On 5 August the Rundāle Palace will host the “Sounds of Liepāja in Rundāle Palace” Festival organised by the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra.
This year, the Festival programme will include three events, so that the audience can enjoy not only the magic of symphonic music by Johannes Brahms and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but also a magical night concert featuring music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and Benjamin Britten.
The Festival will begin at 16:00 in the Golden Hall of Rundāle Palace with a concert discussion. In the conversation held by Orests Silabriedis with the art historian Imants Lancmanis and the philosopher Uldis Tīrons a symphony by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which in the early 19th century was wilfully named Jupiter, will be used as a starting point for discussion. The ancient world, the classicism era and the contemporary times. The inherited and the lost. Mozart and the contemporaneity. The mundane and the spiritual.
And to sum it up, they will slightly touch on the world of the celestial planets.
In the course of the discussion the musical interludes performed by Liepāja Symphony Orchestra musicians Reinis Lapa (flute) and Elizabeta Lāce (harp) will feature Marcel Tournier's Two Romantic Preludes, François Couperin's Miniatures and also the New Work in Antique Style by Ernests Valts Circenis will be premiered.
The musical adventure will continue at 19:00 in the White Hall of Rundāle Palace. The Liepāja Symphony Orchestra conducted by Guntis Kuzma will conjure up the glorious world of symphonic sounds of Johannes Brahms and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in one of the most beautiful and luxurious rooms of Rundāle Palace, which is the White Hall.
The White Hall of Rundāle Palace was originally intended as a church, but at the second stage of construction of the Palace the premises were transformed into a dance hall by lowering the ceiling structure. The walls and the ceiling are covered with virtuosic stucco decorations, while pastoral scenes, crafts and trades are depicted above the windows and doors. The four primordial elements of the world, such as earth, air, fire and water, are symbolically represented at the far corners of the hall.
Surrounded by such thought-provoking luxury, the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra will play Johannes Brahms' Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No.41, which in the early 19th century was wilfully named Jupiter.
Brahms' Violin Concerto is one of his most famous and complex works, which requires high technical and musical mastery from both the orchestra and the soloist, and this time the role of the soloist will be taken by Liepāja Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Līga Baltābola.
The violin concerto is full of emotional tension, lyrical beauty and dramatic expression.
Mozart's Symphony No. 41 is his last symphony, and many critics rank it among the greatest symphonies in the history of classical music.
Outwardly the Symphony No.41 is a typical example of a Viennese classicist symphony – a four-part cycle with traditional part functions and composition: the first part is fast and dynamic; the second part is slow and full of observations and bright reflections; a typical court minuet and an energetic, extremely powerful finale. Internally, however, Mozart individualizes each part, and thus the entire cycle, giving it captivating uniqueness, demonstrating his hallmark of genius without the slightest bit of ostentatiousness.
The Liepāja Symphony Orchestra concert in the White Hall of Rundāle Palace will be a great opportunity to get to know the two geniuses of symphonic music that have fascinated and delighted the audiences with their music throughout the centuries.
And finally the “Liepāja Sounds in Rundāle Palace” Festival will end at 22:00 in the French Garden of Rundāle Palace with a meditative closing concert. The Palace Garden will magically light up and be filled with music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Benjamin Britten.
The music will take the audience on a journey through time and space, revealing the new colours and moods of the facade of the Rundāle Palace and the fountain of the French Garden.
Tickets for the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra concerts can be purchased at “Biļešu paradīze” ticket offices.
The “Sounds of Liepāja in Rundāle Palace” Festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, the State Cultural Capital Foundation and Liepāja City.
