Wolfgang Hentrich, the director of the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie, says that one could only “make assumptions”, but “there must have been well over 1000 young people” who have played and learned in this special youth orchestra since it was founded in 1973 in what was then the GDR.
The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin has been supporting young talent from the very beginning – and the 11 to 20-year-olds don’t need to hide: the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie has a homogeneous but balanced sound, which is cultivated and well received in the large broadcasting hall of the RBB. And that, with a thoroughly ambitious program.
Folk festival
“Brave, as young people should be,” says Hentrich. Because there is a lot of music played “too rarely or not at all”. The common thread unfolds from the folk music elements, from Arabic to Slavic. They sound from works by Béla Bartók, Malcolm Arnold, Gideon Klein or Leos Janacek. In doing so, abysses are by no means shunned.
The discovery of the evening at the Haus des Rundfunks is undoubtedly Klein’s “Partita for String Orchestra”, which Vojtěch Saudek worked out from the composer’s string trio. It was created a few days before the 24-year-old died in a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. Composing music in a concentration camp means one thing above all: affirmation of life.
In this sense, the dark contrast blends in well with the more musically exuberant pieces. Bartók’s “Romanian Dances” have something Dionysian to offer. The dance characters of the miniatures are well done, in the solos by concertmaster Noa Lea Weckner there is also some edgy esprit. The idiosyncratic coloring of a Janacek sounds equally confident from his “Suite for String Orchestra”.
Two soloists from the RSB
Two soloists of the RSB can be experienced: Mariano Esteban Barco finds his way to a vital reading of Arnold’s oboe concerto with a beautifully rounded tone, while harpist Maud Edenwald fuses with the accompanying string parts in Claude Debussy’s “Danses sacreé et profane” in a spirit of partnership.
As a duo, the two admit an arrangement of Debussy’s famous “Rêverie”. And it doesn’t stop with an encore. At the end, the orchestra thanks former lecturers with “Nimrod” from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. There couldn’t be a more fitting way of culminating in the general “Woo-hoo” of the final applause than with the famous “gratitude variation”. If you feel like it, you can listen to the broadcast of the concert on Deutschlandfunk Kultur on May 4th from 8 p.m.
