Leonard Slatkin

Orchestral fantasy "Schubertiade" by Leonard Slatkin, the world‑renowned American conductor and composer, was commissioned by the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra and premiered in Japan in January 2025. Both the title and the extra‑musical narrative described in the score allude to the tradition of musical convivial gatherings that Franz Schubert organized with friends in his Vienna apartment. In a three‑part form Slatkin depicts an imagined course of such an evening, weaving in passages from Schubert’s scores, including the opening bars of the “Unfinished” Symphony in an intricate passacaglia form.

Aaron Copland is considered one of the most representative composers of 20th‑century American music. He studied in the 1920s, among others, in Nadia Boulanger’s class in Paris, where he solidified his neoclassical style, combining it with elements of folk tradition and jazz. His works, distinguished by technical skill and evocative extra‑musical imagery, show many affinities with film music; these traits can be heard in the ballet Appalachian Spring, composed in 1944 in collaboration with choreographer Martha Graham and arranged for orchestra as a suite the following year.

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony was successfully premiered in 1908 in Saint Petersburg and remains to this day the most highly regarded symphonic work in the Russian composer’s oeuvre. The universal language of late‑Romantic symphonic writing, an intense blend of drama and lyricism, and melodic elements of Russian provenance point to strong links with the work of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, to whom Rachmaninoff often acknowledged his debt.

Performers:

• National Philharmonic Orchestra
• Leonard Slatkin – conductor

Program:

• Leonard Slatkin – Schubertiade: An Orchestral Fantasy (first performance in Poland) [15']
• Aaron Copland – Appalachian Spring [25']
• Intermission [20']
• Sergei Rachmaninoff – Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 [60']

Concert duration: 120 min

Tickets:

• 13 March 2026, 7:30 PM
• 14 March 2026, 6:00 PM