“In every fleeting vision I see worlds,” wrote Konstantin Balmont. Sergei Prokofiev borrowed this line as the title for his Visions fugitives: 20 miniatures, each a world unto itself. György Ligeti confidently portrayed himself in Monument – Selbstportrait – Bewegung: his masterpiece for two pianos. Ellen Corver performs it with Antonii Baryshevskyi.

A delegation from the Davidsbündler Music Academy—faculty musicians and top talents—performs the sextet from Capriccio. In Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht, two lovers walk through a moonlit forest. She confesses that she is expecting a child by another man. He forgives her. “Behold, how brightly the universe shines!” he exclaims in the poem that inspired the work.

The program concludes with Louis Andriessen’s De Staat. Plato viewed the ideal state as a reflection of the celestial order and feared that music might undermine it. “If only that were true,” Andriessen sighed. In the version for two pianos, you can hear the primal power of this Dutch masterpiece with razor-sharp clarity.