Brahms and Ligeti with Distant Echoes from the 19th and 20th Centuries

Distant echoes from the 19th and 20th centuries promises the programme. With first-class performers: two Elisabeth competition laureates, one from the violin competition of 2019 and one from the piano competition of 1991. They are respectively Sylvia Huang and Jan Michiels. And then another talent, Anthony Devriendt, first horn with the National Orchestra of Belgium. And they bring a couple of rarely performed musical works by Johannes Brahms and György Ligeti. And that is immediately the hallmark of this 20·21 Festival: crossing boundaries and time periods and confronting them with each other.

First a short piece of piano music by Brahms followed by an Etude by Ligeti. And then again an Intermezzo by Brahms and an Etude by Ligeti. A thoughtful Jan Michiels gives voice romantically to those Brahms pieces and lets that last note disappear so beautifully into silence. Contrasting is of course Ligeti. Then that pulsating rhythm of the Ligeti Etudes comes along with fingertip agility, almost repetitive, almost mechanical, compact and fleeting and with unexpected turns. But then comes the main course, Brahms Horn Trio. You get that surprisingly beautiful interplay and that unusual blend of piano, violin and horn. Rare but not surprising when you know that Brahms also played horn himself.

A clever idea to then confront that piece with Ligeti's Horn Trio. But first a moment to catch one's breath and to receive well-deserved applause for this certainly splendid experience: hearing a horn player engaged so long and so intensely on his instrument. That alone made it a unique experience. And the pianist and violinist? They were in their element and that is to say: excellent.

Then again a quiet concentrated Jan Michiels with short piano pieces by those two innovative composers. And in that confrontation you sometimes seem to hear how close those composers, over a century apart, lie to each other with their piano playing, their exploration of the musical material. Finally that Ligeti Horn Trio. Again all three together, sometimes in unison, sometimes leading and accompanying each other but above all again being able to hear that horn in all its timbres, muted or not, sometimes with seductive softness then again feverish and powerful, bright high and dark low. It was an extraordinary achievement to make this Ligeti music comprehensible and listenable into a discovery.