On the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden - Dresdner Requiem - Rudolf Mauersbeger

Dresden Kreuzchor in the ruins of the Kreuzkirche, August 1945 (Bundesarchiv)

As dawn broke seventy-five years ago, the people of the City of Dresden woke to scenes of unimaginable destruction.  On 13th-15th February 1945, 1300 British and American bombers unleashed some 4000 tons of incendiary bombs on the City of Dresden.  Tens of thousands were killed outright, hundred of thousands more displaced, their lives changed forever.  Though the city was a transport hub, its destruction wasn't simply strategic. Its annihilation was symbolic. Saxony represented German culture at its finest, not just Dresden alone but Leipzig, Meissen, and the  wider region. Architectural treasures, literature, history and music. Ultimately it wasn't just Dresden that suffered but world heritage. Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) was a Dresdner, during the Thirty Years War, protected by the Court of Saxony.  Bach lived and worked in Leipzig : not for nothing that he was championed by Mendelssohn, who conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and by Robert Schumann, born in Zwickau.  Wagner was born in Leipzig and found early fame in Dresden. Richard Strauss was remembering the opera house and the Staatskapelle Dresden in his Metamorphosen. Many things we should not forget, but we remebering Dresden makes us value so much of what has been lost, not to be retrieved.

The number of first hand witnesses is shrinking fast. Peter Schreier died at Christmas.  During the war years, the boys were safe in lodgings outside the city but were, understandably, frightened. In December 1944, Rudolf Mauersberger (1889-1971), for decades the Kreuzkantor of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, wrote his Weihnachtszyklus so they could sing and cheer themselves up. Please read my article about Schreier and his importance in the continuation of vocal traditions which emphasize emotional and spiritual engagement : always more challenging, intellectually, than "market forces". Rudolf Mauersberger's Dresdner Requiem RMWV 10, 1947 revised 1961.  Mauersberger (1889-1971) was, for decades, a driving force behind the Dresdner Kreuzchor, deeply immersed in its musical heritage, so the Requiem is a heartfelt cry of anguish. I've been planning to write about it for years, but it's too painful, but maybe now I must confront it.  There are clips of Schreier singing the part in 1949 (see below) but the best known full recording was made in the Lukaskirche in October 1994, Matthias Jung conducting the Dresdner Kreuzchor.  The orchestration is deliberately spartan, in the Lutheran tradition, with organ and celeste and percussion (bells sounds, knocking wooden sounds, drum rolls), restrained trumpet and winds.. It was issued to mark the 50th anniversary of the bombings, with a dedication written by Roman Herzog, the President of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

Introducing the Dresdner Requiem is Mauerberger's Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst RMWV 4/1,part of the Chorzyklus Dresden, first perfomed in the bombed out ruins of theKreuzkirche in August 1945- see photo above, where the audience is standing, wrapped in heavy coats. "How lonely sits the city that was full of people.....From on high He sent fire into my bones He made it descend. Is this city, which was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth? "  On this disc, it's followed by a brief sound recording of the great bells of the Kreuzkirche ringing in their glory. Heard together, they're very moving.  The Dresdner Requiem proper starts in a relatively conventioibal liturgy - an introit, antiphon, psalm and antiphon, but the use of three choirs, one at the altar, another "echo choir", at a distance, and a third Hauptchor (tutti) for deeper resonance gives the piece spatial aspects which intensify meaning. Interplay is significant, too, between larger and small sub groups, and the plaintive alto soloist, between older and younger singers, suggesting constant change and spiritual searching.  In the Kyrie, the choirs call en masse for mercy but the Epistel introduces a more personal theme : "I heard a voice from Heaven saying.....Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord....that they might rise from their labours", echoed by the Graduale, where the younger, more ethereal voices ring out in their purity.

