Opera Ballet

SNG Maribor Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Dayner Tafur-Díaz
Soloists: Maria Ioudenitch, violin; Tim Posner, cello; Geneva Lewis, violin; Emma Wernig, viola

In co-production with Narodni dom Maribor

Lucijan Marija Škerjanc: Festive Overture for Orchestra

Camille Saint-Saëns: La muse et le poète, Op. 132

Max Bruch: Concerto for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 88

Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird, suite for orchestra (1919)

The opening concert of the Symphony Cycle, presented in co-production with Festival Maribor and Narodni dom Maribor, promises to shine with festive orchestral sonorities, vibrant concertante dialogue, and sumptuous symphonic imagination.

The evening opens with the Festive Overture by Lucijan Marija Škerjanc, one of the most important Slovenian composers of the 20th century, whose orchestral style combines the expressive sonorities of late Romanticism with a keen sense of colourful instrumentation and refined formal balance.

It is followed by Camille Saint-Saëns’s subtle and rarely performed La muse et le poète (The Muse and the Poet), a remarkable musical meditation for violin, cello, and orchestra in which lyrical introspection intertwines with noble French elegance.

At the heart of the evening is Bruch’s Concerto for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 88, regarded as one of the most beautiful late-Romantic concertante works written for this rather unusual combination of solo instruments. Here, melodic warmth, harmonic richness, and an intensely lyrical quality merge into an exquisite concertante whole, with the two solo voices engaging in a sensitive dialogue with the orchestra.

The concert concludes with the suite from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird, in its second version from 1919, one of the most popular orchestral works of the early 20th century. Drawing on the fairy-tale world of Russian folklore, the work transports the listener into a sumptuous soundscape of magic, mystery, rhythmic energy, and dazzling orchestral imagination. Stravinsky already reveals his extraordinary command of orchestral colour, dramatic progression, and evocative musical dramaturgy, leading from dark, almost enchanted atmospheres to a triumphant final apotheosis. The evening thus draws to a close with a fiery orchestral fantasy whose sonic power and imaginative brilliance herald the richness and variety of the new concert season.