Your ticket to the German classical music festival scene: Concert Hour has the picks of the season — two hours of music updated regularly. Along with host Rick Fulker, the musicians themselves are on hand to give their insights into the events and the music.
In these two episodes of Concert Hour, we take a tour through the works of 19th-century Danish composer Carl Nielsen.
Carl Nielsen, part one
"These songs go straight to the heart," says Nielsen expert Bo Holten, "and they're in the bloodstream of every Danish person - over forty. That's how it is now unfortunately, but we're hoping for a revival and for the interest of younger people."
Danish fiddler Harald Haugaard sees Nielsen as a very open-minded person. "He went through life with an open heart and open mind and found inspiration everywhere," said Haugard: "in other music, literature, art, people, encounters. It was through music that he spoke."
In a letter to his wife in 1905, Nielsen wrote, "Sometimes I have the feeling that I am not myself, Carl August Nielsen, but a conduit through which the stream of music flows, a stream that that transforms strong, mild forces into specific waves of emotion. It is a great fortune to be a musician."
For the performances, seven Danish ensembles and a German quintet were invited to the barn at a country estate in Pronstorf, northwest of Lübeck. It's a multi-purpose venue with hotel, but for the festival, the barn was reequipped as a recording studio.
Also included in these two Concert Hours music are some of Nielsen's piano works: piano pieces inspired by folk music, and a setting for two pianos of his Symphony No. 3.
A portrait of the Danish composer Carl Nielsen
Carl Nielsen
Solen er sa rod, Mor (The sun is so red, mother)
Nu lyser lov i lunde (Now the leaves shine in the forests)
Tunge, morke natteskyer (Heavy dark clouds of night)
Five piano pieces, op. 3
Symphony No. 3 in D minor, op. 27, set for two pianos
Performed by:
Louise Odgaard, soprano
Musica Ficta
Danish Piano Duo
Recorded by North German Radio Hamburg (NDR) in the Barn of the Pronstorf Country Estate on July 15 and 16, 2020
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Following in Beethoven's footsteps: Beethoven Path
The Beethoven statue
Born in December 1770 in Bonn, Ludwig van Beethoven spent the first 22 years of his life there. Built in part with a generous financial contribution by Franz Liszt and dedicated in 1845, the statue on Münster Square recalls his impact on the city – and no procession in his anniversary year would be complete without it. It's one of the city's major landmarks.
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Following in Beethoven's footsteps: Beethoven Path
Beethoven's baptismal font
By age ten, Beethoven was playing organ for the early mass at Bonn's St. Remigius Church. As a twelve-year-old, he was writing his own music. While his actual birthdate is unknown, the date of baptism – December 17, 1770 – is documented. The Beethoven Path leads Beethoven pilgrims to his baptismal font at St. Remigius.
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Following in Beethoven's footsteps: Beethoven Path
The little Redoute palace
A splendid hall with plaster ornamentation and huge candelabras: At the Redoute in the southern part of Bonn, Beethoven is said to have played for Joseph Haydn while in his early 20s. The Redoute is probably where one of the first performances of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" was given. Centuries later, the palace hosted visiting dignitaries like Diana, Princess of Wales, and the Shah of Persia.
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Following in Beethoven's footsteps: Beethoven Path
Roisdorf Fountain
The ancient Romans, who settled in the Rhineland, enjoyed the natural waters of Roisdorf Fountain. Centuries later, those waters with their healing qualities were even exported to Russia. Beethoven took the waters during regular visits with his family. When his health later declined in Vienna, he visited natural spas to benefit from the therapeutic effect of mineral water sources.
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Following in Beethoven's footsteps: Beethoven Path
Petersberg
The "Siebengebirge" (Seven Mountains) and Petersberg (Peter's Mountain) were places Ludwig van Beethoven regularly visited. Contemporaries say that he "often came on a raft" in order "to dream and to work there." In 1763 a baroque chapel was erected on the Petersberg. Pilgrims and the young nature-loving Beethoven were likely fascinated by the spectacular view of the Rhine Plain.
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Following in Beethoven's footsteps: Beethoven Path
The banks of the Rhine
Beethoven associated the Rhine with thoughts of home. He wrote, "The region where I first saw the light of the world is still so beautiful and clear before my eyes. I will always regard this time as one of the most fortunate things of my life: to greet Father Rhine." The banks of the River Rhine are also included on the route.
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Following in Beethoven's footsteps: Beethoven Path
Drachenfels
Last stop on the Beethoven Path: Drachenfels (Dragon Rock). Beethoven had a life-long recollection of the breathtaking view. He found recreation and inspiration in nature and usually took along a sketch book to write down his musical ideas. A love of nature finds its expression in many of his works.
Author: Bettina Baumann (rf)
Carl Nielsen Songs, part two
After Germany lost World War I and after a referendum in 1920, the present German-Danish border was drawn. Before then, Danes and Germans had lived together in the border regions of Schleswig and Holstein. Marking that milestone a century ago, the Schleswig-Holstein music festival focused on Denmark this most recent time.
Carl Nielsen may have been called the Danish national composer, but he didn't particularly like the term, said Danish violinist and Nielsen expert Harald Haugaard: "To him, music stood above nationalism. Nor did it have anything to do with his individual, personal feelings. He felt that music was clarity. It was existential."
