Around 1900 the music was like a volcano about to explode. Forerunners such as Wagner and Debussy had pushed the system of tonality to its limits, innovators such as Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg blew it up completely. The Flemish soprano Katrien Baerts and Het Collectief interpret this thrilling repertoire in a program composed by the conductor and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw, who passed away at the beginning of 2020. De Leeuw was extremely fascinated by the musical developments in this period, which he saw as a kind of big bang of 20th-century music.

In December 2015, De Leeuw, together with Baerts and ensemble Het Collectief, paid tribute to the Second Viennese School in the Muziekgebouw. This concert is an extension of that program. Debussy unleashed a revolution in form and use of color with Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Wagner put a bomb under the prevailing music laws with the opening chord of his opera Tristan und Isolde. In the orchestral songs of Schönberg and Alban Berg, and in Berg’s Piano Sonata, you can hear how completely new music arose from the ruins of the old. The arrangements for soprano and ensemble are by Reinbert de Leeuw, among others.