Program
Johannes Brahms – Konzert Nr.1 in d moll für Klavier und Orchester (1854-1858)
Robert Schumann – Symphonie Nr.4 (rev. 1851)
Robert Schumann – Frauenliebe und -leben (1840)
Two romantic pivots
Two friends, two key figures. While the young Brahms fully embraced life and artistry, with Schumann as an ardent supporter, Schumann was increasingly overcome with madness, with Brahms as a concerned spectator. A few weeks after Schumann’s suicide attempt in 1853, Brahms wrote down the first notes of what would become his first piano concerto. Do we hear the echo of Schumann’s difficulties in the turbulent opening bars? Pianist Lucas Blondeel enters into a stormy and at the same time so delicate dialogue with the orchestra. And that on an original instrument from 1859 by the builder Julius Blüthner: an instrument that strikes the balance between orchestra and piano extremely precisely. Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, written in 1841 but reworked in 1851, bears witness to the carefree, bouncy energy that Schumann had in better times.
Conductor Bart Van Reyn, one of the four new artistic voices of Anima Eterna, makes his debut with the orchestra with this program. Grand repertoire that can be completely new under his fingers and thanks to the sustained research of Anima’s musicians.
“At Anima Eterna I get the opportunity to explore music history step by step from the historical instruments in order to eventually arrive at the twentieth century. I see that as a quiet trajectory, where you can take the time to really immerse yourself in that evolution. fingers to feel.” – Bart Van Reyn
Later in the evening, Lucas Blondeel and mezzo Marianne Beate Kielland, house friend of the orchestra, provide an intimate afterparty. They perform Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben, accompanied by a copy of a Conrad Graf piano from 1826. It is no coincidence that Brahms had exactly the same instrument in his study. Was it a gift from the Schumanns?