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The hall as a stage and an instrument – Handel’s concert in St. Peter in Landolfshausen
Landolfshausen.At the Handel Festival, it was always possible to discover new, almost unknown or unused concert halls for many years. The new festival management duo has put the icing on the cake: for the special prize and the concert of laureates of the “Musik und Raum” they choose a special place, for a special concert experience – and also, in the hope of an even wider audience, to reach younger audiences. This new special award had a successful premiere on Thursday with a concert at St. Peter in Landolfshausen.
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Concert “Apollo Cabinet” and “Duo Auxesis”
“It’s an amazing space, that’s why we chose it – and I fell in love with this space,” says Jochen Schäfsmeier, Managing Director of the festival. Here, visitors look at the altar hall decorated with columns from three sides, musicians can walk through the audience in a circle, there are stairs and a walking gallery between the benches. Schäfsmeier: “We asked the participants to develop a concept for this room.” The special prize amounts to 2,000 euros and is combined with a performance at the Göttingen Festival and at the festival of the original sound “Felix!” in Cologne. Apollo’s Cabinet and Duo Auxesis have rightly shared this award.
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Huge theater scene
The performance of the two bands had the advantage that the audience could experience two completely different spatial concepts. The “Apollo Cabinet” transformed the church into a great theater stage. This fit in with the musical theater where the quartet staged Kitty Clive’s success story. This singer, actress and writer was far ahead of her time as a strong woman artistically and sexually determined in the mid-18th century.
The team illustrates the action with works by Georg Friedrich Handel, Johann Christopher Pepusch and Thomas Arne. The soprano singer Ella Bodeker walks through the church, sweeps the stairs with a broom or walks through the rows with a veil to the wedding in front of the altar. Flutist and moderator Teresa Wrann plays in various positions – often as if in dialogue with the singer. The harpsichordist Thomas Pickering and Harry Buckoke put on top hats and caps on the viola da gamba. The soprano singer masters her round voice with confidence, the flutist virtually plays the flute in a simple, warm tone, and the two-part basso continuo supports the soloists with a lively playing.
internalized game
The “Duo Auxesis”, composed of violinist Xenia Gogu Mensenin and cellist Victor Garcia Garcia, is completely different. They devote themselves completely to the music with their inner playing. For this purpose, pieces by Handel, Nicola Matteis, Bernhard Romberg, Marco Uccellini and Arcangelo Corelli play smoothly – they almost merge. The interpretation of the contemporary piece “Sliyanie”, a composition commissioned by the ensemble for this competition, is brilliant. There are shimmering rows of tones, glissandos and shimmering tones interwoven here. The duo creates a sound space outside the church: the violinist plays from different places, thus creating spatial effects.
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The rectangular church of St. Peter was a good choice for the concert. The sound of the voice and instruments is very present in all positions. Reverberation in the room brings loudness to the tones without blurring them out. Nice thing for the audience that evening: there was no first row with the best seats. Each place had its own unique charm as the musicians walked and moved to different places.
By Udo Hinz