Music in baroque splendor: Residence Week 20024 in Munich – Munich

He never really warmed up to the people of Munich, and neither did they warm up to him: Elector Karl Theodor. Even if it’s hard to imagine today, the Wittelsbach branch line scion is said to have been extremely unhappy when he had to leave his beloved Mannheim in 1778 and quickly move his residence from the Palatinate to Munich. Elector Max III. The smallpox had wiped them out, and the Habsburg Emperor Joseph II was looking forward to the succession.

We skip the War of the Bavarian Succession and a few hundred years to arrive at the Bavarian Palace Administration’s Residence Week 2024, which this year (October 11th to 20th) is dedicated to Karl Theodor’s 300th birthday and has the motto “New Horizons”. What fits quite well is that the elector, who was rather alien to military matters, is seen as a man of the muses, of science, as a patron and reformer. He was in contact with Voltaire, was open to meteorology and astronomy – and gave the people of Munich the English Garden.

Large church music: The Augsburg Cathedral Choir Boys, among others, sing in Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s “Missa Alleluja”. (Photo: Noemi Nägele / Valentin Wohlfahrt)

The residency week opens on October 11th (8 p.m. Imperial Hall of the Residence) with representative music par excellence: Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s (1644–1704) “Missa Alleluja”, huge, almost ostentatious with 36 voices, including the Augsburg Cathedral Choir and La Florida Capella under cathedral bandmaster Stefan Steinemann.

But it is also possible to go a few numbers smaller: the compositions that can be heard at various concerts, for example on Saturday, October 12th (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.), in the Aquarium, the Schwarzensaal and the Kaisersaal, come from Karl Theodor’s music cabinets become. Grand opera in miniature format and in a nutshell is also available on various residency days, always in the afternoon, with the “Smallest Stage in the World” (own information) and its “IdoMINIo”. The Elector had also gotten to know Mozart and commissioned his only flute concerto and also the “Idomeneo”.

The “Per-Sonat” ensemble will introduce the songs of medieval Cistercians during the residency week. (Photo: Daniel Blaser)

The musical diversity in the residency week program is impressive: the ensemble, among others, leads the way Per-Sonata into the world of the medieval Cistercians and their songs (October 15th, 7 p.m., Alte Hofkirche), lutenist Evangelina Mascardi plays works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Sylvius Leopold Weiss (October 17th, 8 p.m., Black Hall) or Gerd Guglhör conducts in the New Palace Schleißheim a Bach concert with the Orpheus Choir Munichthe baroque orchestra La Banda and soloists (October 20, 5 p.m.).

On a small and large scale, the Residence Week aims to help broaden the horizons of both small and large visitors, whether with themed tours or at the many hands-on stations in the Residence, in Nymphenburg Palace and in the New Schleißheim Palace. For example, it’s about Karl Theodor’s benefits (culinary tour with the nutritious Rumford soup and wine tasting, October 12, 2 p.m., Residenzmuseum), about architecture, history, but also the French luxury furniture and jewelry that the Elector brought with him from the Palatinate . And the children can make baroque wigs out of paper at the open family event. Like the ones Karl Theodor wore.

Residence week, October 11th to 20th, Munich Residence, Nymphenburg Palace and Schleißheim Palace, information at www.residenzwoche.de

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