Leaving Munich

Visiting Germany can be a strangely disorienting experience. It’s mostly modern despite its history but it also has age. That age is often skin deep given reconstruction after the bombings of WW2. So there will be age next to ‘60s modernity or old looks with new construction. Or aged palaces with modern materials and churches aged outside but blandly sparse with neat walls inside. It can be sad. I feel the Germans have dealt with it will with an absence of denial and a humble contrition. (As for climate and other denial, Australia has much to learn these days and the dignified European treatment of WW1 could teach us something, too. It’s off the topic, but England and Scotland now use no coal for electricity production). But also, Germany can be enlivening. It has been an intellectual and cultural centre and has some great collections to awe tourists. Otherwise, I was stunned by the effectiveness and integration of public transport (more to learn). Here are some pics, especially from the Alte Pinakotek. This is the main gallery in Munich for pre-modern art, to C18th or so. I loved the earlier, Renaissance works, enjoyed a limited collection of mediaeval and felt less for the often huge, swirling, baroque and later. So I loved the Durer and a large Perugino and another Leonardo and a few small but teaming Brueghels and a series of Italian Madonnas with John the Baptist and Christ child and was fascinated to see a very early Rembrandt self-portrait but not so much the swirling Tiepolos and Rubens and the literal Caravaggios. As for the public transport, it’s ticketed, connected, signed to perfection and frequent. Not easy outside a real city. Some pics.

Two to one

We expected the second half of the Bach violin and harpsichord/continuo sonatas but Prof Turban was ill. We got one half: harpsichordist Andreas Skouras. It was a great performance and an interesting alternative. He played six pieces, Bach or some influenced by him although I thought the influences got a bit tenuous. No program so no details of pieces, but the composers were Bach, Scheidt, Bach, Ligeti, Bach, [unknown]. The influenced got increasingly modern and increasingly challenging and what a fascination this was on harpsichord. It’s a strangely ill-defined instrument to my ears proven with some heavy hands low on the final piece. But also some quick changes of octaves with the two keyboards and tinkles up high and all at a very moderate volume. I enjoyed all the playing but was stunned by the reading in the final piece: truly virtuosic, managing long intervals, dissonant chords and odd rhythms. Impressive. So very different and unexpected. We finally left by the other staircase, the one that Hitler and Chamberlain and others used at the Munich Agreement and I was confounded by the layout. There was a wall where the external entrance should have been. From the outside, the door is locked: unlit and clearly unused. We descended the staircase with a local woman. I mentioned Hitler’s office and she joked about fear of ghosts returning. There’s an awareness of and repulsion to this history in Germany, not least Munich. By most. Let’s hope it stays that way, in Germany, but no less elsewhere.

Andreas Skouras (harpsichord) played Bach and others at the Hockschule für musik in Munich.

Best and worst of German history

We’ve discovered the local Hockschule für musik, the conservatory, and it’s a shortish walk. A pair of concerts caught out eye: Bach Sämtliche Werke für Violine und Cembalo in 2 sessions, Teil 1 and 2. These were sonatas for violin and harpsichord, played by “the Professor, he could do it in his sleep”, as someone advised us. There are 6 violin and harpsichord sonatas but 18 in all with continuo. They were free and I was amused by some serious josling for seats, but there was plenty of room in the end. First night was 9 sonatas over about 90 minutes. These seriously were decent players. The violin was a stunning, free and expressive and with great technique. I felt a certain excitement in his playing, sometimes uncomfortable with the harpsichord, but willing to add pauses and accels to phrasing. He played a modern bow and I think steel strings, so he was strongly toned but he could drop to the quietest to allow the harpsichord through. The harpsichord is so often lost in a mix and could clearly be subservient under a firm violin, but we heard plenty here. The harpsichord was more ordered than the violin’s take, but that’s inevitable, perhaps, given the role as accompanist and harmonic underlay. Both were wonderful players and could melt your heart with their music. I talked to a post-doc from Belgium in the interval, about the local galleries, jazz, art. His field was painting and social change in ~C15th. But most interesting was what he told me of this building. I had expected these local grand classical buildings would have been bombed in WW2, perhaps leaving shells for reconstruction. Certainly the local Alte Pinacotek was. I was even more surprised when I heard they were Nazi Party headquarters. Munich was the source of Nazism and this was its administrative centre. The Hockschule building was once called the Führerbau. Hitler’s office was accessed from the other entrance which is now locked up. This is the site of the Hitler’s Munich Agreement (1938, “Peace in our time”) with Chamberlain, Deladier and Mussolini that permitted Germany’s occupation of the Sudetenland (Western Czechoslovakia). But no. The Führerbau had survived intact and after the war been used to collect looted art and later used as the American Information Centre. History is close here.

