2023-08-08 09:00:00
Two brothers from Lichtenstein set accents in Saxon music culture – and are therefore in good company and with a great tradition
music tradition.
Autumn began in Leipzig a day before summer ended in Augustusburg. Here the music summer ended, there the organ autumn was opened. Music can overrule calendar dates, although the last weekend in July was definitely the Leipzig autumn version. And in the final concert in Augustusburg, Antonio Vivaldi completely justified such weather and calendar discussions: his cycle of violin concertos is called “The Four Seasons” and the music of the summer could have been created during these days, as Vivaldi describes the storms that So more than 300 years ago the compatriots in Italy afflicted them, like this summer. Orchestra director Pascal Kaufmann insisted on commenting on the topicality of the musical events.
Unconventionally lively, fresh, sometimes daring
It was played by the Junge Philharmonie Augustusburg, the orchestra founded by cantor Pascal Kaufmann, which has become a musical miracle in the four years of its existence and sends an unusual charisma to the country for classical music. This year’s three-day festival finale alone booked four concerts filled to the last seat: two in the large town church of St. Petri, two in the smaller castle church. License plates from distant places could be seen in the overcrowded official parking lots and the illegal gaps in the city – the Augustusburg Music Summer has made waves. No wonder, however, that such an unconventionally lively, fresh and sometimes even daring way of making music can hardly be experienced anywhere else.
How does a philharmonic come about in such a small town? That’s easy to answer: classical music and the associated symphonic orchestra came with the newly appointed young cantor Pascal Kaufmann, the now 29-year-old immediately started as an enthusiast in all areas of musical culture. And it can be assumed that no one is fooling him. Not in masterful organ and piano playing, not as an orchestra conductor and inspirer, hardly as an organizational talent and festival manager. In addition, as a designer of musical programs, which always surprises, sometimes even amazes. For example with arrangements of orchestral pieces for organ or vice versa, with organ works for the symphonic orchestra. He can draw from the full, because whatever attractive transcriptions that are of interest to him and the audience do not yet exist, he arranges and writes them himself without further ado.
A successor to Johann Sebastian Bach from Lichtenstein
But now the second cantor Kaufmann also comes into play: Pascal’s brother Markus is no less an exponent of Saxon church music. He is two years older, the paths of the two brothers, which began in their hometown of Lichtenstein, led almost parallel to today’s heights. With his appointment as cantor of the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, Markus Kaufmann is a direct partner of the Thomanerkantorei and one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s direct successors. At the time, as Thomaskantor, Bach was also responsible for the church music in the large Nikolaikirche, and it was also here that many of his works were heard for the first time, such as the St. John Passion. In addition, there is also a very current obligatory tradition in the Nikolaikirche: the increasingly swelling peaceful demonstrations started here from the weekly Monday prayers, which finally led to the serious turning point in 1989. How many times will the sound of the organ have led the demonstrators out into the street after prayer?
With twenty fingers and four feet
With five manuals and 103 registers, the Nikolai organ that Markus Kaufmann plays here is by far the largest in Leipzig and possibly in the entire country. Ladegast and owl have essentially shaped its construction and sound, it has a checkered fate of conversions and interventions behind it. Since 2004 it has been fully intact again, restored and also modernized. Both Kaufmanns appreciate their sound very much. Markus was fascinated in 2004 from the first sound he heard there. The organ had already spoken to him back then. And maybe the preference for the great late romantics like Liszt or for French organ music, which the two cantors like to come up with, comes from the use of the Nikolai organ, which really lends itself to it. Both brothers also practice the very seldom heard four-handed organ playing, here as well as at the Music Summer in Augustusburg on the sonorous Eulen organ of the town church. In the case of organ playing, four hands also means four feet.
Markus Kaufmann likes to come to Augustusburg, Pascal Kaufmann likes to play in the Nikolaikirche. One hears the strangest arrangements, the sound experiences are amazing, for example in Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, and the greatest piece of the two is the organ version of Dvorak’s symphony “From the New World”. A recording of it exists as a CD¬¬ offer.
It is not surprising, it is almost inevitable that the two brothers will play the final concert of this year’s Leipzig Organ Autumn together. With organ music for four hands, of course.
Incidentally, both also like to reach for the piano keys to play jazz standards or improvisations. Such open, free music-making has long since found its way into church music, in classical music anyway. The Junge Philharmonie Augustusburg is predestined for this. The members of the orchestra come and go, some of them are permanent members of other orchestras, many are still students at music colleges. They are consistently devoted to the task, the short rehearsal times want to be used in the most intensive way. Pascal Kaufmann, like his brother in Leipzig, is based on the vocation that they serve not an office but people, not working primarily with notes but with musicians and singers in the choirs who are entrusted to them. Making music and listening to music is a matter for the heart, says Markus Kaufmann. Perhaps the Philharmonie’s warm-hearted friendliness is a secret of both the quality of the music-making and the great response from the audience.
City and municipality work in the background
In any case, in Augustusburg there is certainty that there is solidarity with the population. The parish, the cultural association and many women and men in their private lives unconditionally shape the second side of the coin: the logistical effort that the cantor could never, ever manage himself or even alone. You have to imagine a music festival that has to function without directorship and professional organization. Quarters, supply, transport, advertising, that is volunteer and hands-on cultural work in Augustusburg, from the very beginning with the careful support of the city administration, above all the then mayor and today’s Central Saxon district administrator Dirk Neubauer, and the church council. It looks as if new social ties are emerging in urban society around the music summer.
And with the music, through the music.
Which traditions continue here can be seen on closer inspection even in the direct lines of history. The choirs in Saxony have always carried the musical life in town and country beyond their immediate liturgical obligations. That was already the case in Bach’s time – the Thomaskantor was also the municipal music director, and it would not be unreasonable to give the cantor a comparable rank in Augustusburg. The parallels are striking: Bach was responsible for the church music in the four so-called main churches in Leipzig. Pascal Kaufmann also has official duties on four organs: in the town and castle church of Augustusburg and the two village churches in Hohenfichte and Erdmannsdorf. Moreover, Bach had formed his “secular” band in Leipzig, the Collegium Musicum, mainly from students, and it remained so for decades. The line-up changed, as in the Junge Philharmonie Augustusburg, and the response to the concerts grew steadily. The difference, however, was that Bach constantly had cause for complaint about strange views and even more about the very meager support of the Leipzig authorities. Fortunately, Pascal Kaufmann does not have that. Like his predecessor, the new mayor of the city, Jens Schmidt, is proving to be a patron and fan of the Junge Philharmonie Augustusburg.
continuity in the family
Bach is on the eternal throne. but the obligations of today’s musical culture do not allow for monument status. The performances of his works set the tone in church music, but today’s cantors and their predecessors have also internalized their responsibility towards other big names.
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