On 6 September the Auditorium’s Chamber Hall welcomes a journey through five centuries of history of fantasies for the keyboard

 

The Auditorio de Tenerife is a cultural venue linked to the Department of Culture of the Tenerife Island Council that is managed by its island's Minister of Culture, Enrique Arriaga. The Chamber Music Cycle begins with the concert Fantasías, carried out by the acclaimed French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. The performance takes place on Tuesday, 6 September at 7.30 p.m. in the Chamber Hall.

Fantasias is a performance that explores five centuries of history with a musical genre and a variety of forms, imbued by its distinctive free nature. Throughout the history of music, fantasia has been the musical genre par excellence in which composers have found the structural refuge enabling them to have maximum freedom in terms of organisation and the perfect mechanism for giving free rein to their creativity.

In this performance, the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard presents a journey through the world of fantasia for the keyboard, from the 16th and early 17th century, with the fantasia of the Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. His work encompasses the period from the end of the Renaissance and the early baroque period, to the Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm for piano composed in 1985 by the British composer George Benjamin. There is also room for the Russian composer Andrei Volkonsky who composed Musica stricta in 1957, a fantasia piece of great historical importance for Russian music, as it was the first to use the twelve-tone technique.

The performance had to include three of the most important fantasy by Mozart. His extraordinary improvisational genius is further enhanced by language that is as free as it is bold. Continuing with classicism, there is also a performance of the second of the sons of J. S. Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, with his Fantasia for piano, full of colour and dynamism, and L. van Beethoven with his Fantasia op. 77.

Widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time, Pierre-Laurent Aimard has had close collaborations with many leading composers including György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen, George Benjamin, Pierre Boulez and Oliver Messiaen.

Aimard begins the 2022/2023 season by receiving Denmark's most prominent music award, the Leonie Sonning Music Prize 2022, which will be celebrated in a series of concerts with the Royal Danish Orchestra/Cambreling and recitals in Copenhagen and Aarhus. Elsewhere, he works closely with leading orchestras and conductors across Europe. At the same time, he is recording Bartók's complete piano concertos with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen, to return afterwards to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.4.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard will stay longer on the island to participate as a guest soloist in the opening concert of the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra season. The show takes place on 9 September at the Symphony Hall at 7:30 pm and will be conducted by the director Marta Gardolinska.

Aimard's recent seasons have included the successful release on CD of Beethoven's Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier (Hammerklavier Sonata) and Eroica Variations for Pentatone, as well as Messiaen's opus magnum Catalogue d'oiseaux which was honoured with multiple awards including the prestigious German music critic's award "Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik".

Tickets for the piano concert are available on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The tickets can be purchased at a single price of €15. Check the special discounts for the audience under 30 years of age, students, unemployed, large families, opera subscription holders and holders of the TEN+JUB and TEN+DIS cards issued by the Tenerife Island Council.