Thursday, August 28, 2014

Forbidden Music


There was at least one performance we wanted to check out at Oslo Kammermusikkfestival. Quite a substantial programme over two weekends. We chose a short programme in the morning themed 'Forbuddt Musikk III'. Of course the theme could only refer to composers the Third Reich banned. Some of the performances of the festival, like this one, were aptly held at Villa Grande, which used to be executed traitor Vidkun Quisling's home, and now turned into the Holocaust Study Centre. The three composers featured were Gideon Klein, Arnold Schoenberg and Beethoven. Pieces for the violin, viola and the cello. Klein's Terezin (Theresienstadt) 1944, Schoenberg's Op.45, and Beethoven's Op 9 No.3.

The musicians of the Phoebus Stryketrio (Phoebus String Trio) comprised Tor Johan Bøen, Bénédicte Royer and Aurélienne Brauner. Klein was safe and offered easy listening before the discordant melodies and extreme contrasts of Schoenberg's Op 45. I like Beethoven's 'String Trios' because they're so different from the symphonies and the piano sonatas, and Phoebus Stryketrio did a lovely job interpreting that.

Still nursed heartache over my fried Macbook, but the music made the pain easier to bear. Not so much about the data within. Those are retrievable. It's more of anger at my own carelessness. To think I've got a cover for the keyboard to protect it, yet spilled the glass of water straight into the back vents of the switched-on Macbook. Schoenberg's Op 45 amplified that pain (yah, #firstworldproblems), lifted it and by the end of Part III, the ache was soothed. 

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