Orchestre National de France

Dear Festival Visitor

For the past few months, we have cherished the hope that in March 2022 we would organise a live festival once again. Today this dream really has become reality. It is with enormous pleasure that we welcome you, our public, to Klarafestival once again, the biggest broadcast festival in the country. 

Enjoying music has always been a collective experience. We have all recently felt just how music today continues to fulfil this role in society. Concert halls are meeting places, collective listening posts where together we can celebrate, be amazed, make discoveries. Precisely that physical togetherness has inspired the motto for this edition: “Let’s stick together’.   

With no less than 25 concerts in Brussels, Antwerp and Bruges, we present an equally diverse programme this year. As always, we bring the music world’s absolute best to Flanders, like piano legend Maurizio Pollini, the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Come and listen to musical monuments such as Bach’s St John Passion, Campra’s Requiem or Shostakovitch’s Seventh Symphony. But at Klarafestival you’ll just as well discover something new. Thus we have a youthful artistic team tackling Schnittke’s ballet Peer Gynt, director Luigi De Angelis takes on the music of Scarlatti, Pärt and Andriessen, and Les Tanneurs conjure up an artificial beach for the opera-performance Sun and Sea.   

Tonight we celebrate the start of Klarafestival 2022. Perhaps you were already welcomed at the Bozar entrance by the festive sounds of trombone-ensemble Crossbones, past finalists of the Supernova chamber music competition. They’ll have put you in the mood for our opening concert with the Orchestre National de France conducted by Cristian Măcelaru. Three monumental works are in the programme: Rachmaninoff’s nostalgic Symphonic Dances, Janáček’s expressive Tara Bulba and Ravel’s virtuosic Piano concerto for the Left Hand, with none other than Boris Giltburg as soloist. Afterwards, do please join us in our Lounge for a drink and a chat, or come listen to how DJ Von Rosenthal de la Vegaz mixes classical music into his own unique genre.  

Joost Fonteyne, 

Intendant Klarafestival

Janáček’s Taras Bulba

In 1915, Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) watched in dismay as his Czechia (then annexed by the Austrian Empire) was forced to fight with the German army. In a spirit of solidarity, he composed a Slavic rhapsody, Taras Bulba (1915-1918) that he dedicated to ”our army, the armed protector of our nation”. The orchestral work is based on the novel of the same name by Nikolai Gogol, in which the brave Cossack fighter Taras Bulba opposes the Polish army. Janáček set three episodes from the novel to music. 

The first section, The death of Andrei, follows the story of Taras Bulba’s younger son who is in love with a Polish general’s daughter. The section opens with a passionate love declaration from oboe, violin and English horn. When the Cossack and Polish armies begin to fight, the mood changes and the orchestra reflects the battleground of war and violence with militaristic trumpets and bloodthirsty trombones. Out of love, Andrei joins the fight on the enemy’s side. Before he realises it, he is beheaded by his own father. The second section (The Death of Ostap) evokes the imprisonment of Bulba’s older son. In despair, Bulba stumbles through the streets of Warsaw searching for Ostap. The limping march stands in stark contrast to the following wild mazurka with which the Polish army celebrates Ostap’s death. The rhapsody ends with a triumphant apotheosis. The Cossacks avenge Ostap’s death with wild abandon, until Bulba is also taken prisoner. Nevertheless, the music now sounds more heroic than ever. While celestial bells ring out, the Cossacks’ chief declares from atop the funeral pyre a prophecy concerning his intrepid people, who will finally triumph. 

Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand 

Piano virtuoso Paul Wittgenstein also discovered first-hand how a crisis can lead to fresh opportunities. When during World War I he was shot in the right arm, his career appeared to be over. But Wittgenstein refused to accept this and instead, with some determination, perfected his left hand piano technique. After the war, he returned to the concert hall and asked composers such as Sergei Prokofiev and Richard Strauss to write concertos for him. The best-known of these is undoubtedly the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (1930) by Maurice Ravel (1875-1930), who succeeded so well in rising above the composition’s limitations, that it sounds as though not one hand but two are running across the keyboard.  

