Pulses / Impulses
Friday, April 24, 2026, at 8:00 PM
Starting from CHF 15.-
Tickets available online or on site on the day of the concert
Irresistible rhythms, inventive harmonies, and surprising orchestral colors: this program resonates with the spirit of the 20th century. From Stravinsky’s humorous miniatures to Frank Martin’s virtuosic concertos, music becomes at once play, expression, and pure energy.
TOM BORROW, piano
HEM PERCUSSION CENTER
PHILIPPE SPIESSER, conductor
PROGRAM
IGOR STRAVINSKY - Suite No. 2 for small orchestra
FRANK MARTIN - Esquisse, Piano concertos Nos. 1 & 2
EDGARD VARÈSE - Ionisation, Octandre
Performance running time : 1h30 without intermission
Doors open at 4:30 PM
Composed from pedagogical pieces for piano four hands written during Stravinsky’s Swiss exile in the First World War, the Suite No. 2 for small orchestra reveals far more than a mere exercise in style. Stravinsky deploys incisive humor, contagious rhythmic energy, and a keen sense of caricature.
A foundational work of the 20th century, Ionisation is one of the first pieces written exclusively for percussion. Varèse conceives sound as raw material, organized into masses, impacts, and rhythmic trajectories. Freed from traditional melody and harmony, the music becomes pure energy, movement, and tension. By contrast, Octandre is the only work by Varèse that does not call for percussion—apart from Density 21.5 for solo flute—yet it is no less characteristic of the composer’s style and technique.
Frank Martin, for his part, explores orchestral color and lyricism in his Esquisse for orchestra, written in 1920, at a time when he was moving away from German post-Romanticism and had not yet studied complex rhythms or twelve-tone music. While his First Piano Concerto, premiered in 1936 by Walter Gieseking and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the direction of Ernest Ansermet, inaugurated his career in the concerto genre, the second—composed more than thirty years later for Paul Badura-Skoda—reflects the maturity of a composer at the height of his international recognition. Premiered in Paris in 1970 by the Orchestre National de l’ORTF under the direction of Victor Desarzens, it combines virtuosity, rhythmic drive, and orchestral power.
Starting from CHF 15.-
Tickets available online or on site on the day of the concert
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