New light

The third concert I went to at Lucerne last week was under two aegises: first ‘Faith’, the theme of this year’s Festival, and second ‘Pollini Perspectives’. Maurizio Pollini coined this phrase or concept several years ago, as indicating his project of giving concerts in which he combines music we know and love with music we don’t know and hate — not that he put it in those terms, but that’s what it amounts to. The latter is always in the first half, naturally.

At Lucerne it was not Maurizio, but his gifted pianist son Daniele who took part in the first half, which was the first performance of Carnaval Nos 10, 11 and 12, by the distinguished Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino. He was with the immensely virtuosic Klangform Wien, consisting on this occasion of two flutes, two clarinets, two trombones, two cellos and percussion, together with five of the New Vocal Soloists of Stuttgart.