Franz Liszt, Sergei Rachmaninov or Modest Mussorgsky wrote character pieces based on motifs and pictures. The pianist and composer Johannes Kiem shows live how such compositional developments come about – how a virtuoso piano piece can grow from a musical motif, or how the atmosphere of a picture can be captured in music. His approach draws on the compositional techniques for which Chopin and Liszt are famous, proceeding via Wagner to Scriabin and thus beyond 1900.

In the course of a Charity Concert for the Kunstverein Familie Montez in July 2015, the audience had the opportunity to send in a picture or painting by e-mail. Twelve images were chosen at random and spontaneously turned into music in concert.
Review by Erhard Metz | Read the original review in FeuilletonFrankfurt