The concerto begins with a gentle rumble from the deepest sections of the orchestra, consisting of murmuring double basses and an unusual solo for the contrabassoon. As the melodic thread from the contrabassoon is taken up repeatedly by other groups of instruments, the orchestra climbs steadily higher. Just as the swelling music reaches its peak, the pianist makes his entrance with a series of fast leaps and broken chords. Normally speaking, the left hand accompanies the melody in the right hand, but here the composer combines both musical roles (accompaniment and melody) in one imposing solo for the left hand. Ravel also plays on a structural level with the expectations of a piano concerto. The work does not follow the traditional three movements, but is built up from various segments that seamlessly merge together. In the frequent key changes, Ravel demonstrates his mastery of orchestration, exchanging dream-like melodies with energetic rhythms and jazzy colours.     

Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances

In the summer of 1939, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) decided to leave Europe because of the turbulent political climate. Together with his family, he set sail for the United States, where he withdrew to the plush, sprawling Honeyman Estate in New York. The estate overlooks the harbour of Newport, where Rachmaninoff’s hours of piano playing acted like a siren, luring many a sailor to drop anchor and listen in wonder. It was here that, three years before his death, the Russian composer wrote his final work: the Symphonic Dances (1940).  

Rachmaninoff first gave to the three dances the titles ‘Noon’, ‘Twilight’ and ‘Midnight’ for good reason. These movements stood as symbols for the various phases of his own life. The work is also to be understood as a sort of musical testament, in which the composer plucks citations from his own works. Thus the first dance harks back nostalgically to the opening theme from his Symphony No. 1 (1895) that here however is given a serene ending. In the second movement, the erratic runs of the woodwinds lead the orchestra in a mysterious, almost bewitched waltz. In the third and last dance, up looms the Dies Irae, the bloodcurdling Gregorian chant from the mass for the dead that obsessed Rachmanninoff throughout his life. However, aside from the Dies Irae, in this third movement the composer also cites the hymn Blagosloven yesi, Gospodi from his choral work Nachtvigilie (1915) that celebrates Christ’s resurrection. Rachmanninoff plays the musical motifs around death and resurrection against each other in a culminating struggle, until finally resurrection triumphs. And as if his very last composition genuinely brought him release, he endorsed this tipping point in the manuscript with the joyful cry: ‘Hallelujah!’   

Boris Giltburg

Boris Giltburg was born in Moscow in 1984, but grew up in Tel Aviv. He was soon winning numerous prizes in international competitions, including First Prize at the Queen Elizabeth competition in 2013. The pianist has notably performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Koninklijk Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. He has also worked with such conductors as Marin Alsop, Martynn Brabbins, Edo de Waart, Neeme Järvi and Yan Pascal Tortelier. In 2019-2020, for the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth, Giltburg made a filmed recording of the composer’s 32 sonatas for the Naxos record label.

Cristian Măcelaru

Cristian Măcelaru was born in Timișoara (Romania) in 1980. He found international fame in 2012 when deputising for Pierre Boulez at the head of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. That same year, Măcelaru received the Solti Emerging Conductor Award, and in 2014 the Solti Conducting Award. Since then he has conducted many of America’s leading orchestras, such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In Europe Măcelaru regularly appears as guest conductor with, amongst others, the Bayern Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He is presently musical director of the WDR Symphony Orchestra and musical director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (California) since 2017. On 1 September 2020 he became musical director of the Orchestre National de France.

Orchestre National de France

The Orchestre National de France was founded in 1934 under the auspices of Radio France. Through its heritage and the dynamism of its project, the orchestra has become the guarantor for the interpretation of French music. As a result of this ambition and the radio broadcasts of its concerts, the Orchestre National possesses enormous prestige. Throughout its history, the orchestra has frequently performed with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and Sir Colin Davis, and soloists like Martha Argerich, Yo Yo Ma and Yehudi Menuhin. It has premiered numerous 20th century masterpieces, including Le Soleil des eaux by Pierre Boulez, Déserts by Edgar Varese, Jonchaies by Iannis Xenakis and almost all of Henri Dutilleux’s works. The Orchestre National de France has been directed by Cristian Măcelaru since I September 2020.

