Paul Lewis

A very warm welcome to Klarafestival!

Flanders Festival Brussels, Klara and our partners are delighted to greet you once again. “I believe audiences aren’t just listening. They are actively contributing”, festival artist Barbara Hannigan remarked in an interview. Concerts are an interaction between the audience, artists and anyone who is contributing to those magic moments in front of or behind the scenes. Together we ‘become’ music. 

As a conductor and soprano, Hannigan is a global reference point. With her, classical music becomes a contemporary and unique experience. This is an inspiration to Klarafestival as the largest broadcast festival in Belgium. Her versatile talent is sure to enrapture you, as is that of the many Belgian and international artists who connect past and present with musical stories.

Klarafestival opens in style with Hannigan as conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. After that, you will hear and see her with young musicians from her mentorship project Equilibrium Young Artists. In no fewer than 25 concerts, we present top talent including Les Talens Lyriques, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and Vilde Frang, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with Víkingur Ólafsson. Klarafestival also treasures creation. The film concert Reich/Richter as a symbiosis of Gerhard Richter’s paintings and the music of Steve Reich; the creation Counterforces by composer Frederik Croene to text by poet Dominique de Groen; and the music theatre production Prey by Kris Verdonck with a composition by Annelies Van Parys will surprise you!

This and all other concerts are possible thanks to the collaboration with our cultural partners: Bozar, Flagey, Kaaitheater, Théâtre Varia, Muntpunt, Concertgebouw Brugge and DE SINGEL. Thanks to our private partners KPMG, Proximus, Brewery Omer Vander Ghinste, Belfius, Interparking and the players of Belgium’s National Lottery. We are grateful for the support of the Flemish Community and the Brussels Capital Region. And finally, thanks to Klara and VRT: there would be no broadcast festival without their valued collaboration.

Joost Fonteyne

Intendant Klarafestival

With his Piano Sonata in A major, D664, the 22-year-old Schubert was already up to his 13th in 1819. The Piano Sonata No. 15 in C major, D840 ("Reliquie") and the Piano Sonata No 16 in a minor, D845 followed six years later. Meanwhile, in 1822, the composer contracted syphilis. While his youth was marked by carefree living, phases of illness now alternate with moments of health.

In the summer of 1819, Schubert travels with his regular singer Johann Michael Vogl to Steyr, Vogl's hometown. A full-blooded romantic, Schubert is inspired by the beauty of nature, but the company in Steyr also helps him unwind. There he meets "a not unkind girl who played the piano well": Sepi, the 18-year-old daughter of the iron merchant Josef von Koller, one of his greatest admirers in Steyr. Schubert writes the Piano Sonata in A major especially for her. 

The initial lilting melody sounds like a song. In his piano music, Schubert prefers variation to repetition, and he lets the tonality waver towards an excess of modulations. The dactylic rhythm of the second theme is identical to the Allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. That need not really be an influence. Schubert likes to use the same rhythm, even in the text rhythms of the lieder Der Wanderer, D489 (1816), and Der Tod und das Mädchen, D531 (1817). The Andante is notable for its rhythmic cell (a long note followed by three short staccatos), which Schubert usually uses only in fast tempi.

This sonata lacks the grandeur and dramatic power of his later work, but it is perfect in its way through the subtlety of its treatment and the predominant lyrical mood. It seems to be both a prelude and a magnification of the Moments musicaux that will emerge in the 1820s.

Six years later, in 1825, Schubert leaves the Piano Sonata in C major ("Reliquie") unfinished and completes the Piano Sonata in a minor. He is pleased with his composition: "In particular, I like the variations from my new sonata, which I performed alone and not without pleasure, for many a person has assured me that the keys under my hands became singing voices." The theme of the variation series is presented throughout all the voices, a precursor to the contrapuntal interweaving in some of the variations. Other variations are characterised by the stubborn repetition of the same note. The last variation alludes to horns in the hazy distance, ending this Andante with a romantic image.

This Sonata in a minor was again composed during a holiday in Steyr. In the first movement, Schubert very quickly juxtaposes a melancholic motif with a militarily aggressive thought. As a second theme, the same motifs appear in reverse order, with aggression turning into courtesy. Because of the narrowness of this form, Schubert introduces two new themes, which, however, are not overemphasised. The whole ends in a strongly tragic mood. Robert Schumann admired the dreamy first movement in this masterpiece. Others point to the similarity between Schubert's third movement, the Scherzo, and the fifth variation of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. The very simple Trio has a dreamy melody, reminiscent of a Ländler: perhaps this is Schubert's carefree holiday memory.

Frankfurt's Allgemeine Musikalische Anzeiger is impressed by this sonata: "A substantive, original work, which does not require a piano virtuoso in the ordinary sense, but an insightful and sensitive player. For many it will remain obscure, but many will also be able to understand it - Goethe certainly not because he is convinced that everyone should be able to understand it completely." That will certainly have put a smile on Schubert's face: Goethe has twice refused the commission of a collection of lieder.

Is the unfinished nature of the Piano Sonata in C major a sign of Schubert's illness? He abruptly interrupts the Menuet and Finale halfway through. Only two movements are completely finished. The nickname 'Reliquie' was coined by the Leipzig publisher Whistling. He incorrectly added that it was Schubert's 'letzte Sonate'. Commentators long thought that this was really Schubert's very last sonata, unfinished by his death. That fable was convenient as this work is very emotive, serious and profound. 

Beethoven liked to work with contrasting themes. Typical of Schubert's "Einheit der Erfindung" is the fact that the second theme in the first movement differs only slightly from the first. In addition, the rhythm of the second theme can be heard in the accompaniment of the first theme. But Schubert tries to ball the contrast within a single theme. The second movement in c minor, Andante, is full of sombre, plaintive and threatening moments. Several times a lullaby passage is brutally broken up by impetuous outbursts. Several times a lulling passage is abruptly interrupted by impetuous outbursts. Is this agitation due to Schubert's illness? Or is the cause purely musical: is it because the third and fourth movements present too great a contrast that Schubert abandoned them?

Yves Knockaert

Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis, artist in residence at Flagey, is widely regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of the German piano repertoire. His concerts and recordings of Beethoven and Schubert received universal acclaim, and his discography with Harmonia Mundi has garnered numerous awards, showcasing his masterful interpretation of the Romantic repertoire which includes the works of Beethoven, Schumann, Mussorgsky, Schubert, Brahms, and Liszt. . In addition to his solo performances, he is also a sought-after chamber musician, having made over 200 appearances at the Wigmore Hall. Paul Lewis is particularly recognized as a leading performer of Schubert's music.