Holiday in Austria, Part V: The Concert

The evening after the climb T., Ge., and I went to a concert at the music school in Ebensee, which was one of the official events of the reunion but also open to the general public. We were early so Papa, who was bringing us, drove us around Rindbach and showed us a boat launch on the Traunsee first. My great-grandparents' families had spent their summers in close proximity to each other, and Rindbach was where they had met. The Fichteneck (Fir Corner), once the haunt of the Mendelssohns, no longer exists, being torn down in the 1960s or so, but the Dreieck (which is just down the road) persists. Papa took us past both these properties, and after seeing the lake, too, we returned to the school.

This was the concert programme:

Felix Mendelssohn: String quartet in e minor, Op. 44 No. 2
Fanny Hensel [N.B. Felix's sister]: Piano trio in d minor, Op. 11
Felix Mendelssohn: Octet in E flat major, Op. 20

We were still early and so I watched the rest of the audience and kept an eye out for people I knew. There was Uncle Pu, of course, and later Aunt L. and M., whom I was especially excited to see. Then I recognized the daughters of Opapa's youngest uncle, despite only having seen each two to four times (one of those times being back in 1995), and, with pleased surprise, Opapa's cousin from the US, who we thought for some reason wouldn't be coming after all. Then I looked around the room, which attached to a yawning storage room that also served as the musicians' passage to their green room, and where the stage was marked by the cluster of spotlights hanging from the ceiling. There is also a chandelier, a modern take on a traditional flower-like fixture, over the rows of chairs, and windows from which the dark reddish curtains had been drawn back. In front there is an haut-relief in bronze, a contemporary take on the portraiture of medieval royalty, which I found particularly peculiar as most of the figures were in their birthday suits and their anatomy was highly stylized so that one unfortunate lady appeared to be sprouting twin billiard balls on her bosom and her stomach was detached into a sort of spherical balloon. Anyway, the room was torridly hot, so naturally I flushed beet-red, which bothered me until I noticed that everyone else was in similar straights. I did fan myself but wondered whether it was polite to do so, and was careful not to send whooshes of air toward the nice lady sitting beside me lest it annoy her; a little while later she had removed her coat and so it was probable that she wouldn't have minded the ventilation.

Then the music began, and soon proved to be of a high calibre, not only technically, and I enjoyed it very much. It did not come across as rehearsed and the first violinist, though as Pudel later opined not one of the great violinists, had a very good sense for Mendelssohn's style. I was only surprised and a bit disappointed to find (when she was finally visible betwixt the heads of the audience) that she is a Grimacer. At the beginning the playing was rather chaotic but in the course of time it was better calibrated, the violinists being particularly in synch with each other. There was a lull after the first movement of the quartet when the cellist (and Opapa's niece) rose with wryly smiling determination, stalked across to the window, and finally let in fresh air. The relief of those assembled was tangible.

The trio was composed of a pianist, a different violinist, and the same cellist; they went for a heady passion and more high romantic approach that gave Hensel's composition a distinctly Schumannian flair. I felt that the approach wasn't entirely right but, in a weird revisionist way, it worked.

Lastly there was the octet, which was considerably enlivened by the thunderstorm that broke out during it. The chandelier flickered and if I were a betting sort of person I would have said the odds were 1 to 5 of it going out entirely and plunging us in darkness. Musically I felt that the concert hit its stride here and that everything came together. In a grand coup, a cellist formerly of the Amadeus Quartett was to have played in the octet, but he fell ill along the way to Austria and had to turn back. But I thought it was nice either way.

The concert entrance, by the way, had cost 10 Euros, which considering the transportation fare of the musicians and other logistical questions was probably reasonable, and considering the quality of the music was extremely reasonable.

I could write more, but I've already given detailed run-downs once each to Mama and Papa, besides contributing my two cents in a brief post facto discussioon with Pudel, and don't want to bother doing it again. Besides, I don't like carping about the hard work of others or running the risk of being inaccurate and at the same don't want to gush indiscriminately, so exhaustive music reviews are an ordeal out of which I will in this case wriggle.

At any rate, we drove away again pretty much right after the concert had ended, and threshed through the impressively thick rain back to Bad Goisern.