Soirée du piano
Two brilliant young artists, each with a multifaceted talent, invite you to share an evening of music centered around great classical and Romantic piano masterpieces. Friends since their time at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, both have already won numerous international awards.
Martin Jaspard will highlight two major Viennese composers. He will open the concert with Mozart’s Rondo in A minor, K. 511—a dark and poignant work written toward the end of the composer’s life. This piece serves as a perfect introduction to Brahms’ 4 Ballades, Op. 10, works of rare depth and great lyricism, composed when he was just 21. Their expressive power so impressed Robert Schumann that he enthusiastically praised the young Brahms. The first Ballade draws inspiration from a Scottish ballad featured in the first collection of European folk songs, compiled and published by Johann Gottfried Herder in 1775.
Nicolas Bourdoncle, in turn, will explore the world of two giants of Romanticism. He begins with the last of Chopin’s celebrated nocturnes, the Nocturne in E Major, Op. 62, No. 2. This genre, evoking the mysteries of the night, was pioneered by the Irish composer John Field and later perfected by Chopin, whose influence extended to generations of composers. Next comes Chopin’s Third Scherzo, an intense and dramatic work dedicated to Adolphe Gutmann, a German pianist and close associate of both Chopin and Liszt. To conclude, Nicolas will perform Liszt’s Après une lecture de Dante, a grand musical fresco from his Second Year of Pilgrimage, set in Italy. Inspired by Victor Hugo’s poem of the same name—which itself draws from the Inferno of Dante’s Divine Comedy—this work is a powerful testament to Liszt’s visionary artistry.