Steven Osborne

Looking for a concert that will help you slow down? This one will be your cup of tea! The pianist Steven Osborne will be showing his meditative side in these intimate works. An ode to the minimal gesture and slowness. With pieces by the American composers George Crumb and Morton Feldman, who both reflect on time and space, rhythm and movement. Music with a highly individual mysterious aura.
For example, Crumb’s 1983 ‘Processional’, his only work for the piano played conventionally on the keyboard, is an atmospheric study in sound generation. The 1980 piece ‘A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979’ is a dialogue between sound and silence. Here too Crumb seeks out the very finest sonorities and nuances, but uses alternative playing methods directly on the strings and in the sound box. He took his inspiration from Giotto’s renowned frescoes in Padua.
‘Very slow, as soft as possible’: these are the most frequent playing instructions in Morton Feldman’s music. His compositions, as quiet as a whisper, are characterised by an almost complete lack of melody. Prick up your ears and let yourself be carried away by the slowly moving fields of tonal colour. As if you were looking at a painting by Rothko.