Tarmo Peltokoski conducts Penderecki, Chopin, and Lutosławski — With Mao Fujita

Finnish conductor Tarmo Peltokoski and piano virtuoso Mao Fujita join forces with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse for a concert honoring three great Polish composers with very different styles. Peltokoski leads the ONCT first in the mournful Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, a piece in which Krzysztof Penderecki sought to "develop a new musical language" and ended up with a harrowing cri de coeur that manages to speak eloquently of the unspeakable, using extended techniques and a thoroughly unconventional approach to tonality, timbre, and rhythm. Next, the effervescent Fujita brings his exciting and thoughtful approach to the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor by a 20-year-old Chopin, whose three movements progress through mystery, romance, and exuberance. The program concludes with the ingenious Third Symphony by Witold Lutosławski, which The Guardian calls "the most convincing of post-tonal symphonies… The more you enter its symphonic labyrinth, the more you'll discover."

Photo © Romain Alcaraz