Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica played in Wels

Before a tour of Italy, Gidon Kremer stopped off with friends in Wels and completed a public dress rehearsal with his Kremerata Baltica at Bernau Castle in order to present the result at a concert with the Minoriten Wels in the evening.

The first half of the program was particularly impressive, with music by Latvian composers that we rarely heard, which immersed the audience in fascinating worlds of sound. For example, in the dialogue with trees in “Lignum” by Jekabs Jancevskis or with the fragment “I like Schubert”, in which Vidmantas Bartulis leads an exciting dialogue with the music of the past.

Just as convincing in its subtle sound world is the work “Pages of a biography” by Georgs Pelecis, which was conceived as a violin concerto and was tailored to the founder and director of the Kremerata Baltica, Gidon Kremer, and was played brilliantly by him that evening, in which there is a lot of autobiography about the two of them who have been close friends of musicians since their student days in Riga.

In the second part: something more familiar and yet in an unusual form. Because Chopin’s 2nd Piano Concerto seems unusual in a pure string orchestra setting, although the Moscow-born composition professor at the University of Texas, Yevgeniy Sharlat, conceived a great arrangement that leaves almost nothing missing.

Subtle pianist: Georgijs Osokins

Georgijs Osokins was the subtle pianist who, technically speaking, interacted delicately with the Kremerata Baltica and thus revealed a wonderful chamber music experience. As with the works before it, the mastery of the Kremerata could be experienced, namely, without a conductor, all musicians could listen and react to each other with full responsibility, which evoked intense music-making.

The conclusion was Winter and Spring from Piazzolla’s “Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas” with Gidon Kremer as a fine soloist.

Conclusion: Perfectly coordinated music-making at the highest level.