Subscription Concerts 2022-2023Program A
No. 1977 Subscription (Program A)

Born in Tokyo, Hisatada Otaka made a significant contribution to Japan's classical music during the first half of the twentieth century. He studied conducting and composition twice in Vienna where he was trained by, above all, Felix Weingartner before making his Japanese debut in 1941 leading the New Symphony Orchestra (currently the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo). From the following year, Otaka served as the ensemble's chief conductor for a decade.
A wartime piece, the Cello Concerto was written in 1943 and premiered the next year in Tokyo by the composer himself conducting the afore-mentioned orchestra and the country's top cellist Takashi Kurata. This forceful and lyrical work represents Otaka’s style deeply influenced by German Romanticism retaining its tonal and formal firmness. The first sonata movement in A minor opens with the orchestra's mighty clunk immediately followed by the cello solo giving the energetic first theme. The tenderer second theme in F major is also first sung by the soloist. The central movement consists of the theme and its five variations brimming with mellifluous melodies. The A-minor finale has a slow expressive introduction succeeded by the main Allegro section in rondo form (A–B–A–C–A). The valiant rondo (recurrent) theme A, again first appearing with the cello solo, is in stark contrast to the dance-like melody B with light footsteps, and to the gently flowing theme C in five-beat time. The coda closes the concerto both vigorously and dramatically.
The audience of today's concert witnesses a precious stage, as the work is conducted by Tadaaki Otaka, the composer's youngest son and internationally active musician who has established close ties with the NHK Symphony Orchestra like his father.

[Kumiko Nishi]

The Polish-born composer, pianist and conductor Panufnik was at the mercy of times just like his country’s hero Chopin was so, a century earlier. The younger man left Poland in the mid-1950s escaping from the communist regime to continue his musical career mainly in the United Kingdom. Incidentally, back in 1930s, Panufnik met Hisatada Otaka in Vienna where the two young musicians, born only three years apart, deepened friendship as the fellow disciples of Weingartner.
Panufnik as a composer left a dense catalogue including ten symphonies and Katyń Epitaph. Written in 1967 and revised in 1969, the latter makes us face a tragic historical event we should never forget. Indeed, according to the composer, it is dedicated to “the memory of the 15,000 Polish patriots who were slaughtered” by the Soviet secret service NKVD in Katyn Forest during World War II.
Katyń Epitaph evolves slowly with a transparent texture, the emotional tension being only mounting. It begins with the grievous violin solo in a high register taken over by the woodwinds’ long passage. Thereafter a crescendo with strings gradually heads for the tutti fortissimo conclusion. This orchestral epitaph is shut by ominous timpani roll as if to denounce the cold-blooded massacrers.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Lutosławski played a leading role in Poland's modern music scene following the footsteps of Karol Szymanowski (described on p. 45 [Symphony No. 4 Op. 60]) whose music deeply impressed the young Lutosławski even before the latter entered the Warsaw Conservatory in 1927. As for their compatriot Panufnik above mentioned, he was Lutosławski's close friend and piano duet partner.
Lutosławski's early output is marked by folk-inspired, disciplined yet flowing style under the influence of the Hungarian master Bela Bartók (1881–1945). And the junior composer's large-scale Concerto for Orchestra written between 1950 and 1954 is considered the culmination of his early period: from around 1958 on, he would walk a new path taking more avant-garde, experimental approaches.
Although his Concerto for Orchestra has the exact same title as Bartók's masterpiece (1943), here Lutosławski treats materials derived from various Polish folk songs in highly individual, elaborate ways. The reason why the latter embarked upon such monumental work for a large orchestra was a commission from the Polish conductor Witold Rowicki, then the artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic. Lutosławski spent as long as four years to complete the work for them who first performed it in Warsaw in 1954.
The initial movement Intrada (Introduction) starts with F-sharp drone note underpinning cellos intoning the 9/8-meter main theme which is a traditional tune from Mazovia (the region around Warsaw). This theme is developed in a contrapuntal (polyphonic) way until we hear Stravinsky's Rite of Spring-like wild stomping chords. The middle movement is in A–B–A form based on different folk materials. Its outer section A, entitled Capriccio notturno (Nocturnal Caprice), is a hushed scherzo dominated by perpetual motion, while the section B, Arioso (In the Manner of an Air), is a clamorous brass trio. The vast final movement consists of two sections featuring Baroque-related forms sharing the same folk tune: Passacaglia is a series of colorful variations on a given bass melody which is here an eight-bar theme introduced by contrabasses at the opening. Following a quietly tense moment, the virtuosic Toccata section begins powerfully, then oboes and clarinets would eventually sing a benign Corale (Chorale) so the orchestra reaches an impassioned apotheosis.

[Kumiko Nishi]