Here’s a postcard from
that august nineteenth century watering
hole and spa, Baden-Baden. Not that
it lacks visitors now but its heyday
was in the Imperial splendour of the
mid-century when artists, writers, composers
and royalty flocked to spend a restful
idyll there. Amongst them was the itinerant
Mark Twain whose witty later recollections
of a performance he heard of Koennemann’s
Der Fremersberg are reprinted. This
was a work inspired by the surrounding
countryside and written by the accomplished
Prague-born band conductor soon after
he made Baden-Baden his home. Stirring
and full of nature depiction its centrepiece
is a percussion and brass inspired storm
of mountain top shaking vehemence. There’s
plenty of frolicsome writing as well
as some Rossininian sparkle, topped
by a stirring finale. No wonder Twain
was impressed.
The Offenbach is a
vigorous overture, though one in this
performance where the brass tends to
overbalance the strings and the Kreutzer
is a Schumannesque overture to his 1834
opera Das Nachtlager von Grenada. We
also have a spa band favourite, the
Fantasie and Variations on Carnival
of Venice by Jean-Baptiste Arban, a
famous trumpet showpiece full of virtuosic
flight. It’s played here by Matthias
Höfs whose tonguing is formidable
and nonchalant. As a pendant there is
a brace of Strauss – the Lob der Frauen
is particularly full of rhythmic vivacity
– and to finish we have a restful encore,
Gounod’s entr’acte to La colombe (1860)
which comes as balm after the loquacious
vivacity earlier on.
Notes are good. The
performances have apparently been available
on CD locally, which I assume mean limited
distribution by the orchestra in Baden-Baden
– but this is the first time they have
received international distribution.
All very competently done by Sterling.
Jonathan Woolf
Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra/Werner
Stiefel 
