Finnish sound in neustadt

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The annual guest performance of the bayreuth festival of young artists, which has been held in parallel with the wagner festival since 1950, offers the people of neustadt a special sound experience. The wide region got something from the visit of several hundred (more or less) young, but above all mostly outstanding musicians from all over the world. Neustadt bei coburg is one of the few places to enjoy a concert of this kind every year. On friday, the finnish chamber choir dominante impressed the packed hall of neue kultur.Plant.Town with its "heavenly sounds.

Even if this room was actually too small for the performance of the 30-voice choir and its dry acoustics did not allow its excellent sound to be fully effective, dominante, as expected, provided a different kind of encounter. The choir, which cooperates with the finnish radio under the direction of seppo murto, first bowed to the german choral literature with mendelssohn bartholdy’s motet "denn er hat seinen engeln befehlten" (for he has commanded his angels) and josef rheinberger’s evening song.

The choir was in its element in a series of works by the finnish national composer jean sibelius (1865-1957), demanding songs which at the same time conveyed the nordic folk tone and obviously flowed into the souls not only of the young members of the choir but also of the listeners. This is understandably the dominant tone of the choir dominante.

Spharic

The choir had already spread pleasant melodiousness in all its well-balanced vocal ranges with a work by arvo part’s sound-floating meditative works, so it then led into reverent contemplation with sound spheres that have certainly never been heard here before: the mystical poem "the first elegy" by einojuhani rautavaara (1928 – 2016) after a text by rainer maria rilke: who, if i cry, hoard me then from the angels’ orders?…?

And then there was jaakko mantyjarvis (born 1963) amazing soundspace experiment "CCCX". The choir positioned itself around the entire audience and, with small sound shifts and superimpositions, transported them into the echo chamber of a gigantic mountain hall.

The encores then returned to more secular ground. Mantyjarvi can also be lightheartedly joyful, here with nothing significant, joyfully galloping syllabic nonsense. There we were again, but wonderfully enriched by this little concert.