Germany ‘Between Variety and Propaganda’ – Shostakovich Festival Leipzig [9]: Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO / Albrecht Winter (violin / moderator). Mendelssohn Hall, Gewandhaus, Leipzig. 16.5.2025. (GT)
Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO – Albrecht Winter [violin and leader], Eva Heinig [violin], Anna-Maria Wünsch [viola], Hartmut Becker [cello], Tobias Lampelzammer [double bass], Thomas Reimann [flute], Klaus-Peter Voss [oboe], Marco Thomas [clarinet], Michael Schlabes [trumpet], Tobias Hasselt [trombone], Horst Singer [piano], Rene Scipio [percussion]
Shostakovich – Suite from the ballet The Golden Age, Op.22a, ‘Black Eyes’ from the film New Babylon, Op.18; Suite from the film The Gadfly, Op.97a, Song ‘Peace in the World’ from the film The Fall of Berlin, Op.82; Extracts from the Suite for Hamlet, Op.32a
The Shostakovich Festival in Leipzig has attempted to cover all areas of the composer’s creativity, and along with complete cycles of the symphonies and string quartets, the Gewandhaus also arranged late-night recitals of poetry and songs, feature films of his music, an exhibition of artworks devoted to Shostakovich, and several concerts of music from his films and theatre compositions. In this concert, the Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO (in the first of two concerts) offered a mixed programme of memorable pieces which have become popular in Shostakovich’s homeland and among aficionados of Russian music.
The programme offered the opportunity for a pause from the darkly tragic pages of the quartets and symphonies by revealing a different happy and life assertive side of Shostakovich. The Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO was formed from students in the heady days of the reunification of Germany, as they write:
‘It is rarely the case that there is a very specific birthday for an ensemble like the CAPPUCCINO salon orchestra. April 30, 1989, was directly in the so-called “Red Week” for Leipzig’s universities, which in the former GDR was dedicated to the intensive study of Marxism–Leninism. Together with fellow students from the acting and visual arts, the musicians opened a café at the university for three days instead of philosophical gymnastics exercises – with sensational success! For us students, it was especially astonishing how well our professors knew about the light muse and how much fun they had participating in this undertaking.’
The Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO adopts the reduced Parisian line-up of two violins, violoncello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, trombone and piano. Most of the members belong to renowned orchestras, such as the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and the Staatskapelle Halle, or are professors at the Music Academies of Cologne, Bremen and Leipzig.
The selection of pieces from The Golden Age is from the three-act ballet that premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1930. The ballet was performed eighteen times and revived only in 1982. The sparkling music is arranged as an orchestral suite, string quartet, and the ‘Polka’ for piano. Of the four movements, it was the beautifully scored ‘Polka’ and ‘Adagio’ that are the most evocative in revealing Shostakovich as a master of melody. It is his jocularity and bizarre circus-like music that comes to the fore, especially on the clarinet of Marco Thomas and the violin of Albrecht Winter.
The originality of the composer’s early years continued in the setting of the tragically romantic ‘Black Eyes’ song from the avant-garde 1929 silent movie New Babylon (which was accompanied by piano in the cinema). The song is illustrated by humorously witty playing by the trombone, clarinet, and violin, depicting an unlikely love match in a vaudeville show. Switching from experiments of the 1920s, three decades later, in 1955, the film music for The Gadfly reveals a quite different composer. Based on the novel by Ethel Lilian Voynich and directed by Aleksandr Faintsimmer, the story depicts the struggle of Italian patriots resisting the Austrians and has a beautiful love story. The film music has won great popularity, and here, the violins of Winter, Eva Heinig, and Anna-Maria Wünsch were outstanding, avoiding overindulging in the gorgeous ‘Romanze’ – the most popular of his film music. The score contains some of Shostakovich’s most attractive writing, is beautifully orchestrated, and arranged by Levon Atovmyan – a long-standing friend of the composer.
The ’propaganda’ element in this concert was in the song ‘Peace in the World’ – and its title and sentiment are certainly more praiseworthy than pure propaganda in today’s challenging world. The song was sung by the baritone of Albrecht Winter to the first-rate accompaniment of the ensemble. The song is a setting of words by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky and is from the 1950 movie The Fall of Berlin, directed by Mikheil Chiarureli.
In the final programmed piece, I would have preferred Shostakovich’s music to the Kozintsev 1964 film of Hamlet than the music for Akimov’s 1932 production of Hamlet at the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow. Yet, this theatre music is known for its extrovertly original score and brilliantly modern orchestration. The selection of seven extracts from the suite opened with ‘Introduction and Night Patrol’, thus ensuring a stimulating beginning. The ‘Appearance of the Ghost’ and the ‘Pantomime’ allowed every department of the orchestra to show their virtuosity and ultimately proved a terrific culmination. As an encore, the Salon Orchestra performed Shostakovich’s Waltz No.2 from the ‘Second Jazz Suite’ from Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut which instantly became hugely popular worldwide, and on this occasion, allowed listeners a more happy and life-enhancing side to the creativity of Dmitry Shostakovich.
Gregor Tassie
Featured Image: Salonorchester CAPPUCCINO © Anne Hornemann