Concert de clavecin – Pierre Hantaï

Pierre-Laurent Aimard II

Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata is one of the 20th century’s most monumental piano sonatas – a flood of sound that is ludicrously demanding, with three systems of notation instead of the usual two. A challenge – even for an internationally accalimed pianist like Pierre-Laurent Aimard. The sonata makes reference to the American transcendentalist movement, for which the town of Concord was akin to a Weimar of the USA: it was here, in the middle of the 19th century, that writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne all lived. A concentration of talent that is reminiscent of Vienna in the early days of new music, which was central to the evening’s other featured composer: Arnold Schönberg.

Gastkonzert: Pierre Boulez 100

The Festspielhaus Baden-Baden celebrates Pierre Boulez's 100th birthday with several concerts, including two of his "younger" works alongside Bruckner's last symphony. Boulez admired Bruckner, frequently conducting his works. "Figures – Doubles – Prismes" showcases variations and doublings of musical figures, culminating in a re-examination of the earlier work. Boulez also sets E. E. Cummings's poems to music, creating a unique blend of text and sound.

Concert de musique de chambre avec les professeurs de l’université de Montréal

Pierre-Laurent Aimard & Tamara Stefanovich

PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD & GEORGE BENJAMIN

When experiencing Pierre Boulez’s First Piano Sonata, one should leave all listening habits behind and become a blank page, as the composer himself intended to be—says Pierre-Laurent Aimard, long considered one of the most erudite performers of Boulez’s music. He presents this radically unconventional 1946 work together with George Benjamin’s Shadowlines and a new piece for piano duet, for which he is joined by the composer.

Petr Popelka & Pierre-Laurent Aimard

The concert will be broadcast on 17 March 2024 at 8.03 pm on Deutschlandfunk Kutlur.

Linie 2: 100 Jahre Pierre Boulez

A concert workshop in Freiburg's E-Werk will feature conductor Oscar Jockel explaining Pierre Boulez's "Polyphonie X" with the SWR Symphony Orchestra. This piece, a scandal at its 1951 premiere, connects Boulez's early and later styles. Following the analysis and full performance, the concert includes Webern's arrangement of Bach's "Fuga Ricerata" and Webern's Symphony Op. 21, highlighting polyphony and musical development, both crucial to Boulez's work. A second performance of "Polyphonie X" concludes the evening.

Jonathan Nott and Pierre-Laurent Aimard

He performed in the circus, was celebrated as a pianist, was made to do forced labour under Stalin – György Cziffra’s life was full of successes and tragedies. These are portrayed in a radical and touching way in Cziffra Psodia, a piano concerto composed by fellow Hungarian Peter Eötvös. The soloist for this performance is Pierre-Laurent Aimard; Jonathan Nott conducts. In the same programme, Charles Ives’ Fourth Symphony takes us into early American modernism: a visionary collage of hymns, marches and fugues that explores fundamental questions of existence, performed by a powerful orchestra with piano and choir.

Jonathan Nott and Pierre-Laurent Aimard

He performed in the circus, was celebrated as a pianist, was made to do forced labour under Stalin – György Cziffra’s life was full of successes and tragedies. These are portrayed in a radical and touching way in Cziffra Psodia, a piano concerto composed by fellow Hungarian Peter Eötvös. The soloist for this performance is Pierre-Laurent Aimard; Jonathan Nott conducts. In the same programme, Charles Ives’ Fourth Symphony takes us into early American modernism: a visionary collage of hymns, marches and fugues that explores fundamental questions of existence, performed by a powerful orchestra with piano and choir.

Total Immersion: Pierre Boulez - The Legacy

Musicologist Professor Jonathan Cross talks to Dame Gillian Moore – a lifelong advocate for Boulez’s music – about his creative and cultural legacy.