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World War I Sonatas
Sat 17 Nov
|Opus 4
A programme of sonatas written during the Great War by composers from different countries involved in the conflict. Works by Respighi, Elgar and Debussy. Manuel De Almeida-Ferrer | violin Wouter Valvekens | piano
Time & Location
17 Nov 2018, 20:00
Opus 4, Desguinlei 90, 2018 Antwerpen, Belgium
About the event
In the words of American sociologist Jeffrey C. Alexander, «Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways». So devastating were the effects of the Great War in Europe and European culture that one cannot deny the traumatic side that it had to the art world, specifically on the musical scene — leaving behind with all certainty the old tonal romanticism and replacing it with the poignant dissonances that are so characteristic to this period in music history.
This hour long programme, with works written during the War (1914-18) by composers who were affected by it in a more or less direct fashion, is an attempt to express precisely the traumatic effect that that cataclysm was having in the European mindset…