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Classical at Ghent Festival 2022: Diverse Genres

By Willem Erauw

29 July 2022 · 5 min read

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The Ghent Festivities, 2022 edition, are over. After two corona years, there was no stopping the revelers, who mainly thronged the city in the evenings. The Ghent Festivities are a major public celebration and at the same time a ten-day culture festival where virtually all genres of music and theater are featured. Unique in Europe, because many performances by often well-known artists on the large squares are completely free.

In the lull of the festive bustle, there are also many classical concerts. Choirs, small ensembles, piano recitals, chamber music, lieder evenings etc. Here is a selection from dozens of classical concerts and recitals. Small impressions of seven concerts. Two concerts in the Protestant Rabotkerk, two concerts at special locations, two piano recitals in the Miry concert hall and as an odd one out a performance of Bulgarian a capella singing in the Sint Jacobskerk.

CHAMBER OPERA IN HUSET

Huset is a large townhouse on Ghent's Hoogstraat where on evenings like these they push the chairs and tables aside for a concert. During the Ghent Festivities, there are three different performances by Close Opera. Close, because you experience it up close, you can almost touch the singers. There is no stage, no distance between singers and audience. The audience is itself decor in the opera. Chamber music in the authentic sense, in the confined space of a large living room.

Four singers (Annelies Van Hijfte, Jolien De Gendt, Clarissa Worsdale and Ineke De Vylder) sing alternately a song in a varied program with Liszt, Grieg, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Berlioz, Ravel, Enescu, Britten, Vaughan-Williams and Kurt Weill. Four women, in random order from thin to plump. Four timbres and voice types, from coloratura soprano to sober mezzo, from full round voice to a bit shrill. Pianist Frederik Martens keeps everything in order. A crazy bunch, Jolien De Gendt (of the Schumann lieder evening) would guess the concerts in Huset. This lieder evening is still civilized, but throughout the year there are Close Opera evenings full of fun and games.

Duo Estrella in Tinnenpot

During the Ghent festivities there are classical concerts in churches, in a concert hall, in the living room of Huset. On July 24, the last day of the Festival, I go to a concert in what may be the most intimate theater hall in the city. The "bonbonnière" of Theater Tinnenpot, a box for bonbons. A mini theater for no more than sixty people, complete with stage, red plush, balcony.

Duo Estrella consists of Dutch violinist Femke Sonnen and Bulgarian Elisaveta Vasileva, both settled in Ghent for decades. The main course of the recital is Mozart's last sonata for violin and piano (KV 454). The bonbonnière has excellent acoustics, just like a real concert hall. That means you hear everything and makes a fragile and delicate Mozart sonata always difficult, even though it is not a really difficult score. Mozart in this setting is always walking on eggshells. You can never hide behind the notes, as you can in much romantic repertoire. Femke Sonnen managed this quite nicely. As did the pianist, who had to make do with an inferior grand piano here.

Sonnen opens the recital with her own composition, Fantasy for solo violin. Modeled on Bach's solo sonatas but going her own way, inspired by months of sailing. Sometimes windless, then again with the wind in the sails. Violinists who perform their own work make me long for the time when composing and performing were not as separated as in the last century. They also perform two small late romantic works, their signature piece Estrella by Belgian Georges Lonque and Capriccio by Cécile Chaminade. Colorful miniatures in this candy box, showing that Sonnen perhaps comes into her own best in this repertoire. Delightful romanticism without boundaries. The thick blonde Wagnerian braid on her shoulder doesn't lie about it.

A capella trio "PLETENITSA" in Sint-Jacobskerk

Pletenitsa is a vocal a capello trio. Three singers sing folk music from the Balkans, especially from Bulgaria. For various historical reasons, folk music and dance have been preserved for centuries in countries like Bulgaria and still form the lifeblood of folk culture today, in contrast to the almost disappeared folk culture in Western Europe.

Bulgarian folk music is characterized by capricious rhythms and dissonances. Thanks to composers like Bartók, folk music from the Balkans has also found its way into classical music. Pletenitsa means braided work in Bulgarian. The voices are interwoven with each other, not always in a harmonious or melodic way, but starting from a unison they go their own way, with grating dissonances and complex rhythms. This gives very pure and authentic singing. The word "Pletenitsa" also refers to the traditional dress with which is danced. They sing about ten songs that are connected to folk tales. Each song is also explained by one of the three singers. Special about this trio is that two of the singers are only Flemish (Jolien Gebuers) and Dutch (Sophia Keck), alongside the Bulgarian founder (Gergana Velikova).

They sing without microphones, so those at the back of the church may not have been able to hear them clearly. Nobody would have thought that so many people would show up for this concert. Moreover, the church door remained open, so street sounds regularly drifted in. One song even got a basso continuo from the Ivagoruim wagon. After all, these are Ghent Festivities.

Four singers

WHO: Annelies Van Hijfte [soprano], Jolien De Gendt [soprano], Clarissa Worsdale [soprano], Ineke De Vylder [mezzo], Frederik Martens [piano]
WHAT: Gentse Feesten
WHERE: Huset (Hoogstraat 49, 9000 Gent)