​An ode to the night

​The pianist Nikola Meeuwsen is a rising star: on TV, in festivals and recently with the Residentie Orkest as soloist in Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto. In this solo recital in his hometown of The Hague, he plays works in which Liszt took a plunge into darkness. Because a full evening's recital is possible again, he expands his programme with Bach’s First Partita and Shostakovich’s Second Piano Sonata. 

Liszt based his masterpiece La Notte on Michelangelo’s funerary monument, which bears the same name, in the Medici Chapel in Florence. Liszt painted the night and was so fond of his piece that he wanted it played at his own funeral. Liszt left open what he wished to express in his iconic Sonata in B minor. Some biographers perceive the piece as a titanic struggle between the forces of darkness and light. According to pianist and musicologist Charles Rosen, Liszt brilliantly translated the popular gothic novels of his time into music.