Artistic Director of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society since 1985, Kenneth Slowik first established his international reputation primarily as a cellist and viola da gamba player through his work with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, Castle Trio, Smithson String Quartet, Axelrod Quartet, and with the Amsterdam-based ensemble L’Archibudelli. Conductor of the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra since 1988, he led the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra from 1998 to 2004, and has been a featured instrumental soloist and/or guest conductor with numerous other orchestras and ensembles, among them the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, the Vancouver Symphony, the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic, the Pleven Philharmonic, the Twenty-First Century Consort, the Washington Bach Consort, and the Cleveland Orchestra.
Slowik’s impressive discography comprises over seventy recordings featuring him as conductor, cellist, gambist, and keyboard player for music ranging from the Baroque through the Classical and Romantic periods into the mid twentieth century. Many have won prestigious international awards, including France’s Diapason d’Or and Choc, the “British Music Retailers’ Award for Excellence,” Italy’s Premio Internazionale del Disco Antonio Vivaldi, two GRAMMY® nominations, and numerous “Record of the Month” and “Record of the Year” prizes.
Dr. Slowik has presented lectures throughout the United States and has contributed to a number of symposia at American and European universities and museums. Artistic Director of the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin since 1993, he serves on the faculties of the University of Maryland and the American Bach Soloists Academy, and received the Smithsonian Secretary’s Distinguished Scholar Award in 2011.
The present project is the third in which Slowik has appeared in the Andrzej Markowski Foundation’s series Musica Vincit Omnia. In 2014, he was invited to work with the excellent Polish national youth orchestra, the Polska Orkiestra Sinfonia Iuventus, and also presented, at the Uniwersytet Warszawski, a lecture on music in the life of three Washington, DC, cultural institutions: the Library of Congress, Dumbarton Oaks, and the Smithsonian.
The Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra
The Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra is the largest of the performing ensembles that constitute the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society. It has a flexible size and roster, depending on the repertoire to be studied, but always drawn from the ranks of the finest players, be they modern-instrument or historically-informed performers. The SCO’s recordings, which have garnered prizes in a number of countries, range from Bach Passions and Handel oratorios through works of Stravinsky, Mahler, Busoni, and Schönberg.
Notes to the program
The genesis of this concert dates to 2019, when Małgorzata Markowska, President of the the Andrzej Markowski Foundation, discussed with Kenneth Slowik the possibility of continuing their work together in the context of celebrating the foundation of the Second Polish Republic at the end of the First World War. Markowska expressed her philosophy : “Thanks to our outstanding Artists, we will have an unique opportunity to share our deepest devotion to the eternal values of the most noble art of music in the context of Polish-American friendship. Musica Vincit Omnia, indeed, when the wisdom of one thousand years of Polish history meets American energy in the common spirit of the love of freedom.” Although the pandemic temporarily postponed plans, we are pleased to be able to offer this evening a chamber orchestra program mixing Polish and American works. Three are from the mid-20th century, and one dates from the very beginning of the our present century. We will also hear a new arrangement of the beautiful Romanza, the second movement of the Piano Concerto in A Minor by Ignazy Jan Paderewski, written in 1888, thirty-one years before he became the first Prime Minister of the new Polish state.
We begin with the Concerto for String Orchestra of Grażyna Bacewicz, a composer and violinist who was the second Polish female composer to have achieved national and international recognition, the first having been Maria Szymanowska in the early 19th century. After graduating from the Warsaw Conservatory in 1932 with degrees in violin and composition, Bacewicz spent several years in Paris on a stipend provided by Paderewski, studying with, among others, Nadia Boulanger and Carl Flesch. From 1936 until 1938 she was concertmaster of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. During the Second World War, she gave secret underground concerts in Warsaw while continuing to compose. Although her playing career was cut short by a serious automobile accident in 1954, she remained active as a pedagogue and composer until her death in 1969. The Concerto for String Orchestra of 1948 is commonly regarded as Grażyna Bacewicz’s magnum opus. It is unquestionably one of the foremost works of 20th century Polish music and earned Bacewicz the State Award of the 3rd Degree after its 1950 debut. Two years later, it impressed Washington audiences at a concert played by the National Symphony Orchestra. In 1956 it was performed by the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion et Télévision Française under Jean Martinon at the 1st Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music and would, exceptionally, be featured at that Festival three more times over the next forty-five years. Considered one of the finest examples of neoclassicism in Polish music, the Concerto for String Orchestra is an excellent demonstration of Bacewicz’s striving for synergy of a neoclassical form and neo-Baroque content.
Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings was originally written as part of his String Quartet in B Minor. The work gained instant fame on 5 November 1938 when Arturo Toscanini led the NBC orchestra in the premiere of the young composer’s own five-part orchestral arrangement, in a concert hat also included Barber’s Op. 12 Essay for Orchestra. Reviewing the broadcast concert, the eminent critic Olin Downes wrote: “It goes without saying that Toscanini conducted the scores as if his reputation depended on the results. He does that with whatever he undertakes. Mr. Barber had reason for thankfulness for a premiere under such leadership. And the music proved eminently worth playing . . . This is the product of a musically creative nature who leaves nothing to achieve something as perfect in mass and detail as his craftsmanship permits.”
The name “Górecki” gained widespread recognition in 1992, when a recording of Henryk Górecki’s 1976 “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” Op. 36, rose meteorically to the top of the classical charts in both the United States and Great Britain. Henryk’s son Mikołaj Piotr Górecki, now resident and working in the United States, has written equally haunting works, including the Concerto-Notturno for Violin and String Orchestra, Op. 13, which tonight receives its US premiere. It was commissioned in 2000 by the Musica Viva Music Society and was first performed at the final concert of the Fifth Lubuska Camerata 2001 International Chamber Music Festival. Since its inception it has enjoyed great popularity and has found a place in the repertoire of many Polish violinists. It comprises three movements played attacca. The first movement has the nature of a “nocturne” in which the singing, lyrical theme in the violin is accompanied by extensive orchestral sound planes, forming a slow, static course. In contrast to this, the second part is a virtuosic Allegro in which vibrant movement dominates with sixteenth notes and syncopated rhythms. The shortest of all, the nostalgic third movement, has the character of free improvisation on the violin, with an orchestral texture reminiscent of the opening section.
The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 17, is the only such work written by the Polish composer and pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Dedicated to Paderewski’s teacher Theodor Leschetizky, it was written in the composer’s twenties, with the first movement dating back to 1882, although the majority of the work was composed in 1888 and scored in 1889. After its completion, the composer showed the concerto to his friend Saint-Saëns, who admired it, especially the andante movement, titled “Romanza.” It premiered the same year in Vienna, achieving great success, where it was conducted by Hans Richter. The arrangement of the Romanza for chamber orchestra heard this evening makes use of the three woodwind instruments employed in the Copland work that concludes our concert.
Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring was premiered in 1944 and has achieved widespread and enduring popularity both in its original instrumentation, and in Copland’s own arrangement as an orchestral suite. The music, scored for a thirteen-member chamber orchestra, was created upon commission of the choreographer and dancer Martha Graham with funds from the Coolidge Foundation of the Library of Congress. The score gained for Copland the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Music. While writing the piece, Copland referred to the score as “Ballet for Martha” – a title as simple and direct as the Shaker tune, Simple Gifts, quoted in the music. Shortly before the premiere, Graham suggested Appalachian Spring, a phrase from a Hart Crane poem, “The Dance”, from a collection of poems in his book, The Bridge.
O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;
Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends
And northward reaches in that violet wedge
Of Adirondacks!
