26.11.2010

Finally it is time for me to go on with my blog. So many things happened in the last 8 months. On April 6th our wonderful daughter Ina was born. I took 2 months baby-time without playing concerts so things started to get quite busy in June. There were some solo concerts in Spain, Germany and Austria, I premiered the new program with Kosho in Treviso/Italy and also performed the duo program with violinist Daniel Giglberger for the first time. That´s 3 different programs already but there is another project that I am very proud of: together with Klaus Wildner and “wildner records” we made the recording of the CD “Symphony” which contains music by Boris Yoffe exclusively. My fellow musicians were Dimitri Dichtiar (Violoncello), Ekkehard Weber (Viola da Gamba) and Cornelia Melián (Voice). Out came a 50 minute work with solos for each instrument but also with guitar combined in duo with the other musicians. It will be published in February 2011 and I think that it contains some of the most beautiful music that I recorded so far. The music of Boris Yoffe is a constant source of inspiration for me. The more I hear and play it the more I am surprised how much it keeps developing inside of me. For me it is the music with the greatest space of possibilities besides Bach. I am sure that much of Boris will be heard in the near future (there will be also a CD of his music published with ECM New Series, performed by Rosamunde String Quartet and Hilliard Ensemble).
 
Here are some photos that Klaus Wildner took from the recording sessions in Sandhausen:

             

Dimitri Dichtiar                                                   Ekkehard Weber

   

Cornelia Melián                                    Boris conducting

End of October “wildner records” invited Andrew York to play solo in Munich for the first time. He gave a memorable concert at Nymphenburg castle and played himself through the very fine collection of guitars of the Hermann Hauser Guitar Foundation. In his concert he played some pieces on a Hauser I fifth-bass guitar from 1922 and a Hauser I from 1919. The next day there was the Munich guitar summit with Andrew, Eliot Fisk, Zaira Meneses, Kosho, Burkhard Wolters, Hermann Hauser III, Kathrin Hauser, Johannes Tonio Kreusch, Klaus Wildner and me. Lots of projects were discussed and the evening ended with a big jam session for 6 guitars, cajón and Eliot´s and Zaira´s daughter Raquel on percussion. The program ranged from Bach, Dowland, Lorca and Mendelssohn to Prince and Rolling Stones. Sorry, but no bootlegs were made.
 
Some impressions of the Munich Guitar Summit (Photos by Klaus Wildner):

     

Kosho @ Munich Guitar Summit     Eliot working with Buck on the "McLaughlin Variations"

  

Zaira and Eliot                                  Andy York and Eliot jamming

 

Kosho, Buck and me                        Andy York @Nymphenburg Castle

5.3.2010

Yesterday evening I saw the most beautiful ballet. It was performed not by professional dancers but by Christian Thielemann and Gidon Kremer at their performance of Schumann´s Violin Concerto in the Munich Gasteig. Knowing Thielemann as the conquering type of conductor I was very surprised to see how he was following all the subtle nuances that Kremer was finding in this piece.

 Our seats were perfect: on the right of the stage, slightly above the orchestra. I had a fantastic view of both the conductor and the soloist. The Munich Philharmonic sounded like a chamber music ensemble as Kremer was going into far-off pianissimo regions. And Thielemann really liked it. The body language of the two suggested an intimate dance, sometimes both of them were almost on their knees.

 It was the first time that I saw Gidon Kremer live. Owning quite a few records of his and having read his very interesting (and very entertaining) books “Kindheitssplitter” and “Obertöne” I was prepared for an excellent performance but then stunned after all by the mastery of Kremer. He was communicating directly with the music it seemed. And then as an encore he played a piece that I know so well from many performances of my teacher and friend Eliot Fisk: George Rochberg´s “Caprice Variations”. More than 2000 people in the Philharmony and Kremer´s Amati violin reached the most distant corners of the hall and made it resonate… Up to this day I had thought that this was not possible. 

After the break there was another highlight: Thielemann conducting Beethoven´s 5^th.  I doubt that I will ever hear a live performance of this piece that can reach up to this experience. No idea how Thielemann manages to make the Munich Philharmonics play as if it was for their lives. Of course there were some truly “Thielemann moments”: the people had not yet stopped applauding when Thielemann returned after the break and he would jump right into the piece with an astounding verve. And the transition from 3^rd into 4^th movement was breathtaking: only when you have a piano-pianissimo like at the end of the 3^rd movement you can have this eruptive quality at the beginning of the 4^th.

