Polish Orchestra’s Programmes

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30054, 12 February 1963, Page 11

Polish Orchestra’s Programmes

Programmes have been announced for the two concerts to be given in Christchurch, on March 12 and 13, by the Polish National Radio Orchestra.

The orchestra, which has almost 100 players, will visit the Soviet Union, Mongolia, China, Hong Kong and Japan before coming to New Zealand. Arriving in Auckland by air on March 3, it will give eight concerts in New Zealand before leaving for Australia on March 14. After three weeks in Australia, the orchestra ■will travel to Greece.

The first concert on Tuesday, March 12, will be conducted by Jerzy Katlewicz, assistant conductor during this tour and musical director of the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra.

The programme will open with a Polish work, Little Suite by Lutoslawski, one of Poland’s contemporary composers who delights in his native folk music. It will feature two symphonies— Symphony No. 39 in E flat by Mozart, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor. The soloist in Cesar Franck’s Symphonic Variations will be Barbara HesseBukowska, one of Poland’s foremost pianists. She won the 1953 Marguerite Long and Jacques Thibaud Laureate in Paris and has been awarded the Gold Cross and other honours by the Polish Government.

On the following night, the orchestra will present a symphonic concert to be conducted by the orchestra’s musical director, Jan Krenz. The concert will begin with the overture to “Halka,” an opera by Moniuszko, whose music will be unfamiliar to New Zealand audiences. The leading Polish operatic com-

poser of the last century, he was highly successful, composing some 15 operas In all. Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, the “Unfinished,” and the symphonic poem, “Don Juan,” by Strauss, will follow. The concert will end with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor.