Deutsche Welle (English edition)
A private party with Chopin and Mendelssohn
In this edition of Concert Hour, we take a peek at famous composers like Mendelssohn and Chopin in the 19th century, and how music became accessible to the upper-middle class.
Your ticket to the German classical music festival scene: Concert Hour has the picks of the season — two hours of music updated regularly. Along with host Rick Fulker, the musicians themselves are on hand to give their insights into the events and the music.
Listen to audio 54:59Concert Hour: Rhenish music salon part twoRhenish music salon, part one
Two pianists and four vocalists take us to a 19th-century music salon to hear how cultivated people entertained themselves in the past.
Sisters of German-Greek heritage, pianists Danae and KiveliDörken have been playing piano more or less all their lives, often at the same time. As they do in this concert titled "From the stage to the living room: our microphones, your concerts."
Imagine being a guest in a salon at the home of a wealthy businessman in the early industrial age when not the just steam engines were churning, but the arts too. It was at a salon in Düsseldorf that Felix Mendelssohnplayed his Hebrides Overture in 1833 in an arrangement for piano-four-hands. And who did the other two hands belong to? The host, a textile manufacturerin Düsseldorf. That high level of keyboard proficiency was not unusual among amateurs in those days.
Schumann, Brahms, Chopin and Mendelssohn all performed in music salons. "Mendelssohn always has this very colorful flair," said KiveliDörken."It's very recognizablein all of his music. The Midsummer Night's Dream is, of course, a story full of magical and fantastic beings, not only humans. It's always very fun to play, and there is always this feverish searching - and something that we love playing."
It's at a Rhenish music salong that the 23-year-old Frederic Chopin was first introduced to the German public. At that recital, Chopin was forced to play one encore after another, little improvisations or waltzes. Major works like his Sonata in B Minor came later.
Felix Mendelssohn
Hebrides Overture, version for piano-four-hands
From A Midsummer Night's Dream: Intermezzo and A Dance of Clowns, adapted for pianofour-hands
Four songs set to texts by Heinrich Heine:
Neue Liebe (New Love)
Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (On the Wings of Song)
Morgengruss (Morning
Greetings)
From the Oratorio Paul: Se idunsgnä dig holdeGött er (Be Merciful, Dear Gods)
Robert Schumann
From the Spanish Love Songs, op. 138:
Introduction, and Tiefim Herzen trag ich Pein (Deep in my heart I bear suffering)
Ohwielieblichist das Mädchen (Oh, how lovely the girl is)
Be dec kt mi chm it Blum en (Cover me with flowers) Performed by:
Kerstin Dietl, soprano Magdalena Hinz, mezzo-soprano
Andreas Post, tenor Carsten Krüger bass-baritone Danae Dörken, piano KiveliDörken, piano
Recorded by Radio Deutschlandfunk Cologne (DLF) in the Broadcast Headquarters on September 20, 2020
Rhenish music salon, part two
This hour, fifteen songs by Johannes Brahms about the joys and woes of love — and Felix Mendelssohn's moving tribute to his deceased sister in the form of a string quartet.
In the early industrial age, opera, theater, concerts and literature readings were no longer a privilege of the nobility, but accessible to the upper middle class. Then, people consumed literature by Goethe and Heine like we do Netflix films today, and musicians like Chopin and Mendelssohn performed live in music salons.
Danae and KiveliDörkengive an unusual piano-four-hands accompaniment to the four singers in this recital, who perform either individually, in duets or collectively. "When you play with a singer, you are focused on the singer of course," said Danae Dörken: "where his breath is, where his phrasing is and you follow that and try to be together with that. But now playing fourhands plus with singers, is a very new challenge because playing four-hand playing already is a complicated procedure itself and then getting the accompaniment together plus getting to accompany the soloist is a very interesting new thing to do. It requires us to have our ears very wide open and to listenand to knowthe piece very well."
Johannes Brahms basically began his career in 1853, as a twenty-year-old in the music salon of Robert Schumann. It's there that he first performed his New Love Songs in waltz rhythms, set to texts by Heinrich Heine. They deal with every aspect of love: the pain of missing somebody one cares about, or caring about somebody without them caring back, or the humorous pitfalls of romance.
Mendelssohn lost his beloved sister Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel in 1847 when she died of a stroke. In shock, Felix withdrew from public life and passed away himself half a year later, also of the same cause. It was to his sister that he dedicated his last string quartet, performed at the festival Young Euro Classic in Berlin by students at the Barenboim Said Academy.
Felix Mendelssohn
Song Without Words op. 62, No. 2
Song Without Words op. 62, No. 4
Song Without Words op. 67, No. 1
KiveliDörken, piano Recorded by Radio Deutschlandfunk Cologne (DLF) in the Broadcast Headquarters on September 20, 2020
Johannes Brahms
Neue Liebeslieder (New Love Songs), Walzes, op. 65
Verzicht o Herz, auf Rettung (Relinquish, o heart, the hope of rescue)
Finstere Schatten der Nacht (Dark shadesofnight)
An jeder Hand die Finger (On eachhandweremyfingers)
Ihr schwarzen Augen (Youblackeyes)
Wahr, wahre deinen Sohn (Protect, protectyourson)
Rosen steckt mir an die Mutter (Mother gavemeroses)
VomGebirge (From the mountains)
Weiche Gräser im Revier (Soft grasses in thefield)
Nagen am Herzen (I feel a poison gnawing at my heart)
Ich kosesüß (I sweetly spoon with this girl and that)
Alles, alles in den Wind (Everything in the wind)
Schwarzer Wald (Dark forest) Nein, Geliebter (No, loved one)
Flammenauge (Flaming eyes, darkhair)
Nun, ihr Musien genug (Now, you Muses, enough!) Performedby:
Kerstin Dietl, soprano Magdalena Hinz, mezzo-soprano
Andreas Post, tenor
Carsten Krüger bass-baritone DanaeDörken, piano KiveliDörken, piano
Recorded by Radio Deutschlandfunk Cologne (DLF) in the Broadcast Headquarters on September 20, 2020
Felix Mendelssohn
String Quartet No. 6 in F Minor, op. 80(excerpt) Performed by:
Yamen Saadi, violin
Katrin Spiegel, viola AssifBiness, cello Recorded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Berlin in the Konzerthaus Berlin on August 3, 2020