Thielemann seems to be the successor of Furtwängler that has been awaited for so long. I will try to see as many concerts of his as I can in this last year that he will be in Munich.

23.01.2010

I thought that I should share one memorable concert experience with you that I had last night:
Together with my best man Markus I went to the first concert that the Munich Chamber Orchestra played this year. The soloist was the amazing Alexander Lonquich, not only one of my favourite pianists but one of my favourite interpreters in general.
 
As usual the program was exquisite: Wagner´s “Siegfried-Idyll” and “Mystère de l´instant” by Henri Dutilleux in the first half and an absolutely breathtaking performance of Ravel´s G-Major Piano Concerto by Alexander Lonquich at the end (!) of the concert.
 
But the most unbelievable thing happened with the piece that was played after the break. The young composer Mark Andre had written a commissioned piece for the MKO: “kar”, a very quiet piece in the best “Lachenmann”-style (in fact Mark Andre was a student of Helmut Lachenmann). So there were almost no “notes” sounding but all kinds of scratching, clicking and whistling sounds at the border of inaudibility. I liked the piece (having to admit that I had read a very interesting article in the newspaper about it before). So I was informed, knew what was intended by the composer and was prepared for some minutes of exciting quietness.
 
Seemingly the majority of the audience could not bear the experience of sitting in a concert hall, watching a 30 people orchestra “playing” and almost not being able to hear anything for at least 5 minutes at the end.
 
It was a full hall, probably 1000 listeners. When the piece ended about 100 or 200 people applauded, many people were shouting “booo!!!!” and most of the people were just sitting there shaking their heads and being really confused. Some crazy guys were even throwing things (little “bombs” built from the printed program) on the stage when Mark Andre appeared with Alexander Liebreich, the conductor of the MKO!!
 
A real scandal! Now I can understand a little bit what must have happened at the famous first performance of Strawinski´s “Sacre du printemps” in Paris 1913. But that was almost 100 years ago! I felt that it was really sweet that people can feel so provoked by a quiet piece like this (especially considering the fact that Mark Andre seems to be a very religious and profound composer who would never write one note for sheer effect let alone for provocation).
 
It also has to be mentioned that the piece by Dutilleux in the first half was very succcessfull (and this didn´t sound like “Kleine Nachtmusik” as well ;-)
 
So it must have been the quietness that provoked those reactions. Amazing! The power of music….

21.01.2010

At this very beginning of the new decade I thought it was about time to add at least a glimpse of web 2.0. ;-) So here I start my blog with some memories of 2009 and some previews of the year to come.

One of the most important things that happened to me last year was my meeting of the fantastic composer Boris Yoffe. He was born in St.Petersburg but lives in Germany now for more than 10 years. I met him at a concert of the “Rosamunde String Quartet” and found the music of Boris that they played the most amazing of the whole evening. In no time Boris and I became friends and our long talks and discussions about music, literature, philosophy and politics have become very important for me now. In fact Boris is maybe the most un-superficial person that I know. We share a very special love for the works of Marcel Proust and Adalbert Stifter and I am very proud that he wrote some pieces for me. They will be recorded this fall for my new wildner-records CD, one record only with music composed by Boris Yoffe. I will blog more about this project in the coming months.

Last season was also filled with a lot concerts at beautiful places of Europe. The highlights were my tour of Spain with Kosho, where we played some concerts “open air” and my first appearance at the amazing “Festival delle due città” in Treviso/Italy (thanks to Federica for showing me Venice).

For this year I have some more projects planned besides the Yoffe-CD and my solo programs. With Kosho I am working on a new program that we will start to perform this summer and that we are planning to record as well. I wrote a couple of arrangements already and I am very excited about the new pieces. You will hear!

Also I am working on a duo program with the fantastic violin player Daniel Giglberger. Daniel is the Konzertmeister of my favourite orchestra in Munich: the Munich Chamber Orchestra. He is also conducting the orchestra many times. And what´s best: he is a friend of mine. I am very happy that Daniel will play a Duo program with me. It will contain classical and romantic sonatas.

But now for the news that are the most happy: we are expecting a new member of the Wiedemann family! Hopefully everything will come out fine and my fourth child will be born end of March.


Best wishes,
Augustin
1/21/2010