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Germany ‘Between Variety and Propaganda’ – Shostakovich Festival Leipzig [9]: Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO / Albrecht Winter (violin / moderator). Mendelssohn Hall, Gewandhaus, Leipzig. 16.5.2025. (GT)
Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO – Albrecht Winter [violin and leader], Eva Heinig [violin], Anna-Maria Wünsch [viola], Hartmut Becker [cello], Tobias Lampelzammer [double bass], Thomas Reimann [flute], Klaus-Peter Voss [oboe], Marco Thomas [clarinet], Michael Schlabes [trumpet], Tobias Hasselt [trombone], Horst Singer [piano], Rene Scipio [percussion]
Shostakovich – Suite from the ballet The Golden Age, Op.22a, ‘Black Eyes’ from the movie New Babylon, Op.18; Suite from the movie The Gadfly, Op.97a, Song ‘Peace in the World’ from the movie The Fall of Berlin, Op.82; Extracts from the Suite for Hamlet, Op.32a
The Shostakovich Festival in Leipzig has tried to cowl all areas of the composer’s creativity, and together with full cycles of the symphonies and string quartets, the Gewandhaus additionally organized late-night recitals of poetry and songs, function movies of his music, an exhibition of artworks dedicated to Shostakovich, and a number of other concert events of music from his movies and theatre compositions. In this live performance, the Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO (within the first of two concert events) provided a blended programme of memorable items which have change into common in Shostakovich’s homeland and amongst aficionados of Russian music.
The programme provided the chance for a pause from the darkly tragic pages of the quartets and symphonies by revealing a distinct joyful and life assertive aspect of Shostakovich. The Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO was fashioned from college students within the heady days of the reunification of Germany, as they write:
‘It is rarely the case that there is a very specific birthday for an ensemble like the CAPPUCCINO salon orchestra. April 30, 1989, was directly in the so-called “Red Week” for Leipzig’s universities, which within the former GDR was devoted to the intensive research of Marxism–Leninism. Together with fellow college students from the performing and visible arts, the musicians opened a café on the college for 3 days as a substitute of philosophical gymnastics workout routines – with sensational success! For us college students, it was particularly astonishing how effectively our professors knew in regards to the gentle muse and the way a lot enjoyable they’d collaborating on this enterprise.’
The Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO adopts the diminished Parisian line-up of two violins, violoncello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, trombone and piano. Most of the members belong to famend orchestras, such because the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and the Staatskapelle Halle, or are professors on the Music Academies of Cologne, Bremen and Leipzig.
The choice of items from The Golden Age is from the three-act ballet that premiered on the Mariinsky Theatre in 1930. The ballet was carried out eighteen instances and revived solely in 1982. The glowing music is organized as an orchestral suite, string quartet, and the ‘Polka’ for piano. Of the 4 actions, it was the fantastically scored ‘Polka’ and ‘Adagio’ which might be essentially the most evocative in revealing Shostakovich as a grasp of melody. It is his jocularity and weird circus-like music that involves the fore, particularly on the clarinet of Marco Thomas and the violin of Albrecht Winter.
The originality of the composer’s early years continued within the setting of the tragically romantic ‘Black Eyes’ music from the avant-garde 1929 silent film New Babylon (which was accompanied by piano within the cinema). The music is illustrated by humorously witty taking part in by the trombone, clarinet, and violin, depicting an unlikely love match in a vaudeville present. Switching from experiments of the Twenties, three a long time later, in 1955, the movie music for The Gadfly reveals a fairly completely different composer. Based on the novel by Ethel Lilian Voynich and directed by Aleksandr Faintsimmer, the story depicts the wrestle of Italian patriots resisting the Austrians and has a stupendous love story. The movie music has gained nice recognition, and right here, the violins of Winter, Eva Heinig, and Anna-Maria Wünsch had been excellent, avoiding overindulging within the attractive ‘Romanze’ – the preferred of his movie music. The rating comprises a few of Shostakovich’s most tasty writing, is fantastically orchestrated, and organized by Levon Atovmyan – a long-standing buddy of the composer.
The ’propaganda’ ingredient on this live performance was within the music ‘Peace in the World’ – and its title and sentiment are definitely extra praiseworthy than pure propaganda in right now’s difficult world. The music was sung by the baritone of Albrecht Winter to the first-rate accompaniment of the ensemble. The music is a setting of phrases by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky and is from the 1950 film The Fall of Berlin, directed by Mikheil Chiarureli.
In the ultimate programmed piece, I might have most well-liked Shostakovich’s music to the Kozintsev 1964 movie of Hamlet than the music for Akimov’s 1932 manufacturing of Hamlet on the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow. Yet, this theatre music is thought for its extrovertly unique rating and brilliantly trendy orchestration. The choice of seven extracts from the suite opened with ‘Introduction and Night Patrol’, thus guaranteeing a stimulating starting. The ‘Appearance of the Ghost’ and the ‘Pantomime’ allowed each division of the orchestra to point out their virtuosity and finally proved a terrific end result. As an encore, the Salon Orchestra carried out Shostakovich’s Waltz No.2 from the ‘Second Jazz Suite’ from Kubrick’s ultimate movie Eyes Wide Shut which immediately grew to become massively common worldwide, and on this event, allowed listeners a extra joyful and life-enhancing aspect to the creativity of Dmitry Shostakovich.
Gregor Tassie
Featured Image: Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO © Anne Hornemann