The Transitory marks even sterner stuff. "Es ist ein Kurz und mühselig Ding um unser Leben".  Our names will be forgotten  with the passing of time and no-one will remember anything we did, Our lives will blow over like the last vestige of a cloud...thus he who comes to his grave, comes not from it again.....Therefore I will not restrain my mouth, I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.....you will seek me, but I shall not be".  No maudlin comfort here but something infinitely tougher.  The Altarchor and Echochor offer a measure of relief, but first one must deal with grim reality.  In the brief Tod, the choirs  proclaim "Wer will Gott lehren, der auch die Hohen, richtet !". some die at ease, some in bitterness, but both turn to dust, consumed by worms. this is the context of the Evangelium, "Ich bin die Auferstehung und das Leben" the belief that conquers fear even in the flames of the Dies Irae.  Thus "nach dir streck' ich die Hände, zum Zerknirschten, Herr, dich Wende, o gib mir ein selig Ende!" and the peace that follows.  Yet the full force of retribution is yet to come. The section "Der Herr hat seine Hand gewendet", its portent fortified by percussion and brass, is particularly powerful,, its text is dramatically vivid : God has given full vent to his wrath and consumed by the foundations of a great city. Its towers are destroyed, the people crushed, selling treasures for food. Mankind offers nothing : only faith. does. For those who lived through Dresden and many other horrors, such images would have been all too real.

The intricate garland of  prayers, Sanctuses, hosannas and chorales which follow, build up gradually to a vision of divine redemption,  all the more glorious because they have been won after brutal struggle.  In the Vorspel and Chorale the congregation joins the choirs, all singing "Mit Jubelklang, mit instrumenten schön auf Chören ohne Zahl", the percussion ringing like muted church bells.  The Agnus Dei is heartfelt : faith isn't easy, it's achieved from deep within.  In the De profoundis the alto solo sings almost alone, the choirs hushed behind him. If God can hear this fragile voice, God can hear all.  The choirs and congregation join again for the finale Chorale,the organ leading. At last "Lass sie ruhen in Freiden. Amen". Not triumphant, not cocky but humble and sincere.  

Silvesterkonzert Dresden Das Land des Lächelns Thielemann

Live from the Semperoper, Dresden, this year's Silvesterkonzert : Franz Lehar, extracts from Das Land des Lächelns with Christian Thielemann conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden and soloists Pavol Breslik, Jane Archibald, Erin Morley and Sebastien Kohlhepp.  Core Austro-German repertoire, or rather operetta, good natured and stylish.  Just right for New Year's Eve ! Just because it's party time that doesn't mean dropping standards to fit the fashionable market. Lehar's Das Land des Lächelns (Land of Smiles) is closely associated with Richard Tauber, so it's a star vehicle for a good tenor. In Pavol Bresik we have a singer who not only sing but can create Prince Sou-chong as a believable and human personality.

This makes a difference because the libretto is painfully dated : a part created to showcase white people in yellowface, as if real Asians were no more than caricature.  That genre was normal in the early part of the twentieth century, when imperialism and white supriority went unquestioned.  Implicit in the genre is the idea that races cannot mix, and that exotic aliens, despite their erotic frisson, are dangerous to "normal" people. That is just not acceptable today. Fortunately there's enough in the  operetta that it doesn't have to rely on kitsch stereotype. Bresik's Prince Sou-chong is an ordinary, decent man from a culture which Lisa and her friends don't have a clue about. In "Bei einem Tee à deux", we glimpse for a moment how two people can communicate. He knows more about tea than she ever will, so the balance isn't all in her favour.  Bresik is genuinely sexy : he doesn't need a bucketload of makeup in order to pretend to be what he is not. He comes over as a hunk most people would fancy.  He really does command the stage. That "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz" is more than a Big Tenor Moment. Breslik makes it feel real. In the finale, when the song is repeated, he sings with sincere feeling. Despite the smiles Das Land des Lächelns is human tragedy behind a mask of insouciant good cheer. Smiling through tears, like so much of this genre. Anyone can feel that way, whatever their origins or background. 

Jane Archibald was a good Lisa, beautifully crested, and Erin Morley, (costumed like fake Japanese !) a sympathetic innocent.  Secretly, she loves Graf Gustav von Pottenstein (Sebastien Kohlhepp) but that love is doomed. Thielemann gets lively, animated playing from the Staatskapelle Dresden, bringing out the "orientalism" in the orchestration.  The "Chinesischer Hochzeitszug" is a bit of a gallop, but  then it should be. Lisa's rushing into something she doesn't understand, and Lehar is writing facsimile of music he doesn't understand, either.  But's its fun anyway. When you're sad, don't mope, but get on with things as if everything will turn out right.

