Perfect Timing: The Jussen Brothers and Akademie Potsdam
By John Dyson | July 30, 2026
The first concert of the 2026 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival that I attended took place in the Atatürk Cultural Centre’s Theatre Hall on June 15. I chose this particular event because it featured the Jussen Brothers, a youthful piano duo from Holland that I knew to be top notch, and the Akademie Potsdam Chamber Orchestra, a highly professional outfit founded in 2001.
The first item on the programme was an orchestral work – Haydn’s four-movement Symphony No 64 in A major, Hob. 1/64. It was subtitled Tempora mutantur (‘Times change’) by the composer, this being a quotation from a Latin adage that goes as follows: ‘The times change, and we change with them. How? Time passing makes mankind worse.’ I noticed that although the number of stringed instruments in the orchestra was quite small (for instance, there were only nine violins), the wind section was comparatively well represented; as a result, the winds sometimes overpowered the strings. This made for a certain novelty, however, and I soon got used to the unusual balance of instruments.
Here is a performance of the Haydn symphony by the Schlierbacher Chamber Orchestra. I think the frequent stops and starts in the second movement sound really weird, but please judge for yourself.
The Akademie Potsdam orchestra gave a polished performance of this work. The third movement, a minuet and trio, is so cheerful that I couldn’t help wondering why Haydn gave his symphony such a lugubrious subtitle. Maybe the mosquitoes in his place of work (the Esterházy Palace, located in low-lying marshland) were getting to him? In both this movement and the last, the horns produced some accurately-played fanfares at the very top of their range. I have to say that these high-pitched blasts temporarily drowned out everything else, but why not? It made for an exciting sound.
The Jussen Brothers then took the stage to play Ravel’s 1920 La Valse, a piece originally composed for orchestra, in an arrangement for two pianos. Having heard this duo perform at the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum some years ago, I knew I was in for a treat. La Valse begins with some murky bass rumblings, and indeed the whole work is – if I may be excused the oxymoron – darkly exuberant. Suffice it to say that my expectations of the pianists were more than fulfilled: they played magnificently, and their trills and rallentandi (slowings down) were timed to perfection.
Here is a performance of La Valse by Martha Argerich and the Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire (1944-2021).
The third item on the programme was the 1900 Intermezzo for String Orchestra by the Austrian-Jewish composer Franz Schrecker (1878-1934). Despite the low numbers of string players, the orchestra produced a well-rounded sound; I was especially impressed by their spot-on coordination in the slower, quieter parts. In this recording, the Intermezzo is being played by the Heidelberg Youth Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Kalb.
Then the Jussen Brothers reappeared, this time to perform Mozart’s three-movement Concerto No 10 in E flat major for two pianos, K 365. The orchestra launched into the first movement with refreshing verve; in the second, in which both brothers played with commendable delicacy, there was a gorgeous piano-and-oboe duet. The two pianists’ cadenza in the last movement, meanwhile, was a masterpiece of coordination. In the following performance, the brothers are accompanied by the WDR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christian Măcelaru.
As their encore, the duo played Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze, originally a soprano aria from one of his cantatas. I admired the brothers for choosing a piece that carries the audience away with its serene beauty rather than wowing them with empty pyrotechnics.
Rightly or wrongly, I got the impression that Lucas and Arthur Jussen were giving everything they played in this concert their all, and was grateful to them for it. As a result, I came away feeling buoyant and uplifted, and it wasn’t due to the soles of my sneakers. So ... many congratulations to the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts for engaging this orchestra and these soloists – all of them exceptionally fine musicians – to play for us.
