Shelves of notes. Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, the classics. Next to, below, above: Georg Friedrich Handel, Bach, the volumes of the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, the “Italian Concerto”. Then the romantics, Schumann, Schubert, Chopin’s waltzes, nocturnes, etudes, preludes – the heart of every pianist, or rather every musician, must beat faster when he stands in front of these walls. Especially since not only piano pieces are printed in black and white and bound in notebooks, but also orchestral concerts, symphonies, chorales. Oliver Triendl has not only collected the usual repertoire, but also the rare, contemporary and extraordinary.
Shelves full of sheet music. Oliver Triendl not only collects the usual works of piano and orchestral literature, but is also always on the lookout for the unusual.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
The pianist loves to break new ground, to try things out, regardless of whether he is sitting at his grand piano at home or presenting a new concert series to visitors to the Baldham-Zorneding cultural association. “Finding interesting literature, conveying this insane legacy to the audience, that fascinates me.” And Triendl’s audience knows and appreciates that.
When you get into your chamber music or piano cycle, you don’t necessarily expect to hear what you can experience in any concert hall – even if it may include a common Beethoven sonata or Chopin’s famous Impromptu Fantasy. However, Triendl repeatedly chooses the unusual for the concert series for which he is responsible, such as most recently in December a sextet for wind instruments, strings and piano by the Viennese Mozart contemporary Anton Eberl. Sometimes the listeners also enjoy world premieres such as “Still sein – Callarse”, a composition by the Baldham composer Enjott Schneider based on a poem by Pablo Neruda, written and performed in the Corona year 2021. Often these are largely unknown contemporary pieces , which Triendl finds, sometimes Eastern European, sometimes exotically inspired.
The multi-award-winning pianist Triendl has been the artistic director of the cultural association since 2003. For his commitment he was once the recipient of the Tassilo Prize Süddeutsche Zeitung nominated, unfortunately nothing came of it. That was long before the Corona pandemic, which made life just as difficult for the cultural association as for all other organizers. The fact that lockdowns and restrictions on the Zorneding concert series passed without major damage is also and above all thanks to Triendl: he never gave up, spared no effort, always looked for opportunities.
In June and August 2021, for example, he set up a spontaneous summer festival with five open-air concerts. And than in January 2022 that Bennewitz Quartet Due to quarantine reasons, Oliver Triendl found a replacement in no time at all and drummed up suitable musicians. There were two and a half days to rehearse the planned pieces, a serenade by Ernst Dohnányis or an intermezzo by Zoltán Kodály. And in such a way that they not only exist on stage, but even shine. Someone who is less well connected than Triendl would probably not have managed to organize instrumentalists who were able to do so so quickly. Not least because the pianist can do something like this, he is now back on the list of Tassilo candidates.
Oliver Triendl brings top-class musicians to the concerts of the Zorneding-Baldham cultural association. Here he plays the viola together with Diynag Mei in the 2020 piano cycle.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
The Zorneding-Baldham cultural association, founded in 1963, has around 150 subscribers, many of whom have been regular visitors for years. So everyone knows each other in the Martinstadl – and beyond. But the reputation of the institution has long since exceeded the borders of the Ebersberg district. Again and again he draws Bavarian radio the concerts of Zornedinger in order to present them later to his classical music listeners.
Triendl himself has played in the world’s great concert halls, with many renowned orchestras, including the Munich Philharmonicthe Camerata St Petersburgthe Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg or that Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Nevertheless, for him it’s especially the home crowd where he feels comfortable, you can tell when he talks about it. He enjoys debating the performance with the audience over a glass of wine after the concert, or talking to a subscriber at the weekly market. “I love that.”
The cultural association has a loyal audience, as here when Vadim Gulzmann (violin) and Evgeny Sinaiski (piano) perform, the Martinstadl is usually well filled.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
No, Triendl is not someone who just sits in his little room and puts the specifications of his music books on the keys, even if the music can be felt in almost every square centimeter in his home basement. “I’ve seen the work of the musician more and more comprehensively,” he explains. Especially since he doesn’t really like to practice. Of course, CD recordings, often of completely new pieces, require intensive preparation, and then it can sometimes go late into the night. “Some days I don’t do anything at all,” says Triendl and laughs. In complete contrast to his wife, the violinist Nina Karmon, who likes to practice.
The music-loving couple have been at home in Ebersberg for ten years – it was a coincidence, no concrete plan, that they ended up here, in the local vicinity of the cultural association. Triendl had previously performed from Ottobrunn after the club’s former chairman, Heinz Küspert, had seen him at a concert in Straubing. A few years later Triendl performed in Zorneding. “So he asked me if I would be willing to take on the planning for a concert series.” Of course he wanted to – and hasn’t regretted it to this day.
Even the professional at the piano needs a reminder every now and then, for example a hint to the appropriate fingering.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
It was clear early on that Triendl would be drawn to the piano. The 52-year-old was born in Mallersdorf, Lower Bavaria, in an area where – at least back then – trained piano teachers were not exactly crowded. After his father, who taught him the basics, a flute-playing dentist and a kindergarten teacher had the pleasure of tutoring the gifted boy. A trainee teacher, who met him at the high school in Mallersdorf, finally brought the decisive change – and the young Triendl to the Waltershauser Seminar in Munich. “It was quite an odyssey, going there once a week.” But one that was worth it. Triendl took part in national and international competitions, studied with Gerhard Oppitz and Oleg Maisenberg in Munich and Vienna, and created a huge repertoire for himself.
Oliver Triendl has already recorded more than 150 CDs
So much for practicing: If a concert in Zorneding threatens to be canceled again, Triendl can always sit down at the piano himself – which he doesn’t like doing alone, however. Better with another instrumentalist at his side. The pianist has more than 90 piano concertos in his repertoire, has played several hundred pieces of chamber music and has recorded more than 150 CDs. Most recently, the Ebersberger recorded the complete piano chamber music by the composer Heinrich Hofmann, who died in 1902, together with Nina Karmon, Stefan Fehlandt, Wenn-Sinn Yang and Georg Arzberger.
Corona summer: Oliver Triendl brought the “Hofmusik” to the concert in his own garden.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
If you wanted to put Triendl’s work under a motto, then it would have to be: “Together is better”. The international chamber music festival “Classix Kempten”, which he founded in 2006, could be subsumed under this as well as the spontaneous wind instrument concert that he and his wife put on in their own garden in the Corona summer of 2021, with all the neighbors and of course top-class musicians. Triendl still raves about it. “Bringing people together has always been my passion.” And what better way than with music.