Maurizio Pollini - new date
grand master of the piano
Dear Festival Visitor
For the past few months, we have cherished the hope that in March 2022 we would organise a live festival once again. Today this dream really has become reality. It is with enormous pleasure that we welcome you, our public, to Klarafestival once again, the biggest broadcast festival in the country.
Enjoying music has always been a collective experience. We have all recently felt just how music today continues to fulfil this role in society. Concert halls are meeting places, collective listening posts where together we can celebrate, be amazed, make discoveries. Precisely that physical togetherness has inspired the motto for this edition: ‘Let’s stick together’.
With no less than 25 concerts in Brussels, Antwerp and Bruges, we present an equally diverse programme this year. As always, we bring the music world’s absolute best to Flanders, like piano legend Maurizio Pollini, the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Come and listen to musical monuments such as Bach’s St John Passion, Campra’s Requiem or Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D. But at Klarafestival you’ll just as well discover something new. Thus we have a youthful artistic team tackling Schnittke’s ballet Peer Gynt, director Luigi De Angelis takes on the music of Scarlatti, Pärt and Andriessen, and Les Tanneurs conjure up an artificial beach for the opera-performance Sun and Sea.
Maurizio Pollini has been enchanting audiences for almost 60 years with his lucid tone, musical intelligence and amiable personality. It is therefore a tremendous honour to welcome him this evening to the Henry Le Boeuf Hall, where he will be celebrating his 80th birthday with music by Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven. By way of a prelude, Pollini opens with Schubert's Piano Sonata in G Major, D 894. He concludes with another monument of the piano repertoire: Beethoven’s highly virtuosic, reputedly “unplayable” Hammerklavier sonata.
Joost Fonteyne
intendant Klarafestival
Maurizio Pollini, piano
co-production Klarafestival, Bozar
flowers provided by Daniel Ost
chocolate gifts provided by Neuhaus
texts by Bozar & Lalina Goddard
franz schubert (1797-1828)
Piano Sonata in G Major, D 894
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Molto moderato e cantabile
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Andante
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Menuetto: Allegro moderato - Trio
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Allegretto
ludwig van beethoven (1770-1827)
Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat Major, Op. 106, ‘Hammerklavier’ (1817-1818)
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Allegro
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Scherzo: Assai vivace
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Adagio sostenuto
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Largo - Allegro risoluto
A living legend plays Beethoven and Schubert
Piano Sonata in G Major, Op. 78, D894, 'Fantasy’ (1826)
The Piano Sonata in G major, D 894 of 1826 is also known by the title "Fantasy" or "Fantasy-Sonata" and is dedicated to Josef von Spaun, a childhood friend of the composer. The publication by the publisher Tobias Haslinger sums up well the problem of the length of such a work: in order to make the sonata more accessible, he published it in April 1827 under the title 'Fantasie, Andante, Menuetto und Allegretto', a 'more digestible' form of four independent works.
This sonata was highly regarded by the greats of Romantic music and opens with a contemplative 'Molto moderato e cantabile'. The opening theme in chords announces the inner journey to which this first movement invites. It is followed by a flowing and dancing motive that seems to respond to the power of the first theme, shrouded in mysticism, and its development. This central development completely breaks through the atmosphere of poetic dreaminess, partly by the sombre key of sol minor and a discourse that resounds ff or even fff. The material of the exposition appears here in a different form; it is, as it were, 'affected' by the dramatic progression of the development. The re-exposition again brings calmness and lightness, without however succeeding in making us forget the violence and intensity of the recently calmed thunderstorm.
The 'Andante' is based on two themes that are alternately repeated and varied. The first theme is tender and lyrical while the second, violent and dramatic, revives the atmosphere of the development. The 'Menuetto' uses a powerful theme that recalls the Valses nobles of 1825. Another contrast is made when the syncopated rhythms of the minuet are confronted with the fragile and luminous atmosphere of a Ländler in the trio. The final 'Allegretto' is a rondo with a writing that sometimes appears improvisational, but behind which there is a real architectural
rigour. The musical inventiveness, the playful ambiguity between the major and minor keys, the accents that are sometimes gypsy-like and at other times Viennese: these are all characteristics of this cheerful, but nevertheless subtle and expressive movement.
Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106, “Hammerklavier”
The second decade of the 19th century was, for Beethoven, largely a time of reworking earlier compositions (the reworking of Leonore into Fidelio) and of adaptations (of Scottish and Irish folk songs). The much slower pace at which Beethoven was now writing was a guarantee that each new composition would be a work of the greatest originality. One example of such a literally unprecedented creation is the Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat, op. 106, better known as the Hammerklavier sonata. Beethoven himself called his 29th sonata the “Grosse Sonate für das Hammerklavier”. He liked to say that it is "a work that will certainly cause problems for pianists for a quarter of a century". In this work, Beethoven refused to respect the limits of what, at that time, were quite fragile pianofortes. In terms of length and musical intensity, the sonata would scarcely be equalled, let alone exceeded. At the same time, this sonata is a relatively conservative work. It is in fact Beethoven's only late piano work that revisits the structure in four movements of the Grosse Sonate as found in opus numbers 2, 7 and 10.
The opening section is a good example of the two most important characteristics of the Hammerklavier sonata: vast proportions and a relatively traditional form. This Allegro is thus indeed exceptionally ambitious in terms of "length" but has a quite regularly constructed sonata form. In the other three movements, Beethoven seems much more inclined towards musical experimentation, although formally he remains within the confines of what was generally accepted at the time.
In the clearly constructed, lively and remarkably brief Scherzo: Assai vivace, Beethoven was able to strongly dramatise the music through the use of unorthodox chords. In comparison with earlier sonatas, it is as if a highly emotional drama is being played out behind the notes. The Adagio sostenuto may therefore have the sonata form on paper, but the uncustomary length and highly expressive, often daring harmonies ensure that the formal aspect disappears totally into the background. In contrast, all the attention is drawn to the underlying tensions that create an almost ethereal atmosphere. This is one of the typical movements on which Beethoven had a patent: the almost endless melodies removing any sense of meter and time. By far the most modern aspect in the entire sonata is the connection between the two final movements: a preparation for the colossal closing fugue by means of a kind of improvisation around a number of ideas that have little or nothing to do with what comes before or after. This Introduzione makes a very gradual transition from the meditative Adagio sostenuto to the fugue. Never before had Beethoven written a work that had so clearly had its origins in a single idea.
After Diederik Verstraete
With a career spanning over 60 years, Maurizio Pollini is one of the great keyboard legends. He has a broad repertoire ranging from Bach to contemporary composers and has recorded works from the classical, Romantic and contemporary repertoire to worldwide critical acclaim. Since winning First Prize at the 1960 Chopin Competition, Maurizio Pollini has established an international career of the highest importance, performing at the world’s major concert halls and working with distinguished orchestras and conductors including Karl Boehm, Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, and Peter Eötvös. In 1987 he was awarded the Wiener Philharmoniker Ehrenring — the orchestra’s highest honour.
main partners
Klara, KPMG, Nationale Loterij-meer dan spelen
festival partners
Brouwerij Omer Vander Ghinste, Interparking, Proximus, Yakult
public funding
BHG, Nationale Bank van België, Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie
cultural partners
Bozar, Concertgebouw Brugge, Davidsfonds, DESINGEL, Flagey, KVS, Muntpunt, Théâtre Les Tanneurs
official festival suppliers
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media partners
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