Rosendal Chamber Music Festival has been praised both at home and abroad as one of the most quality-conscious and artistically ambitious festivals within the classical field. In picturesque surroundings at Rosendal Baroni, since 2016 the festival has presented a bunch of top international performers within the framework of a carefully curated festival theme, usually a specific composer. But artistic director and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is certainly not resting on his laurels, and this year the level of ambition appears to be higher than ever. The status after five days and 11 concerts is a festival that, perhaps more than ever, has managed to combine visionary projects with clear topicality. When the festival can also offer performances at an exceptionally high level, we are talking about a festival experience that is similar to little else in classical music, both nationally and internationally. Hungary with contrast “Contrasts” was the somewhat vague title for this year’s festival, but luckily the theme was far more concrete than it might seem. PICTURESQUE: Rosendal Baroni is the venue for the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival. Most concerts take place in Riddersalen, in a former barn building a few hundred meters below the Baroniet itself. Photo: Liv Øvland Essentially, this was a festival that combined music by central Hungarian composers with works by Johann Sebastian Bach and the Norwegian vocal artist Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer. “Hungary” may immediately appear as a topic for those with a special interest, but it is actually quite possible to argue that the two greatest composers of the last century were Hungarian. Béla Bartók died at the height of his career in 1945, having reached a wide audience with his Balkan-based modernism. György Ligeti stands out more and more as the most distinctive and colorful composer after the Second World War. Then of course there is Franz Liszt, the dominant figure in European musical life throughout much of the 19th century, first as a super pianist who adored women, then as a groundbreaking composer and religious mystic. All three of these were performed in abundance during this year’s festival in Rosendal, and more. At the same time, musicologist Rachel Willson reminded us that none of these three saw the light of day within the borders of present-day Hungary. Both Bartók and Ligeti – both Hungarian-speaking – were born in areas that now belong to Romania. Liszt’s birthplace is in present-day Austria. THE PIONEER: Béla Bartók (1881-1945) is today considered Hungary’s greatest composer. His characteristic modernist style was based on his own collection of folk music from all over the Balkans Photo: Roger Viollet THE EXILE: György Ligeti (1923-2006) left Hungary in 1956 and became part of the Western European avant-garde. His music has reached a large audience via Stanley Kubrick’s extensive use of it in films such as “2001: a space odyssey” and “Eyes Wide Shut” Photo: HJ Kropp / Schott Music THE FOUNDER: Franz Liszt (1811-1886) is the father figure of the modern Hungarian music. Liszt wrote a large number of works in the “Hungarian” style, including rhapsodies for piano. Photo: Wikipedia During the last century, Hungary went from being an imperial power (albeit ruled from Vienna), to becoming a barely medium-sized European country, roughly the size of Innlandet, Vestland and Buskerud counties combined. This forms the historical backdrop for today’s Hungary, with an authoritarian regime fueled by hatred of minorities and nostalgic dreams of a new Greater Hungary. But this history also significantly influenced composers such as Liszt, Bartók and Ligeti, who constantly faced the challenge of expressing and renegotiating the notion of Hungarian identity. Soul-searching and flight of thought The connections to history were, for example, palpable in one of the great masterpieces of the interwar period: Bartók’s intensely soul-searching Violin Sonata No. 1 (1921), performed at the opening concert with rare mastery by violinists Vilde Frang and Leif Ove Andsnes. MASTERFUL: Vilde Frang’s performance of Bartok’s Violin Sonata No. 1 together with Leif Ove Andsnes was one of the festival’s great highlights. Photo: Liv Øvland PLAYFUL INTERACTION: Quatuor Agate, here represented by violist Raphaël Pagon and cellist Simon Iachemet, performs music by György Ligeti. Photo: Liv Øvland CONCENTRATED: The French violist Antonie Tamestit provided insightful interpretations of Bach, Liszt and Kurtag during the festival. Photo: Liv Øvland The performance of Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1 ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’ by the four young French gentlemen in Quatuor Agate was also outstanding. Ligeti was part of the extensive intelligence flight from Hungary in the time after the Soviet invasion in 1956, and the quartet was one of the last things he wrote before exile. One of the festival’s most fascinating concerts was devoted to the music of the incomparable György Kurtag, a discreet giant of a few in the field of new music. In line with the contrast motif, Andsne’s work by Kurtag was juxtaposed with works by the romanticist Robert Schumann. The fact that this concert was an adventurous experience of witty musical flight of mind was