On Sunday afternoon, February 5, pianist Thomas Beijer – winner of the prestigious Dutch Music Prize 2022 – will perform in the concert series of Podium Eibergen. The program includes a number of his favorite works: Six Moments Musicaux by Schubert, Suite ‘Arcana’ by Rudolf Escher, Cuatro Piezas Españolas by De Falla and finally Chopin’s Third Piano Sonata.

The piano suite ‘Arcana’ by the Dutch composer Rudolf Escher, with which Beijer continues the program, is a piece that is rarely performed. Too little, according to Beijer. “In my opinion, Escher is one of the greatest Dutch composers. His ‘Arcana’ is of the caliber of Ravel, which as a Ravel worshiper I don’t often say. I find it incomprehensible that the piece is played so little. Escher wrote it in 1944, during the German occupation. The Latin word arcana stands for ‘medicines with a secret recipe’. For Escher, composing this suite was such a remedy in ‘a world of mechanized terror’. It’s a dark piece, with a gigantic build-up to a dazzling explosion of light and courage. After all that darkness, it grabs you by the throat.”