Although the three more recent pieces on the programme will be followed by an older one, these works still somehow constitute an integrated whole. Erik Satie, the enfant terrible of fin-de-siècle French music, was fond of shocking the bourgeoisie: although his compositions are sometimes humorously simple and often mysteriously so, Satie was no stranger to irony and did not even spare Debussy with his sarcasm. It is interesting to note that the three Satie piano pieces being played at the start of the concert were scored for orchestra by both Debussy himself and Francis Poulenc. These will be followed by Karol Szymanowki's Violin Concerto No. 1: in addition to sharing a sound with the greats of the turn of the 20th century, the work is also unmistakably Polish and considered one of the first truly modern concertos.
After these rarely heard works, none of them describable as conventional, the concert will conclude with a remarkable symphony by the French Romantic César Franck, who was also outstanding as a composer of organ works. In contrast to Satie, Franck belongs to the category of composers who are always serious and painstaking in their work: his lone symphony matured for many years before it took on its final form – with all the seriousness of its D minor key and, true to the French model, its three movements.

Presented by: Pannon Philharmonic