Rosendal Chamber Music Festival has since 2016 been the place where our international star pianist Leif Ove Andsnes can realize some of his wildest dreams in the field of chamber music. The formula has gradually become well known. 10 concerts spread over just over three days, supplemented by lectures and exhibitions. It all devoted to a carefully defined festival theme, usually a specific composer. The level of the musicians and the clever design of the concert programs make this festival unique, also in an international context. Add to this the exceptionally beautiful surroundings under the mighty Folgefonna in Hardanger, and you have an event that is exceptionally suitable for producing the soul’s recreation, to say the least with good old JS Bach. However, not without effort. Here are many powerful impressions to digest in a few days. Nutritious meals, plenty of coffee and a good night’s sleep are recommended. ROSENDAL: Norway’s only barony was located in today’s Kvinnherad municipality and was established in 1678. The building itself is from 1665 and is today a museum with concerts and exhibitions. Photo: LIV OEVLAND / LIV OEVLAND NATURE: The surroundings provide a dramatic setting for the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival. Photo: LIV OEVLAND / LIV OEVLAND VESTLAND: The Barony of Rosendal is located in Kvinnherad municipality in Vestland county with a view of the Hardangerfjord. Photo: LIV OEVLAND / LIV OEVLAND Photo: LIV OEVLAND / LIV OEVLAND Delayed Beethoven celebration What the audience experienced in Rosendal this year was a modified version of the festival that had to be canceled in the first pandemic year 2020. This was the year in which the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth was celebrated over large parts of the world, although considerations of infection control put a significant damper on more places than in Hardanger. This year’s edition of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival was by no means an uncritical tribute to this most mythical of all figures in Western cultural history. Leif Ove Andsnes’ intention has rather been to create a richer and more nuanced image of the man who, for better or worse, has embodied our modern concept of “the great composer genius”. Now it should be well done to avoid the homage of a composer who has so far retained the ability to make an impression on people of all kinds of identities. But I would think that the vast majority went home with a richer and more nuanced picture of Beethoven after these days in Hardanger. That the mountain massifs around Rosendal were often shrouded in dark and threatening rain clouds felt just right in this context. And on the last day, the sun appeared, as a brilliant finale in a kind of meteorological Symphony of Fate. Cellist Steven Isserlis replaced corona-sick Tanja Tetzlaff on cello in several concerts. Here during a performance of Beethoven’s “7 variations on ‘Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen'” on Saturday night. Photo: LIV ØVLAND / LIV ØVLAND Known and unknown As many as 22 works by Beethoven were performed during the festival, in addition to selected works by Bach, Mozart and Hugo Wolf. A clear connection to the present was also ensured through the festival’s two composer profiles: veteran Ketil Hvoslef and young and forward-thinking Marius Neset. Both composers write works that in different ways connect to Beethoven’s aesthetics: Hvoslef through playfulness and rhythmic drive, the jazz musician Neset through improvisation as a starting point for composition. Several of the works appeared as a refreshing reminder that Beethoven’s tonal language and methods are still highly relevant. Of the Beethoven works, there were some of the composer’s most famous, but also a good number of lesser-known treasures. COLORFUL: Scottish and Irish folk tunes, performed by soprano Dorothea Röschann, violinist Alina Ibragimova, pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout and cellist Christian Poltéra. Photo: LIV ØVLAND / LIV ØVLAND I have often read that Beethoven made arrangements for vocals, piano, violin and cello from a large number of Irish and Scottish folk melodies. These are extremely rare to hear in today’s concert halls, but a nice selection of them was performed in Rosendal. Especially the songs performed on Thursday morning in the Barony’s Knight’s Hall gave a fascinating insight into a side of Beethoven that is today completely unknown. German Dorothea Röschmann made sure to charge these simple songs with a lot of drama. The accompaniment was extremely colorful, not least thanks to pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, who played on a Haffner piano built around 1830-40. HIGHLIGHT: Kristian Bezuidenhout plays Beethoven on a piano from approx. 