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The composers on this programme were and are, like MILOŠ, globetrotters, always curious to draw inspiration from new cultures to enrich their imaginations. Silvius Leopold Weiss, for example, was a German musician who passed through the courts of Rome, London and Prague, where he developed such a gift for improvisation on the lute that he is said to have equalled the great Johann Sebastian Bach in this field. Around the same time in France, Rameau composed The Arts and Hours, a suite of dances and instrumental movements that evoke different emotions and scenes from daily life, while Scarlatti drew inspiration from his travels at the court of the Princess of Essex in Spain to write these two Sonatas, incorporating elements of Flamenco, but also daring harmonies that maintain tension throughout the score, from dynamic contrasts to contemplative melodies. Another journey, this time through mathematical abstraction, in Les Barricades mystérieuses, where François Couperin uses trompe-l’œil sound effects to conceal a system of interlocking elements evoking fractal figures within the simple verse-chorus form. As well as works by Handel, Bach and Albeniz, MILOŠ makes a foray into the 20th century with a piece by Mangoré, which blends Chopinian lyricism with traditional Paraguayan music, and a transcription of the Beatles’ gem Blackbird. Amor Fati, by Frenchman Mathias Duplessy, is inspired by a concept of Friedrich Nietzsche’s, which invites us to “love life in its entirety, with the good and the bad things, to take life with all our soul under the light or under the storm, to love life as it is…”.  

He is the face of the clarinet worldwide, and one of the most striking personalities in the contemporary music world: Martin Fröst, winner of the Léonie Sonning Music Prize alongside, for instance, Igor Stravinsky and Sir Simon Rattle, has also been artist-in-residence at institutions as prestigious as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and has been one of the Verbier Festival’s most loyal and appreciated musicians for many years. From the celestial asceticism of Johann Sebastian Bach to the heroic madness of Lutoslawski, via the springtime joy of Brahms, Martin Fröst builds an intimate and very personal reflection around his instrument and his activity as a concert performer. And he has surrounded himself with hand-picked personalities who are close to his heart and have played an important part in his development as an artist: guitarist MILOŠ, whose appetite for the most varied of repertoires could not fail to satisfy Fröst’s devouring curiosity; Marc Bouchkov, whose imaginative fantasy is matched only by that of the clarinet master; and Anastasia Kobekina, the revelation of the last decade.