Barokorkest B'Rock . Frank Agsteribbe

The Ghent Baroque ensemble B'Rock demonstrates that early music is wholly compatible with youthful elan. The ensemble combines historical playing practice with a contemporary approach, guaranteeing transparency and expressiveness with authentic instruments, while here and there injecting a playful note. For this concert, B'Rock has joined up with a kindred spirit - Kristian Bezuidenhout, one of the world's great pianoforte specialists. In Haydn's Second Concerto for Pianoforte (1767), this South-African-born virtuoso conjures up a rich variety of colour from this eighteenth-century forerunner of the modern piano. In the other works on the programme, B'Rock transports the listener back to the origins of the classical symphony. Haydn's Third lay at the basis of the traditional four-movement symphony form and mixes lissom polyphony with the light melodic touch of the 'style galant'. Pierre van Maldere, violin virtuoso and composer at the Court of Charles Alexander of Lorraine, was active during the transition from Baroque to Classical.