The futile precaution

I could only laugh at “The futile precaution” and it wasn’t the only belly laugh I got from The Barber of Seville. In the spirit of testing boundaries while on vacation, we attended Rossini’s opera at the SemperOper, a grand theatre in the old town of Dresden. The Barber of Seville is famous as a great opera buffa and it certainly was comic and the performers certainly played for it. It’s got a plot of complexity and plans and confusions and a theme of love and a heroes and heroine of considerable guile. The theatre itself was part of the show. A drum space for the audience and a large and tall stage with a massive rotating area used effectively throughout. A decent, well lit pit with an orchestra of ~35, including two basses. And entertainments were generous in those days: almost 3 hours including the interval. I particularly enjoyed hearing the overture because I’d played it before, so every note is known and expected. Of course, they managed every note of the semi-quaver runs at a tempo we didn’t manage. And the three hours allowed plenty of time for the orchestra and other quick and sometimes devious lines. I was enjoying this. But to finally burst into belly laughs was a surprise to me and others. It’s all silly, but in a wily Italian way, and with some attractive music and busy singing and a convincing performance. And I must just mention Rosina’s wardrobe. She wore two dresses (one for each act) which were to die for. [See the video on the SemperOper website]. She’s the central love interest (although more clever and active on her own behalf than that description suggests). Doctor Bartolo provides lodging to Rosina and seeks to marry her. Count Almaviva is fallen in love with Rosina and seeks to marry her with barber Figaro’s assistance. Meanwhile, Rosina seeks to escape Bartolo and give her love to Lindoro, the Count in disguise. The theatre seemed to be packed with tourists, given the number of selfies and pics being taken, but this was a matinee. And despite the lofty surroundings and some opera-worthy dress, there’s still a casual presence, even amongst the locals. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this: I guess they just live closer to it. So, double entendres for “The futile precaution” or not, this was an outing that won laughs and with its corny story and vivacious performance in this grand theatre. Great fun, although not sure it’s converted me to the opera yet.

Rossini’s Barber of Seville was performed at SemperOper in Dresden. The orchestra was Staatskapelle Dresden.

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A break at JazzClub Tonne then the main act, Nils Petter Molvaer. The intro was four players on stage, a yearning trumpet against a heartbeat groove, open, spacious, slowly growing. Again, no standard swing set. The bass was electric and bowed; the drums were ever insistent; the keys were not keys but pedal steel (what a gloriously gleaming instrument and too little used). All spacious with time to develop. Slow, steady, unrelenting. The sounds and little call response melodies scream country in style and despair in temperament. Think Bagdad Cafe and Paris TX; I am calling you and Jeff Buckley. The bass is soft, at least sometimes played with thumb. The pedal steel switches to a choppy guitar, perhaps a Tele, and the feel is choppy and rollicking. The guitar solos are interpolated rather featured and I hear rock and pentatonics rather than jazz. I wonder about the background of his band; no doubt chosen for their aptness. And they were apt. The tunes just flowed into and through each other for 90 minutes, all melded and insinuating and unstoppable. I loved the shimmering pedal steel and he got back to that, but also the firm but softly spoken driving passages and the surprising refrains from tuned percussion, glockenspiel or whatever, and ringing, incisive church-like bells. And all that processing. No way all this could happen acoustically. There was mega-processing here. NPM had a laptop beside him and a range of pedals for harmonies and effects and controls the rest. There was another array of pedals at the feet of bassist who used two basses, a four string semi-acoustic and a six-string (Fender VI?) and more pedals for the guitar/pedal steel. Tons of gear, numerous amps and foldbacks and a travelling sound man. A hugely prominent kick drum that was sub-woofer punch-in-gut involving but also perhaps too house/dance. I heard it as particularly unbalanced in a passage of just drums/trumpet. And what else? Vibrato, snakey feels, wonderfully restrained playing that allowed the quizzical country air to breathe, again few chords, feeling like rock fours but I also counted 7 and 5. Even an Australian reference with didj tones from mouthing into the trumpet bell. And Miles-like modal interrogations. And stage lights: lots of lighting, spinning, colours, contrasts, darkness and brilliance. Ninety minutes of engrossing presence, choppy or shimmering or chunky or improvised; richly present and visually clamourous. I’m still wondering if I’m in a jazz club with these processed tones and a standing audience and dancing lights, but the ceiling looks right and it is a basement and what is jazz these days anyway? Both band and me, still processing.

