’s piano concerto for wind, brass, double basses and timpani, a neo-Baroque work of intricate dance steps, hair-raising rhythms and humour. Stravinsky finished it in 1924, creating a fresh style after the chaos of the Great War; he had just met his lifelong partner, Vera de Bosset. It’s preceded by Stravinsky’s brief, potent Symphonies of Wind Instruments, premiered in London in 1920 and dedicated to the memory of Debussy. Russian Orthodox brass chorales and chanting winds sublimate into a serene unfolding of litanies, as Stravinsky bids farewell to his former life in Russia.

Mozart’s Gran Partita – arguably his most innovative instrumental music – was inspired by virtuoso wind players he heard in Vienna, and there’s no doubt the twenty-six-year-old Mozart threw down the gauntlet in this symphonic-scale work, first performed in 1784. The rich sonorities drawn from lower clarinets, basset horns, bassoons and four horns were an absolute watershed: the musical ambition, operatic dialogue and time-standing-still textures are unsurpassed to this day. Grand, glorious and sublime.

‘Milda has a freshness and fluidity of playing that is like a breath of fresh air…truly joyous.’ Christopher Axworthy

The Listening Club

Join Joanna MacGregor at Brighton Unitarian Church on Thu 8 Oct for a one-hour, illustrated lecture delving deeper into the concert. 

Find out more

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