Christian Gerhaher Song Week at Elmau Castle: Consolation through song

2023-10-02 15:23:25

Is it the desolation of the world outside, which is completely hidden here but is of course always present, that makes such sunny, early autumn days filled with music seem all the more precious? In any case, the atmosphere up here is special: peaceful, attentive, receptive. Here, in the Hotel Schloss Elmau at the foot of the Wetterstein Mountains, only the usual happens, just as it has for more than 100 years. In a concert hall saturated with imaginary sounds, some singers give recitals.

But of course it’s special, because the people singing here are Magdalena Kožená, Franz-Josef Selig, Julia Kleiter, Christiane Karg, Vera-Lotte Boecker, Konstantin Krimmel – and especially Christian Gerhaher. In addition, the emeritus German studies professor Helmuth Kiesel, Salzburg’s Easter Festival director Nikolaus Bachler in conversation with the writer and librettist Händl Klaus, as well as various pianists – the tireless Gerold Huber deserves special mention – also provide eloquent assistance.

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Intimate, intense, romantic

Christian Gerhaher, the 54-year-old from Straubing who has long lived in Munich, has done it again. Just like four and two years ago, he invited people to the “Liedwoche Christian Gerhaher & Gerold Huber” in the Garmisch Alps. From the concert hall you can’t see the blue-gray Wetterstein wall, but you can still see the brown dairy cattle on the humpback meadows that rise up to the right to the Elmauer Alm.

Nature is always present here: only the Angelika Kaufmann Hall in the Bregenzerwald village of Schwarzenberg, which is not yet as traditional as it is and is part of the venue for the Vorarlberg Schubertiade, can compete with this magical music venue in terms of atmospheric beauty.

Gerhaher once again strokes his gray beard in amazement that something like this is still possible. With the two participants in his two days of practice and a final concert comprising the master class, who otherwise study at the Royal Academy London, around 15 participants are gathered here for seven days in Werdenfelser Land.

The song week is going international

At the weekend, this number increases to include various members of the Gerhaher and Huber families, who have been part of the family since their early youth. And of course, a faithfully listening, thoroughly knowledgeable audience of fans, friends and song lovers is constantly growing.

Two years ago – Gerhaher’s life and favorite project of an almost complete Robert Schumann song box was presented at the same time – the Elmauer Woche was largely dedicated to this very sound king of German Romanticism. This year the theme was a little broader.

The Kožená opened with French songs by Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen, bathed in diffuse mezzo light. The singing students also had Poulenc, Ravel and Edvard Grieg with them. With Alban Berg’s seven early songs such as George Crumb’s “Apparition”, Vera-Lotte Boecker had the 20th century on her radar.

Heinz Holliger’s “Lunea” in Zurich

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Gerhaher himself even entered the 21st century with Heinz Holliger’s cycle “Lunea – 23 Sentences by Nikolaus Lenau”, written for him, the basis for the writer’s opera of the same name, which premiered with him in Zurich in 2018. And at the end of the casual serenade at the fireplace bar, he even followed up with songs by Kreisler and Gershwin.

In a compilation of Wolf, Liszt and Strauss titles dedicated to Michelangelo Buonarotti’s sonnets, Franz-Josef Selig, otherwise bass-rich Sarastro like Gurnemanz from the service, particularly exploited the complete, eleven-part suite by Dmitri Shostakovich – to the maximum of its existentialist, dark and spherical quality whispering possibilities between deathly loneliness and spiritual certainty of being, while the tireless Gerold Huber set precise piano accents.

Moody Swabian, rich in anecdotes and saturated with statistics and introduced in advance by Helmuth Kiesel, such a rare complete Hugo Wolf evening with at least 33 numbers is particularly fun to interpret. Also because Gerhaher and the excellently mature Julia Kleiter make it their own – in expressive but also purring baritone nuances such as wonderfully rounded soprano bows.

Hiking frees you to hear

But at the same time, the complex and complicated Wolf always remains vocal in both of them, never becoming a teacher-like, over-emphasized German lesson. This flows naturally, while still paying maximum attention to every facet of meaning.

Doing nothing every day, taking walks in the slowly turning autumnal greenery in front of rugged rock faces, using the sauna by the stream as well as eight other pools, simply soaking up the sun on the west terrace, reading for pleasure on the veranda or balcony, all of this makes you feel full, as permeable as it is receptive to songs.

The synapses are open to the smallest, casually served details: For example, the whooping and wailing, the sighing and sobbing with which Christiane Karg, highly present and yet mercurial, offers the emotional cosmos of Gustav Mahler’s songwriting. And once again Gerold Huber, with a reserved presence at the piano, is shaping this constantly new path along Wunderhorn and Rückert paths.

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Singer star Christian Gerhaher

You can hear in the master class how difficult it all is, how masterfully casual it is presented in the Elmauer Hall. Christian Gerhaher is pleasantly reserved, but gives clear advice. The only 20-year-old Norwegian baritone Aksel Rykkvin phrases Schumann’s Rückert setting “My Beautiful Star” beautifully, but surfs around the surface in a completely boring way. And the French-Scottish soprano Clara Orif constantly stumbles over consonants in Mendelssohn’s spooky, will-o’-the-wisp witch song because of the broom-like pace.

And then you can hear the song hopeful Konstantin Krimmel, who has already won many awards despite her youth, strolling through long-stanza Schubert songs with a hazelnut-colored baritone. Or just the grandmaster himself reciting and savoring Schubert’s swan song. The singer becomes the donor, the listener the vessel.

Everyday life is left out here, the song becomes part of the cosmos. In its crystalline sphere, sounds and meaning are always reflected, refracted, changed kaleidoscopically and illuminated anew and intensively. Elmau makes it possible, Gerhaher, Huber & Friends have fulfilled it. And we are the recipients. After so much real and artistic sunshine, may the gray autumn come safely.