Festival 20/21 has been presenting the classics of the future for many years. For so long, in fact, that Le Sacre at their opening concert has actually become a classic of the past. But you won't hear us complaining about that.
A program pared down to its essence. Barely two works, but two that were perfectly tailored to the ensemble. Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and Le Sacre du Printemps. In a piano reduction, but supplemented with a percussion section.
That the Pieter de Somer auditorium was not designed as a concert hall, but rather as a torture chamber for the many new students in a mass education program, is always painfully obvious at the opening concert of Festival 20/21. Every watch beep or cell phone vibration is clearly audible.
The sudden onset of autumn certainly did not contribute to the listening experience. The season of the cough has become a lamentable habit, but that we also had to put up with trumpet sniffling in Leuven was too much of a good thing. Hence a warm appeal in these chilly days. If you have a cold, just stay home.
Instruments with an identity crisis
But let's talk about the music. Bartók's Sonata was not as tight as it could have been. The piano melodies too often ran together in an annoying mass of sound, though much of that again has to do with the concert auditorium. It was mainly the percussion that kept the work afloat.
Yet that praise does not rest solely on Tom De Cock and Titus Franken. Both pianists of Het Collectief also transformed their pianos into percussive string instruments. That interplay between rhythm and melody, for the percussionists too often took on melodic lines, which the foursome then played out quite well. The main reason Bartók's sonata didn't completely degenerate into an even worse mess.
Het Collectief also drew that percussive quality from the string instrument in Le Sacre du Printemps. In Les Augures Printaniers, the syncopated string chords from the original sounded on the pianos even more menacing and insistent. The energy that in the original comes from the gigantic orchestral forces is conjured up here by the sheer difficulty of the piano reduction. Sure, there were beauty marks here and there, but if you breezed through this score without a hitch it would sound too clinical. Now it twisted a bit here and there, and thank goodness for that.
The percussion section was certainly not lavished with, but the duo added accents at just the right moments. In the final sections, the role of De Cock and Franken grew, and thus this minimal instrumentation managed to approximate the phenomenal climaxes of the original work. Though they were again not helped here, and I hate to bring it up again, by the hall's acoustics.
The opening concert of Festival 20/21 was one of willingness and, despite considerable opposition, also ability. Idea: let's just do this opening concert again next year, but in a better venue.
- WHAT: Béla Bartók, Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion; Igor Stravinsky, Le Sacre du Printemps
- WHO: Het Collectief (piano), Tom De Cock & Titus Franken (percussion)
- WHERE: Pieter de Somer auditorium, Leuven (as part of Festival 20/21)
- WHEN: Friday, August 3, 2018
- PHOTO: © Guy Buys