Dresden Music Festival

After rehearsing Way of Light with Camilla Hoitenga on Friday the 9th, in preparation for the premiere of the version for flute that I arranged for her, Yvonne and I attended the opening concert of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele. Almut Kühne, a native of Dresden (now living in Berlin), and a terrific young singer and composer who specializes in improvisation, invited us to stay with her family at their exquisite home overlooking the Elbe River. She’s striding forward to greet us, in front of the Semperoper, where we then heard a dramatic rendition of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, followed by the Kodály Te Deum---clearing the air and cleansing the space after Bluebeard’s gloomy presence. The outstanding soloists: Krassimira Stoyanova, soprano; Lioba Braun, mezzo-soprano; Howard Haskin, tenor, and Rudolf Rosen, bass. Harmut Haenchen (left in the photo) was the dynamic conductor, and also directs the Musikfestspiele this year. Setting the disturbing and dark mood for the Bartok just prior to the performance, the actor Eörs Kisfaludy can be seen standing between the bass and alto singer, in one of their many curtain calls. The orchestra and chorus, also first-rate: Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, and the MDR Rundfunkchor. Bartok’s blending of the organ with the strings, using it to shadow the orchestra, contributes to the melancholy infusing his only opera.

This was my first visit to Dresden (from a word meaning ‘people of the riverside forest’) and I was utterly entranced by the beauty and vitality of this city. Hard to believe, with all of the restoration, that Dresden suffered mightily and unnecessarily from bombing attacks carried out by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force, and was ensconced in the Soviet bloc state of the GDR for the next forty years. The Frauenkirche, where Bach gave a recital on the original Silbermann organ in 1736, underwent extensive rebuilding after the war. A symbol of reconciliation towering over a bustling square, it was completed only as recently as 2005. Cobblestone streets lined with all manner of restaurants radiate out from the church, and the majestic Elbe flows past it all. Who wouldn’t fall in love with Dresden?

Scavenging at the Musikverein

An afternoon of glory, thanks to a last-minute ticket procured for the standing-room only section, in the Great Hall of the most beloved concert hall in the world, Vienna’s Musikverein. With its incomparable acoustics and stunning beauty, this home base for the Vienna Philharmonic was the location of many historic and important events---the world premieres of Brahms’ Second and Third Symphonies, Bruckners’ Second, Sixth, and Ninth Symphonies, Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, and the Violin Concerto by Tchaikovsky. Mahler conducted in this hall, Brahms sat in the left balcony. Today, the Vienna Philharmonic (a controversial orchestra, due to decades of excluding women from being hired full-time; I counted two in the string section today, so things must be improving) performed Béla Bartók’s last composition, Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, op. posth., with Tobias Lea as soloist and Riccardo Muti conducting. Bartok left sketches but died of leukemia before he could complete the work. Reconstructed from his notes, eventually in more than one version, the concerto embodies much of his life’s work as an ethnomusicologist and as a composer. Broad strokes of material related to his Concerto for Orchestra were woven into the orchestra. The strings were sublime; soloist and the winds encountered a few bumps with intonation in the first few minutes, but quickly found their sweet spot.

As I will depart for Brno tomorrow to give a few lectures in the Czech Republic, I left the hall at intermission, foregoing the second work on the program, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2. But to savor the Bartok was splendid---not sure I'd want to hear Bruckner afterwards anyway.

For anyone coming to Vienna, tickets to concerts such as this one can be extremely difficult to find. The trick: arrive at the hall thirty minutes before the concert begins. You’ll likely see a few people standing outside, holding tickets they’d like to sell that otherwise won’t be used, in this case ranging from 5 Euros for standing room, to 60 Euros or more. The drill is to walk up to the ticket seller and inspect the price and the seat location. Only rarely will the seller accept an offer considerably less than the price on the ticket---that depends on the demand, your timing, and the seller’s mood. If you end up with a SRO ticket, you’re allowed into the hall before anyone else (VIP treatment for the standing room audience!). People make a beeline for the railing, where the best viewing spots are, saving their places by tying a scarf lengthwise on the rail, or draping a coat over it, and then heading to one of the adjoining rooms to partake of refreshments. I lucked out and quickly grabbed a spot near the middle, between two people who had given one another a little breathing space. As they say, name it and claim it.