Marc-André Hamelin

For decades, Marc-André Hamelin has made a hallmark of championing idiosyncratic pianist-composers who pushed the boundaries of their instrument. For this opening concert of the Flagey Piano Days, the Canadian virtuoso presents a programme devoted to three such musical innovators, each drawing a uniquely personal sound world from the piano. In his Piano Sonata No. 5, Mieczysław Weinberg fuses old and new influences into a highly personal musical language, while Claude Debussy expands the piano’s sonic palette in Images, drawing inspiration from the sound of bells and the gamelan traditions of Southeast Asia. And where better to end than with Frédéric Chopin, the composer who, more than any other, entrusted the full breadth of his sonic imagination to the keyboard? His Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor explores every expressive register of the instrument, from unbridled virtuosity to the profound sorrow of the famous Funeral March.