The thought that the unwanted but forced retreat into one’s own four walls for musicians during the two years of the Corona pandemic could also be linked to the Biedermeier era and its inwardness or to the tradition of salon music is unusual.
Anyone who saw singers, pianists, string players, wind instruments and other musicians, willy-nilly, on screens in their living rooms or other private rooms during the pandemic, their sometimes desperate efforts, the cold distance between them and the invisible audience somehow to overcome, he certainly had pity. But what sounded more or less well received hardly had anything of intimacy or inwardness about it, but rather something of desperate contact and calls for help.
Even the few public concerts in the Corona years had something almost unreal about them, because the sparse audience was spread out over the respective hall at appropriate intervals. One could have the feeling of being alone with the musicians on the podium. There was hardly any real communication between the stage and the floor.
The 17th Adevantgarde Festival under the artistic direction of the composers Markus Lehmann-Horn and Alexander Strauch wants to “reflect” all of this on seven evenings between June 17th and July 2nd under the overall title “Bieder_Meier_X”, according to the festival prospectus. At four venues – Seidlvilla, Schwere Reiter, Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, Einstein Cultural Center – one would like to “confront the private with the public again”. They should “meet away from the cliché and across the borders of space and time … Biedermeier, Vormärz, present and future”.
The Trio Abstract from Cologne will be experimenting on June 24th in the Schwere Reiter together with the Ensemble Recherche.
(Photo: Rebecca ter Braak)
Half of the programs are world premieres. It begins with the renowned Minguet Quartet and the young Centaur Quartet, who play pieces by Sandep Baghwati, Moritz Eggert, Pataer Ruzicka and Jörg Widmann, among others, and also premiere the octet by the Ukrainian Anna Korsun (17 June in the Seidlvilla). The Cologne trio Abstract and the Freiburg ensemble Recherche are experimenting with playing in separate rooms but with open doors: “What separates, what unites?” with works by Kathrin Denner, Alexander Strauch or Lisa Streich (June 24, Schwere Reiter). On the third evening (June 26, Academy of Fine Arts), the Augsburg Trio Phönix-3 follows the Biedermeier period and its traces to this day with world premieres by Christian Dieck, Markus Lehmann-Horn and Tobias PM Schneid. In the “Salon de Femmes” the ensembles via nova from Erfurt and Miet+ from Weimar exclusively perform works by female composers (June 27, Schwere Reiter).
“So near: So far” is the title of the evening for the guitar duo Adrian Pereyra and Ruben Mattia Santorsa. Two guitars will certainly sound intimate and perhaps reminiscent of Biedermeier, no matter how new the pieces are (June 28th, Schwere Reiter). On the penultimate evening (June 29, Schwere Reiter) the Salzburg Names Ensemble, Salome Kammer, Coco Lau, Ansgar Theis and Johannes X. Schachtner pay homage to the great György Ligeti with his “Aventures” and “Nouvelles Aventures”, which they contrast with world premieres. And at the end (July 2nd, Einstein Kulturzentrum), the Ensemble Walzerklang from Innsbruck will do everything in three-four time from the romantic waltz to the present day.
17th Adevantgarde Festival, June 17th to July 2nd, all dates: www.adevantgarde.de