The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the country’s leading music ensemble, starts the new year with “Europa,” the fourth installment of its 40th concert season, at 7:30 pm on January 17 at CCP at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Makati City.
“Europa” features world-class violinist Aylen Pritchin performing European classical music by master composers Zoltan Kodály, Peter Tchaikovsky, and Antonin Dvořák. Among the world’s most sought-after violinists, Pritchin is known for his versatility in performing both period and modern pieces.
Under the baton of PPO music director and principal conductor Maestro Grzegorz Nowak, the concert will open with Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, bringing audiences on a melodic journey to Hungary. A homage to the composer’s hometown, the 1993 folk-inspired masterpiece allowed Kodály to display his extensive skills as an ethnographer and musical pedagogue.
Pritchin will also perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto No. 1. This masterpiece successfully highlights Tchaikovsky’s burning love for Russia through its majestic Canzonetta. When Tchaikovsky finished composing the piece, it was to be performed first by Leopold Auer and Karl Davydov in a concert at the Russian Musical Society in St. Petersburg in 1879. But the performance didn’t push through after the musicians declared it too difficult to play. For years after its composition, the concerto gained a reputation as unplayable (following failed attempts by Iosif Kotek and Emile Sauret) until violinist Leopold Damrosch successfully performed it in a New York concert in 1879.
The PPO’s Concert IV: Europa concludes with Dvoák’s Symphony No. 8, an inspiring composition celebrating the beauty of nature. The surroundings of Dvoák’s country house in Vyoská inspired his masterpiece in 1889. In merely 18 days, he completed the symphony’s sketch and finished its scoring in Prague. With its striking and colorful thematic ideas with varying Czech flavors, Dvoák’s Symphony No. 8 premiered in 1890 as part of his induction into the Czech Academy of Science, Literature, and the Arts.
Tickets for PPO concerts are priced at P3,000, P2,500, P2,000, and P1,500 and are available at TicketWorld.