19:30 - 19:50
Klarafestival LOUNGE

Warm and festive welcome by the young Belgian trombone ensemble Crossbones 

21:30 - 22:30
Klarafestival LOUNGE 

Afterparty with Dutch DJ Von Rosenthal De La Vegaz. He mixes the great classics with arias of his favourite sopranos or iconic soundtracks, without beats. 

ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE FRANCE  

MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR

Cristian Măcelaru 

GENERAL MANAGER

Johannes Neubert 

SOLO VIOLINS

Luc Héry, principal

Sarah Nemtanu, principal

FIRST VIOLINS

Elisabeth Glab 

Bertrand Cervera 

Lyodoh Kaneko 

Catherine Bourgeat 

Véronique Rougelot 

Nathalie Chabot 

Marc-Olivier de Nattes 

Claudine Garcon 

Xavier Guilloteau 

Stéphane Henoch 

Jérôme Marchand 

Khoï Nam Nguyen Huu 

Agnès Quennesson 

Caroline Ritchot 

David Rivière 

Nicolas Vaslier 

SECOND VIOLINS

Florence Binder, principal

Laurent Manaud-Pallas, principal

Nguyen Nguyen Huu 

Young Eun Koo 

Ghislaine Benabdallah 

Gaétan Biron 

Hector Burgan 

Laurence del Vescovo 

Benjamin Estienne 

You-Jung Han 

Claire Hazera-Morand 

Mathilde Gheorghiu 

Ji-Hwan Park Song 

Anne Porquet 

Gaëlle Spieser 

Bertrand Walter 

Rieho Yu 

VIOLAS

Nicolas Bône, principal

Allan Swieton, principal

Teodor Coman 

Corentin Bordelot 

Cyril Bouffyesse 

Julien Barbe 

Emmanuel Blanc 

Adeliya Chamrina 

Louise Desjardins 

Christine Jaboulay 

Élodie Laurent 

Ingrid Lormand 

Noémie Prouille-Guézénec 

Paul Radais 

CELLOS

Raphaël Perraud, principal

Aurélienne Brauner, principal

Alexandre Giordan 

Florent Carriere 

Oana Unc 

Carlos Dourthé 

Muriel Gallien 

Emmanuel Petit 

Marlène Rivière 

Emma Savouret 

Laure Vavasseur 

Pierre Vavasseur 

BASSES 

Maria Chirokoliyska, principal

Jean-Edmond Bacquet 

Jean-Olivier Bacquet 

Grégoire Blin 

Thomas Garoche 

Tom Laffolay 

Stéphane Logerot 

Françoise Verhaeghe 

NN 

FLUTES 

Silvia Careddu, principal

Joséphine Poncelin, principal

Michel Moragues 

Patrice Kirchhoff 

Édouard Sabo (piccolo) 

OBOES

Thomas Hutchinson, principal

Mathilde Lebert, principal

Nancy Andelfinger 

Laurent Decker (English horn)

Alexandre Worms* 

CLARINETS 

Carlos Ferreira, principal 

Patrick Messina, principal

Christelle Pochet 

Jessica Bessac (E-flat clarinet) 

Renaud Guy-Rousseau (bass clarinet) 

BASSOONS 

Marie Boichard, principal

Philippe Hanon, principal

Frédéric Durand 

Michel Douvrain (contrabassoon) 

Elisabeth Kissel (contrabassoon) 

HORNS

Hervé Joulain, principal 

Vincent Leonard, principal

François Christin 

Antoine Morisot 

Jean Pincemin 

Jean-Paul Quennesson 

Jocelyn Willem 

TRUMPETS

Rémi Joussemet*, principal

Andreï Kavalinski, principal

Dominique Brunet 

Grégoire Méa 

NN 

TROMBONES 

Jean-Philippe Navrez, principal 

Olivier Devaure 

Julien Dugers 

Sébastien Larrère 

TUBA 

Bernard Neuranter 

TIMPANI

François Desforges, principal 

NN 

PERCUSSION 

Emmanuel Curt, principal

Florent Jodelet 

Gilles Rancitelli 

NN 

HARP

Emilie Gastaud, principal

PIANO/CELESTA 

Franz Michel 

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Delyana Lazarova 

* in order of tenure