New concert hall in Lichtenberg: Vision made of granite – Bavaria

There are always two arenas in politics, the front and the back. What was heard in 1982 on the front stage of a “grand opening”, as the saying goes, can be vividly imagined. The Marteau house was opened at that time, the Bavarian cabinet sent a representative, there should be no shortage of unctuous words: A “meeting place” for young musicians from all over the world was born there, in Upper Franconia, in an artist’s villa. If the word “cultural lighthouse” was already common – the minister should have used it purposefully.

What was heard in the background of the stage that day cannot be found in any chronical tradition. But it is guaranteed: shortly before the speeches began, the CSU minister took one of the subalternians aside, formed the corners of his mouth into a triangle and whispered: “Do you really think that someone is coming here?”

Almost 40 years later there are likely to be doubts again. A chamber music hall underground, one of the more spectacular projects in recent Bavarian building history and that in this, what is it called, this Lichtenberg? Hardly 1000 people live there, the tendency is negative, of course there is no lack of awareness. But only because the place has not been able to complain about a lack of attention in the daily news for 20 years, because of an unsolved criminal case. So you know the place. But do you want to go there too?

In any case, the Munich architect Peter Haimerl looked at the house – located slightly away from the medieval walled town – a few years ago and was touched. Not only that a reasonably trained thrower could easily carry a stone from there to an area that was called GDR when the Minister visited in 1982. Haimerl saw the English-style landscape park, the upper-class villa and knew about the plan to expand the house with additional space and a concert hall. Which, by the way, gives a very tangible answer retrospectively to the minister’s question, which was apparently meant to be rhetorical: Yes, yes, quite a lot of people wanted to go to this “International Music Meeting Center” operated by the Upper Franconian district.

Young artists, not infrequently with roots in the Far East, attend master classes there by teachers who listen to illustrious names such as Siegfried Jerusalem or Edda Moser. Anyone who has sat in the house for a few hours before the opening of the hall will have an inkling of why this is so popular with musicians. At the end of an afternoon, you think you can remember exactly one vehicle that could be heard through the walls. There is certainly something similar, says Günter Dippold, the local head of the district, but there is no real competition in Europe. Oops, Franconian self-confidence.

One shortcoming: up to now, budding professional musicians, who are not offered courses at bargain prices, have only been able to rehearse in six rooms – and at the final concert on the evening of the penultimate day of the course you always had to improvise in the villa. Most of the time people met in the former living room of Master Marteau, concerts are officially already, but difficult to distinguish from the private dissumé.

An extension was therefore desired, including a hall for around 100 people. Haimerl says that he only needed a few moments for his idea of ​​leaving the historic villa in its beauty as a solitaire in the landscaped park, not to put a bulky new concert hall extension next to it and instead to dig into the ground.

Now there is a lack of some in the north of Upper Franconia, but not of surface space for new buildings. The idea of ​​Haimerl in this special landscape constellation was accepted anyway. Whereby it must have played a not insignificant role that Haimerl is jointly responsible for a cultural location that, like few other new buildings in recent years, has at least amazed the Free State: that exactly to Blaibach in the Bavarian Forest, not far from the Czech border Before Haimerl’s design, hearing a concert hall was an idea for people who, because of their visions, would quickly have threatened to see a doctor. In the meantime it is almost considered improper not to have been there yet.

The new hall? The historian Günter Dippold has to be imagined as a person with lexical capacities, one throws him a question and is offered an entry in the manual in the form of a moderately difficult monograph. So, first of all, an introduction to the history of Henri Marteau, which cannot hurt insofar as without him there would be no villa and without a villa there would be no new concert hall. Born in Reims in 1874, father French, mother German, both musical. At the age of ten, Marteau made his violin debut in front of a large audience, followed by appearances in Vienna, London and Paris. Marteau becomes professor for violin in Berlin, composes himself, and has a close friendship, especially with Max Reger. Ulrich Wirz, who deals scientifically with Marteau, calls the violin virtuoso “a figure who could be called a historical superstar”.

Open detailed view

Marteau comes to Lichtenberg when, while visiting a friend in Franconia, he discovers the hill next to the town, and he is likely to have financed his summer villa there exclusively with fees that brought him touring. In the summer Marteau lives in Lichtenberg, otherwise in Berlin, you have to imagine the years leading up to the First World War as happy. But after that there is powdery mildew on this story. On the German side, rumors are circulating that Marteau is a French spy, that he is caught between the fronts, loses his chair, moves to Lichtenberg and is placed under house arrest. It will never be the same as it was before the war. Today Marteau is considered a figure who exemplifies the tragic turmoil in Europe in the 20th century. He died in 1934, and Marteau found his final resting place in the garden of the villa.

Second attempt now: The new hall, which is supposed to symbolize intoxicating chaos and the detonations of sound? Dippold indicates that the construction site was not always completely free of conflicts. The pandemic, delays, additional costs, an ambitious design, building below the surface, Upper Franconian soil that is more unruly than expected. It sounds similar from the mouth of architect Haimerl, only from a different perspective. If a civil court had to decide who might have wanted too much in between, it would have been exciting. But it doesn’t have to, you have pulled yourself together. And so, four years after the start of construction, you can now hear the same thing from the mouths of both of them: about 5.2 million euros for a light, 60 centimeter lower, barrier-free house basement with three new practice rooms including an exceptional music hall? Whoever thinks that is expensive is living in a different world. Haimerl puts it this way: The bottom line is that he’s more financially on the project. But you don’t often realize such a design in life.

In fact, just looking into the now finished hall is an experience. Inspired by the mining history of the place – the Prussian top official Alexander von Humboldt had looked into the soil of Lichtenberg during his first station as a mining researcher in Franconia – one gets through a corridor reminiscent of mining tunnels into an almost sacral-looking room in which stacked granite peaks To leave an impression that is at least astonishing; if not at all – in one of the smallest cities in the republic – downright breathtaking. You just don’t expect something like that.

Open detailed view

Granite, says Haimerl, will shape the room aesthetically and acoustically. It measures 13 x 13 meters, you can listen to the musicians from two sides and in close proximity and, according to Haimerl, “compose your own pictures to the music” and “in the dialogue of directions” come up with new thoughts, the magic of this space surrendering.

Would it have needed unpolished granite weighing tons from Lower Bavaria? There were times when Dippold wasn’t sure. In the meantime he has been able to hear a rehearsal concert in the hall. Dippold is an honorary professor at the University of Bamberg, he knows how to express himself in a chosen manner. He sits in the lower row of seats in this spatial sculpture, pensively looks in the direction of the grand piano and says: “If someone is sitting there and playing” – a short pause. “It’s awesome.”