Our principal gust conductor, Ilan Volkov, a musical omnivore and passionate ambassador of living composers and groundbreaking initiatives, Volkov has launched the acclaimed Tectonics Festival and the I&I Foundation, created founded by Ilan and Ilya Gringolts with a mission to bring together performers and composers, generating fully funded commissions which will lead to the creation of a diverse body of new music and the cultivation of enthusiastic audiences for new music around the world. He looks ahead to the next season with the Brussels Philharmonic: discover his concerts in Fall/Winter 24.
Ravel’s Piano Concerto is one of his most important pieces and the same can be said about Tchaikovsky and his Fourth Symphony. I like the combination of the two. Ravel is anti-Romantic. He was obsessed by old forms and ideas, skipping over the Romantic period and going back to Classical and even Baroque music to create a neo-Classical idea of music, and taking French music in that direction. For example, the second movement of the Piano Concerto has a classical attitude. It’s fascinating to contrast this kind of music with the drama and over-the-top expression of Tchaikovsky, who puts his emotions clearly at the front of the music, ahead of structural ideas. Heart and sentiment are crucial in understanding the symphony.
01.09.2024 CONCERTGEBOUW AMSTERDAM
Cage and Boulez lived in roughly the same period, although Cage died a long time before Boulez. They knew each other well – there’s an amazing book of correspondence between them – and had a meeting of minds in the early 50s, when Cage was interested in Serialism and complex music. Then Cage turned to thinking more about how any sound can be viewed as music, while Boulez continued searching for an idea of Modernism that could follow Webern and Messiaen, and they had a big split. So the two composers are related, but they are in opposition to each other, and it will be fantastic to hear the contrasts between their music in the same concert. I am guessing that we will also hear similarities, though. Even though they are polar opposites and their aesthetics are very different, they are connected by the search for beauty, their amazing orchestration and a feeling for sound.
14.11.2024 FLAGEY BRUSSEL
15.11.2024 FLAGEY BRUSSEL
We start our new concert season with a summer city trip. The Brussels Philharmonic and principal guest conductor Ilan Volkov are going on a capital city exchange to the famous Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Boulez, the man who tried to reduce music to grids and sequences, series and schedules. Who composed with mathematical precision. Cage, the man who let music run wild. Who placed composing in the hands of fate. They seem to be two worlds that are miles apart, but in terms of radicality they are virtually identical. The Brussels Philharmonic combines some intense, compact compositions by Boulez with the unprecedented large form of Cage’s Concerto for Prepared Piano. Music that is now half a century old, but still sounds progressive.
Boulez, the man who tried to reduce music to grids and sequences, series and schedules. Who composed with mathematical precision. Cage, the man who let music run wild. Who placed composing in the hands of fate. They seem to be two worlds that are miles apart, but in terms of radicality they are virtually identical. The Brussels Philharmonic combines some intense, compact compositions by Boulez with the unprecedented large form of Cage’s Concerto for Prepared Piano. Music that is now half a century old, but still sounds progressive.