Karlowicz   Dvorak   Tchaikovsky

Mieczyslaw Karlowicz: Lithuanian Rhapsody
symphonic poem Op. 11

Antonin Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Melissa Morgan, cello

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: “The Tempest”
Symphonic Fantasia after Shakespeare
symphonic poem in F minor op. 18

On Friday, Oct. 23 and Sunday, Oct. 25, the CT Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra will present a unique orchestral program titled Slavic Masterpieces. Concerts will take place 7:00 p.m. on Friday at CCSU’s Welte Hall in New Britain, and 7:00 p.m. on Sunday at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Hartford. Admission to both concerts is by free will donation.
The program, presented in partnership with the Polish Studies Program at CCSU, will feature works by Slavic composers Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and Karlowicz, including Karlowicz’s symphonic poem “Lithuanian Rhapsody,” and Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem “The Tempest.”
The highlight of the event will be Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 featuring cello soloist Melissa Morgan who, as she put it, “was born here, went away, and came back!”

“(…) wykończyłem kompozycję, którą nazwę prawdopodobnie ‘Rapsodią litewską’. Starałem się zakląć w nią cały żal, smutek i niewolę wiekuistą tego ludu, którego pieśni w mym dzieciństwie brzmiały (…) Czy i o ile mi się udało choć z cząstkę tego, co wisi roztopione w powietrzu każdego kątka tych stron, wlać w formy utworu orkiestrowego, tego osądzić nie mogę.”

“(…) I finished composition, which I will probably name ‘Lithuanian Rhapsody’. I tried to infuse it with the whole sorrow, grief, and eternal slavery of the people, whose songs in my childhood rung (…) Whether i succeeded, at least in a small part, to include what is floating dissolved in the air of every part of that land in the form of the musical composition, that I cannot judge.
With these words Mieczyslaw Karłowicz described his new symphonic poem…