The double bass group of the Bavarian State Opera thrilled the audience last Friday evening in Holzkirchen. It was more than just a classic double bass concert.
Holzkirchen
– “Whether we can squeeze in another encore?” That’s what the audience asked themselves on Friday evening in the ballroom at the Holzkirchner Kultur im Oberbräu, based on the final words of Klaus Wallendorf, who, as an eloquent moderator, led through the bass project and explained: “It's really nice that they're raging like that. They managed to get an encore thanks to their exemplary applause behavior.”
In the fourth edition, the nine-piece double bass group from the Bavarian State Opera enchanted the audience and picked up right where they last left off before Corona. With the tango “Memories Of The City Of Turku” we went straight into a very lively concert evening that was as entertaining as it was top-class.
Double bass not just plucked
How much fun everyone had was noticeable right from the start. The musicians as well as the concert guests in the almost sold-out hall, who euphorically applauded the first piece - and were thrilled by the diversity of the instrument's performance right up to the end. Finally, the double bass was not only used in the classic bowed and plucked form: at the start of the encores, the double basses became a drum ensemble with Blai Gumi Roca in the center, who converted his double bass with the extravagant lion's head into a polyphonic percussion.
“It sounds like classic music, but it gets fun in between,” Wallendorf said in advance. Once principal horn with the Bavarian State Orchestra, the 76-year-old Thuringian, who was named “court poet for life” by the Berlin Philharmonic, now lives his passion as a musician and emcee in the German Brass ensemble. On the stage at Kultur im Oberbräu, he rounded off the program with his transitions inspired by Rhinelanders on a long-term Spanish vacation to Polt. Always with a tongue in cheek look at the creation and selection of the pieces.
Immediately after the trip to a very lively Turku, an arrangement by ensemble member and lecturer Andreas Riepl, who had set out Spartacus No. 24 by the Armenian prodigy Aram Khachaturian, who was born 120 years ago, kicked off. What followed was sometimes pompous, sometimes scrappy like in a Viennese Heurigen or casual like in a jazz club and at times the double bass in Gustav Mahler's “Ulrich” sometimes sounded like a cat's meowing. Or was it the lament of a stricken drinker? After all, the serenade is said to have been composed after a bet was lost while drinking schnapps.
Never-ending applause
The break went with a high point, where the audience eagerly discussed what the groups, initially introduced as the football teams from Milbertshofen and Dingharting, had played in the musical battle of the “Bass Wars” composed by Heribert Feckler for the ensemble - by Carmen to Beatles, from Queen to Star Wars. Whenever some listeners felt like “champions”, the others went one better. Alexandra Hengstebeck, deputy principal double bassist at the State Opera, only rightly clapped her hands over her head when she briefly mentioned Helene Fischer.
The official part ended far too quickly with Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters", which made the complexity of rock music clear, "Baden Baden Potpourri" by Toivio Kärki and Linnan Kullervo as another Finnish tango and Georges Bizet's "Carmen Prelude". Just like the two encores. But at an advanced hour, no further encore could be forced, even with the never-ending applause. hsi
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