Radio 3 in Concert: Music from Brussels

Music from a festival in Brussels. Presented by Fiona Talkington. Each year, one national broadcaster in Belgium runs their own music festival, and tonight we have two works from this year's Klaradfestival. From a concert titled Looking for Salvation with the Devil as your Guide, rising star in the world of conductors David Afkham leads the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in a Mozart concerto that presages the 19th-century obsessions with virtuosity (the Devil's work) and which Mozart himself said would make the soloist sweat. Pierre-Laurent Aimard rises to the challenge in this performance. The prize-winning Belgian Tana Quartet usually focus on contemporary works, but in the Klarafestival this year, over a number of concerts, they outlined the progression of the string quartet from the days of Haydn and Mozart. As Goethe remarked about the 'new' spectacle of quartet playing: It is like a conversation between four intelligent people - sometimes together, sometimes one after another, the art of debate supported with argument. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 15 in B flat, K 450. Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), Chamber Orchestra of Europe, David Afkham (conductor). Debussy: String Quartet in G. Tana Quartet