An inspired keyboard - an introduction to the fortepiano

The piano accompanied Mozart throughout his life from early childhood, when he performed in public across Europe. His keyboard works often resonate with those written for larger ensembles or for the operatic stage, serving as a genuine laboratory for new ideas. In the eighteenth century, however, the piano sounded quite different from modern instruments. Lighter in construction, the fortepiano — the ancestor of today's concert grand piano — offers a sound that is at once translucent and incisive, a more intimate volume, and a pronounced differentiation between registers, resulting in an entirely different palette of colours.

Passionate about the sounds of historical instruments, Virgile Van Essche will perform Mozart's Fantasias in D minor and C minor on his own keyboard instrument. Their constant shifts in tempo and expressive atmosphere create beautifully contrasting musical landscapes. At the heart of the programme, a dialogue emerges between Beethoven's "Tempest" Sonata and a keyboard arrangement of the March of the Priests from The Magic Flute. To conclude, a first rondo in A minor will unfold the melancholy chromaticism of Mozart's late works, while another — brilliant and resolutely joyful — will send listeners on their way invigorated by the inexhaustible inventiveness of the Salzburg genius.

Virgile Van Essche graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. After studying piano in Russia, he pursued a specialisation in collaborative piano in England, which he later developed further in his native Belgium. It was in Brussels, alongside Claire Chevallier, that he discovered the fortepiano and the performance practice of Classical- and Romantic-era keyboard instruments. In addition to a six-octave Viennese fortepiano, a replica built by Robert Brown in 2006, Virgile also owns an original Bechstein piano dating from 1873.