»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
Encores and the 41st "Rarities of Piano Music" festival, August 21-28, 2027
The encores from this year's festival can be found here and under the "Program" menu item.
The next "Rarities of Piano Music" Festival will take place from August 21-28, 2027. The program will be published on the festival website in mid-March 2027.
Until then, you can experience two concerts from this year's "Rarities of Piano Music" online and on the radio:
On October 7, 2026, starting at 8 p.m., Deutschlandfunk Kultur will broadcast a recording of the piano recital by the Berlinskaya-Ancelle Duo.
The concert by Emanuele Delucchi on August 23, 2026, was broadcasted live and is currently still available online on the Deutschlandfunk website.
Rarities of Piano music on the radio
German radio station “Deutschlandfunk Kultur” will be recording the following recitals:
Saturday, 22nd of August: Duo Berlinskaya-Ancelle. Broadcasting: 7th of October from 8.00 pm
Sunday, 23rd of August: Emanuele Delucchi. Broadcasting:, live (time-delayed) 23rd of August from 8.00 pm
The recorded concerts by Deutschlandfunk Kultur will then be available for 180 days on the web and in the DLF-app
http://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de
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Date: 13th of March 2026
Festival program 2026
The 40th Rarities of Piano Music, August 22-29
The 2026 festival program is now available. Look forward to many newly discovered treasures of piano literature, the popular Husum Piano Quiz, an exhibition about the composer, pianist, and author Walter Niemann, and a film about the pianist and inventor Josef Hofmann. Subscriptions are available from March 17. Ticket sales for members of the Friends of the Festival Association begin on April 14. Single tickets are available online and at all known Reservix ticket outlets from April 27.
You´ll find the programme here.
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.
All young artists should visit Husum. I can guarantee that they will have their vision enriched and enlarged.
Where connoisseurs respect experts.
It is one of the most beautiful and precious festivals in the world.
Le Paradis du pianophile est en Allemagne. – Un festival certainement unique au monde.
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.
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.
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.
... 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.