79e CONCOURS DE GENE ` VE
INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COMPETITION
Programme note
In this recital, I invite the listener to travel with me through a landscape shaped by Paul Hindemith’s world — his time, his sound, and the artistic forces that surrounded and inspired him. The programme unfolds like a series of reflections, tracing the echoes between old and new, between the discipline of structure and the freedom of imagination.
Hindemith’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 25 No. 4, serves as both anchor and compass. Written in 1922, it captures the composer’s striking ability to merge clarity with intensity — a voice that speaks directly, sometimes raw, yet always deeply human. Its three appearances in my programme mark points of orientation: an energetic opening, a contemplative centre, and a luminous finale that gathers all preceding colours into one line of resolution. Hindemith’s music bears the imprint of a turbulent century. Having lived through two world wars, he sought order amid chaos, believing that music could restore equilibrium and meaning. His fascination with J. S. Bach — whose contrapuntal mastery he studied in depth — was not nostalgic, but a search for moral and structural grounding in a disordered age.
Around Hindemith, I have placed composers who illuminate the path toward and away from his universe. The programme begins with Thomas Tallis’s Hear the Voice and Prayer, in my own arrangement for viola and piano — an intimate invocation that opens the afternoon with the humility and stillness of early English polyphony.
Hear the voice and prayer of thy servants, that they make before thee this day. That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, ever toward this place, of which thou hast said: “My Name shall be there.” And when thou hearest, have mercy on them.
Tallis’s motive reappears later in the recital through Rebecca Clarke’s Passacaglia, which is based on a theme by Tallis. Clarke transforms that Renaissance melody into something both intimate and monumental — a statement of faith and endurance. Like Hindemith, she lived through a century scarred by war, and her music shares her search for integrity within suffering.
The thread of historical dialogue continues with transcriptions that bridge centuries: Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, Bacewicz’s Sonata for Solo Viola and Polish Capriccio, Matteis’s Ayres, and Westhoff’s Imitazione delle Campane. Each of these works touches a distinct aspect of Hindemith’s world — his admiration for folk traditions, his structural rigour, and his fascination with early music. Bartók and Hindemith shared a profound respect for the vitality of folk sources and met several times, recognising in one another the same commitment to craftsmanship and honesty. Both believed that music rooted in the people’s voice could still speak universally.
For me, Bacewicz holds a particularly personal meaning. She composed throughout the devastation of war, her voice marked by resilience and defiance. The arrangement of her Sonata No. 2 that I perform was made by my former teacher, the legendary violist Stefan Kamasa, for whom Bacewicz wrote her Viola Concerto. Through him I feel an unbroken lineage to her — a connection of spirit, of courage, and of sound.
Bach’s Sarabande from the Partita No. 2 lies at the heart of the programme, a moment of timeless introspection. Hindemith revered Bach as both model and moral guide, and I too return to him as a place of stillness — a reminder that beneath every structure lies a pulse, beneath every complexity, a human breath.