TO ALL IN LOVE

This summer the Lyatoshynsky Trio performed in the opening concert of the Salzburg Festival. Acclaimed by press and public alike, the ensemble travels from Vienna to The Hague for its only concert in the Netherlands, presented by Classical NOW! The three musicians share the stage with pianist Antonii Baryshevskyi, who performs solo works. Together they present a programme in three acts exploring great universal themes: war and exile, forgiveness, love and redemption. An opera without words.

Borys Lyatoshynsky is one of the most iconic Ukrainian composers of the twentieth century, and his music deserves a far more prominent place in the concert hall. He wrote his Second Piano Trio in 1942, whilst evacuated and far from his home city of Kyiv, which — along with the rest of Ukraine — was under attack. The music reflects that turbulent period: unyieldingly powerful, yet also personal and meditative.

In the second act, the trio performs Arnold Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht, based on a poem by Richard Dehmel. In a moonlit forest, a woman confesses that she is expecting a child by another man. Her partner forgives her: their love, he says, will make the child his own.

For the third act, TO ALL IN LOVE, pianist Antonii Baryshevskyi takes the stage. He opens with Alban Berg’s Piano Sonata, a declaration of love written whilst the young composer was himself a student head over heels in love. He follows it with the final three études from Maxim Shalygin’s cycle Fetus, their titles written in capital letters: TO ALL ALIVE, TO ALL IN LOVE and TO ALL RESURRECTED. It is spellbinding to hear Baryshevskyi build his cathedrals of sound. TO ALL RESURRECTED works towards one enormous climax over the course of 20 minutes.