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Fantasy on Beethoven's Ode to Joy
a) for 4 solo instruments, piano 4 or 6 hands and percussion ad lib. (1993)
b) for 4 pianos, 8 hands (1999)
This Fantasy is purely an occasional piece intended for children performers. In the early 90's, I helped to organize each year a musical entertainment at my old school in Enghien (Hainaut). It was a happy mix of music, theatre and dance performed by the more promising kids and the less gifted as well.
For the 1993 edition, I was asked to write a final piece in which the best of the musicians of the day could gather. This yielded me the following orchestra: 1 violin, 1 cello, 1 saxophone, 1 bugle and 3 pianists! And as this was also the great days of the European Union, the idea of writing a set of variations on Beethoven's Ode to Joy came quite naturally.
Commissioned one week before the great show, I wrote the piece on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday we had the first rehearsal and the Fantasy was created with great success on the 21st March 1993 at the Maison Jonathas (Enghien, Belgium).
The performers were:
- Elisabeth Deletaille, violin
- Nicolas Deletaille, cello
- Stéphane Vandesande, alto saxophone
- Régis Lorant, bugle
- François Devleeschouwer, piano I
- Nicolas Lemaitre, piano II
- Laurent Beeckmans, piano III
As this kind of ensemble is not quite common, I rearranged the Fantasy such that the solo parts can be freely chosen among a larger set of instruments; there is also an alternative 4 hands piano part (instead of 6) and a facultative percussion part.
There are five original variations but the introduction, theme, three first and final variations are taken directly from Beethoven's Ninth.
As it seemed that not only children were happy to perform this Fantasy, I also rearranged the set in 1999 for a performance during the Brussels' Feast of Music. This new arrangement is intended for 4 pianos, but it has been performed by 8 pianists in the 2000 and 2001 editions.