Take a virtually forgotten composer, next put an unknown conductor in front of
an orchestra that is virtually unknown outside Belgium, and then add a violist whom most people have never heard of. A sure-fire
recipe for total failure, you might say. Wrong! The result is so
breathtakingly beautiful that I simply cannot (and do not want to!) get
the CD out of my player.


The highly descriptive and evocative Tableaux pittoresques are very
Debussy-esque, but that is true of almost all the music on the CD. You
don’t even need to know the titles of the individual movements to know

what they are about. I know that some people look down on this kind of “visual art”in music but I like it.

It gives a sense of calm and the feeling that time stands still for a moment and that the outside world has ceased to exist, at least for a short while.

Admitted; Sarabande Triste is no more than a bit of light fluff and the Pages Intimes are justmore of the same”, but I actually find it very pleasant to listen to. But what really makes the CD irresistible is the “Suite pour alto etorchestre”. I must confess, to my shame, that I didn’t know it and I do not even know why not.  It  layed too rarely? Is it not complicated enough?                               

This CD was released as part of the 14-18 series, the years relating tothe First World War. How and why do you compose music in turbulenttimes? In the introduction, I read: ‘Music that sprang from a period in which art sometimes seemed meaningless and vain, but which nevertheless succeeded […] in offering comfort.’

It is no different in the turbulent years of the 21st century. But it is not a thing for
lovers of the dissonant and uncomfortable.