Maria Sławek, Sinfonia Varsovia, Anna Duczmal-Mróz

The concert’s program will take a look at the ideas of proximity and distance. Does close always mean familiar and similar? Do otherness and separateness imply distance? In the end, does the unity of time and place only bring us closer? We will search for answers to these questions in the works of Mieczysław Weinberg and Igor Stravinsky. We will also consider what their music means to us, listeners in twenty-first century Warsaw – is it close or remote? These artists have as much in common as they do apart. In a way, they are close to each other and yet so distant. Both were active in the 20th century, although they were separated by almost two generations. Both are listed in encyclopedias as Russian composers, even though Stravinsky, born near St. Petersburg, spent most of his adult life in the United States, while Weinberg, though he lived, worked and died in Moscow, was born in Warsaw. Interestingly, Stravinsky’s biography also contains Polish themes. Doesn’t it seem natural, then, to juxtapose the works of these two artists during one evening in Warsaw? The answer to this question does not have to be unequivocal. Although both Stravinsky and Weinberg were eager to use folkloristic references in their compositions, and the works of both correspond to the assumptions of Neoclassicism, each of them realized these ideas in his own way. So how does the question of proximity and distance look in this case? Let’s leave it open until August 5.

Michał Niżyński

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