27 Aug 2021
As part of the Salzburger Festspiele’s 2021 summer festival, the Monteverdi Choir and John Eliot Gardiner performed alongside the Camerata Salzburg and a cast of soloists and narrators in two concerts of early Romantic German music at the Haus für Mozart. The first programme consisted of music exclusively by Robert Schumann, including the composer’s musical version of Lord Byron’s poem Manfred, which featured the German actor Jens Harzer as the narrator. The second programme, dedicated to the music of Felix Mendelssohn, saw the Monteverdi Choir exploring the pagan rituals of Druids in Die erste Walpurgisnacht, and turning into fairies for the famous incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Here is a round-up of the press reviews:
“The Monteverdi Choir exuded irrepressible power with a crystal clear German diction and a splendid transparency of singing.”
Karl Harb – Salzburger Nachrichten
“consistently outstanding soloists emerged from the Monteverdi Choir.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung
“On this evening the Monteverdi Choir was highly cultivated and linguistically exemplary.”
Erhard Petzel – drehpunktkultur.at
“John Eliot Gardiner led the impeccable Camerata Salzburg and the indescribably good Monteverdi Choir… The applause at the end, after a moment of silence that seemed suspend in time, was warm and moving”.
Alessandro Cammarano – Le Salon Muscial
“The alternating song between solo voices and choir flutters so airily across the orchestra to the audience that gravity seems to have been lifted.”
ORF.at
