LKO 66th concert season opening. Storm and Stress

Performers: Lithuanian chamber orchestra Artistic director, soloist and conductor SERGEJ KRYLOV (violin)

Program: ANTONIO VIVALDI – Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 8, No. 5, RV 253, "La Tempesta di Mare" ("The Storm at Sea") NICCOLÒ PAGANINI – Violin Concerto No. 3 in E major, MS 50 (arranged for string orchestra by Tomas Petrikis) WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART – Symphony No. 40 in G minor, KV 550

"The classical symphony was given a rather intimate sound; the members of the orchestra admired this masterpiece together and conveyed it naturally. The long-standing work of the artistic director with this distinguished ensemble has borne fruit, and it seemed that a unified interpretation and ease of music-making were achieved not even by the conductor's gesture, but by thought – so sensitively did the musicians respond to his guidance. Leadership of this level shows the precision and vitality of an discovered creative style, although Sergej Krylov, interviewed after the concert, described the orchestra's evolution as gradus ad parnasum, that is, climbing the stairs to heavenly heights, and those steps, as we know, never end in music..." – this is how Daiva Tamošaitytė writes about the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and its artistic director, violinist and conductor S. Krylov. These artists begin their 66th season with a concert featuring music from three styles – Baroque, Classical, and Romantic.

This evening we hear two violin concertos. 17th–18th century Italian Baroque music is represented by Antonio Vivaldi, who, as a performer and composer, applied many innovations while creating a distinctive violin style; it is originally interpreted by the bright, vivid, and theatrical Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, RV 253, "La Tempesta di Mare" ("The Storm at Sea"), first published in 1725.

Italian virtuoso Niccolò Paganini figures in music history primarily as the most impressive violin star to tour Europe. Paganini's talent seemed to far exceed human capabilities; he was not only a virtuoso but also a pioneer of a new, Romantic performance style and a composer. His five innovative violin concertos greatly influenced the development of the instrumental concerto. Having perfectly mastered the possibilities of the instrument, Paganini used all violin playing techniques with unprecedented boldness. Created in 1826, the Violin Concerto No. 3 in E major – a large-scale, highly virtuosic work – was not performed for more than a century after N. Paganini's death in 1840, until it was rediscovered in the late 1960s.

In the second part of the concert, the unity of musical images in the popular Symphony No. 40 in G minor, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1788, stirs the most subtle emotions and is not in vain compared to J. W. Goethe's novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther" (1774). Both works convey the heightened emotional sensitivity characteristic of the personality of that time, immersed in the "Sturm und Drang" movement.