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Conductor Andrzej Boreyko, dubbed the ambassador of lesser-known modern music, has chosen two opuses from different periods for Metamorphoses programme, which only confirms that in music, as in life, various things happen – personal friendships between contemporaries, lovers, pupils, family members, and mysterious and meaningful professional encounters.

Krzysztof Penderecki, one of the most renowned composers of contemporary music, established a close professional friendship with the legendary violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter in 1978, when the 14-year-old performed Mozart’s Violin concertos under the baton of the illustrious Herbert von Karajan. Penderecki’s Concerto No.2 Metamorphosen (Metamorphoses) is one of the works that commemorate their long musical friendship, combining the rich, velvety sound of A.-S. Mutter’s violin and the melancholy of Penderecki’s music.

In Vienna, Austrian composer Alexander von Zemlinsky was in close contact with the great classics Johannes Brahms and Arnold Schoenberg, but his own music remains little known. In his symphonic fantasy Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid), based on Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairy tale The Little Mermaid, Zemlinsky embodied the deep sadness of his parting with his love Alma Schindler, a young composer and his pupil, who married the famous Gustav Mahler.