Music Institute of Chicago explores musical responses to war, Nov. 9

The Music Institute of Chicago welcomes faculty pianist Matthew Hagle for “Phantoms of Countless Lost,” a program exploring responses to war, November 9 at 7:30 p.m. at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave. in downtown Evanston.

Matthew Hagle. Credit: Music Institute of Chicago

Hagle explores how great composers have used the piano to explore human responses to the experience of war through a wide range of styles and genres. Beethoven’s Sonata “Les Adieux” is an emotional journey of separation and reunion, based on events sparked by the Napoleonic Wars. Liszt’s “Funérailles” is a large-scale canvas filled with heroism, sorrow, and defiance, inspired by the European revolutions of 1848–49. Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” written between 1914 and 1917, is an elegy of a different type, evoking a lost world and culture from the years before World War I. And Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 6, one of three “war” sonatas by the composer, is perhaps his greatest solo work. Written during the years 1940–44, it mixes dissonance and brutality with lyricism, imagination and pianistic daring.

Hagle shared, “This type of concert provides a ‘meditative space’ for processing the sounds and emotions that go with this topic — a topic that, sadly, is always relevant. While recent events have provided us with immediate and intense images of conflict, these musical images from other times and places may yet provide another set of perspectives, manifested in these beautiful sounds.”

Matthew Hagle: Phantoms of Countless Lost takes place Saturday, November 9 at 7:30 p.m. at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave. General admission is $30, available online or by phone at 847.448.8326. All programming is subject to change.

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