Another Mélisande

A forest, a castle and a fatal love triangle between two half-brothers and an elusive girl: welcome to the misty universe of Pelléas et Mélisande. In his symbolist masterpiece, Maurice Maeterlinck made the subconscious tangible. It is not the plot that matters, but the smallest vibrations in the characters' emotions. No wonder that it spoke to composers: when it comes to expressing the ineffable, music reigns supreme in the arts. Around the same time as Debussy, Schoenberg wrote his own Pelleas und Melisande. This symphonic poem is one long, compelling metamorphosis of themes and motifs. There is no better answer to Mélisande's mysterious silence than the work of the Croatian composer Mirela Ivičević: rebellious, personal, rooted in the now. Brussels Philharmonic premieres her new violin concerto, with Ilya Gringolts as soloist.

Flagey, Brussels Philharmonic, Klarafestival

‘Together we will build a laboratory, a dynamic hub for the development and performance of new music.’ – Ilan Volkov, Principal Guest Conductor of Brussels Philharmonic