Le Concert Olympique . Jan Caeyers

Conductor Jan Caeyers has been known for years as a Beethoven specialist. In 2009, he published a bestselling biography of the German master that has so far sold ten thousand copies. Last year, he gave his maiden concert in deSingel with Le Concert Olympique, a young international ensemble he founded and with which he concentrates chiefly on the music of Beethoven and other classical masters. They have already shown many times that an authentic approach does not stand in the way of a contemporary reading of historical scores. In this programme, Jan Caeyers and his 'Olympians' throw the spotlight first on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (1808). In the score, Beethoven couples an unparalleled pattern of motivic development with a biographical strain - the well-known opening motif giving musical expression to fate, which is conquered in the jubilant finale. In 1809, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung called the Fourth Piano Concerto "Beethoven's most remarkable, unique, artistic and complex concerto ever". The work placed the traditional concerto form in a new perspective and offers soloist Frank Braley plenty of scope for virtuoso finger gymnastics.