When the day closes its eyes, the ears come into their own. Majestic reflections of darkness lend the repertoire of the nocturne its lustre, in a treasure chest of meandering melodies, atmospheric chords and cascading arpeggios inspired by all that is found between dusk and dawn.
Fryderyk Chopin took the nocturne to its climax, but there are other jewels in the crown of this most sophisticated of all keyboard genres. In 1812, John Field was the first to call his lyrical miniatures ‘nocturnes’; like Chopin, he drew the cloak of night around his shoulders for his virtuoso wanderings along the keys of the most ravishing instruments of his time. “He opened the door to the Lieder ohne Worte, impromptus, ballads and all the other types of composition that portray deep, personal emotions”, wrote Liszt in the foreword to Field’s first collection. These were prophetic words, because as well as the illustrious maestro himself, many other Romantic keyboard composers wrote nocturnes along the same lines as Field – not least a remarkable contingent of Russians including Glinka, Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, Skryabin, Balakirev and Rachmaninov. That is no coincidence: Field’s collection was published in St. Petersburg, where it went down a storm before spreading to Central and Western Europe. There Chopin joined the fray, opening up new dimensions in form, volume, complexity and harmonic intrepidness. Chopin’s graceful nocturnes – all of which will feature in this four-day festival! – are the apogee of melodic inventiveness and refinement on the piano, honed to perfection with sublime counterpoint and a narrative naturalness that sends shivers down the spine of even the most jaded piano fans. Elevated to cosmic heights, the nocturne continued to conquer the continent, both in France (Fauré, Debussy, Saint-Saëns) and elsewhere (Wieck-Schumann, Mendelssohn-Hensel, Czerny, Thalberg, Grieg). The result was a marvellous panorama of sonic tableaux in which colour and caresses soothe the lightless hours. But not everyone found sanctuary in darkness. In Sibelius, the Arctic chill of a starless sky cannot quell disquiet, and Samuel Barber takes Chopin’s harmonic excursions to the extreme in his opus 33, although without pushing the music over the edge.
PIANONOCTURNESinPRIMETIME stirs and soothes, entices and surprises with a supreme collection of night music performed by a whole host of talented pianists. Nocturne specialist Bart van Oort helped to design the festival and will explore the cream of the repertoire both at the piano and in an exciting series of lectures. Living legends Jan Michiels, Olga Pashchenko and Abdel Rahman El Bacha tackle pieces de resistance, and we bring you experts on Wieck-Schumann, Field and Chopin in the form of Laura Granero, Florent Albrecht and Naruhiko Kawaguchi. They plead their case on the finest of sensational instruments, lovingly collected by Chris Maene and curated by AMUZ.
Listen long and dream deeply.
Tickets per concert below.
