Le Concert Olympique olv. Jan Caeyers

Nothing but true classics in this concert to open the series that is able to entice so many of you. The first-rate clarinettist Sharon Kam will have the perfect sparring partners: our house orchestra Le Concert Olympique and conductor Jan Caeyers. Kam plays the instrument for which Mozart originally wrote the concerto, the basset clarinet. He made grateful use of the many and varied possibilities of this type of clarinet, which at the time was a new offspring of the woodwind family. Its supple tone and versatile timbre inspired Mozart to write several of his most lyrical melodies.
Almost two hundred years after they were composed, Beethoven’s symphonies have lost none of their artistic worth. They were able to help shape the ideas and lamentations of the 19th century and also appeal to the 21st-century concert-goer. The First begins with dissonance and is full of extravagance. And although this was previously unheard-of at the Burgtheater in early 19th-century Vienna, the audience loved it. The Eighth is an unusual work that almost totally lacks wilfulness and aggression. Its strikingly classical writing style and untroubled jollity actually make it quite atypical of Beethoven.