Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Klavier

Pierre-Laurent Aimard's solo recital at the Alte Oper focuses on intimate, small but all the more concentrated compositions. In a musical journey through time, he combines works from Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann to Schönberg and Kurtág, demonstrating that “bagatelles”, “games” and “dances” can also be about very big things. The end point in terms of music history is music by György Kurtág, whom Aimard met in Budapest at the end of the 1970s, “when he was practically unknown in France”, as Aimard recalls. “This great musician seemed to me to be the essence of music in human form,” says the pianist about the Hungarian composer, who has remained a close friend to this day.