Classical at the Ghent Festival 2022: Diverse Genres

The Ghent Festivities, 2022 edition, are over. After two years of corona restrictions, there was nothing holding back the revelers, who flooded into the city in droves, especially in the evenings. The Ghent Festivities are a grand public celebration and at the same time a ten-day cultural festival where virtually every genre of music and theater is featured. Unique in Europe, because many performances by often well-known artists on the major squares are completely free.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the festivities, numerous classical concerts also take place. Choirs, small ensembles, piano recitals, chamber music, song evenings, and more. Here's a selection from the dozens of classical concerts and recitals. Brief impressions of seven concerts. Two concerts in the Protestant Rabotka Church, two concerts at special venues, two piano recitals in the Miry concert hall, and as an outlier, a performance of Bulgarian a cappella singing in St. James Church.

CHAMBER OPERA IN HUSET

Huset is a grand townhouse on Ghent's Hoogstraat where on evenings like these they push the chairs and little tables to the side for a concert. During the Ghent Festival, there are three different performances of Close Opera. Close, because you experience it up close, you can almost touch the singers. There's no stage, no distance between singers and audience. The audience itself becomes the scenery in the opera. Chamber music in its truest sense, in the intimate setting of a large living room.

Four singers (Annelies Van Hijfte, Jolien De Gendt, Clarissa Worsdale, and Ineke De Vylder) take turns singing a song in a varied program featuring Liszt, Grieg, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Berlioz, Ravel, Enescu, Britten, Vaughan-Williams, and Kurt Weill. Four women, in random order from slender to full-figured. Four timbres and voice types, from coloratura soprano to restrained mezzo, from rich round tones to slightly shrill. Pianist Frederik Martens keeps everything running smoothly. "A crazy bunch," Jolien De Gendt (from the Schumann song evening") recommended the Huset concerts. This song evening is still refined, but throughout the year there are Close Opera nights full of wild fun.

Duo Estrella at Tinnenpot

During the Ghent Festival there are classical concerts in churches, in a concert hall, in the living room of Huset. On July 24, the last day of the Festival, I'm heading to a concert in what is perhaps the most intimate theater in the city. The "bonbonnière" of Theater Tinnenpot, a candy box. A mini theater for no more than sixty people, complete with stage, red velvet, and balcony.

Duo Estrella consists of Dutch violinist Femke Sonnen and Bulgarian Elisaveta Vasileva, both settled in Ghent for decades. The centerpiece of the recital is Mozart's last sonata for violin and piano (KV 454). The bonbonnière has excellent acoustics, just like a real concert hall. That means you hear everything, and with it comes the challenge that a fragile and delicate Mozart sonata is always difficult, even if it's not technically demanding. Mozart in this setting leaves nowhere to hide. You can never take shelter behind the notes like in much Romantic repertoire. Femke Sonnen managed this beautifully. As did the pianist, who had to make do with an inferior grand piano.

Sonnen opens the recital with her own composition, Fantasy for solo violin. Modeled on Bach's solo sonatas while forging her own path, inspired by months of sailing at sea. Sometimes becalmed, sometimes sailing with the wind. Violinists who perform their own work make me long for the days when composing and performing weren't so separated as they have been this past century. They also perform two small late-Romantic works, their signature piece Estrella by Belgian Georges Lonque and Capriccio by Cécile Chaminade. Colorful miniatures in this treasure box, showing that Sonnen perhaps shines brightest in this repertoire. Delightful Romanticism without limits. The thick blonde Wagnerian braid on her shoulder doesn't lie.

A cappella trio "PLETENITSA" in Sint-Jacobskerk

Pletenitsa is a vocal a cappella trio. Three singers perform folk music from the Balkans, primarily from Bulgaria. For various historical reasons, folk music and dance have been preserved for centuries in countries like Bulgaria and remain the lifeblood of folk culture today, unlike the nearly vanished folk culture of Western Europe.

Bulgarian folk music is characterized by irregular rhythms and dissonances. Thanks to composers like Bartók, Balkan folk music has also found its way into classical music. Pletenitsa means braided or plaited in Bulgarian. The voices are interwoven, not always in a harmonious or melodic way, but starting from unison they go their separate ways, with grating dissonances and complex rhythms. This creates very pure and authentic singing. The word "Pletenitsa" also refers to the traditional costume worn during dancing. They sing about ten songs connected to folk tales. Each song is also explained by one of the three singers. What's special about this trio is that two of the singers are Flemish (Jolien Gebuers) and Dutch (Sophia Keck), alongside the Bulgarian founder (Gergana Velikova).

They sing without microphones, which meant those at the back of the church probably couldn't hear them clearly. No one had expected such a large turnout for this concert. Furthermore, the church door remained open, so street noise regularly drifted in. One song even got a bass continuo from a garbage truck. These are, after all, the Ghent Festival.

Four singers: Annelies Van Hijfte [soprano], Jolien De Gendt [soprano], Clarissa Worsdale [soprano], Ineke De Vylder [mezzo], Frederik Martens [piano]

Duo Estrella

Trio Pletenitsa