Peter Schreier dies at Christmas

Announced a few minutes ago in Dresden, the death of Peter Schreier after a long illness, aged 84. It is particularly ironic that he died on Christmas Day.  His Bach and Heinrich Schütz are of course basic fare this time of year, but he also loved singing more informal Weihnachtslieder and folk songs and used to do Christmas specials on German TV.  He took his Christmas seriously ! And now, perhaps, he's with the angels and with those who shaped the musical culture that shaped him. 

Born into a musical family in Meissen in July 1935, Schreier was singing at a very young age. Aged 8, he appeared on stage as one of the Three Boys in Die Zauberflöte.  Aged 10, he joined the Dresdner Kreuzchor. The city had been destroyed in the firebombing of February 1945, so the boys lived in basements. Butr so did everyone else. The Kappellmeister was Rudolf Mauersberger, a composer as well as conductor. Please read HERE about Mauersberger's Weihnachtszyklus  written in Decemeber 1944 to cheer the boys up in wartime.  It celebrates Christmas from the perspective of children. It's not yet another telling of the Bible story, which the choristers sang about all year round. Instead, it describes the Dresden Striezelmarkt, or Christmas fair, and the simple folk toys that children marvelled at before Christmas was commercialized. We can hear bells, cuckoo calls, and rhythms suggesting the movement of mechanical toys.

In response to the horrors of war, and the millions killed, Mauersberger wrote his Dresdner Requiem, first performed in the bombed out Frauenkirche, with the key alto part written specially for Schreier.  By spooky coincidence, that's what I've been listening to this season rather than regular Christmas fare.  This piece is closely connected with Schreier and the traditions he came from. It's about the mass deaths of millions in barbaric world conflict. The alto part seems vulnerable, but its purity shines out, a message of strength under desperate conditions. (I'll write more soon).  Mauersberger (1889-1971) shaped Schreier's career, supporting him in his transition to tenor after his voice broke.

Perhaps that bedrock is why Schreier's Bach, Schütz and so  much else are so transcedent that they are almost divine. There are few Evangelists quite as intense and committed as Schreier's. He's not  bland, but totally earnest.  The message in these works is much greater than picture-book pretty.  He brought the same passion to his Mozart, Weber (the finest Max, a character torn between good and weakness). Wagner (truly demonic Mime) and much else. Even Janáček. That same commitment shaped his Lieder singing : always, foremost, meaning expressed through sound and nuance.  Because he cared so much about Lieder as communication, he could draw new insights no matter how often he sang something. Lieder is an inward, individual art, miss that and you miss the point.  His Schubert and Schumann are benchmarks, but he also championed other less well known composers. Schreier's Lieder, with its intelligence and sensitivity, shaped my entire listening career. Losing him is like losing a father figure. 

Schreier was a much loved regular at the Wigmore Hall for many years. At his farewell concert in 2003, pretty much the whole audience got up to greet him in the Green Room. The place was packed, but he noticed, behind all the crowds, a frail old lady who looked about 90 and walked with sticks.  Immediately he rushed up to her and led her in, sitting her in a seat beside him. "Thank you, dearest X, you have come from so far to see me!" he said, almost tears in his eyes. "For you, my boy (!) " she said, "I would travel any distance to see you again". All in German : I don't know the background, but the sincerity of feeling they had for each other was obvious.  That is the sort of person Schreier was.  He cared about things he believed in. Wildly successful and a fighter, but not a showbiz creation, Schreier was an artist of integrity, a man for whom sincerity and commitment were principles of faith.  

