02.06.19 Bruxelles

Below the hill invites listeners into a landscape shaped by both spiritual reflection and poetic imagination, where voices rise from stillness to storm, from sacred depth to lyrical flight.

The first half journeys through the noble and contemplative choral traditions of the Romantic era. English composers Edward Elgar, Hubert Parry, and Charles Villiers Stanford offer serene yet stirring visions of faith, homeland, and the unseen. These are mirrored by continental voices—Bruckner’s intense Christus factus est, Hugo Wolf’s intimate Ergebung, and Schumann’s vivid portrait of Romani life in Zigeunerleben—each revealing a different facet of human longing and devotion.

In the second part, the program moves into a more atmospheric and introspective space. Stanford’s The Blue Bird, with its soaring soprano line over still waters, sets the tone for Elgar’s haunting Death on the Hills. The mood shifts with Claude Debussy’s Trois chansons de Charles d’Orléans, full of wit, elegance, and medieval color, followed by the graceful charm of Fauré’s Madrigal.The concert closes with Fauré’s Les Djinns, a dramatic and turbulent depiction of invisible spirits rushing through the night—bringing us full circle from the peaceful land above to the restless forces below the hill.