»Rarities of Piano Music« at Husum Castle

 

Under the artistic direction of pianist Peter Froundjian, the one-week festival has been taking place in August in Husum Castle every year since 1987. The aim is to draw the public’s attention to works that, despite their high quality, have not found their way into the current piano repertoire. The “Rarities of Piano Music” consist of nine concerts, a matinee and an exhibition. Through the production of a live CD (at the Danish label “Danacord”) a selection of the works played is distributed worldwide.

 

 

 

News

Date: 30th of August 2024

Encores and “Rarities of Piano Music” August 16-23, 2025

The encores of this year’s festival can be found here and at the menu item “Programme”.
The next “Rarities of Piano Music” festival will take place from August 16-23, 2025. The program will be published on the festival website in mid-March 2025.

Until then, you can experience two concerts of this year’s rarities of piano music on the Internet and on the radio:
The livestream of Patrick Hemmerlé’s recital can be found on the Nordfriesland Foundation’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/live/ODcAsmN_aFk
On October 3, 2024, the recording of Gottlieb Wallisch’s piano evening can be heard on Deutschlandfunk Kultur from 8:03 p.m.

Date: 9th of August 2024

Rarities of Piano music on the radio

German radio station “Deutschlandfunk Kultur” will be recording the following recitals:
Friday, 23rd of August: Chiyan Wong. Broadcasting: live (time-delayed) 23rd of August from 8.03 pm
Saturday, 24th of August: Gottlieb Wallisch. Broadcasting: 3rd of October from 8.03 pm

The recorded concerts by Deutschlandfunk Kultur will then be available for 30 days on the web and in the DLF-app
http://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de

Date: 21st of June 2024

Livestream concert

Patrick Hemmerlé´s piano recital on August 19 will be broadcasted live on the Internet via a YouTube channel.
Here you find the link to the livestream:
https://www.youtube.com/live/ODcAsmN_aFk

 

Date: 05th of March 2024

Festivalprogramme 2024
38th “Rarities of Piano music” 17th-24th of August

The 2024 festival program has been published. Look forward to two complete cycles (“Java Suite” by Leopold Godowsky and Franz Liszt’s cycle “Harmonies poétiques et religieuses”) and many newly discovered treasures of piano literature.
Subscriptions will be available starting March 19th. Ticket sales for members of association of friends start on April 2nd.
Single tickets are available online and at all known ticket offices from April 16th.

 It is an absolutely wonderful place to share the love of the unusual repertoire with people. People who want more than standard programs. It is probably the most perfect festival in the world.
Marc-André Hamelin, NDR.de, 2015

All young artists should visit Husum. I can guarantee that they will have their vision enriched and enlarged.
Bryce Morrison, International Piano, März/April 2015

Where connoisseurs respect experts.

Frankfurter Rundschau, 2016

 It is one of the most beautiful and precious festivals in the world.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2016

Le Paradis du pianophile est en Allemagne. – Un festival certainement unique au monde.

Diapason, 2016

In not one of its recitals will you hear a note of the Standard repertoire. It’s not that the great masters are not revered – far from it. The people who come to Husum love the piano in all its guises.

International Piano, Nov/Dez 2011

Find out more about the festival in the book "Beyond the mainstream"

It would be superficial to consider the “Rarities of Piano Music” as “just another festival”, since from the start it understood itself as a necessary addition to the seasonal musical life in the cities. When Bryce Morrison writes in “Gramophone”: “What would we do without the annual Husum Festival?” it expresses the status of indispensability that has now been achieved.

Peter Froundjian

Initiator and artistic director Peter Froundjian

Find out more about the annual festival CDs

  and realize that this one week in August had a personal depth effect on both of us, which is nothing like what we were already able to experience in our rather long life as a concert visitor.
Thomas und Elszbieta Nickelsen

Subscribers

 the experience is the same every year: As soon as you have left Husum heading south after the last concert, you are already looking forward to the next year, longing for new piano adventures in the North Frisian piano paradise.
Wilfried Schäper

Radio Bremen

34 years of »Rarities of Piano Music« – now available as a touring exhibition