“The sound of the orchestra is overwhelming: the key of E-flat major shimmers dark and silvery and the “stage” is transformed into a magnificent world of shadows." (Neuburger Nachrichten 06/10/2008)

Gustav Leonhardt, conducting with gesturally economical precision, was in charge for superbly stylish accounts of CPE Bach's arrestingly unpredictable string symphony and some glorious Rameau, in which the trio of two oboes and bassoon was especially delectable, as too were the baroque flutes of Rafael Ruiberriz de Torres Fernandez (!) and his colleague.

For Mozart horns, but no flutes (his unfavourite instrument). Elizabeth Wallfisch directed from the violin Mozart's lesser-known concerto of 1775, a special favourite of hers, and the high spot of a memorable concert given with huge commitment and assured expertise from all concerned; the Wigmore Hall's platform full, its acoustic contributing greatly to the pleasures of the evening.

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Concert Report/ Wallfisch Band & Iestyn Davies: "A la Battaglia!"

Live at St. John's Smith Square, London, May 18th 2008. For a single concert, the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music has moved to St. Margaret's and even before a note has been played, everything has changed. The majestic splendor of the church's richly ornamented central aisle, apse and altar (dressed in the warm light of uncountable red-rimmed lamps), as well as the goldenly shimmering walls are an open contrast to the subdued elegance of St. John's. At the entrance, a guest is urged not to use his mobile inside and not to make pictures (he keeps repeating he wasn't going to) and I am insistently rather than politely asked to take off my hat. I suppose there is nothing wrong with still treating a house of God as such, but there are other factors which make St. Margaret's a less than optimal concert space: The acoustics drown out most of the bass tones and leave in a lot of the outside noises, the benches are hard and uncomfortable and then the podium is extremely low, making it difficult to follow the action in front.

Which is not a tragedy (after all, it is still about the music and not about the visuals) but complicates Elizabeth Wallfisch and her Wallfisch Band's task of fully convey the music on the roster tonight: For A la Battaglia!, she has explicitely selected several programmatic pieces with the inclusion of imitations of natural sounds, some of which require additional and unusual instrumental contributions - and not all of them can be easily followed from the back. In Biber's Battalia, for example, she jokingly uses her bow as a floret and the members of her ensemble sway from left to right, as they indulge in the cacophonously multitonal drunken brawl scene in the middle of the piece. It would have been nice to witness these passages without having to stand up.

Other than that, however, it is an evening which once again proves that Wallfisch has understood that the task of a contemporary classical musician involves a great deal more than just playing. The former head the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment gladly takes on the duties of a performer, an ensemble leader as well as a musicologist. For her new formation, she also acts as a patron of promising talent, turning her new band into a fluctuating formation consisting of a constant core of experienced players and a perpetually replenishing pulp of young musicians. The tight and vivid group sound she achieves for A la Battaglia! is testimony to the success of this formula.

In her search for musical discoveries from the fertile grounds of Baroque music, she is joined by a man ideally suited for digging up treasures. Iestyn Davies, after all, first studied Archeology at Cambridge, before dropping his geological instruments and picking up singing as his main profession. His counter-tenor seems to include a melancholic morse code, it is filled with a constant yearning and even when it effortlessly rises to the highest registers, its stern gravitas prevents it from ever reaching detached angelic territory.

It is a timbre ideally suited to the pieces of Johann Christoph Bach, whose mournful Ach, dass ich Wassers g'nug haette is turned into a epic, cinematic ballad, while Mein Freund ist mein und ich bin sein, based on a looped bass line with minor variations, locks the listener in a frozen schizophrenic timebubble of complete content and heartwrenching lovesickness. Is Davies unhappy with his performance? After the last note has subsided, he doesn't seem fully satisfied and Wallfisch whispers something in his ear words of comfort or merely an organisational question? It remains their secret.

Pensive passages and moments of pleasure then take turns. The joyous power of Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in D major reminds one that the Italian composer has been noticeably absent from this year's edition of the Lufthansa Festival and the audience's stormy and emphatic reaction to the work, which includes several showstopping solos by Wallfisch, indicates they may well want to hear more of him in 2009. Johann Heinrich Schmelzer's Lamento sopra la morte Ferdinand III, on the other hand, is a delicate and consoling piece that reveals a high sensitivity and a talent for subtle shadings on the author' side. Schmelzer is also the man behind Die Fechtschule, another programmatic score about fencing students, whose fiery temperament is further underlined by the howls of an ambulance driving by on the outside, lending an agitated energy to the opening bars.

Elizabeth Wallfisch refuses to use her loyal young friends, who, it appears, would walk through fire for her, as a mere backing band. Even though she clearly emerges as the leader of the pack, she dedicates the success of her group's efforts to everyone involved. What's more, this is not a modest gesture, but comes across as a perfectly natural way of interacting with her colleagues.

The only moment she does takes center stage is at the very end, when she lays down a spirited interpretation of Biber's solo Passaglia from the Rosary Sonatas, which she however closes with an almost nonchalant gesture. The fact that the other members are reluctant to re-enter the stage and share the applause with her speaks books about how much this sympathetic approach is appreciated both on the audience's and the performer's part. As St. Margaret's gradually empties, its hard wooden benches suddenly didn't seem all that uncomfortable anymore.

By Tobias Fischer, published 2008-05-19

Homepage: Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music (back to top)

Neuburg (hjd)
The musical era, which is usually referred to as “Baroque”, spans a fairly short period of 150 years between 1600 and 1750. Yet it is very difficult to pigeonhole the incredibly diverse musical developments during this time. The heyday and the crisis of the Renaissance-madrigal, which had driven the sophistication of vocal music to its very limits, stood at the beginning and instrumental concertos by composers such as Corelli or Locatelli flourished at the end of this period. The Neuburger Barockkonzerte brought these two end-points together during the weekend and thus demonstrated its new diversity.

