Blood relation

Why “Blood Relation”?

The two prominent composers featured in this programme, Franz Liszt and Sergei Rachmaninoff, were virtuosos through and through, possessing an utterly effortless command of the piano. All the experiences of their lives found the way directly into their music, much of which emerged from the piano itself – often through improvisation.

Rachmaninoff’s Preludes are like different glimpses into a world whose sonic roots lie in Imperial Russia. Above all, it is bells – church bells of every kind and every size – that inspire Rachmaninoff’s music through their resonance, giving it volume and breadth. His melodies are expansive, as is the wealth of ways in which he accompanies them. Every new sonic texture born from his hands opens up new horizons of pianistic expression and virtuosity. And equally expansive is the arc that reaches across successive generations of pianists and extends into our own time, from which comes Sidereios, the Concert Étude by the Flemish composer Ward de Jonghe. Here, virtuosity emerges from an impassioned interplay of dense combinations of sound and intense rhythmic energy.

Rachmaninoff and Liszt are blood relations in the way they create musical works whose imprint could hardly be more personal. Liszt wrote countless musical impressions – or improvisations – and yet, in this programme, he reveals an entirely different side of himself: his virtuosity serves a grand musical architecture. The colours, scents and impressions gathered on his extensive travels are collected and condensed in the music of his Sonata in B minor, which poses existential questions between becoming and passing away. The motifs of the Sonata are so psychologically incisive that, although they appear in different guises, we never lose sight of them; the resulting drama is without equal in the entire canon of music. This music emerges from silence, allows silence itself to become a musical protagonist, and ultimately leads us back into silence.