Nils Petter Molvaer (trumpet) led a quartet with Geir Sundstøl (guitars), Jo Berger Myhre (bass) and Erland Dahlen (drums) at JazzClub Tonne in Dresden.

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There were numerous ways in which this night was unexpected and the venue itself was the first. JazzClub Tonne is one of the major venues in Dresden, advertising itself with the logo “Jazz Art Music”, located centrally, in a basement. Nothing unexpected there. Three spaces downstairs: one with cafe tables; one with a bar; one with ... a stage and little else. A few sofas down the back; a long room with coffered basement ceilings; a few standing tables for drinks; a spot for the audio and lighting guys, some glowing screens; a stage. This is looking strangely like a pub venue. I found a piano riser down the back and sat. Managed a few stilted conversations in English while waiting (I’ve had nothing but pleasure with these Germans). I was here for Norwegian Nils Petter Molvaer but there was a support band first: Mother Princess. They started oddly with two bowed double basses, drums and female vocals. I checked the lineup - yes, two bassists. My impression during the night was mostly one bass, one keys, perhaps one keyboard bass, but I was distant. Then through a set of electronica, oddly sparse and disjuncted drum grooves (as is the way), synth-rich sequencing, even-8 feels, certainly no swing and probably little improv backing busily complex female vocals with a punk sensibility - squeals, twists, rising ends of phrases - but again with processing, electronically harmonised lines, richly effected, echoes and the rest. Mostly two chords, sometimes three or so; some verse-chorus-like structures; incessant, even, powerful yet open, electronically insistent, with those vocals over. I caught some vocals and they were surprisingly of the most common theme of all: “The meaning of true love ... If I can do it / if I can believe it”. Strange that all these new digital sounds, these lights ad volumes and performance returns to this old theme. Some things are timeless. Oddly located so a disjunction, more Triple J than jazz club, but I enjoyed the insistence of electronica and disjuncted drums and these tangled female vocals.

Mother Princess were Inéz Schaefer (vocals), René Bornstein (basses), Felix-Otto Jacobi (basses), Arne Müller (drums). They played support for Nils Petter Molvaer at Jazzclub Tonne in Dresden.

Hanau jam

We were in Hanau and the last place I’d expect to chase up a jazz club, but friends took pity and we ended up at the local Jazzkeller. This night was a blues jam session, so I took my chance. I enjoyed it immensely, of course. The sign language to get to play remains pretty easy, although it turns out totally unnecessary – I had a long chat in English with bassist Naris Sebastian Stolz afterwards. Sebastian is professional. He’s had a varied career, playing in a comic opera orchestra for three years, as well as jazz and blues and commercial gigs and teaching. As in Australia, jazz is a waning art amongst youth, other than some hipster types who like the lounge atmosphere, and work is mainly pop/rock and commercial. I played his Framus 1954 bass with Genssler strings ($ but renowned). Nice. It seems Genssler (ex-Velvet developer and now independent) and Pirastro are based around this area. Good vibes, rollicking blues and great fun to be the unexpected Aussie bassist at a jam session in local Hanau.

Naris Sebastian Stolz (bass) played at the blues jam session at Jazzkeller Hanau.

