The ARD music competition is taking place again. Full length, without limitation. And that means something here. Because this competition is – especially in the opening rounds – always something very excessive: very many young musicians almost all play the same piece. One by one gone. For days. This is most excessive of all in 2022 with the trumpets. 51 admitted. The subject with the most participants. Reason enough to take a look at the competition from the ground up using the trombone.
It begins at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. The schedules are hanging out in the foyer of the BR radio station. Four musicians always perform in blocks. In Studio 2. A woman asks the man from the admission staff whether she is in the right place, she wants to play the trombone and there is a piano on the stage. “Yes, with piano accompaniment,” the gentleman replies, “a trombone alone would sound weird.” So much for the instrument, which in this year’s competition with the subjects string quartet, piano and flute is certainly one of the less popular. And then it starts.
The ears are still fresh, the jury comes to the studio, the Slovenian Matej Štih enters the stage. The compulsory piece for the trombones is a 19th-century trombone concerto by Friedebald Gräfe. “Tempo di Marcia” is the name of the first movement. And that’s what it sounds like. War rhetoric made musical. Technically it is quite demanding, fast passages and above all large interval jumps at the end show pretty quickly who can intonate their instrument well and who has rhythmic control.
With jazzy coolness, Theodor Eduard Schenck will perform the ballad for trombone and piano by Eugène Bozza.
(Photo: Alescha Birkenholz)
But it gets much more exciting, even more surprising afterwards. Because the trombones are the modernists among the orchestral instruments. All the pieces that are still on the repertoire list in the first and second round are from the 20th century. A lot sounds jazzy, especially the ballad for trombone and piano by Eugène Bozza. And so the first five days of Trumpets are amazingly varied. There are lots of new composers to discover, and passages one and two with the trombones become a musical journey of discovery. There is no Bach, no Schubert, no Debussy here. The individual musical characters show themselves with the broken, disharmonious and then again flattering sounds of the modern and the present.
Theodor Eduard Schenck hits the Bozza with jazzy coolness. Miguel Cedeño from Venezuela puts warm blues into his playing. And Polina Tarasenko has a great musical flow in Iannis Xenaki’s very noisy “Keren für Trombone solo”.
Time flies. It’s exciting to hear the differences. It’s also exciting to see where the musicians come from and where they stand. Some are still studying, others already have positions in orchestras. So also the last one on the first morning: Rocco Rescigno. His foreplay stands out. He knows what he wants from the pieces. The romantic piece works for him, as does Bozza’s jazz ballad and Kazimierz Serocki’s modernist sonatina. His interpretation has a line, a narrative thread that makes the unknown pieces tangible for the audience. This is exactly what is important to the 30-year-old Rescigno, he reports after his audition in the second round. Rescingo is already solo trombonist with the Duisburg Philharmonic, and the competition is also a good opportunity for him to discover new pieces. When playing, he wants to feel something that should be transferred to the audience. In order to approach this very modern repertoire, which is even more experimental in the second round, he not only practiced, but also looked at contemporary art in the Pinakothek der Moderne, he says.
Made it: Alberto Bonilla Losa after his performance in the first round (right).
(Photo: Alescha Birkenholz)
The competition works again. The audience has come back after two years of Corona. The ARD music competition has a real fan base. There are individual groups that specialize in one subject. “Come on, the results of the flutes are already here,” a visitor calls excitedly to her companion from the pin board, where a small crowd always forms in the foyer. You can find out who is playing what when. But the results are also posted there. There are also some who write, who take notes, who also follow the competition in these opening rounds and then hope to see their favorite again in the final rounds. “Oh no, the Swiss is out,” calls another, who has just discovered the candidates for the semifinals of the flutes. Others puzzle the rounds together. “How long are we playing here?” asks a spectator in the second round of trombone, it’s 11:15 a.m., “can I make it to the pianists at 12 p.m.?” Yes, he will make the jump to Studio 1 across the way, the candidates in the trombone subject play about 20 minutes per audition.
But for the participants, too, the competition is more than just a musical showdown. Theodor Eduard Schenk does not get past the first round. Nevertheless, the young musician sits in almost all other rounds and listens to his colleagues. Ann-Catherina Strehmel, one of only four women in the competition, will definitely stay in Munich until the final, she says, because: “When do you ever meet so many trombonists in one place?” For the 27-year-old, who plays in the orchestra at the Theater Kiel, this is the last chance this year to take part in the renowned competition. The maximum age for registration this year was 31 years.
At 21, Ukrainian Polina Tarasenko is far from it. And although the crises and horrors of our time are reflected in her biography, she is one of the most confident musicians in the competition. She was born in Cherson, where she began to play the drums in a children’s jazz group. She later switched to the trombone, then initially opted for the classical path. Also because she was admitted to the well-known Gnessin School in Moscow. There were simply a lot more traditional teachers and schools in her environment, she says. In Germany, she studied in Hanover and has just completed her bachelor’s degree. She is now moving on to Bern for a master’s degree. Her playing has a rhythmic nonchalance and security that stands out. She attributes this to her childhood roots in jazz drums. But she doesn’t find the modern repertoire so terribly jazzy, she knows something completely different. Also because she is considering whether she should not also add a jazz degree.
Why is there a piano in the trombone section on the stage in the BR radio station, some listeners ask themselves? Because the candidates are accompanied, like Eryk Mence here.
(Photo: Alescha Birkenholz)
Polina Tarasenko is the only woman to have made it to the semifinals. There are seven musicians in total, one more than usual. As a rule, the number of candidates is reduced to six with the semifinals. And for the trombones, the first final round is a step backwards in time. With trombone concertos by Michael Haydn or Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, it goes back to the classics. Then comes the commissioned composition. Often unfamiliar in other subjects, the two studies that Mike Svoboda composed especially for the competition are more likely to fall into the core repertoire for trombones.
But the competition is always a farewell. Rocco Rescigno did not make it to the semifinals. He is now leaving for Duisburg, to his orchestra. Back to his real life as a musician. After all, he already missed the first symphonic concert of the season there. Meanwhile, things continue in Munich. On Wednesday, September 7th, with the finale of the flutes, and on Friday, September 9th, the trombones will go into their final round. The string quartets will play their final round on September 10th, followed by the piano finale on September 11th.