Worth the wait ! Thielemann Mahler 3, Dresden Staatskapelle

Thielemann, Garanca, Dresden Staatskapelle, photo : Matthias Creutziger, Dresdner Neueste Nachtrichten

Christian Thielemann conducted Mahler Symphony no 3 with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, broadcast on MDR.de last night.  He hasn't conducted much Mahler in the past, so this was a big event.  Thielemann is one of the great conductors of core Austro-German repertoire, a specialist in Wagner, Strauss, Bruckner and more, so any perspective he might have on Mahler would be significant.  In many ways, it is a point in his favour that he has not rushed to conduct Mahler because everyone else seems to do so, whether they have anything to say, or not.  A while back, Haitink was attacked for not conducting Shostakovich.  If only more conductors had that kind of integrity. We all do some things better than others, so why shouldn't conductors do what they believe in, as opposed to pandering to market forces.  So I listened last night to Thielemann on NDR, not knowing what to think. A few minutes in, I realized that this was no routine performance. Thielemann really does have insights.  So I came briefly "up for air" before plunging in to listen as intensively as possible.  I hope NDR has archived this,m since it is a performance definitely worth further listening.

First, let's consider what Thielemann has actually said about Mahler.  Significantly, this quote was made during the Mahler anniversary year in 2010, when  there was so much hype - often uninformed - that it's hardly surprising that someone should steer well clear on jumping on the celebrity bandwagon.   "Mahler’s music lends itself most to those conductors” Thielemann reflects, “who know how to hold back, who are good at understatement. That doesn’t exactly accommodate my conducting style; I’ve not been terribly successful at that yet. The music of Mahler is already so full of effects, if you are tempted to add anything, you only make it worse. I admire those conductors who achieve that certain noblesse—which is what I desire to achieve, eventually. Not always to enhance something. I’m currently trying to wean myself off that in Strauss, actually…” Thielemann thus continues a solid three minutes on his fallibility as a conductor in Mahler, about trying to break habits and improving—a touching, beautifully honest moment. (source HERE) 

Thielemann's actual words suggest that, far from being anti-Mahler, he had a far more accurate understanding of the composer than most. "Understatement" and "noblesse", as opposed to the kind of overwrought over-excess that became fashionable in the 60's and 70's, and has ever since dominated the way some audiences expect to hear Mahler. "Neurotic Mahler", shaped in part by Bernstein, Karajan and Ken Russell movies is valid in itself, but it is certainly not the only way to approach the composer.   It's an audience thing.  Conductors in the past, most of whom knew the background from which Mahler came, didn't subscribe to this image.  Nowadays, thanks to the research of Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange, we know much more about Mahler's personality and creative processes, which has an impact on performance practice.  "Understatement" and "noblesse" are a whole lot closer to Mahler than the self-indulgent image created in the 60's.  If only audiences could learn to hear Mahler from these perspectives ! There is a whole lot more to Mahler than wham and bang.

Thielemann observed the subtle progressions that give the long first movement structure, and form the bedrock of the whole symphony.  This movement does evolve like a panorama, each vista yielding to another, peak after peak on a vast horizon.  Anyone's who has ever hiked and biked in the mountains as Mahler did will comprehend the sense of progression, and also the open-air expansiveness that Thielemann brought to it : the sense of freedom and endless possibilities, a purer, more rarified atmosphere, unpolluted by venal concerns.  Strauss' Alpensinfonie, completed 18 years after Mahler 3 has that sense of adventure, but not quite the almost Brucknerian spirituality which Thielemann finds in Mahler. The previous evening I'd been watching Arnold Fanck's Der heilige Berg (1926) which merges Bergfilm with esoteric mysticism. The skiers achieve great feats on the snow, while the dancer Diotima (the Eternal Feminine) represents artistic ideals.

The Dresden Staatskapelle is a superlative ensemble, sleek and wonderfully agile. Beautifully judged details, well integated into the whole so the flow felt natural and organic. Big blocks of sound we can hear anytime, but less often this poetic sensibility.  It's more difficult to achieve this kind of genuine purity than to blast away.  A very authentic post horn, like you hear in the mountains.  Geuine warmth, too, the music moving as though propelled by summer breezes.  Thus the Pan Erwacht moments, when Spring rushes in, bringing change and revitalization, even the hint of wacky, Pan-like disorder.  Thielemann brought out the contrast in moods from the elegance of the minueto to the vigour of the scherzo, reinforcing the sense of flow. 