Frankenfurter jam

It was a public holiday in Germany to celebrate reunification and everything had been closed so I was not sure the jam session at Die Fabrik would actually be on as advertised. It was and I’m glad I took the chance. Die Fabrik seems to be a significant local jazz haunt, advertising nightly gigs and its own jazz festival (I’m missing Heidelberg’s festival next week with the likes of Jason Moran and also Di Fabrik’s). I walked in to a brick lined bar with decent PA and a very capable, restrained performance by the host band. Their style is one of reserve, think Brubeck and Getz, and they played it very well, although Mathis on piano did explore a fascinating line of dissonance against Jobim’s Wave with a modal string of tritone substitutions. To maintain that string showed real skills. The band started with some early Ellington and Dizzy and some ballads and early swing, and continued on through the night with the standards and not much in the modal or modern jazz vein. Maybe that’s just how the tunes got called – Doxy, Billie’s bounce, Alone together (my choice), Have you met Miss Jones and the like. Virtually, perhaps all, swing but nicely played swing. The feels were good; some solos were impressive; always fun to share whatever. I played OK, if suffering from a heavier setup than I play. Oddly, I got to play with Australian Adam Miller, a jazz school teacher in Newcastle, who is over for a two-week tour playing solo guitar. Small world. Other names I did get were Chris Rucker (bass), Axel Smitt (tenor and leader), Andrej Shabashev and Mathis Hoelter (piano). I really liked the trumpeter with a lovely tone, but missed his name. Then a final chat with Chris in English. The language really is an issue. I can get on in the romance languages well enough but, to my ear, German hides its relationships with English more successfully. As proof, just look what I ordered for dinner, that for someone who avoids eggs. Easier to order beer or wine.

Chris Rucker (bass), Axel Smitt (tenor and leader), Andrej Shabashev and Mathis Hoelter (piano), Adam Miller (guitar) and others played at the jazz jam at Die Fabrik in Frankfurt.

Moz-pit

Again we miss a performance in Canberra and catch it instead in Europe. This time it was Mozart Requiem. Maruki had played it recently and several other performances are planned in Canberra before Christmas. This one was by the Thuringen Philharmonia Gotha with the Cacilienchor Frankfurt, in all numbering perhaps 100 performers, with attendant soloists and conductor. The location was another restored church, the Heiliggeistkirche of the Dominikanerkloster. It’s a tall church with large columns and we bought tickets at the door, so we had one in line of sight, but amusingly, and instuctively, I could see the German bowing of the two bassists. Nicely matched, wonderfully quick and accurate and fittingly varied in attack. This was a formidable outfit. The performance just confirmed it. They strangely played the Requiem to Lacrimosa and the stopped. The playing was clear on all the trickiest phrases, but more than that, the dynamics were immense, the sense of timing, little rits and ralls and pauses were frequent and expressed the mass with great tenderness, the balance of individual instruments carrying a melody was revealing. I heard lines that I’d missed in previous listenings, where a violin or other features. And the four voices sang clearly and strongly and were enriched by a generously live space that left an obvious decaying presence after sudden stops. Then the major work of the night, Mozart Great Mass in C minor KV427. This was longer, presumably we heard all that Mozart left us, although this original remains unfinished (missing both Credo and Agnus Dei). It was his last mass (other than the Requiem) and was scored for similar performers. Again, the magnificent performance, the despair or joy that’s expressed in this story, but Mozart’s approach made this an obvious partner for the Requiem and must have been a huge guide to Sussmayer who famously completed the work after Mozart’s death. The same sense of counterpoint, of similar drama in parallel passages, a similar use of choir and soloists. We had little to see past the column but perhaps it just added to our listening and that was blissful. A wonderful concert garnering as long an applause as I have ever heard. Obviously we were not alone.

The Thuringen Philharmonia Gotha with the Cacilienchor Frankfurt with soloists Irina Simmes (soprano), Genevieve Tschumi (mezzosoprano), Johannes Strauss (tenor) and Samuel Hassselhorn (bass) and Wilhelm Schmidts (organ) under Christian Kaitz (conductor) performed Mozart Requiem and Mozart Great Mass in C minor at the Dominikanerkloster, Frankfurt.

