Olli Mustonen

The Finnish pianist, composer and conductor Olli Mustonen was once brought in by Decca as a idiosyncratic wonder boy, but was quickly thrown out again because of that same idiosyncrasy. This born musician is no longer unknown to the Handelsbeurs audience. Listening to a recital by Mustonen always requires energy – fortunately not as much as he himself displays. You have to recalibrate your ears and be willing to go along with his very extreme sense of articulation and his tendency to reborn a piece with each reading or performance. For those who want to make that exercise in empathy and wonder, Mustonen is a gift. This year he brings Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier Sonata', which in its time also tested the limits of everyone's ears. Furthermore, there is Bach's miraculous first partita and the rarely performed cycle opus 52 by Sergei Prokofiev, well represented this year.