 Elīna Garanča's voice is a little light for the "O Mensch" gravitas, but her singing was moving, nonetheless and fitted well with the Dresdner style.  I had been listening, eyes closed, when the Children's Choir of the Semperoper Dresden began to sing, and suddenly my screen burst into light and shook me - an uncanny but very appropriate moment ! And perhaps most impressive of all, the final movement, which had grandeur and transcendence. Definitely an intelligent and well-thought-through approach to this symphony, and to Mahler.  Although we only heard Mahler 3, this performance connected to the deeper ideas in Mahler 2 and 4, and even to Mahler 9 : nature, and triumph, through creativity over struggle.

Thielemann swings ! Silvesterkonzert Dresden

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has named Christian Thielemann as conductior of the 2019 Vienna New Years Concert.  All the more reason Thielemann's Silvesterkonzert with the Dresden Staatskapelle.  He's done similar repertoire at the Dresden New Year's Eve concerts for years. Come 2018/2019 he'll be nipping back and forth, but one thing for sure, he'll be interesting.  Dresden Silvesterkonzerts don't always follow the same formula.  This year's concert marked the centenary of  UFA GmbH, the conglomerate behind the German film industry.  Yet the concert was more than music from the movies. Outside Germany, UFA is associated with the Nazis, who took it over in 1933. With the rise of Far Right extremism all round the world, it might be safer to steer clear. But it's far braver to confront the past, warts and all.  If we don't learn from the past, we'll make the same mistakes. 
With some trepidation, I approached the programme. But the UFA situation is far more complex than simple black and white. Deliberate pun on the technology behind Weimar film. For UFA was associated with some of the finest art movies ever made, and with directors like Fritz Lang and F W Murnau.  Goebbels wasn't the first to realize that film could be used for mind control.  Witness the wave of Soviet films like October (more here) which are works of art but also propaganda.  When the Nazis came to power, the studios churned out stuff like Jud Süß which I confess I haven't been able to watch for more than a few minutes. And hundreds of Africans and Roma were forced to work in slave conditions.  But  UFA made over 1000 films in this period and not all can be condemned.  The gradation between art and the abuse of art is a dilemma we need to confront, if we are to learn. 
Thielemann began with Erich Korngold's main theme and love scene from Captain Blood.  Korngold  didn't work at UFA but his music epitomizes what we'd now call "Hollywood Style" but like so many in Hollywood, he was European. Chances are he would have followed Max Reinhardt to the US whatever the circumstances, but by remembering him we also honour those who did not have a choice  Theo Mackeben remained in Germany, writing operettas and film scores, but  he knew Brecht and Weill, having conducted the premiere of Die Dreigroschenoper.  Angela Denoke sang his song Frauen sind keine Engel, not as politcial as Weill but certainly racy.   Hans May went into exile, but to Britain, not Hollywood, where he was part of the then-thriving British film industry.   Daniel Behle sang May's Heut ist der schönste Tag.  The show stopper, though, was Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt made famous by Marlene Dietrich. Elisabeth Kulman looked the part in a silvery gown, but vocally she's a lot stronger than Dietrich and could sing the "cadenza" arrangement.  The song comes from Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel  (1930) starring Marlene Dietrich.  The real star of that film was Emil Jannings, who'd established a career in Hollywood silent film.  He "reverse migrated" back to Germany. After 1933 he made movies for UFA on historical subjects, which in the circumstances had political overtones. Was he nationalist or Nazi ? Does nationalism necessarily lead to evil things ?
The Dresden Staatskapelle musicians morphed into dance band for fox trots, setting the mood for songs by Werner Richard Heymann, two from Die Drei von der Tankstelle (1930). The songs have an almost Schlager-like gaiety.   Saxophones and guitars turned the Staatskapelle into jazzband, with Daniel Behle hamming up stylishly in top hat and tails.  A moment for contemplation, though, with melancholy torch songs by Michael Jary, sensitively sung by Elisabeth Kullman.  Jary was a jazz musician, a genre the Nazis despised, but managed to scrape a living writing film scores for UFA. More songs by Mackeben , Friedrich Hollaender and Robert Stolz, "the luckiest man in the world" who made and lost several fortunes in the theatre. Winding up old, penniless and stateless in Paris, he was about to be imprisoned as an enemy alien, when he was saved by a beautiful 19-year-old heiress,who fell in love with him at first sight and became his (I think) sixth wife. They went to Hollywood where he made another fortune in movie music before returning to Dahlem and then Vienna (read more here).
Altogether a delicious concert,  played with total conviction, the material treated as serious music, not just "movie music".  One of the finest classical,orchestras in the world, letting their hair down without dropping a note.  When Christian Thielemann swings, he swings like a natural!  Thielemann and the orchestra had much more substantial music to work with in Georg Haentzschel's Große Suite in sechs Sätzen zu Münchhausen from one of the most extravagant movies UFA ever made, József Baky's Münchhausen (1943).  Goebbels gave UFA an unlimited budget. The Grand Canal in Venice, no less,  was closed off for the filming.  Thousands of extras were employed, including, alas, African prisoners of war and German-born men from former colonies in West Africa.  Münchhausen travels to the palace of the Grand Sultan, where the Turks are comic and the eunuchs camp. That's fairly benign by the standards of the time and not only in Nazi Germany, one should emphasize.  The Black men are dressed in silks, as slaves.  One wonders what was going on in their heads ?  At least they were - relatively - safe and many survived.  This is such an amazing movie that I'll write more in depth later.  Like the Wizard of Oz, it's fantasy but with quietly subversive political undercurrents,. The script was by Erich Kästner, definitely not a Nazi.

