Jonathan Fournel & Brahms 2/ Beethoven 5

Oostende Kursaal
West Flanders
Sun 01.05.22 17:00

Johannes Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

Jonathan Fournel was the revelation of 2021’s Queen Elisabeth piano competition: with a sublime interpretation of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 the French pianist won the first prize and both audience prizes (the Canvas-Klara prize and the Prix Musiq3). However, due to the health crisis, only the jury members were able to attend the finale in person. For this reason, Jonathan Fournel now repeats his performance under the young Belgian conductor, Karel Deseure.

What Johannes Brahms ironically described in a letter to Clara Schumann as “a very small piano concerto with a tiny, fun scherzo” is actually a 50-minute-long mammoth work that can best be described as a symphony with an extra piano part. Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 has not three but four movements: between the opening movement and the rondo finale he placed first a tumultuous scherzo then another adagio. In this third movement, the theme is carried by a solo cello.

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is perhaps the most famous work in the history of Classical music. He described the highly rhythmic opening motif - three short notes and a longer one - with the words “thus fate knocks at the door!” However, in contrast to the Greeks, people of the Enlightenment era did not see fate as a force to which they blindly submitted. In four movements, Beethoven forges a path from darkness (the opening movement in C minor) to the light (the final movement in C major). “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage,” the German philosopher Immanuel Kant once said. The sinister notes of destiny in the first movement undergo various metamorphoses and ultimately return in the fourth movement in a bright, triumphant march.

 

Karel Deseure, conductor
Jonathan Fournel, piano