SCHNITTKE & RACHMANINOV

You may remember it: in January 2020, violinist Milan Paľa performed an incredible stand-in when he was able to stand in for a sick soloist at the last minute; in a few hours he performed Antonín Vranický's virtuoso Violin Concerto in C major and for three consecutive evenings he received a standing ovation for his performance. With an unprecedented performance, he claimed to be invited to the following season.

Schnittke's last violin concerto, written in 1984 for Gidon Kremer and the Berlin Philharmonic, is a typical example of the composer's polystyle compositional method based on connecting elements, quotes or pseudoquotes of music from different stylistic periods and filling old forms with new content. In the motivic material of the concert, Schnittke encoded the cryptograms of several names (just as they did with their surnames Bach or Shostakovich) – Kremer's (g-c-d-e, g-d-e-e), his own (a-f-e-d-s-c-h-e) and three friends-composers: Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Arvo Pärt.

On April 1, 2023, it will be 150 years since the birth (and on March 28 of the same year, 80 years since the death) of Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff, a composer and pianist who became famous especially as a creator of virtuoso, listener-appreciated and romantically conceived piano compositions (including four concerts). However, Rachmaninoff, who emigrated abroad after the October Revolution, also made his mark in musical history as a symphonist. His Third Symphony in A minor (1936) was written in exile and is one of his very last works. It was performed for the first time on November 6, 1936 by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Leopold Stokowski.

ALFRED SCHNITTKE Violin Concerto No. 4
SERGEI RACHMANINOV Symphony No. 3 in A minor Op. 44

Milan Paľa violin
Brno Philharmonic
conductor Dennis Russell Davies