Peter Benoit’s works for piano are among the most interesting Belgian keyboard music of the 19th century. Piano virtuoso Claire Chevallier will play pieces including his very popular Derde fantasie and a selection from his Contes et ballades: illustrative music for piano solo in which Benoit gives his imagination free rein. In the Brussels-born composer Paul Gilson’s works for piano, the night is a recurring theme. The first work on this theme is his Nocturne written in 1889. Two years later, he wrote a Berceuse. The soprano Lore Binon and Claire Chevallier have selected beautiful, lyrical songs by August De Boeck His songs to poems in French reveal a particularly sensitive inspiration. Maurice Ravel, for example, gave the following compliment at the time: “Mais c’est aussi beau que du Fauré!”.

Robin Verheyen’s new composition was inspired by the iconic work Virgin and Child by Jean Fouquet and the music of his contemporary, Guillaume Du Fay. The latter’s hymn Ave maris stella forms the basis of this new music written for the duo Verheyen and Copland and the Goeyvaerts String Trio. The musicians explore the deeper meaning and context of this 15th century art with a contemporary gaze. The fact that both have been selected as artists in residence at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp has intensified the collaboration between Robin Verheyen and the Goeyvaerts String Trio. The considerable parallels between jazz and polyphony have convinced them that they can strengthen each other’s work with this crossover to generate new musical ideas.

World première

Leo Janácek considered Antonín Dvorák to be a musical father figure and was probably his main artistic heir. The pianist Jan Michiels combines delectable piano miniatures and folk dances by Dvorák with pioneering piano pieces by Janácek. Expect a dialogue of music composed by the two Czech masters in which their respective styles blend astonishingly well. After all, both were greatly adept at expressing the music of the human soul. “Original and engaging”, is De Standaard’s verdict on this programme.

Today John Dowland (1563-1626) is rightfully considered to be one of the most important musical personalities of the English Golden Age. The Swiss composer Carl Rütti has written a Dowland Suite for B-Five that recounts the life of the English master. Dowland expressed his personal leaning towards melancholy in his most famous song, Flow, my Teares. Based on that song, he composed seven passionate dances in which his rich musical imagination created a compendium of sorrow. In collaboration with Rütti, the ensemble has developed In Search of Dowland: a colourful combination of old and new, where the polyphony of the past merges harmoniously with the sounds of today.

The French music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was greatly influenced by the political, economic and cultural strength of Paris. The Paris Conservatoire and the Opera attracted the most prominent composers, such as the originally Bohemian Antoine Reicha. He became the director of the Paris Conservatoire in 1835 and wrote several wind quintets for musicians such as Dauprat, one of the first great French horn players to study under him. Donizetti, who is best known as an opera composer, was also highly successful in Paris. This evening you will hear one of his string quartets. “Denabians technique and warm tone ensure that his performance of this demanding music is both impressive and persuasive”, writes Earlymusicreview.com.

Few 20th century composers wrote such an extensive and diverse oeuvre as Benjamin Britten. During WWII, Britten sailed from America to England. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with German U-boats beneath him, he wrote one of his most famous and beloved masterpieces, A Ceremony of Carols, based on old English Christmas texts from the 15th and 16th centuries. The piece is an unusual retelling of the famous story of the birth of Christ. Delight in the greatest English ecclesiastical music, alternated with well-known Christmas carols and a few new works as little Christmas gifts in song, all performed by the Vlaams Radiokoor: it promises to be a mellifluous Christmas!