From the streets of Paris

The concert begins with Pastorale by Amy Beach (1867–1944), the first major successful American female composer. Essentially all of her works were printed and performed during her lifetime, and her renown reached Europe as well.

French composer Francis Poulenc is known for his personal, colourful blend of melodic perfection, rhythmic energy and resonant elegance. The Sextet for Piano and Winds is playful and surprising, bordering on absurd, with inspiration from the world of the circus, Parisian street-life, and Dadaists like Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie. 

Polish Grażyna Bacewicz was 23 years old when she wrote her wind quintet in 1932, which was also the year she graduated in composition and violin at the Warsaw Conservatory. The music from that time is in a neoclassical style and this quintet is a fine example of that. 

Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra pianist Stefan Lindgren and winds from the orchestra also take on Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds, which is nearly a piano concerto in chamber music format. After its first performance in 1784, when Mozart himself played the piano part, he wrote to his father Leopold: “This is the best piece I have composed thus far in my life!” The quintet is imbued with the lightness and spontaneity we associate with Mozart, but also contains a melancholy streak.