This program features two great monuments of the highest, most visionary tradition in classical music.  Beethoven and Lachenmann, two composers separated by over a century and bound together by the great German classical tradition, are represented by their ultimate, most personal statements for the piano, each expanding the capabilities of the art and  re-defining the very meaning of music.  Beethoven, digging deep into and exploding the most traditional of classical forms, creates a new archetype which will have repercussions throughout the following 200 years of composition, whereas Lachenmann reifies the very soul of the piano, creating a previously unimaginable resonance which seems to hover somewhere above the instrument.  Combining violence and tranquility into a new image of human meaning, these works demand the ultimate virtuosity of both technique and interpretation.

——-

Works to be performed on the “Ultimate Monuments of the Tradition” program include:

Beethoven, Sonata Op. 106  “Hammerklavier”
Helmut Lachenmann, Serynade (1998)