‘Ictus & Measha Brueggergosman’

Ictus performs Songs of Despair and Hope, from A Journey Beyond Time (2003), a series of Afro-American spirituals which the American composer George Crumb arranged and harmonised. His (amplified) piano music – here executed by Jean-Luc Fafchamps – is played both on and inside the instrument. Add four percussionists and this ‘extended’ piano playing becomes a kind of hall of mirrors in which everything wavers, reflects and doubles up. Crumb’s music evokes images of fictitious worlds, lost memories and forgotten rituals.