Thomas Hengelbrock's Balthasarís have received two consecutive evenings of generous applause from their stay in Barcelona and the Palau de la Música Catalana. His refined historicist reading of two great works from the German repertoire - A German Requiem by Brahms and the Lobgesang Symphony by Medelssohn - aroused the interest of the public, who filled the hall at both concerts (Tuesday the 13th and Wednesday the 14th) waiting for what The Balthasar Neumann ensembles, from Hamburg, could offer with the help of the Orfeó Català.
On stage, almost kissing with the muses sculpted by Eusebi Arnau, fifty singers from the Orfeó Català and another fifty from the choir founded by Hengelbrock gathered with dignity to be described as "one of the best in the world", accompanied by the orchestra that the Saxon maestro also created. Two choral cultures, Catalan and German, met in a requiem and a symphony/cantata clearly in the Central European romantic tradition. What could go wrong?
The occasion was unique - and will continue to be so next week, when the Orfeó has the opportunity to offer the same program in Hamburg - but the risk was minimal. Hengelbrock multiplied the loaves and fishes and extracted from his instrumentalists the expected timbre and colors. Although with a precision and a temper that, being so perfect and beautiful, sometimes bordered on coldness.
As for the choirs, intertwined so that each singer had on one side a voice from his own formation and, on the other, a singer from the foreign choir, they achieved greater homogeneity in that Lobgesang with which Mendelssohn celebrated, with biblical texts, the 400 years since the invention of the printing press than in Brahms' eclectic requiem, more determined to celebrate the joy of those who leave this world than the sadness of those who mourn them.
The Australian soprano Eleanor Lyons, who gave a sober and contained Requiem with the Slovenian baritone Domen Krizaj, let out the following night, in her performance with the tenor Maximilian Schmitt, a high register that was at times excessive. Although she did achieve dreaminess by merging with the voice of Anna Terterjan in the sopranil duet "Ich harrete des Herrn" that includes Mendelssohn's symphony. A work that he himself premiered from the podium, in 1840, leading a generous Gewandhaus Orchestra and in the same church of Saint Thomas where Bach had premiered his Saint Matthew Passion in Leipzig, a century earlier.
According to Schumann's testimony, that 1840 premiere had half a thousand singers and instrumentalists, and caused such enthusiasm and fervor that not a sound was heard throughout the concert. Something that was repeated on this Barcelona night with the Palau packed inside (150 musicians) and off the stage. The Covid pandemic educated the public about coughs. Now you have to learn to wait for the director to finish the piece before bursting into applause.
This February 15, the first-rate historicist groups that Helgenbrock founded in the 90s arrive at the National Auditorium of Madrid in the Ibermúsica cycle with A German Requiem.
