Handel Festival in Poznań

The Handel Festival is a cyclical event that has been held in Poznań since 2009, bringing closer the figure and creativity of the great Saxon. The guiding idea of the Handel Festival is based on the assumption of presenting the diverse aspects of the creativity of one of the giants of the peak period of Baroque music – George Frideric Handel in a broad context.

This year's edition is planned to feature three diverse concerts:
solo – organ recital by Kamil Lis, an outstanding organist of the young generation;
chamber – sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for historical piano and violin interpreted by Monika Woźniak and Michał Grześkowiak on the 233rd anniversary
of the composer's death; and
Handel on the Water – compositions by George Frideric Handel performed by the baroque orchestra Accademia dell'Arcadia.

The proposed program will allow fans of early music to hear three diverse concerts, each revealing completely different facets of Handel's music. All concerts feature outstanding musicians specializing in historical performance. Thus, the artistic proposal of the festival may satisfy "musical archaeologists" seeking the sounds of the past.

The festival is co-financed from the budgetary funds of the City of Poznań and the Greater Poland Voivodeship.
Media patrons: Camera Music, TVP3 Poznań

Festival Program

December 5, 2024
Mozart – a new dimension of the sonata. Concert on the 233rd anniversary of the composer's death
Michał Grześkowiak – violin
Monika Woźniak – historical piano

The sonatas for piano and violin by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are special compositions in the chamber repertoire – they are works in which the parts of both instruments are equal and engage in a continuous dialogue. In 1783, J. B.
Cramer wrote, "in Mozart's sonatas, the 'accompaniment of the violin connects [themselves] ... artfully with the part of the piano, and both instruments maintain a constant tension of attention ...". These works will be performed on copies of period instruments – the piano part will be played on a copy of a Stein instrument, which Mozart highly valued.
The sonatas will be performed by pianist and harpsichordist Monika Woźniak, a laureate of performance competitions and recipient of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage scholarship "Young Poland 2023" and violinist Michał Grześkowiak, founder and leader of the baroque orchestra Accademia dell'Arcadia, a laureate of the Young Art Medal, a scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport (2021) and director of the Handel Festival.

Program:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sonata in G major KV 379
Adagio – Allegro, Andantino cantabile, Allegretto
Sonata in E minor KV 304
Allegro, Tempo di menuetto
Sonata in C major KV 296
Allegro vivace, Andante sostenuto, Rondo. Allegro

December 6
From Rome to London
Kamil Lis – organ

The recital proposed by Kamil Lis will showcase a musical journey that connects important centers for George Frideric Handel, who studied in Rome and then built a great career in London.
The recital program is a kind of "raid" through Baroque Europe, starting in Rome and ending in London.
We will hear compositions by Frescobaldi, Kerll, Sweelinck, Pachelbel, Couperin, Bach, and Handel.
The performer of the recital will be Kamil Lis, an acclaimed organist, harpsichordist, and laureate of numerous organ competitions. The artist is permanently associated with the Academy of Music in Poznań, where in 2021 he defended his doctoral thesis devoted to the creativity of Johann Jacob Froberger. Our audience knows him well from his outstanding realizations of the basso continuo part in the orchestra Accademia dell'Arcadia.

Program:
Girolamo Frescobaldi – Toccata Terza (Toccate e partite d'intavolatura, Libro Primo)
Johann Kaspar Kerll – Passacaglia
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck – Fantasia chromatica, SwWV 258
Johann Pachelbel – Aria Prima (Hexachordum Apollinis)
François Couperin – Qui tollis peccata mundi – Tierce en taille (Messe à l'usage des Paroisses)
Johann Sebastian Bach – Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543
Georg Friedrich Händel – Hallelujah from the oratorio Messiah (organ transcription)

December 7
Handel on the Water
The Accademia Dell'Arcadia Orchestra

According to the testimony of the newspaper Daily Courant, on the evening of July 17, 1717, at 8:00 PM, King George I of Hanover boarded a barge with a group of nobles, moored near Whitehall Palace, and set off towards Chelsea for an evening excursion. In another barge, dozens of musicians along with Handel performed a series of instrumental works until 11 PM, which were intended to entertain the king that evening. The entire Thames was covered with boats and small barges, on which Londoners listened attentively to the floating orchestra. After 11 PM, when after a short break in Chelsea, George I returned to London, all the music was repeated once again to the delight of both the monarch and the citizens of London. Since then, similar excursions on the Thames have been organized several more times, and Handel's multi-part composition became known as Water Music.

This work is a combination of a suite and a concerto grosso, in which the sounds of horns, oboes, and strings combine into a harmonious cycle, capturing simplicity and craftsmanship at the same time. Later, this work was published grouped into 3 suites, although many researchers believe that Handel selected individual parts during performances at will, adapting their character and instrumentation to the circumstances.

In the presented version of Water Music, Suite No. 1 in F major for horns, strings, oboes, bassoon, and basso continuo was used. Enriched with two parts: Allegro and Alla Hornpipe. Both are known from the Suite in D major, but the versions that Arcadia will perform probably come from the first presentation of Water Music, indeed from the aforementioned excursion in 1717. The melodies are familiar but perhaps more colorfully arranged by the great composer. Additionally, the orchestra will also perform a fragment from a slightly different "water music." These will be short fragments from the ballet "Les Fontaines de Versailles" by Michel Richard de Lalande. To remind, these excursions of Louis XIV along the canal in the gardens of Versailles probably constituted the prototype idea of Handel's Water Music.