1830-40. Photo: LIV ØVLAND / LIV ØVLAND At that time, Bezuidenhout had just been responsible for one of the festival’s major highlights: A performance of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 7 in D major, Op. 10 no. 3, on precisely this instrument, built a few years after Beethoven’s death. Hearing Beethoven’s sonata on this particular instrument was a revelation, not least because of Bezuidenhout’s gaze for sonic details. Uneven star quartet TOP ENSEMBLE: Quatuor van Kujk did not quite convince during Rosendal Chamber Music Festival. Photo: LIV ØVLAND / LIV ØVLAND Beethoven’s string quartets ran as a kind of common thread through this year’s edition of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival. These were performed by Quatuor van Kuijk, a young string quartet from France that has established itself in the top tier in recent years. Quatuor van Kuijk played no less than five Beethoven quartets during the festival. None of these performances sat exactly as they should in my ears. The young Frenchmen set up a hypervirtuoso style, with high tempi, great contrasts, and razor-sharp interplay. Often, however, it was precisely the precision that failed the quartet, which obviously gaped over very much these three days. At the same time, there is something about the cultivation of extremes that appears as external, and which in the end only stands in the way of the musical expression. COMED: Víkingur Ólafsson did not convince news’s reviewer of piano sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven. Photo: LIV ØVLAND / LIV ØVLAND Nor did the Icelandic piano comet Víkingur Ólafsson manage to live up to his reputation as one of the hottest pianists on the planet at the moment. Ólafsson plays hyper-refined on record, but sounded hard, angular and insistent when he sat on the podium in front of a live audience in Rosendal. His most important contribution during the festival was a performance of Beethoven’s well-known Pathétique sonata in C minor, Op. 13, played notch in heel on Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C minor K.457. What was obviously intended as a shocking demonstration of the romance’s breakthrough in piano music ended up as a rather prosaic replay, where the big facts never quite worked on the works’ premises. OVERVIEW: Sveinung Bjelland excelled with eminent piano playing, including in Beethoven’s great A major sonata, Op. 101. Photo: LIV ØVLAND / LIV ØVLAND Then it was more rewarding to hear the eminent Norwegian pianist Sveinung Bjelland, both in several lively chamber works by Hvoslef, and not least in Beethoven’s great Piano Sonata in E major, Op. 109. These far less flashy performances were characterized by technical surplus, beautiful poetic details and formal overview. Missed major solo work with Andsnes Not unexpectedly, the festival director himself was involved in some of the festival’s most glorious moments. One of them took place in a concert in Kvinnherad church, where Andsnes accompanied soprano Dorothea Röschmann in songs by Beethoven and Wolf. RARE NOVEL ART: Leif Ove Andsnes accompanies soprano Dorothea Röschmann in Kvinnherad church. Photo: LIV ØVLAND / LIV ØVLAND In the Beethoven songs, I admittedly experienced Röschmann’s voice as more than dramatic and a little sharp in the sound. The hyper-expressive Goethe songs of Hugo Wolf, on the other hand, were a novel art of rare caliber. Andsnes’ piano playing naturally alternated between the intimate and the almost orchestral, with a remarkable ability to cultivate subtle details. Another highlight was the morning concert on the last day of the festival, where Andsnes played Beethoven’s early piano trio in C minor with violinist Alina Ibragimova and cellist Audun Sandvik. Here we heard three musicians who made this partly highly dramatic work open up through responsive interaction, free of flashy and external gestures. What I missed, however, was hearing Andsnes himself perform one of Beethoven’s larger works for solo piano. INCOMPARABLE: Leif Ove Andsnes plays trifles by Beethoven on a piano from 1840. Photo: LIV ØVLAND / LIV ØVLAND Andsnes played two of Beethoven’s incomparable trifles (one the well-known “Für Elise”) on a Streicher piano from 1840 – an experience which definitely gave more flavor. I hope this is not the last time Andsnes performs music on a historical piano instrument. But a truly magnificent solo sonata or a work of variation by Beethoven from Andsnes’ hand – it would have been something, in a festival that will be remembered by many for the rest of this summer.
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Rosendal Chamber Music Festival 2022 – Reviews and recommendations
