This spring, the UvA-Orchestra J.Pzn Sweelinck, conducted by Jurjen Hempel, presents a symphonic program in which three composers from different eras engage in a dialogue. The concert connects a contemporary premiere with a neoclassical ballet and a romantic symphony that serves as a source of inspiration.

The program opens with the premiere of Fragments by Primo Ish-Hurwitz. Having started as a cellist in the orchestra, his own composition is now on the music stand. Fragments originated as part of a project by the Concertgebouw Orchestra, in which Ish-Hurwitz was commissioned to write a work for full orchestral instrumentation. Although the piece has already been performed in workshop form, an official premiere has remained elusive until now. The Sweelinck Orchestra now offers him the stage for the premiere of the latest version of his composition.

In Fragments, Ish-Hurwitz explores the tension between different musical worlds. Influences from Stravinski’s ballets are combined with elements from the big band and jazz traditions, with references to Gershwin, West Side Story, and Rhapsody in Blue, among others. The result is energetic music in which complex woodwind passages alternate with grooving brass lines.

This inspiration forms a natural bridge to Igor Stravinski’s Le Baiser de la Fée, a neoclassical ballet from 1928 that serves as a tribute to Pjotr Iljitsj Tsjaikovski. In this work, Stravinski weaves Tsjaikovski’s melodic ideas with his own clear harmonies and instrumentation. The program concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony (1888), a monumental work in which drama and lyricism converge.