The performance of the world-famous baroque violin player Elizabeth Wallfisch in the Kongregationssaal demonstrated in an exemplary way the claim to raise the quality of this festival to a new level. Yet one rarely meets musicians with less affectation [than Elizabeth Wallfisch]: the virtuoso, who comes across rather like a nice teacher, immediately seeks contact with the public. She chats about the works on the programme, asks for the photographers to stop taking pictures and admits freely that she could not find the music for two pieces which were originally announced on the programme. And in a similarly straightforward fashion she shows her joy and pride in her own ensemble, which has been founded less than a year ago and which certainly hasn’t been heard in Germany many times before.

The performance starts in an equally relaxed atmosphere: after she has casually draped a scarf around her shoulders, the first melodic arches are set up, elegantly swinging, finely balanced and coloured by gentle expressivity. The 12th concerto from Corelli’s op.6 is a classic of the genre and a beautiful opening to the concert: brilliant but with noble restraint, clearly speaking articulation in the Sarabande, and graceful phrasing in the Gigue. At times only chords in quavers are to be played and here Wallfisch communicates vividly with her orchestra and passes on her energy.

Yet the more spectacular, large-scale works are still to follow! Firstly a concerto by Francesco Durante with the lovely title “La Pazzia” (craziness). Indeed it sounds as if a madman had torn up a pile of music-sheets and stuck them together randomly. The Wallfisch Band performs these wild contrasts with relish and precision.

A little more seriousness presided over Locatelli’s concerto “Il pianto d’Arianna”: it is almost a large opera-tableau in which the solo violin has its grand appearance as pleading, raging and mournful diva. The sound of the orchestra is overwhelming: the key of E-flat major shimmers dark and silvery and the “stage” is transformed into a magnificent world of shadows. In the better-known pieces by Vivaldi (which one had the pleasure to hear because of the untraceable music) Wallfisch similarly showed herself being a truly great soloist, tremendously poised, absolutely in tune, sparkling with musicality in the virtuoso passagework and shading the melodic lines with incredible colours. Thus it was an immense challenge for Mechthild Karkow, one of her young protégés, to join her on the second solo violin. The way she managed to create a dazzling dialogue with the master especially when one of the movements was repeated, showed again the quality of this new, highly talented and highly motivated orchestra, of which we will certainly hear more in future.

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Elizabeth Wallfisch and her band enchant [the audience] in the Kongregationssaal
by Dr. Tobias Böcker

A sheer bundle of energy, ravishing, intoxicating! Elizabeth Wallfisch and her Wallfisch Band brought “Music for Italian Lovers” onto the stage of the Kongretationssaal. This evening was an absolute highlight in 61 years of history of the Neuburger Barockkonzerte. Who would have thought that baroque music could be thus thoroughly dusted off, that it could be thrown into the hall like this: fresh, lively and at the same time profoundly historically informed! Elizabeth Wallfisch accomplished the feat of combining liveliness and sensitivity, joyous playfulness and finely shaded interpretation.

While the opening of Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso op.6 no.12 was still a little restrained, cautious and gentle – an Adagio stands at the beginning – the following Allegro already showed Elizabeth Wallfisch’s fascinating virtuosity and the elastic, flexible sound of the ensemble, which literally flows round the solo violin.

The Wallfisch Band plays in a transparent, accurate way, never stiff but always alive, variable and fitting to the musical moment. Each part by itself has a carefully crafted musical line and yet at the same time all the parts are highly alert to the ensemble playing. Attention is paid down to the last little details without getting lost in them. Simply everything is right here. The faces on stage reveal at once highest concentration and almost unrestrained delight in playing, creating a wonderful balance between care for accurate ensemble playing and spirited flow of the music.

Francesco Durante’s string concerto in D-major “La Pazzia” – “the craziness” – is very emotional and full of tone-paintings and story-telling. The energy of the orchestra is breath-taking. Yet in this work full of striking contrasts the energy is repeatedly interrupted by the melancholic melodies of the two violas. The two excellent viola players Raquel Massadas and Gudrun Hardardottir perform their parts with incredible precision and a relaxed, natural musicality.

Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto no.6 in a-minor for solo violin features again Elizabeth Wallfisch as immensely spirited soloist with an impressive stage presence, inner calmness, musical charisma, charming self-confidence and natural authority. Her playing is varied, agile, full of detail, immensely alive and flexible. The introspective Largo shows deeply felt emotions: for minutes time seemes to stand still. In contrast, the concluding sparkling Allegro displays unbridled virtuosity and the bow dances buoyantly across the strings.

The vivacity of the soloist transmits into the orchestra and equally into the audience. Her sparkling, joyous playing and her commitment to the music carry everyone along in Antonio Vivaldi’s concerto no.5 in A-major, in which an engaging musical dialogue evolves with the excellent second soloist Mechthild Karkow.

The Wallfisch Band demonstrates a great talent for story-telling in Pietro Antonio Locatelli’s Concerto Grosso in E-flat major op.7 no.6 “Il pianto d’Arianna”. This concerto brings to life the fate of Ariadne in Naxos with varied, empathetic expressiveness, memorable musical colours, intense atmosphere and breakneck virtuosity of the soloist. Great theatre for the ears! The concluding concerto for strings “Alla Rustica” by Antonio Vivaldi proves once more the spirited verve and the captivatingly joyous playing of the orchestra.

It was an evening to show how fresh, non-stuffy and non-brainy baroque music can sound, even when it is performed with all the seriousness of historically informed performance. In this form the Barockkonzerte are and will remain a wonderful gift to the city of Neuburg.

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