“Due to the quarantine, the Bennewitz Quartet was unable to travel to its concert in the chamber music cycle of the Zorneding-Baldham cultural association. Its musical director Oliver Triendl managed to find a replacement for the ensemble. The program could be performed with two small changes.” That’s how it reads if you condense the events of the previous week and Sunday evening into a sober message. Get to the bottom of things and you will discover a compelling tale of good connections, deep knowledge of artistry and skill, and a performance that will not be forgotten in a hurry.
The five musicians only had two and a half days to get in tune with each other. However, it was only two and a half days because Oliver Triendl is not just “connected” in the scene, but “well connected” and enjoys an excellent reputation as an organizer. Otherwise there would have been much less time after the cancellation on Wednesday – and besides, there would not have been a group that had it in hand, in the head and on the instrument, a serenade by Ernst Dohnányis, an intermezzo by Zoltán Kodály and a string quintet by Antonin Dvorák ready for performance to rehearse. Three pieces that you don’t just sight read, let alone perform in concert.
The only one left from the original program was the young violist Sindy Mohamed, a rising but already brightly sparkling star above the classical landscape, which alone pricked up the ears of the audience. It is one thing to read something exciting and promising about an artist, another thing to get to know and perceive her directly. The only solo piece of the evening was reserved for her, “In Nomine all’ongherese” from “Signs, Games and Messages” by György Kurtág. With movements springing from deep within, with lightning-fast accentuation, and in passionate connection with her instrument, a 1700 Matteo Goffrillers viola, Mohamed created what astronomers call a “singularity”: a, in this case, musical, place where gravity is so strong that the curvature of space-time diverges, i.e. it is colloquially “infinite”. If ever there was an argument to support the invaluable value of live music, these five minutes have delivered it. Those who were there will be able to remember it in the coming decades when this musician fulfills what she has promised here.
Especially since the violist radiates that sparkling joie de vivre that some of the “serious music” would like to deny. The instrumental dialogues with the other four, in which they found themselves together in the Dvorák Quintet, went far beyond what one might already expect in this four-movement work called “American” in terms of cheerful folklore and bright colors in terms of esprit and dynamics. Matthias Lingenfelder and Nina Karmon on the violins, Roland Glassl, viola, and Maximilian Hornung, cello: all together they brought in the harvest for the intensive rehearsals and working out of the previous days. Rarely has one seen such radiant, freely smiling and mutually encouraging expressions on the podium as at this concert. Which, in between as well as at the end, was reflected in the stormy applause of the audience.
An audience that longed for an immediate musical experience, but also remembered its expertise and respect for exceptional quality. For example, when it holds its breath in the lyrical fourth movement of the Dohnányi Serenade, so that not even a breath of wind disturbs the finely spun threads of sound. Or when, a movement earlier, one and the other leaned forward attentively, gripped by the same concentration as the strings. Yes, it says “spirited” in the program booklet for this piece, which can also be translated as “Sturm und Drang”; but nevertheless there is no lack of depth, soul and excitement in this evening piece, which breaks through the ceiling in the Martinstadl and seeks its way out into the open.
From a cornucopia of cheerfulness and folklore richly equipped with folklore, the two following pieces then flowed into the room and the enlivened senses. First, like an overture, the intermezzo for Kodály’s string trio, then, unmistakably related in sound and content to Dvorák’s 9th symphony “From the New World”, the string quintet. Movements one, two and four in Allegro, in between a carefree Larghetto: it contained so much verve, zest for life and danceability that nobody had to wonder what motivated this freely combined ensemble during their rehearsals. Every bar an exciting episode, every movement a thrilling story: This “American” quintet is exemplary in the tradition of the storytellers around the campfire and the adventurers’ performances in the salons of the cities. An exciting, thrilling and inspiring concert. It will be remembered as a brightly sparkling chapter in the Zorneding chamber music cycle.