Not a Holy Week with out Bach | Culture | EUROtoday

It is difficult to consider that one thing as severe as a interval instrument orchestra arose from the ethyl sprout of a New Year’s Eve. But on December 31, 1985, a bunch of scholars from Friburg University of Music devised a set of interval devices, with out director and fully democratic, within the midst of euphoria brought on by the champagne bubbles. “It was difficult to open up to everyone’s opinion and it took us a long time to start,” recollects Petra Müllejans (Düsseldorf, 66 years previous) whereas taking a snack earlier than the live performance of the Baroque Orchestra of Freiburg final Monday, April 7 on the Philharmonie in Berlin. The German violinist, inventive director and founding father of this prestigious historicist staff, attends El País coinciding together with her final venture earlier than retirement. But additionally, when the commemoration of the 40 years of that insanity of New Year’s Eve is approaching, to which he has devoted most of his life, after 1000’s of concert events and greater than 100 recordings.

The Baroque Orchestra of Friburg re -joins the Vox Luminis choir for an in depth worldwide tour devoted to Bach, which is able to cross by way of Spain this Thursday 10, on Friday 11 and Sunday 13. Three interpretations of the Passion in line with San Juanas two years in the past with the Passion in line with San Mateoin Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, preceded by performances in Berlin and Stuttgart, and adopted by others in Brussels, Bruges and Freiburg. “We had already worked with several choirs, but with Vox Luminis we found a very special chemistry, because its responsible, Lionel Meunier, directs the choir singing from within, just like I do when I play in the orchestra,” Müllejans continues. That tune may be seen within the conversations in the course of the bus journey that moved each groups from the resort to the Berlin Sala, in addition to within the Philharmonie cantina whereas sharing card video games earlier than the live performance.

The sound take a look at within the Philharmonie digicam room was one other pattern of the pure tune between the German orchestra and the Belgian vocal staff. They began on the finish, with the gorgeous choir Ruhl nicely, her holy bones (Rest, sacred stays), to seek out a super meeting between voices and devices and obtain the crib tune air that closes the work, with that Lutheran affiliation of demise with sleep. Müllejans and Meunier dispersed all through the room to test the filling and making corrections, with a end result superior to that of the Passion in line with San Mateo two years in the past. Then, the work imposed a reproduction choir and orchestra, pressured to have forty instrumentalists and nearly thirty voices, along with a choir of youngsters. Now all the pieces is decreased to twenty -two members of the orchestra with seventeen singers. “I remember perfectly the challenge that the Passion according to San Mateo with such a large group; Now, with the Passion according to San Juaneverything is easier to balance, ”Müllejans acknowledges.

In fact, “nice” is an adjective associated with the Passion according to San Mateo already in the surroundings of Bach. And the “small” appellation is usually linked to the one based on the Gospel of St. John, since that of St. Mark has not been preserved as such. However, the Passion according to San Juanreleased on Good Friday of 1724 in Leipzig, was its first large -scale composition. A work of almost two hours that combined the biblical story in recitative, choral stanzas and lyrical meditations in the form of arias or choirs, and that would mark the guideline for other coming. It is highlighted by Christoph Wolff in his magnificent monograph In Bach’s musical universethat the cliff editorial has just translated. This Bachiana authority also underlines the two central moments of the work: the scene before Pilate and the death of Jesus, where Bach inserts spectacular choirs that symbolize the crowd or the soldiers, along with Arias interpreted with unusual instruments like two violas d’amorea purple leg or the combination of a ravsera flute and an oboe hunting.

After ensuring the ideal filling between the choir and the orchestra, these two moments acquired a fundamental prominence in the sound test. The fluid succession of the evangelist recitative and the characters of the biblical story connected admirably with choral interventions. And in the meditative moments of the Arias with unusual instrumentations highlighted the solo voices of bass Sebastian Myrus, the contractor Alexander Chance and the soprano Viola Blache. They left the overwhelming chorus that opens the work for the end of the test, Lord, our ruler (Lord, our owner), which Bach suppressed in 1725, among the multiple variants he introduced in his second version of the work, which will interpret on this tour only in Brussels and witches. However, in Spain we will hear the most common version, which combines the original 1724 score with some details of the final version of 1749. In its moving introduction, the Petra Müllejans violinist led from the lectern of concertin semicorcheas swirls in violins and violas next to the sharp dissonances of oboes and flutes that symbolize, together, the crown of thorns.

The baroque orchestra of Friburg has always had a close relationship with Bach, as evidenced by its two recordings of the Brandeburg concertsof 2000 and 2014. “I would not know how to say the best of the two, because this is like with the recordings of the Goldberg variations by Glenn Gould. In the second, we opted for a fingerboard at 392 Hz and that produced a more relaxed and precious sound, ”says Müllejans. The violinist remembers the importance she had for the Rainer Kussmann orchestra,” a trainer who left you a large number and inspired you with a curious distinction of clothes of various colours for ladies.

Müllejans retains a nice reminiscence of the primary recordings they made for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, between 1990 and 1995, with symphonies and concert events of CPE Bach and Johann Georg Polendel: “I think we were able to express that fantastic orchestral culture before Haydn very well.” And he doesn’t neglect the affect of René Jacobs from 2001, which led them to maneuver in the direction of Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Weber in lots of Harmonia Mundi recordings: “He is one of my heroes and I still remember when, at first, he asked us Mozart symphonies, ”he admits.

The checklist might proceed with the Fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout and his live performance initiatives by Mozart and Beethoven, and with Pablo Heras-Casado, who’ve directed the staff to Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann. Even Müllejans doesn’t rule out that the orchestra progresses in the direction of Brahms and Bruckner; “The limit is always the budget,” he says. In reality, he recollects a 2007 venture that the Baroque Orchestra of Freiburg commissioned works to composers beneath forty years, similar to Rebecca Saunders and Benjamin Schweitzer: “There are current composers, such as Brice Pauset, who know how to use the timbric possibilities of period instruments in their own music,” he says. It is obvious that historicist interpretation is one thing absolutely up to date.