The Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège performs  a few times a year in Brussels . Thursday night , it was a great performance with conductor Christian ARMING and two virtuosos Ferhan and Ferzan ÖNDER , twinsisters, two exceptional musiciansso exceptional .

Somehow the idea of this concert was to put us in  appetite before the Festival “Les Orientales” to be held in Liège between 21 and 23 February and which evokes the dreamt  Orient , the imagined Orient , the real Orient with soloists like the beautiful sisters Önder but the young Lu Yiwen.

Turkish artist and composer Fazil SAY decided to compose this concerto  called Gezi Park 1 in memory of police violence that followed a sit-in at Gezi Park and Taksim Square in Istanbul, killing at least six people dead and injuring 4000 last spring.  Like wildfire , the protest movement had spread  throughout Turkey . Deputy Prime Minister Bulenç Arinz was forced to apologize to demonstrators.
Fazil SAY composed this concerto for the  ÖNDER sisters , with whom he works regularly . IHe planned originally a concerto called ” Twins” to emphasize  the twinning of the two pianists but the hot news of the demonstration changed everything.  Fazil SAY has been already suited by the Turkish authorities for its democratic positions.

the ÖNDER sisters were beautiful yesterday. They live their music in their hearts and in their guts . Seeing them move towards their keyboard of  black and white keys is already a real spectacle in itself. Their interpretation  -fantastic-, their sensitivity all on edge , which is marked by the gradation of tones to evoke the night is wonderfult. Thanks to Liege Royal Philharmonic , a real full orchestra with percussions, brass , woodwinds, violins and some unusual instruments , the atmosphere of the unfolding of this tragic day is reflected in the music. Everything starts with a sunny picnic of happy families . They  talk and sing, children laugh . The music is soft, light , catchy .

The you can feel the threat rising. The police surrounds the park gradually , families are belt. sisters ÖNDER let  felt the anxiety with their piano. Then comes the attack. The music becomes hard , rough chopped , tragic .

The Orchestra give a feeling of extreme gravity with the rattles. The last attack is extremely hard. This is

hell. The music is tense , violent, threatening. The listener is challenged in his whole being. This lasts for several minutes and then the fall is also frightening… And there is silence , death, blood concluding that day. We feel it . In some respects, the style of the concerto is of  Wagnerian grandeur. The style is also slender, tense, full of surprises and twists.

The work of Fazil SAY is a political work . And that’s how the sisters ÖNDER have seen it and interpreted this exceptional piece. The twin sisters  are part of the enlightened and modernist Istanbul class and  do not accept Islamist screed , regressive and undemocratic public management of the AKP of Prime Minister Erdogan. They take their mother ,a former MP as their life example and even if their action is always limited to the music -their vocation, their reason for living- we feel their deep commitment to their turkish society  and the  general elections next month in Turkey give them some hope.

A moving concert that mixed committed pianists  , a united orchestra and an  inspired conductor . A great moment of music at Bozar.

MD DESNERCK

fazilsay.com

www.ferhan-ferzan.com