Vlaams Radio Orkest . Thierry Fischer

'Déserts' is an impressive video film Bill Viola made in 1994. Edgard Varèse (1855-1965) wrote the score for this insistent orchestral work for brass, percussion and electronics forty years earlier. It is generally considered one of his masterpieces. Viola made the video as an additional visual score for a live performance. As in much of his work, Viola explores the extremes of physical and mental experience. He uses pictures of the desolate plains of the desert and the sea as metaphors for loneliness. He does this on the basis of a quotation from Varèse in which he compared nature with the elusive parts of the mind that reflect the world of mystery and existential solitude. 'Entr'acte' is a comical surrealist film by René Clair, with original music by Eric Satie (1866-1925). Artistic figures like Francis Picabia, Man Ray and Darius Milhaud act in the film. It was made to fill the interval between two acts at the Ballet Suédois. Morton Feldman (1926-1987) is a composer whose work is rarely to be heard. This American pioneer of minimal music moved in circles with such artists as De Kooning, Pollock and Rauschenberg. His whisperingly quiet compositions have a highly transparent structure and are characterised by the almost total lack of melody. His Cello Concerto is an ethereal and exceedingly intriguing work.