Eline Welle (mezzo-soprano) and Laurens de Man (piano)

Echoes and dreams
Mezzo-soprano Eline Welle and pianist Laurens de Man put together a programme of works by composers who both embraced and innovated traditions. Wagner's innovations in opera and chromaticism, for example, aroused both admiration and resistance, but he was nevertheless extremely influential. Schoenberg was a maniacal Wagnerian, but also one of the key figures in the developments of 20th-century music, standing at a crossroads between the past and the future. This is well evident in works that date from the period when Schoenberg abandoned traditional tonality but had not yet invented his twelve-tone technique. Debussy, on the contrary, had nothing to do with Wagner, but was inspired by poetry evoking the sensuality of ancient Greece to create very personal and intense sounds. Sometimes, too, the future remains unwritten, as in the case of Lili Boulanger, who died too soon. Her works make us dream of the compositions she never made while her sister Nadia, as a pedagogue, left a great mark on a whole generation of musicians and composers. The most direct form of future music is, of course, improvisation. This spontaneous music-in-the-moment is therefore not missing.

Click here for a short version of the programme >

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at contact person Renee ter Braake by e-mail: arnhem-wageningen@vvhl.nl