Is music an art of pure sound or a tool for storytelling? This question will be answered by Julian Rachlin, Sinfonia Varsovia and Radoslaw Szulc during the concert “Experience: Mendelssohn / Mahler” as part of the Eufonie festival. The evening at the Grand Theater – National Opera will be a juxtaposition of two opposing visions of 19th century instrumental music – from Mendelssohn ‘s classical elegance to Mahler‘s programmatic narrative.

In the first part we will hear Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy performed by the excellent violinist Julian Rachlin. This work, in which the sophistication of tone and tunefulness of melody reach unparalleled levels, remains one of the most beautiful examples of Romantic violin music. After the intermission, the orchestra will present Gustav Mahler ‘s monumental Symphony No. 1 in D Major (Titan), a programmatic work that tells the story of a young hero facing adversity.

November 17, 2025 | 7:00 pm | Grand Theater – National Opera.

For the concert program, see the description: Experience: Mendelssohn / Mahler.

There has always been a dispute over the meaning and function of music. Some believed that music was the art of combining sounds in such a way that the impression of beautiful consonance and perfection of musical form was created; others, on the other hand, thought that the essence of music was the representation of extra-musical reality. Franz Liszt, one of the most prominent artists of the Romantic period, recognized that, as a consequence of this dispute, two approaches to composition developed in the 19th century. The first involved attention to classical formal shape and sonic attractiveness, while the second was concerned with the evocative representation of extra-musical content.

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a proponent of the first of these attitudes, believed that a musical work must be characterized by classical elegance and beauty, which should always dominate over the representation of elements of reality. And he remained faithful to this attitude, although he was fascinated by nature and loved to travel and explore interesting places. These experiences influenced his music only indirectly(Symphony No. 3 “Scottish”, Symphony No. 4 “Italian”), determining at most the local color. His entire legacy is characterized by great attention to the sophisticated structural proportions and attractive shape of the work, as well as its sensuality and subtlety of sound.

The fullest realization of this is certainly the Violin Concerto in E Minor , Op. 64, completed in 1844 (the corrections to the solo part date from 1845), in which the sophistication of tone, the attractiveness and tunefulness of the melody, as well as the allure and charm of the harmonics reach unparalleled levels. Despite his adherence to the classical three-movement structure and contrasting tempo arrangement in the individual movements (which corresponds to the models of Mozart’s time), Mendelssohn did not give up his romantic individualism. It is manifested in the combination of movements, between which there are no breaks, but at most brief connectors – a held sound in the bassoon part after movement I and a several-bar introduction to movement III. Such an idea opened the way for later Romantic composers and was one of the sources of the symphonic poem form.

Unlike Mendelssohn, Gustav Mahler repeatedly indicated that his work was programmatic, a clear manifestation of which is one of his statements: “Symphony means for me to build the world by all possible means of existing techniques “*. This attitude is already reflected in his Symphony No. 1 in D-major, first performed in Budapest in 1889, but later subject to various edits by the author. In its original version, it was a five-movement programmatic symphony, bearing the title Titan taken from a novel by Jean Paul. In 1896 Mahler removed Part II, and in an interview with the “Neues Wiener Tagblatt” prior to the Vienna premiere in 1900, he conveyed his own understanding of the work, the subject of which became a young hero, experiencing joys and sufferings, taking up arms against adversity and triumphing.

An important role in evoking these contents falls to the musical representation of nature, which is manifested through the evocative stylization of birdsong, realized from the beginning of the work in the parts of flutes, oboes and clarinets. The protagonist’s cognition of the world, however, is equally connected with the profane of human existence. This is mapped out in the ludic, somewhat morbid dance(ländler) in Part II, and is also expressed in the banality of the funeral march and the grotesque sound of the Jewish fair band in Part III. The culmination of negative experiences is contained by Mahler in the finale of the symphony, as heralded by the choice of the mournful key of F minor, the introduction of a demonic fear fanfare or the presence of roaring brass instruments. However, the overcoming of negative experiences and moving beyond existential pessimism leads the protagonist to a triumphant apotheosis, returning to the victorious key of D major.

An intertextual reading also seems useful for understanding Symphony No. 1 , as Mahler included melodic quotations from his earlier works, mainly from the cycle Songs of the Wandering Apprentice . The words of these songs, associated with musical motifs that are evocations of nature or love’s disappointment, highlight the work’s extra-musical meanings.

Ryszard Daniel Golianek

* Nathalie Bauer-Lechner, Erinnerungen an Gustav Mahler, Leipzig 1923, s. 19. Quote translated by Richard Daniel Golianek.