Ingolf Turban (violin) and Andreas Skouras (harpsichord) played the the first half of the complete violin and harpsichord/continuo sonatas in Munich.

Alike

Like classical, like jazz. A look at the Unterfaht jazz club’s November program had me drooling. The names I recognised were all Americans - Aaron Parks, SFJazz Collective, Christian Sands, Terence Blanchard, David Murray, Steve Coleman & Five Elements, Shai Maestro – but there’s jazz every night and weekly jams. My first surprise was bands I didn’t recognise at €38 ($A61) but I wanted to see this place so I went for the €5 Sunday night jam. The place was busy, in a basement, strangely down a long, coffered passage. Inside it was buzzing, busy, warm with great PA, dreadlocked soundman, nice stage, generous Steinway-Hof grand, cosy space. But this was not the ecstatic music of my Frankfurt jam. This was far more moderate, mainstream, cool. Still standards. The intro trio was capable, perhaps too cool for my wishes with calm, considered guitar, nicely fluent and melodic bassist, cool if sometimes explosive drummer. Amusingly, I recognised the drummer as Rick Hollander from my other Munich jazz outing. Then a string of players in the next set: trumpet, bari sax, guitar, pianox2, replacement bass and drums. The guitar raised the energy level; the second pianist had some nice contemporary, atonal ideas; the bari was amusing with satisfyingly blats as always. But the swing was fairly constant; the harmonies pretty defined; the changes mostly obvious. The band was hotting up with Oleo as I left. So, not David Murray. Nice playing if too cool for my ears, but cheap enough.

Paul Brandle (guitar) led the host band with Andreas Kurz (bass) and Rick Hollander (drums) for a jam session at Unterfaht jazz club in Munich.

PS. I later checked the prices of the visiting Americans and they were similar to my unknown others in the program. That could mean many things.,,

Gasteig

I was intrigued by the Gasteig so was happy that we could get there , and with some very cheap seats. The Gasteig is, of course, just the local cultural centre for Munich, but the name sounds so hard to us and it looks bulky and brick and uncompromising. In the end, the Philharmonie, the Philharmonic Hall, was a joy: big and timber lined with exceptional acoustics and our back row seats sounded great. I did move to a fourth row seat for the second half and the sound was a little more balanced but the difference was little. I was mightily impressed. The orchestra was the Munich Philharmonic playing a Sunday matinee subscription concert and they played in size: 8 basses, my measure of orchestral size, so about 100 members. The program was commonly structured as intro/concerto/symphony but made distinctly modern demands on the audience: Messiaen Les offrandes oubliées, Henri Dutilleux Cello concerto Tout un monde lointain ... and Brahms Symphony no.1 Cmaj Op.68. The Messiaen was demanding enough but the Dutilleux was an immense challenge for the traditionalists. Gautier Capuçon soloed and David Afkham conducted. Capuçon was great, sounding clear and decisive with his 12-note phrasings and switches between bow and pizz and the rest. The orchestra was impressive and obviously counting for this the relatively obscure music. The tones and harmonies were attractive but demanding. I wouldn’t have guessed five movements, but there are, played attacca. I was impressed that we so easily heard the cello against such and orchestra and the quiet passages still spoke easily. But I was waiting for the Brahms and I loved this and they did it well. I didn’t get the feel of sheer inevitability I felt with the Berlin Phil a few years back, but I did enjoy a wonderfully capable orchestra that spoke well together and was amused by the conductor out front. I find it interesting these days to watch how a conductor leads on stage and wonder of his/her immediate influence and how much is behind the scenes. Whatever, this was a lucky find and a great late morning event (11am-1pm). And walking out, looking at posters for upcoming concerts, I could only drool. Over the next few months, along with experimental music and jazz and rock, this hall was hosting Berlin, Vienna, London, Bamberger, Sydney, Radio France, Swedish orchestras, Murray Perahia, Gabetta, Kennedy, Buniatishvilli, Mayer, Jensen (and more) playing B2,5,7,9, Carmina and the rest. It was like that in Frankfurt, too. Berlin and Vienna Symphs were playing just a few days after we left. It’s obviously the local circuit. You can only drool.

The Munich Philharmonic performed Messaien, Dutilleux and Brahms at the Gasteig, Munich, with soloist Gautier Capuçon (cello) soloed under David Afkham (conductor).

Rainy day

It was lightly raining all day so good to be inside. Munich is good for such days: it’s replete with museums. We chose two gems of ancient history and were floored. It’s an experience I get moderately often in Europe, as new worlder with some affinity for this history. The museums were the Staatliche Antikensammlungen (State Collections of Antiquities: Greek, Roman and Etruscan art) and the Staatliche Sammlung Agyptischer Kunst (State Collection of Egyptian Art). Just drool over some of these treasures.