Tage Alter Musik – Almanach 2016

6 If sixteen concerts of early music in just four days sound like your sort of thing, Regens- burg is the place to be over the Pentecost/ Whitsun weekend every year. Their Tage Al- ter Musik festival is not for the faint hearted, but the musical rewards are enormous, as are the architectural and historic delights of this beautiful Bavarian city on the Danube – the entire city centre is aWorld Heritage site. Ve- nues for the concerts include extreme Baro- que/Rococo, austere Gothic and the historic Reichssaal. This year was the 32nd such fes- tival. One of the attractions of Tage Alter Mu- sik for a reviewer from the UK is that most of the performers that they engage do not visit the UK, so it is an excellent chance to hear what our continental neighbours are up to. Friday 13 May The weekend traditionally opens on Friday evening with the famous Regensburg cathe- dral boys’ choir, the Regensburger Dom- spatzen , as with last year, paired with L’Orfeo Baroque Orchestra fromAustria. Their con- cert in the Dreieinigkeitskirche (Trinity Church) was of Hadyn, with Symphony 30 followed by the Salve Regina in g and the Missa in tempore belli, the so-called Pau- kenmesse. The Salve Regina has a distinctive organ part, here played by Reinhard Führer. The four soloists were Yeree Suh, Ulrike Mayer, Uwe Gottswinter and Christof Hart- kopf, the latter two both ex members of the Domspatzen. As with last year, I found Yeree Suh’s voice too operatic for this music, with her prominent vibrato and frequent porta- mento. I was impressed with the mezzo Ul- rike Mayer, standing in for a disposed singer. She had an impressive range, reaching some particularly low notes in the Salve. The 81 boys and young men of the Domspatzen ar- rived for the Paukenmesse, producing an im- pressive and unforced sound, singing with a well rounded tone. Conductor Roland Büch- ner kept careful control of the varying moods of Hadyn’s music, allowing space and time where appropriate, for example, in the con- cluding moments of the Credo. The well- known moment comes in the Agnus Die when the timpani that give the Mass it’s nick- name make their appearance, although I was- n’t convinced that the timpani sound was one that Haydn would have been familiar with. The first of the late night concerts (which start at 10.45 and often run into the following day) featured the Tiburtina Ensemble from Prague (in the Schottenkirche, with ist extra- ordinary medieval portal), with music from the time of of the Bohemian King Wences- laus II around 1300. A rather turbulant time by all accounts, at a time when Bohemia con- trolled much of central Europe. The music opened with a lament on the death of his fat- her, Ottokar II., at the battle of Marchfeld (1278, whenWenceslaus was just 7), his wed- ding to Judith von Habsburg (1285), their co- ronation (1297) and their death shortly after- wards. The eight members of the group were joined by guest Thomas Wimmer, playing a sizeable medieval fiddle. Two of the singers also played harp. They made an attractive sound, although there were elements of their performance that distracted from the music, not least the extraordinary amount of time taken by the two harpists to tune up, very of- ten without actually playing their instru- ments immediately afterwards. Another dis- traction was the conducting of their leader, whose extravagant hand wafting seemed to- tally unnecesary with such small forces, as well as drawing undue attention to herself. There were some fine spoken declamations from Daniela Čermáková. This was a fasci- nating musical and historical insight into an interesting period in Bohemian history. In- cidentally, the historic links between Regens- burg and Bohemia are strong, the Christia- nisation of the Czech lands stemming from a ninth century visit by Bohemian princes. Saturday 14 May Regensburg’s Reichssaal, part of the Altes Rathaus, was for several centuries the per- manent seat of the Parliament of the Holy Roman Empire. It was the venue for the Sa- turday morning concert, given by the Spa- nish group La Ritirata with their pro- gramme “Il Spiritillo Brando: dances from the court of the Spanish Viceroys in Naples“. A fascinaring mixture of Italian and Spanish influences, the dances of composers such as Andrea Falconieri (lutenist and later con- ductor of the court orchestra) offered an ent- icing glimpse into the courtly life in the early 17th century. With artound 25 pieces in an 80 minute concert, linking pieces together was inevitable, and this was well handled by the group with improvised links between se- veral of the pieces. I particularly liked the re- corder playing of Tamar Lalo and also appre- ciated that the percussion of David Mayoral was reasonably subtle. The early afternoon music-theatre con- cert, The Tempest was billed as for “all ages from 10 up“. It was given by the Ensemble sinn&ton from Berlin and was based on Shakespeare. Led by violinist Rahel Mai (also playing Ariel) with Christine Marx as Mir- anda, narrator and director, this was proba- bly more suitable for the younger end of the target audience. There was more narration than acting, or indeed music, the 24 tiny mu- sical examples often just filling in between bouts of narration. Unfortunately there was no singing, even of the songs that Shakes- pear includes in his version of The Tempest, and some dance might also have been a good addition. It certainly wasn’t Shakespeare as we usual experience him. The low stage and level seating meant that it was very difficult for anybody to see what was going on, least of all the younger members of the audience. But at least they stayed quiet for the dura- tion, even if they were not exactly whooping with excitement. Later on Saturday afternoon, in St Oswald’s church, we heard the Norwegian group Ba- rokkanerne with mezzo Marianne Beate Kielland and director and oboist, Alfredo Bernardini, and their programme of Bach cantatas and Telemann overtures . The sheer inventiveness and imagination of Te- lemann’s music was apparent in the opening Regensburg: Tage Alter Musik 2016, 13-16 May 2016 // Autor: Andrew Benson-Wilson andrewbensonwilson.org Andrew Benson-Wilson Early Music Reviews