not least due to the efforts of Andsnes himself, in close collaboration with, among others, the outstanding French violist Antoine Tamestit. Hear Eystein Sandvik talk more about Vilde Frang’s performance of Bartók in Musikklivet P2: Overwhelming demonstration of strength New this year at the Rosendal chamber music festival was the presence of a larger ensemble: The Norwegian Solistkor, which left a clear mark on the festival under its permanent conductor Grete Pedersen. Midway through the festival, the choir had already made a name for itself with solid performances of works by Kurtag, Schumann and Franz Schubert. STUNNING: The Norwegian Soloist Choir performs “The Passion of the Lord” with a baroque orchestra assembled for the occasion. Photo: Liv Øvland I was nevertheless unprepared for the overwhelming experience that awaited me on the penultimate day of the festival: A performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “John’s Passion” which I believe is the most moving thing I have ever experienced in the Baroniet’s Riddersal. Bach performed the St. John’s Passion for the first time in Leipzig at Easter 1724, and the work thus celebrates its 300th anniversary this year. The performance with Det Norske Solistkor was of the rare kind that makes a historical work appear with acute topicality. Much of the credit for this goes to conductor Grete Pedersen, who showed a striking ability to shed new light on a work that has to some extent hardened in a routine interpretation tradition. NEW LIGHT: Grete Pedersen conducts “Johannespasionen”. Photo: Liv Øvland LIVING DRAMA: Icelandic Benedikt Kristjánsson was outstanding both as evangelist and soloist in the tenor arias. Photo: Liv Øvland HIGH LEVEL: Alto singer Mari Askvik in the aria “Es ist vollbracht!”. Photo: Liv Øvland But most of all, this was a demonstration of strength from the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir. The choral parts bore the mark of an ensemble that has honed sound and precision through years of systematic work. As if this were not enough: the soloists stepped forward one by one from the choir’s own ranks, and delivered singing performances that were at a very high level in terms of understanding of style, technical prowess and power of expression. When the choir is then supplemented by a composite baroque orchestra without weak links, the result is a performance with rare expressive power. Fiddling violin and messy harpsichord Not everything maintained the same high level these five days under Rosendal’s magnificent mountain massifs. DOWNTOWN: Harpsichordist Masato Suzuki at the head of an unimpressive performance of harpsichord concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. Photo: Liv Øvland The performance of Bartók’s lively “Contrasts” for clarinet, violin and piano, with violinist Florian Donderer in the lead, ended up as a curious display of exaggerated gestures and fiddling. What was supposed to be a triggering explosion of Hungarian modernist folklore on the opening night somehow never quite got over the edge of the stage. The biggest letdown of the year was the Japanese harpsichordist Masato Suzuki, who messed up in harpsichord concertos by Bach, with a complex baroque ensemble in tow that appeared unprepared. However, this is to be expected at a festival where a limited number of musicians have to prepare a lot of music in a short time. It is part of history that all of these distinguished themselves with brilliant performances at other concerts. Against hopelessness TIMELY: Rosendal chamber music festival ended with an intensely beautiful performance of Liszt’s ascetic work “Via Crucis” by Det Norske Solistkor and Leif Ove Andsnes, illustrated by Håkon Bleken’s picture cycle “Korsveien”. Photo: Liv Øvland We undoubtedly live in a chaotic and unclear time, and much of the program during this year’s festival can be read as an urgent plea to learn from history. Bartók emigrated from Hungary in protest against fascism in 1940, while Ligeti survived the Holocaust with a cry of distress. At the closing concert, among other things, music by László Weiner, who was killed by the Nazis in 1943, was juxtaposed with the poem “Om eg må døy” by the Gaza writer Refaat Alareer, who died during an Israeli bomb attack last December. The closing work itself, Liszt’s wonderfully archaic and stripped-down choral piece “Via Crucis”, was a timely reminder that this is not a time for self-congratulatory jubilation. Instead, the conclusion suggested that art’s most important task in our time is to contribute to the fight against hopelessness, by showing that the unthinkable is possible. In this respect, two choral works by the vocal artist Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer appeared as extra valuable contributions during this year’s festival. In the work “Lokeslottet” (2023), Meyer uses the Det Norske Solistkor in highly unconventional ways to conjure up the image of an alien beauty far down in the depths of the sea. The work can stand as an emblem for a festival that uses classical music in an exemplary way both to shed light on our contrasting history and at the same time to keep hope alive for a better future. Published 13.08.2024, at 22.08
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Rosendal chamber music festival 2024 – news Culture and entertainment
