In medieval paris, and not only there, there was a strange custom: a donkey was led before the altar and the congregation sang ambiguous songs and imitated animal sounds, such as the iah of the gray animal, during the mass celebrated by a jester bishop.
Well, things will not be so extreme on carnival sunday in the hegelsaal of the konzerthalle. Living animals have no access to the sacred halls of the bamberg symphony orchestra. Says bratschist christof kuen, who acts as a kind of chief organizer of the carnival concert. Which, in a very serious way, fits into the chamber music series of the bamberg symphony orchestra and has found a congenial companion in the minitheater impresario and performance artist martin neubauer, who is very well known in bamberg. A cooperation already preserved in previous concerts, by the way.
To make a mess of things is probably the most black symphonic nightmare of all. A carnival concert "animalistic blown away to call, on the other hand, not so absurd. When the subtitle is "news from the orchestra zoo" the direction is even clearer. Neubauer’s new number, a "world premiere, "nei the symphoniker", also strikes. So alternating music and poetry will be offered.
Complementing each other and always under the leitmotif "animal" standing. No, from "peter and the wolf" nothing will be played. Therefor the "hummelflug rimski-korsakovs in an arrangement for wind instruments.
For the berganza string quartet around christof kuen and a wind quintet with horn, oboe, transverse flute, bassoon and clarinet will be playing.
And so karl valentine’s "zoo visit" joins in to classics by haydn and mozart, poems by storm ("morgen im huhnerstall") and heine to anton razek’s "katzenstandchen". Paul hindemith’s "mistfinken" makes it modern and the italian composer luciano berio ("opus number zoo"). But not so modern that anyone was frightened, even if the music was sometimes "onomatopoeic to the point of whimsical" should be.
Neubauer would not be neubauer if he had not urged his musical comrades-in-arms to the forgotten, offbeat. Thus mozart not only composed, but also wrote poetry: "der kunstreiche hund" is a "scurrilous-twilight poem" to classics by, says the carnival concert duo, and it will be in a "world premiere miniature" brought to ear. Snipped together in 30 minutes, kuen and neubauer confess. Much better than the berlin philharmonic, which spent months reconstructing bruckner’s fragmentary ninth symphony.
What is funny music anyway??
Schubert claimed that they could not exist. It arises from alienation, exaggeration, refraction, martin neubauer puts forward a thesis, and kuen agrees with it. Music can also be created on non-instruments, as the singing sage or the vienna museum orchestra prove. Music parodies are another field (search for spike jones on youtube).
Be that as it may, for a whimsical sunday morning could be ensured.