Piano

“Every day I try to discover what makes great music,” says Leif Ove Andsnes. In this search, he benefits from his deep musicality as well as his conceptual curiosity. In his guest performance, he devotes himself to Beethoven’s penultimate sonata, a monolith of the repertoire, and combines it with discoveries, including a wonderful sonata by Leoš Janáček, which is both delicate and fateful.

The French pianist Bertrand Chamayou presents a recital of post-war works as part of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Biennale (see p. 36), Modernist piano music in all its variety, liveliness and virtuosity. In a work by John Cage, we discover the fascinating sound world of the prepared piano.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his contemporaries set the tone for the concert with Víkingur Ólafsson. The pianist is particularly interested in Mozart’s works written in the 1780s: “In this phase, Mozart not only brought the Classical tradition to its peak, but also subverted it in a very subtle way. The shadows are darker, there are subtle nuances and ambiguities.”

In Alexandre Tharaud’s wide-ranging repertoire, the music of his French homeland from the Baroque to the Modern plays a central role, and so, in our concert in May 2023, works by Rameau and Ravel also form the framework of the programme. In between, we will hear Grieg’s Lyric Pieces and Tharaud’s own transcription of the dreamlike Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.