Asko|Schönberg

György Ligeti turned the music world upside down with his micropolyphonic works in which he threw the traditional rule books on melody and harmony out the window, thereby enticing audiences to explore and discover new tonal worlds. His cello concerto (1966) is a composition consisting of long lines and subtle movements.

In Partiels – part of the French composer Gérard Grisey’s Les Espaces acoustiques cycle – a note or chord’s acoustic qualities play the leading role rather than the melody. It’s music that transcends time to allow all its tonal subtleties the space they need to be fully appreciated while having a distinct physical effect on its audiences.

Both these 20th-century works start on an E – in Partiels, the E explodes into the concert hall like a bolt out of the blue, yet in the cello concerto, the E is virtually inaudible and only gradually reveals itself to the listener (its dynamic marking being pppppppp (eight p’s)).

These two iconic pieces will be flanking the Dutch-Canadian composer Trevor Grahl’s new double concerto for cello performed by soloists Lidy Blijdorp and Asko|Schönberg’s solo cellist Sebastiaan van Halsema. Notably, this will actually be Sebastiaan’s debut at the Cello Biennale as a soloist.