Grote Pianisten: Hélène Grimaud

Hélène Grimaud

Hélène Grimaud is 'one of a kind'. In addition to her career as a pianist, the French musician is concerned about wildlife: in the late 1990s, she founded a wolf conservation centre in northern New York state. She is also committed to human rights and spends much time at the writing desk. She has now published three books. She shows off her musical skills in the Great Pianists series in Amsterdam.

Beethoven and Schumann

1820 was a difficult year for Beethoven: his deafness and his unwanted bachelorhood weighed heavily on him. Beethoven dedicated his sonata Opus 109 to the eighteen-year-old Maximiliane Brentano – her mother was probably Beethoven's 'Unsterbliche Geliebte'. In 1892, Brahms published three capriccios and four intermezzi under the title Fantasien. His Drei Intermezzi opus 117 was written in the same style. The works are among his last compositions. The word 'fantasy' brings to mind improvisations free associations of ideas, but despite the name, these are tightly designed, highly expressive miniatures. Brahms called the last intermezzo Das Wiegenlied all meiner Sorgen.