Found pleasures

Heidelberg was just a day trip from Frankfurt, but it was raining so not the lazy public holiday we expected. A bus took us to the centre for a walk along Hauptstrasse (High Street) to the grand Heilggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) and this was opportune. We walked in on the final concert of a visiting choir, Brigidachor, the church choir of the Gemeinde Schmerzhafte Mutter of Berzdorf, near Koln. The concert was informal, with visitors milling around, but wonderful in this richly sonorant environment. Ten singers and a leader, SATB or thereabouts, with a range of choral works in their repertoire, from Tallis and Palestrina to Richard Rodney Bennett. Their voices rang sat well with lots of depth in this place but also with definition. The male lines were clear and strong; the soprano soared. Beautifully sung.

Brigidachor sang in the Heiliggeistkirche in Heidelberg.

At the Opera

Newsweek reported* (2014) that Germany has 83 publicly-funded opera houses (and 200 orchestras). We attended Oper Frankfurt for a Sunday brunch Kammermusik im Foyer. The performers were a string quartet for two parts adding piano and tenor singer for one other. The program was Britten Three divertimenti for string quartet, a set of songs by Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge and von Flotow String Quartet in C major. The space was a large box, hard but boxy behind the performers and open behind the audience, with timber reflectors to right and left and a slightly raked roof. From the first note I was enraptured by a huge, satisfying sound from the quartet. My guess is much from the players, but the space must have helped. This sounded massive, imposing, authoritorial. And the Britten was fascinating, all slides and atmospheric effects and harmonics and committed dynamics and not a touch of hesitation anywhere. And it’s not that they seemed old-hat and offay: they appeared genuinely chuffed with the performance at its end, smiling easily. Then the songs with piano and tenor. Nice firm voice and the added dynamic of the piano and an interesting balance of parts. More romantic than the Britten. It was amusing to see and hear the original text in English with a German translation - usually I see it the other way around. I caught a few words from the singing, but reading later of teams ploughing, clean and brave / behave, of sweethearts to choose (although not of whose) and dying men reminiscing and Clun and the rest. Rhymes and landscape and memories. Then another pleasure, a string quartet by Flotow. I read that he’s regarded more for comic opera and I can’t find any non-operatic works on IMSLP. It didn’t seem a great work to my ears, but it greatly pleasurable and played with a fitting neatness and I enjoyed it immensely. So, an aptly programmed Sunday-brunch concert with an immense sound and some very pleasurable playing.

The performers were Freya Ritts-Kirby and Nobuko Yamaguchi (violins), Susanna Hefele (viola), Mario Riemer (cello), Simone Di Felice (piano) and Michael Porter (tenor). The place was in the Holzfoyer of Oper Frankfurt.

How Germany is saving classical opera / Elisabeth Braw, in Newsweek, 7 Apr 2014

Culture club

Daniel Guggenheim appeared at the Club Voltaire for the Jazz Initiative Frankfurt. Luckily, I was close enough and free enough to attend. I was convinced from the first discovery that a Jazz Initiative gig would be worthwhile, with its brochure cataloguing a string of concerts, several each week, in various venues around Frankfurt. DG himself is sax, out of Switzerland with NYC history. In jazz tradition, the band was formed the afternoon of the concert. DG is now resident in Frankfurt. He’s played with American, now Austrian-resident, pianist Peter Madsen but not with the drums and bass, so I understand form bassist Dietmar. Drums and bass know of each other, but again not played together. But the chords were standard simple modern jazz in the style of Coltrane, and the feels in similar style, think Love Supreme, and there weren’t too many unison heads, although a few on piano with sax were impressive, and the bass had two with sax and a nice 12/8 feel at another time. And the structure of the show was interesting. Two sets, of course, early, 8-10pm. The first notes were an impressively steady and energetic pedal point in four through to a penultimate ballad and a slight let-down for the final, to get us back to life outside, perhaps. It felt apt. In the meantime, DG on the Coltrane combo, soprano and tenor saxes, huge tone, satisfying substitutions, consistent conviction and nicely modern sense of melody. The fourth harmonies from the piano felt absolutely in place, but Peter could and did also flail with atonal flourishes, I guessed on the symmetric harmonies, diminished or less commonly on whole tone. This was hugely exciting, departing then resolving, moving times, followed surprisingly closely by drummer Jonas. But a late ballad, The moment I met you, showed him in another light, tonal, restrained, searching for an essence of the tune. Peter was a favourite for my night, but piano’s ability to do it all at once frequently makes it my favourite on a night. Jonas was busy throughout, driving, energetic, except for solos where he might play tuned drums, raising pitch by stretching a skin, or explore sounds, not least with a gloriously vibrant gong. I couldn’t see that one, but it was such a pretty bell-tone. Not least, Dietmar on bass. Lovely tone that was present even when not loud (Markbass amp, Spirocore Weich, German bow, 5-string tuned CEADG for an odd fourth but an extra resonance with G string), neat intonation, modern syncopated approach with occasional walks, a few quite unique solos with bow or pizz, and most importantly good feel. This gig was consistently energetic with a late-‘60s vibe and top-notch playing for a packed club of listeners. Some wonderful players performing for a packed crowd (Frankfurt’s urban population is only ~750,000 but its greater metropolitan population is 5.5m) under the Jazz Initiative banner. This deserves more time than I will have.