Dresden vs Vienna : New Year concert Thielemann

New Year concerts in Dresden, Vienna, Berlin, Venice, Leipzig and much else - it takes planning to catch them all.  The Silvesterkonzert from Staatskapelle Dresden with Christian Thielemann capped them all: genuinely satisfying as a musical experience as opposed to a fun way to fill time.  Bruch's Violin Concerto no 1 with Nikolaj Znaider, putting his soul into what he was doing.  Intense, serious musicianship, without compromise, complemented by the orchestra, who were magnificent.  At the end of an old year we are looking back as well as looking ahead, and 2016 was particularly traumatic not at all something from which to draw comfort. Znaider's playing was pointedly unflashy and unfrivolous, the understated poise in his playing emphasizing the poignant sadness often missed in less focussed performances.  Znaider made the violin sound exquisitely pure, like the newborn year emerging into an uncertain future: really quite frightening.  When the orchestra joined behind him, their richness intensified the impact: the babe is not alone. I particularly like the way the reflective Bruch concerto should flow almost without a break from the punchy confidence of the overture to Emil Freiherr von Reznicek's Donna Diana (1894), an opera now largely forgotten except for its introduction.  Spooky, especially considering the context.

Yet Thielemann didn't linger. From refined beginnings, the overture to Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet grew purposefully, the warmth in the orchestral timbre evoking passion, rising like sap in the hearts of two young lovers.  But things won't work out well. Dizzying, rushing figures, ferocious angular outbursts: against which the love theme soared, defying violence.  Thielemann shaped the conclusion so it felt particularly tragic, as poignant as Znaider's Bruch. The powerful last chords were an affirmation that there's something magnificent in human endeavour, against all odds.

For a moment, a quick sugar fix, Fritz Kreisler's Schön Rosmarin with Znaider as soloist. But was this escapism  Or a sly dig at Vienna? For this miniature comes from the three Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen.  Are we to think of the New Year's Concert in Vienna, now so commercialized that it's not primarily music?  A friend observed "Dudamel conducted from memory!", not that it takes much to conduct consumer product.  I listened dutifully until I broke down and rushed back to Dresden. There may, however, be even deeper implications than the purely musical.  Thielemann and the Dresdners followed Kreisler with the Overture to Rossini's Guillaume Tell. Wonderfully rousing. But it's rousing because Tell is fighting a war of resistance against Austrian hegemony.  Read into that what you will.  My sympathies are with Tell's integrity and independent spirit. Perhaps to make the point further, the encores were Manuel Ponce's Estrellita with Znaider, a nostalgic little charmer, and Franz von Suppé's Leichte Kavallerie  often associated with Vienna - light cavalry, as opposed to Big Guns.   Listen to the broadcast HERE on medici tv. 

