Mention Schleswig-Holstein to the average German, and he is likely to think of a region of unspoiled lakes and fjords, pleasant offshore islands and spas, quaint dairy farms and cornfields, quiet villages and towns. Mention Schleswig-Holstein to the average foreigner, however, and the best response you are likely to turn up is: ”That`s where they make all that marzipan, isn`t it?”
Now natives as well as outsiders the world over will recognize Schleswig- Holstein for the quality of its Mozart as well as its marzipan.
The Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the first salvo of what promises to be a major annual event in this most northerly region of West Germany, and by far the most diverse and ambitious music festival ever presented in that nation, opened last summer with a fortissimo flourish.
For seven weeks beginning June 29, seemingly every church, cathedral, concert hall, town hall and castle in the scenic region came alive with concerts, recitals, symposia and master classes–some 110 events in all, many of them televised or broadcast. With German pianist Justus Frantz, the festival`s founder, principal organizer and benign paterfamilias, reigning over a literally movable feast of music, the festival proved to be the kind of instant success–artistic as well as financial–that impresarios dream about. Schleswig-Holstein is popularly known as the ”Land Between Two Seas”–
the Baltic and North seas–whose 2.6 million residents have tended to regard their comparative isolation from the rest of West Germany rather as an emblem of moral superiority. The verdant region bordered by Hamburg on the south and Denmark on the north attracts relatively few American tourists. Perhaps one reason has been the lack of cultural amenities: Since the early years of this century the musical life of Schleswig-Holstein, despite its rich traditions, has remained in a provincial holding pattern.
With last summer`s bold cultural transformation, however, Schleswig-Holstein has entered the summerfest big leagues.
And with ticket prices scaled within reach of the average music-lover, Germans flocked to a cavernous arena in Kiel, the region`s seaport-capital, to hear Leonard Bernstein conduct the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Chorus in Haydn`s ”Creation.” Pianists Claudio Arrau and Andrei Gavrilov, singers Hermann Prey and Brigitte Fassbaender, and violinists Young Uck Kim and Yehudi Menuhin gave concerts, the latter with his Menuhin School Orchestra. The Sinfonia Varsovia presented new Polish music.
When he wasn`t playing master of the musical revels, or hosting parties for dignitaries and prospective angels, Frantz presented a marathon series of duo concerts throughout the region with his longtime partner, pianist Christoph Eschenbach.
Lubeck`s 13th-Century St. Mary`s Church, where Buxtehude once served as organist, was the site of the opening and closing concerts, a performance of Mozart`s ”Great” Mass in C minor, directed by Wolfgang Gonnenwein; and the Verdi Requiem, under Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos.
As counterforce to the celebrity events were recitals by roughly 50 young artists from various countries who have yet to make international names for themselves, but who clearly enjoy the potential to do so.
Central to music director Frantz`s artistic philosophy was creating a relaxed, but disciplined, environment that would prove favorable for young performers coming in with no preconceptions about how music should be made.
This credo carried over into the work of more established artists as well. When more people showed up for a recital by Sviatoslav Richter at Hasselburg`s rococo palace than its ornate salon could accommodate, Frantz put the festival`s democratic ideals into practice: He moved the recital to a large barn on the grounds of the 15th-Century estate–an unlikely place in which to savor the pianist`s Schubert, perhaps, but an occasion for rich poetic outpouring, as the cooing of the resident swallows attested.
The festival program committee made every effort to match music with setting, along the lines of such established European music festivals as Glyndebourne, Aix and Flanders. In a lakeside amphitheater in the tiny, all-brick, 18th Century town of Eutin, London`s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and soloists played works by Eutin`s favorite son, Carl Maria von Weber, on the 200th anniversary of the composer`s birth.
Czech pianist Ivan Moravec appeared with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in the lovely baroque church of Rendsburg, where their patrician refinement seemed ideally suited to Mozart`s K.488 piano concerto and, not incidentally, to the warmly intimate acoustics of the Christkirche. This was the festival at its very best, an inspired fusion of creative impulses spanning four centuries.
Given the hothouse nature of summer festivals in general, Schleswig-Holstein`s in particular, it was perhaps inevitable that some of the performances heard over a week of breathless serendipity were distinguished more by rough-hewn vigor than polished execution. It took no expert to hear that violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the Brahms Double Concerto were an odd match for Kiel`s 8,000-seat Ostseehalle, an acoustical horror that normally logs populist duty as a soccer stadium.
Ultimately, nobody paid much mind to these occasional miscalculations. Musicians and audiences alike were caught up in the euphoria generated by a first-time venture that was succeeding beyond all expectations. Despite the prevalence of Ausverkauft (sold out) signs, long lines of music lovers snaked around concert halls and churches, forcing the presenters to set up folding chairs in the aisles, much to the displeasure of the local fire marshals. Shedding their normally sober mien, the Schleswig-Holstein audiences leaped to their feet in sustained applause. Many sold-out concerts had to be repeated to accommodate the faithful.
The only real disappointment, as far as Frantz was concerned, was the comparative absence of American visitors. That, he says, was due as much to the difficulties of getting the festival publicized in the United States (the PR effort began last March) as to the general lag in tourism inspired by terrorist fears. He seems confident that once the word on what he glowingly calls ”Germany`s hidden treasure” gets out on this side of the Atlantic, more Americans will be taking part in the festival, not only as audience members, but as performers, too.
Frantz had long wanted to make a cultural statement in this most northerly part of Germany, using the large halls of Hamburg and Kiel to seat thousands and thus keep prices down. ”The one thing I was determined not to create here was another Bayreuth or Salzburg.”
To put together such a colossal cornucopia of music hinged not only on the availability of busy artists such as Bernstein and Richter, but also on securing the cooperation of powerful government officials. Luckily, Frantz enjoys a wide range of contacts in and out of the music business.
This year`s festival budget totaled 5 million Deutschmarks, approximately $2.5 million. About half of that came from ticket sales, the rest in private donations, state and federal subsidy. Frantz says he has received assurances that future funding is secure. This, in turn, has spurred the intendant to proceed with plans for a greatly expanded agenda of activities next year.
The 1987 festival will establish an International Music Academy at which artists such as soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and violinist Henryk Szeryng will conduct classes, and at which courses in German philosophy and art history will supplement the music instruction. ”We thought it would be useful for our young American musicians to better understand the milieu,” Frantz explains.
Also in preparation is an International Youth Orchestra, which will tour the region with two programs under Bernstein`s direction. Frantz`s plan is for the youth orchestra eventually to tour the world, with leading conductors at its helm, as a roving musical ambassador for the festival. Bernstein is reported to be so pleased with the heady musical atmosphere of Schleswig-Holstein that he is canceling his annual appearance next summer at the Tanglewood Festival to devote time to the new youth orchestra.
For 1988 Frantz promises to add opera to the Schleswig-Holstein mix with a series of staged Mozart operas using the St. Martin`s academy under Neville Marriner, who had presided over this year`s Moravec/Mozart program. ”We didn`t have any artists who didn`t want to come back to the festival,” says the music director. ”Richter will probably be here for three weeks of
`spontaneous` concerts”–with or without the barn swallows.
