Chamber concert with piano & accordion
A fascinating characteristic of music is that different, contradictory things happen in it at the same time and that the harmony of these opposites makes sense. To make this audible, we contrast the accordion with its organ-like sound with the piano, whose notes begin harder and fade away faster - this opens up the different levels of a composition to our listeners, who experience the work from a new perspective. The effect is astounding: Ludwig van Beethoven's last piano sonata op. 111, a work as magnificent as it is unwieldy, becomes accessible and touching in the arrangement for accordion and piano. With this work, Beethoven pushed open the door to a new age of great emotion, a great sense of sound and great inner turmoil - Romanticism. "Prélude, Fugue et Variation" by César Franck is Romanticism through and through: the form (prelude and fugue) tells of a fabulously transfigured past and when listening to it, one cannot escape the thought of having dreamed of this melody before. César Franck initially wrote this work for organ and then reworked it into a duo for piano and harmonium, probably for exactly the same reasons that we choose our instrumentation today. The step from the harmonium to the accordion, with which we perform the work, is a small one: the tone production of both instruments is closely related to the organ, but the accordion is more expressive and much more flexible in its handling. In fact, there is already original romantic music for the accordion-piano combination. We play the Schumanesque Sonata op. 57 by Bernhard Molique. However, the discoverer of this special blend of sounds is actually an
opera composer: many years after his last opera, Gioachino Rossini wrote the "Petite Messe Solennelle" for harmonium and piano, which despite its name is quite large-scale. His publisher insisted on a second version for large orchestra, but Rossini stipulated that this could only be performed after his death. He didn't want to hear it! Neither do we. The original, from which we play some instrumental movements, is of perfect beauty.
Antje Steen - Accordion Antje Steen studied accordion with Prof. Hugo Noth at the State Academy of Music in Trossingen. She specialized in baroque and modern music. She has won numerous national and international competitions. After graduating with honors, she expanded her spectrum to include another instrument, the bandoneon. She first studied it in Buenos Aires and then with Klaus Gutjahr in Berlin. Antje Steen is a founding member of the ensemble OPERASSION. Her first CD "Buenos Aires - mi amor" (ANTES) was released in 2006. Since then she has performed with accordion and bandoneon in renowned chamber music formations, as a soloist with orchestra and in music theater. Her spectrum ranges from baroque to tango nuevo and contemporary music. Antje Steen is even at home in the classical-romantic opera repertoire. At the Hamburg Chamber Opera, she has repeatedly taken on central roles in scores newly orchestrated for chamber ensemble. Her CD "Passion" with chamber music by Astor Piazzolla and Johann Sebastian Bach was awarded five stars as "Recommendation of the Month" by the renowned specialist magazine Fono Forum.
Fabian Dobler - piano and arrangements As a conductor, Fabian Dobler has led countless theater productions and concerts. International engagements have taken him to Buenos Aires (Argentinian State Theater) and Seoul (Sejong Performing Center). As a pianist, he has attracted attention with extraordinary recordings (including Liszt transcriptions on Animato; Alfred Koerppen Edition - world premiere and first recording - on harmonia mundi). Dobler studied piano with Karl Heinz Kämmerling, conducting with Lutz Köhler and Hans-Herbert Jöris, composition with Alfred Koerppen and philosophy with Ulrich Pothast at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover. In Zurich, he completed his training with Nello Santi (conducting, Italian opera) and Marc Belfort (cultural management). Since founding his ensemble OPERASSION in 2004 and even more so during his time as musical director of the Hamburg Chamber Opera from 2009 to 2014, he has increasingly focused on the topic of recomposing. Dobler is pursuing a new approach: musical arrangement as interpretation. The keywords are condensing, intensifying and transporting into our contemporary world of experience. In this way, great works are condensed into a kind of chamber music essence, which can also appear in a completely unexpected sound. Dobler reveals previously unheard aspects, but always respects the idea behind the notes of the original. He works for many theaters, orchestras and ensembles, including the Kremerata, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the NDR Elphilharmonie Orchestra, and also composes his own works, which he performs with OPERASSION. His ensemble's most recent project received two film awards.
