Tage Alter Musik – Almanach 2019

The Regensburg Tage Alter Musik festival takes place annually from Friday to Monday over the Pentecost/Whitsun weekend, whose dates move linked to Easter. The 2019 festi- val, the 35th, took place over the weekend of 7-10 June, rather later than in previous years and the latest Pentecost weekend until 2030. With 15 concerts over these four days, it is a total immersion of early music performed in some spectacular buildings in Regensburg city centre. The historic city of Regensburg has its roots in the Celtic settlement of Radasbona and the Roman Castra Regina fort, remnants of which can still be seen. It was the early Medieval capital of Bavaria. The 12th-century bridge over the Danube increased its importance as a Free Imperial City within the Holy Roman Empire. It adopted the Reformation in 1542 but re- tained its Catholic Cathedral and Abbeys. From 1663 to 1806, it was the permanent seat of the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, the so-called ’Perpetual Diet’. The whole of the historic city centre is now a World Heritage Site. Friday 7 June The festival weekend traditionally starts on Friday evening with the famed Cathedral boys choir, the RegensburgerDomspatzen , on this occasion accompanied by the Hofkapelle Munich orchestra in the St. Em- meram Basilica, one of the oldest churches in Regensburg, albeit heavily drizzled with Baroque frippery. It was conducted by the Domkapellmeister Roland Büchner . Recog- nising the 300th anniversary of the birth of Leopold Mozart (1719-1787), they per- formed his short Symphony in G major, the Neue Lambacher and his substantial Missa solemnis in C major. The four-movement Symphony was conducted by the concert- master of Hofkapelle Munich, Rüdiger Lot- ter. It is in the mid-18th-century Sturm und Drang style with dramatic changes of mood and texture in all its movements. The second 6 andrewbensonwilson.org Andrew Benson-Wilson Early Music Reviews Tage Alter Musik, Regensburg, 7-10 June 2019 // Autor: Andrew Benson-Wilson Die Regensburger Domspatzen, Eröffnungskonzert in der Basilika St. Emmeram