It was those principles that led Carl Nielsen to write songs. Bo Holten, conductor of the Danish choral ensemble Musica Ficta, explained: "Carl Nielsen was already fifty when he began writing songs like these. Before that, he'd mainly composed symphonies and operas. But his friend Thomas Laub said: 'Maybe we can just write some simpler songs, That would be wonderful.' And Nielsen said, 'Yes, let's do that.' In one month he wrote twenty-two songs. That was in early 1915, during World War I. It was an explosion of activity in a new style."
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
'Everyman' — not the initial choice
The play originally scheduled for the first Salzburg Festival was unfinished as the event drew near, and for lack of wood, a post-WWI problem, no stage could be built. But another play and another setting gave birth to what would become a tradition: The local bishop consented to a open-air performance of Hugo von Hofmannstal's "Everyman" on the steps of Salzburg Cathedral on August 22, 1920.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
A gripping work
Director Max Reinhardt's personal copy of "Everyman" shows his long-term involvement with the play: He made handwritten notes in black ink for the premiere in Berlin in 1911, in blue ink for the 1920 performance in Salzburg and in lavender for a later presentation in New York. In simple, gripping words, the story is about a rich and powerful man who is suddenly confronted with his own mortality.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
Model Festspielhaus from 1925
A onetime riding school complex long served as a provisional "Festspielhaus," or festival theater. Now it's called the "little Festspielhaus" or "House of Mozart." Today's main venue opened in 1960, and its construction demonstrated how Salzburg is literally at the edge of the Alps: To make space for the vast stage, 55,000 cubic meters (1,940,000 cubic feet) of granite had to be blasted away.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
Max Reinhardt
Along with Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss, Rheinhardt, the famous stage director (seen here at a rehearsal of Goethe's "Faust" in 1933), was a founding father of the Salzburg Festival. Reinhardt's residence at Leopoldskron Palace near Salzburg was a meeting place for the international elite. As anti-Semitic hostility rose, Reinhardt emigrated to the US and died there in 1943.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
Arturo Toscanini turns his back on Salzburg
When Austria was absorbed into Nazi Germany in March 1938, the famous Italian conductor canceled his contract. Authorities tried to persuade him to reconsider, but the message in this telegram is unambiguous: "I am quite astonished that the finality of my answer in the first cable was not understood." Art was soon put in the service of propaganda in Salzburg, as in the rest of Germany.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
No postwar breather
Right at the end of World War II, American occupying forces made plans to reopen the festival on August 12, 1945. That season was attended mainly by army members and their families. Artists were in short supply: Due to former Nazi connections, the conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler, Clemens Krauss, Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan were not allowed to exercise their professions for a couple of years.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
Special edition gold coins and cigarettes
By the late 1940s, operations had returned to normal: Power outings were now rare, so theater and opera performances could go on. Moneyed attendees could purchase a Salzburg gold coin as a memento, but nearly "everyman" could afford a pack of Salzburg cigarettes. On the playbill were Mozart matinees, Mozart and Strauss operas and in 1949, the world premiere of an opera by Carl Orff.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
The Karajan era
Herbert von Karajan became the artistic director in 1957. In many spectacular opera productions over the next three decades, the staging was often created by Karajan's favorite set designer, Günther Schneider-Siemssen. He designed the above set for a 1965 production of Mussorgsky's opera "Boris Godunov." Working with subtle light projections, his approach was called "painting with light."
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
A star is born
After Herbert von Karajan met the 13-year-old violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, he called her a "phenomenon" and invited her to perform in Salzburg. Karajan also promoted the singer Agnes Baltsa, the conductors Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa and Riccardo Muti, and others who rose to world fame after appearing at the Salzburg Festival. Shown here: A critique of Mutter's premiere at the festival.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
Costumes by Lagerfeld
Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld also made a contribution, designing the costumes for a 1991 production of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play "Der Schwierige" ("The Difficult Gentleman"), directed by Jürgen Flimm and with scenery by Erich Wonder. It was a delight for the eyes but some criticized the Salzburger Festival as a "state-subsidized fashion show."
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
New artistic pathways
The radically new interpretation of Johann Strauss' operetta "Die Fledermaus" by director Hans Neuenfels was a hallmark of the era of Gerard Mortiers (1991-2001), who had been named festival director after Karajan's death. He spoke out against both the Salzburg arts establishment and the far-right populist FPÖ party, then a coalition member in the Austrian government.
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100 years of the Salzburg Festival
Countless artistic moments
After Mortier came Peter Ruzicka, who in 2006 put all 22 Mozart operas on the playbill. His successors were Jürgen Flimm, Alexander Pereira and the current festival director, Markus Hinterhäuser. The Salzburg festival is forever renewing itself, but one thing stays the same: performances of "Everyman" (here in the production first seen in 2013) — the piece with which it all began 100 years ago.
Author: Rick Fulker
Carl Nielsen
JensVejmand
Humorous Bagatelles, op. 11, adapted for flute and guitar
Tidt er jeg glad (Sometimes I am happy)
Hvor sodt i Sommeraftenstunden (How sweet the hours on a summer evening)
Hor, hvor let dens Vinger smækker (Hear how lightly his wings beat)
Quintet for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon, op. 43 (excerpt)
Gadevisen
Psalm, Carl's Waltz and Polka
Performed by:
Musica Ficta
Michala Petri, recorder
Lars Hannibal, guitar
Ann-Christin Wesser Ingels, soprano
Lauritz Jakob Thomsen, baritone
Albrecht Mayer Ensemble
Blum & Haugaard Ensemble
Recorded by North German Radio Hamburg (NDR) in the Barn of the Pronstorf Country Estate on July 15 and 16, 2020
