Göttinger Tageblatt, 13th November 2007
Music and Text put together in great refinement.
”Ein Teutsches Lustgärtlein” : Capella Caesarea together with Klaus Hemmerle in the Alten Rathaus
If it were possible to travel in time, fewest would choose the period of the Thirty Years’ War. That it is possible for this period to be appealing (at least when experienced as a concertgoer in the Alten Rathaus) was proven by the ensemble “Capella Caesarea” on Friday with the programme entitled “Ein Teutsches Lustgärtlein” (“A German pleasure-garden”) together with the Stuttgart-based actor Klaus Hemmerle.The terminology “pleasure-garden” has its origins in the 17th century and was used to describe musical and literary collections. In the concert by “Capella Caesarea” music from the 17th century performed on original instruments alternated with readings given by Hemmerle of texts from Grimmelshausen’s “Simplicissimus”. What at first seemed to be parallel and unconnected was soon brought to a refined whole.
The six musicians open with Matthias Weckmann’s (1619 – 1664) Sonate II à 4 and at once play superbly well together. The ensemble performs with life and breath, each musician understands not only the importance of their own parts but also of the whole. Thus there emerges an absolute and wonderful emotional interpretation, free from anything unnecessary, technically so light-footed that it opens the direct way to understanding the compositions for the audience. How convincing a mutually worked out musical understanding sounds is made here impressively clear.
Powerful and vigorous
In Hemmerle they have found a congenial speaker. He transports Grimmelshausen’s texts not only powerfully and vigorously, but finds his place in the ensemble through that same approach which also distinguishes the musicians: wholly at the service of the text he makes do without the usual demonstrative gestures of actors and thus finds his way to the core of the literature, with most effect in the passages in dialogue.
What works wonderfully are the moments, where individual instruments accompany spoken passages, or the music starts already at the end of a passage. Here especially it becomes clear, how music and text have been conceptually linked with each other. However, one still has no wish to experience the Thirty Years’ War personally. But so excellently did Hemmerle and the “Capella Caesarea” paint the atmosphere of this time that the audience was justifiably enthusiastic.
Christoph Jensen