Olivier Latry and Éric Le Sage – wonderful French instrumentalists – together form one of the most original contemporary duos. They will perform works arranged for organ and piano, created mainly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by artists from from France, Belgium, Germany and the United States.  

The concert will begin with the Hymne – a colourful piece by Joseph Jongen, considered to be another prominent composer from Belgium, after César Franck. The programme includes Franck’s Prélude, Fugue et Variation op. 18, featuring a melancholic prelude with a singing melodic line, typical of Romantic music, an expressive fugue and variations that elaborate on the material at the beginning of the composition. We will also hear several works by French composers: the Diptyque by Jean Langlais, Nocturne No. 6 for piano op. 63 by Gabriel Fauré, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Paul Dukas or the Choral’s Dream by Thierry Escaich. Latry, together with Le Sage, will next present the famous Adagio assai from the Piano Concerto in G major by Maurice Ravel. With the Aus tiefer not, schrei ’ich zu dir, a chorale prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach, we will move for a moment to the Baroque era.

The concert will be crowned with the sounds of Georg Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue – a composition well known and adored, not only by music lovers, created in 1924 at the request of the famous jazz musician Paul Whiteman. The intertwining elements of classical and jazz music have been appreciated by millions, and the characteristic glissando performed on the clarinet that opens is probably just as popular as the motif that opens the legendary Symphony No. 5 in C minor by Ludwig van Beethoven.