Thielemann Staatskapelle Dresden Prom 72 Reger Strauss Beethoven

The ghosts of history hung palpably above Prom 72 at the Royal Albert Hall, London.  Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden presented a programme that began with Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major with Nikolaj Znaider, and concluded with an even more intriguing pairing:  Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a theme by Mozart (Op 132, 1914) and Richard Strauss Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche Op 28 (1895).  This combination tells us much more about Thielemann and the musical credentials of the Staatskapelle Dresden than yet another predictable rehash of the Mozart/Bruckner  mini series which has so fixated the media this week.  The Staatskapelle Dresden was founded in 1548, a bit earlier than the Berlin Staatskapelle (1570), and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester (1748) . A very special perspective. 

Yet again, Reger's Mozart Variations are not rare even if the BBC doesn't seem to know. Reger doesn't need to be discovered - British audiences just need to think in wider European terms.  Fritz Busch, who  conducted the Staatskapelle from 1922 to 1933, made the first recordings of Reger's Mozart Variations in 1920, when it was "new music" and again in 1944, 1949 and 1951, though not with Dresden orchestras.  Karl Böhm, who succeeded Busch, recorded the Mozart Variations with the Staatskapelle Dresden in 1938, and later with the Berlin Philharmonic.  More recently, Jörg-Peter Weigle recorded it with the Dresden Philharmonic, not quite as ancient or as illustrious as the Staatskapelle.  Keilberth, too, who recorded Reger in Bamberg,was also a chief of the Staaatskapelle.

Thus Thielemann connects to a long-standing association between Dresden and Reger. But a tradition revived afresh and reinvigorated.  The opening theme in Reger's Mozart Variations derives from Mozart's Piano Sonata No 11, which itself incorporates variations on a basic concept. Thus Thielemann and the Dresdeners presented it with lucid elegance, emphasizing the intricate proliferation of variation upon variation.  Reger writes with the elaboration favoured by very late 19th century composers, but it's a mistake to assume the piece is Hollywood-style treacle. It's based on Mozart, afetr all ! Romanticism was not "romantic"  and in any case Reger was writing in an era informed by the exoticism of Jugendstil.  Thielemann thus demonstrates  how the textures can shine when sharply defined, so the colours glow as if from the music itself, as they should.  Reger may not be as original as Korngold, Schreker and Zemlinsky, but like them, he was heading forwards, not back.  As Thielemann and the Dresdeners played, I thought of Dresden itself, and the Zwinger, an exquisite roccoco gem which seems to epitomize the ideals of civilized balance.

Unfortunately we know how quickly ideals can be destroyed by mindless mass hysteria.  Thielemann has been excoriated for having said "Wir müssen auf die Fragen hören" when Pergida raised its ugly head in Dresden. That was back in early 2015. Now that populist extremism is proliferating all over the world, to confront it we need to learn.  Mob think thrives on non-knowledge, so it's worth checking at source.  Read in Die Zeit what Thielemann actually said, Text HERE. The "Refugees Welcome" movement now gathering pace also had its origins in Dresden.  

The Staatskapelle, in its home at the Semperoper, has also been closely connected with the development of German opera. Richard Wagner started out at what was then the Hofoper. Richard Strauss is even more closely associated with Dresden. Nine Strauss operas premiered here, including Der Rosenkavalier (Vienna only later).  The Alpine Symphony, though premiered in Berlin, was performed there by the Dresden Hofkapelle, to whom it was dedicated.  Including Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche  at this Prom proved a point, quietly. Till Eulenspeigel is a cheeky prankster, and the Dresdeners performed it with charm.  Typical Richard Strauss irreverent humour.  For Till is dangerous. He overturns conventional order and gets hanged.  Thielemann and the Dresdeners know Strauss well enough to realize why the clarinet supersedes the horn. The horn is , well, Wunderhornish, representing folk tradition, while the clarinet's exaggerated howls parody the idea of funeral march. We might laugh, but underneath Strauss's merry jokes lurk darker ironies.  A genuinely idiomatic performance, done with a stylishly nonchalant air, true to the soul of Richard Strauss.  

This Prom began with Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major with Nikolaj Znaider, which the Dresden Staatskapelle is featuring this season. A performance which I enjoyed well enough, and which was received with rapturous applause by the Royal Albert Hall audience.   .   

Photos top and middle, Staatskapelle Dresden; lower, Roger Thomas