Composition

Concerto for Strings

Grazyna Bacewicz was one of the most influential Polish musicians in the twentieth century. Besides her work as a composer, drawing on studies in Paris with the legendary Nadia Boulanger, Bacewicz was a top-tier concert violinist who led the Polish Radio Orchestra for a time, and also a pianist known for interpreting her own works. She even wrote novels and short stories, and late in life she embraced teaching. Her most celebrated compositions, including the Concerto for String Orchestra from 1948, unite a performer’s sensitivity to instrumental tone production with a bright neoclassical language (or really neo-Baroque in this case, drawing more on Bach than Mozart). When the Concerto was first performed in 1950 at the General Assembly of the Polish Composers’ Union, a critic and fellow union member wrote, “It can be said in all honesty that the honor of Polish composers was saved this time by a woman, Grazyna Bacewicz. … We finally felt a ‘red-blooded piece’ of wholesome and delicious music written with a creative power that is truly virile.”

November 1–3, 2019

Watch Performance
15:40

Director: Joshua Wyatt
Associate Director: Rebecca Beam
Technical Director: Robb Hallam
Audio: Cameron Wiley, Classical MPR
Cameras: Kailyn Grider
Score Reader: Jeffrey Stirling
Executive Producer of Digital Media: Matt Thueson
Associate Producer for Digital Projects: Erica Beebe
Associate Producer for Digital Audiences: Kierra Lopac

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