Story of a discovery
The European premiere of Ouverture sur des thèmes d’Atala on 15 February 2024 is the result of chance events and a wonderful collaboration. It all started in January 2023, when the curator of the Music department of KBR, Marie Cornaz, had an appointment with Sophie Matkava, archivist at Bozar, in the hope of finding unpublished scores by the pianist Théo Ysaÿe, the brother of Eugène Ysaÿe. With the support of Christian Demoustiez, librarian at the Belgian National Orchestra, they soon found the sought-after scores in several cardboard boxes in the library of the Philharmonic Society of Brussels, which is attached to Bozar. But this one discovery wasn’t the end of it: under the title Atala, not one but two works were unearthed: the first a cantata by a young Théo Ysaÿe, and the second a later composition, Ouverture sur des thèmes d’Atala, written by violinist Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) as a tribute to his deceased brother.
The Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union, which started in early 2024, was the perfect opportunity to bring this work back to life, a little more than a hundred years after its only performance in the United States. The idea started to take shape. The Belgian National Orchestra and the choir of the Institut supérieur de musique et pédagogie de Namur (IMEP) enthusiastically accepted Bozar’s invitation to take up this challenge.
Two important works by Eugène Ysaÿe put into storage at the KBR in 2023
The KBR houses an important Eugène Ysaÿe fund and in 2023 received several important manuscripts by the composer for preservation, to study, digitise and preserve them under the best possible conditions. After Ouverture sur des thèmes d’Atala, put into storage by Bozar in April, the KBR received the autographic score of the Poème nocturne for violin, cello and orchestra from the King Baudouin Foundation in July. Finally, in October, all of Théo and Eugène Ysaÿe’s musical sources were merged with those of Atala, sealing an institutional partnership between the KBR and Bozar.
Eugène Ysaÿe composed Ouverture sur des thèmes d’Atala in 1919 as a tribute to his late brother Théo, a pianist and composer, taking inspiration from a cantata that the latter himself had dedicated to Eugène in 1892.