Daniel Guggenheim (tenor, soprano) led a quartet with Peter Madsen (piano), Dietmar Fuhr (bass) and Jonas Burgwinkel (drums) at Club Voltaire, Frankfurt under the banner of the Jazz Initiative Frankfurt.

Arriving home

Arriving in Frankfurt feels so much like returning home. It’s not that I am German, but that I am European in heritage and outlook. So the ageing airport, the imperfect signage, the delayed shuttle bus, the unkempt foliage felt homely, if in contradiction to the image of German efficiency. Later, so did the infectiously friendly service, the doggedly satisfying sauerkraut and knoedels and goulash and beers. Obvious tourist (and genuine local) fare, but inviting. But one thing deeply surprised me with its hometown honesty: the system for bar payments at the Club Voltaire. I was a Club Voltaire for the Daniel Guggenheim Quartet. More on that later. Now, Frankfurt is a financial centre with its share of expensive (German) cars in the streets and a Euro symbol in coloured lights in Willy Brandt Place and more than its share of skyscrapers (if only in a European sense) and its requisite Opera House. And it’s had its share of loss, being obliterated in WW2, although the rebuild of the earlier city is convincing, if sometimes skin deep. A deeply sad experience of a visit to the Catholic Cathedral (the Dom) just demonstrates this. The shell was left standing after Allied bombings, the rebuild is sparse and the modern stained glass windows are out of place, but the presence of the beautiful moveable art that was saved then returned just highlights the loss. A Van Dyck, a series of large carved wooden religious triptychs, the stone and timber statuary, the profound reverence of the mediaeval relief Stations of the Cross. The middle-ages devotion contrasting with a modern yearning to remember and honour history. And we continue to do it: Aleppo is in our pages daily. All inevitable in human society, so we are told. All repairable, until the damage is big enough that it’s not. All history that’s remembered and rebuilt, until there’s not the money or the resources to archive or rebuild. Then it’s lost. This is the biblical Armageddon. Great civilisations have been lost in the past, and we have entered the Anthropocene and our powers are now Earth-shattering, literally.

But amongst all this evident history of destruction, the payment system for drinks at Club Voltaire was genuinely heartening. Drinks were provided, the charge was written on the coaster, the drinker pays as s/he leaves at the end of the night. It’s not a common now, even in Frankfurt, but remains in this cultural, slightly rough around the edges, joint. A real-life expression of Obama’s hope. I’ve had credit in a jazz bar in Chicago, but they took my credit card for that. Does honour actually breed honesty or are the cynics right? Which does the evidence support? Most likely they are both right sometimes: the cynics with their fear of destruction and the saints with their faith in humanity.

But that’s not jazz, just musings in Club Voltaire awaiting Daniel Guggenheim and his quartet. That can wait for the next post.