© Moritz Wizany
About this Concert
How does art respond to global politics and social and cultural upheavals? CAMERATA seeks to answer this question with three works composed in the 1920s and 1930s, oscillating between a cherished past and the hope for a better future.
Igor Stravinsky composed a chamber concerto for the wedding anniversary of American diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and his wife Mildred, which premiered in 1938 at their country house, Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington. Incidentally, this location also played a significant historical role, as the United Nations Charter was drafted there in 1944, during the Great War, to establish peace. The "Dumbarton Oaks" concerto features quotes from Bach's Third "Brandenburg" Concerto and Verdi's "Falstaff," reflecting Stravinsky's neoclassical inclination to bring the past playfully into the present.
Also in 1938, amid a threatening world situation, Francis Poulenc composed a concerto for the organ, the principal instrument of the church, in France. The Gregorian and prayer-like sequences in this piece reflect the composer's rekindled religious faith, ignited by fear of the atheistic National Socialist regime spreading across Europe at the time. Balancing his dual nature as both "monk and street urchin," Poulenc infused lively passages into the seriousness of the concerto, which will now be performed by Christian Schmitt on the Propter Homines organ at the Mozarteum.
The CAMERATA string corps will then dance with Apollo, the god of the arts and leader of the muses, through the Greek heaven. In 1927, Stravinsky composed "Apollon Musagète" for the Washington Festival of Contemporary Music, where he embraced the polyphonic melodious sound of the strings. CAMERATA's performance will evoke a longing for a blissful, beautiful world.
