Musikfestival

Places where paths cross

Where different ethnicities, religions, milieus and aesthetics meet, melting pots of music are created. Without any discernible order, influences and inspirations mingle at these melting pots to form something new and completely unexpected.

Vienna, the seat of government of a multi-ethnic state for centuries, is not without reason considered the city of music par excellence: no other art form benefits more directly from the convergence of different languages, accents, temperaments, and mentalities than music. And, of course, from the constant intermingling of classes and social circles, of the popular and the refined—along the short path from the suburbs to the imperial court and back. The influx of Czechs, Hungarians, Germans, Italians, Poles, and Jews into Vienna never ceased. And the more intensely the cauldron of the melting pot bubbled, the more diverse the interaction between cultural influences became, the more attractive the city became to all those who flocked to it from afar. The Belgian ensemble Het Collectief presented an illuminating overview of Viennese composition at the beginning of the 20th century—the city’s second golden age of music after the Classical period—by juxtaposing key works by Alexander von Zemlinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern.

No fewer than two festival programs paid a visit to Paris, the other musical metropolis of the fin de siècle. The Rastatt Vocal Ensemble, conducted by Holger Speck, and pianist Anne le Bozec presented a programme featuring works by Gabriel Fauré and Camille Saint-Saëns, as well as rarely heard female composers such as Lili Boulanger and Cécile Cheminade. Also featured was Luise Adolpha le Beau (1850–1927), a native of Rastatt and one of the few women of her time who insisted on composing full-scale works rather than the miniatures that were typically recommended to her female counterparts at the time. Baritone Benjamin Appl and Martynas Levickis on the accordion intensified the fusion in their recital, demonstrating how composers and poets from several cosmopolitan cities experiment with new blends of the exotic, the entertaining, and subtle artistry.

The astonishing creativity of today’s English music scene is also, at least in part, the result of continuous immigration. Both the former textile hub of Manchester—now one of Europe’s most vibrant cultural centers—and the capital, London, welcomed many of the artists driven out by the Nazis and enabled them to further develop their ideas with the support of strong institutions such as the BBC. The influx of people from the former Commonwealth colonies has since given rise to an exceptionally diverse music scene. With the Aurora Orchestra and the Manchester Collective, two particularly innovative groups were featured at the 2023 Heidelberger Frühling Musikfestival. In both cases, the highest artistic quality and a distinctly communicative approach always went hand in hand.

But it is not only in the big cities that the blending of cultural influences proves to be productive: Ibrahim Keivo, “the troubadour of multicultural Syria,” who came to Heidelberg with the NDR Big Band, is the son of an Armenian family that survived the 1915 genocide; his music blended Syrian, Kurdish, and Armenian elements. The evening curated by cellist Astrig Siranossian was entirely dedicated to the thousand-year-old Armenian musical tradition. Cultural diversity was evident here as well: in addition to a piano trio, the audience heard the moving sound of the duduk, the Armenian woodwind instrument, as well as the kanun, an oriental zither.