Via Crucis is one of Reinbert de Leeuw’s favorite pieces. In an interview in 2002 he said that a in the Fourth Station was ‘the most beautiful note’ in the history of music. In that same year he per- formed for the first time the solo piano version that he would go on to feature more often in recitals. On this CD he combines that piece with La notte, in a performance with his usual violinist partner Vera Beths. ‘I have often performed this piece as a pianist with the Netherlands Chamber Choir, an experi- ence very dear to me. It seemed a bit disrespect- ful to play that intense tale of suffering all alone on the piano, all the more since the solo version is so similar: the most important difference is that you sometimes interpret the singers’ solos. Via Crucis fascinates me and inevitably every couple of years it comes back and then I have to play it the whole day. I can’t get enough of what Liszt does in it with chromaticism, how already in 1879 he had stepped over the edge into atonal- ity. And so eventually I put it on recitals anyway and now I’ve put it on CD.’ Reinbert de Leeuw is well known as a pianist and conductor of contemporary music and was one of the founders of the Dutch Charles Ives Society (1968). He devoted himself with much success to the performance of music by lesser- known modern composers such as Satie and George Antheil as well as to developing alterna- tive ways of performing chamber music during the 1970s. Vera Beths is one of the most important Dutch violinists of the first post-war generation. She has appeared as soloist with all the major or- chestras, and is particularly interested in modern music. Vera Beths plays a Stradivarius from 1727.
- Wykonawca De Leeuw Reinbert , Beths Vera
- Data premiery 2013-04-01
- Nośnik CD
