The mystery of the macabre has enticed many composers to write strange and sinister music. One of the best known is Saint-Saens's Danse Macabre, composed in 1874. This piece evokes the image of Death who, with his violin, leads his skeletal disciples on an increasingly ebullient nocturnal dance until the rooster crows and the spirits disappear into the breaking dawn. Ligeti gives us a completely different Dance of Death in his piece. Mysteries of the Macabre is an absurd suite based on a trio of arias from his own opera Le Grand Macabre in which he depicts the world as a ship of fools. Ligeti's cartoon-like style and ironic language are very demanding on the orchestra and the soloist. Like no other composer, this Hungarian Jewish composer, whose father and brother fell victim to the fascist dictator, knew how to transpose tears into sound. Like many of his romantic predecessors, Jean Sibelius took pleasure in surrendering himself to melancholy and deriving joy from darkness. At the première of his Fourth Symphony, he confronted his audience with the most sinister sounds that were to be heard at that time.

Flagey, Festival van Vlaanderen Brussel, Brussels Philharmonic