Although Johannes Brahms wrote the most beautiful compositions in his twenties, the ever self-critical composer was often insecure and relied heavily on the advice and approval of his musical friends. Only after their approval did he dare to publish his compositions, although he often delayed this for a long time so that he could polish endlessly.
When the 29-year-old Brahms settled in the musical metropolis of Vienna in 1862, he nevertheless carried a suitcase full of his own compositions, including his two first piano quartets opus 25 and opus 26, which he had completed a year earlier. Clara Schumann had already premiered the First Piano Quartet in g minor in Hamburg; Brahms himself played the Vienna premiere with members of the renowned Hellmesberg Quartet. ‘I played as freely as if I were sitting at home with friends and the audience here is really a much greater stimulus than with us,’ Brahms wrote to his parents in Hamburg. A few decades later, Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg jokingly called the First Piano Quartet ‘Brahms’ fifth symphony’, because of the symphonic allure of this monumental work. It is a wonderfully compelling piece full of beautiful, yearning melodies, with a warm-blooded rondo at the end that betrays Brahms’ interest in Hungarian folk music.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chaconne is an unparalleled masterpiece, admired, feared and thoroughly studied by every self-respecting violinist. It is the last movement of the Second partita in d minor, which in turn is part of Bach’s impressive collection of three sonatas and three partitas, BWV 1001-1006 for solo violin. Using contrasting variations on a relatively simple four-note motif, Bach created a unique musical universe in his Chaconne that still enchants us three hundred years later.
Together, the imaginative variations explore all the technical possibilities of the violin, from complex chords and lightning-fast passage work to intricate arpeggios. Precisely because each variation is so different in rhythm and character, as a listener you sometimes don’t know what hit you. The genius Bach conjured with the notes and wrote a unique, timeless, irresistible and profound masterpiece.
This year, not only instrumental chamber music will be heard during the Churches Marathon, as Janine Jansen has also invited the successful National Women’s Youth Choir. Led by Wilma ten Wolde, the young, talented women aged 16 to 30 will take a musical journey through time. They combine atmospheric Christmas music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance with colourful autumnal soundscapes by the Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, who died in 2017, one of the most important composers from north-eastern Europe who became internationally known thanks to his folk-inspired compositions for choir.
Programme and artists
For the final concert of this year's Churches Marathon, Janine Jansen has chosen Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du Temps. For this, she has invited Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst, with whom she recorded this moving composition in 2017. Now the atmosphere of the Geertekerk adds an extra dimension. Quatuor pour la fin du Temps is not about an individual agony, but about the end of time. The apocalypse seemed closer than ever when this work was created: it was premiered on 15 January 1941 under the harshest conditions, when Messiaen was imprisoned in camp Görlitz. He wrote it for the only four instrumentalists in the camp: besides the pianist Messiaen himself, they were a clarinettist, violinist and cellist. ‘Never before have I been listened to with such attention and understanding,’ Messiaen wrote in his memoirs.
