KARINA CANELLAKIS & ALISA WEILERSTEIN

In October 1896, the idea of composing a Don Quichote (as he then preferred to spell it) occurred to Richard Strauss. Structured as a theme and variations with prominent solo cello and viola parts, the tone poem is based on Miguel de Cervantes’s early seventeenth-century novel Don Quixote de la Mancha. Don Quixote is a minor noble who reads so many chivalric romances that he becomes convinced he is a knight. The farmer Sancho Panza becomes his squire, and together they embark on ill-fated adventures, tilting at windmills and taking on armies of sheep.

Lili Boulanger had made much of her twenty-four years when she died in 1918, leaving behind a small but choice oeuvre. She conceived D’un soir triste (Of a Sad Evening) as a piano trio but created parallel settings for other forces, including the version for large orchestra played here. Dogged by poor health throughout her life, she was nearing her end as she composed this work. It does seem a deathbed piece, a dirge that marches relentlessly on while disconsolate emotions surge, recede, and surge again.

An icon of Polish Modernism, Witold Lutosławski made many important musical statements. He adapted to Stalinist dictums by developing an idiom that was decidedly personal and modern, but that nonetheless paid homage to populist folk music. Direct impetus for his Concerto for Orchestra came from the conductor Witold Rowicki, who asked Lutosławski to write a piece based on folk sources for a performance by the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra. What he received is a brilliant showpiece that is indeed a virtuoso vehicle for the orchestra.