Happy Birthday, Carl Reinecke!

In November 1843, Carl Reinecke made his debut as a pianist at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with a work by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The composer himself had arranged the 19-year-old’s performance. During this time, Reinecke also became acquainted with Robert Schumann and even founded a string quartet dedicated to the dissemination of Schumann’s works. He particularly admired the work of these two masters and they inspired him for his own work.
Reinecke was not only a well-known pianist of his time, but also composed around 300 works, taught piano at the Cologne Conservatory from 1851 and conducted the Gewandhausorchester for 35 years from 1860.

Reinecke would have been 200 years old on June 23, 2024. The Kölner Akademie conducted by Michael Alexander Willens celebrated this with a concert featuring works by his two greatest role models and Reinecke himself. The Kölner Akademie opens with Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture, which is as mysterious and full of wild beauty as the eponymous Scottish archipelago. The musicians play on period instruments – the strings create a warm, dense sound, while the woodwinds come across as light and bouncy. The untameable can also be heard in Reinecke’s harp concerto. In the first movement, one musical motif follows another, but soloist Caroline Nobst always stands out proudly and majestic. The solo cadenza is listened to with rapt attention and the most varied timbres are discovered. The second movement is composed in a fairy-tale style with delicate vocal melodies, before the piece ends with a cheeky scherzo.

The orchestra also plays an overture by Schumann. His music to Schiller’s “The Bride of Messina” expressively foreshadows the tragic events of the drama. In his second symphony, with which the Kölner Akademie closes the evening, Reinecke was also inspired by a drama. He composed his symphony after reading Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger’s poems, in which the Viking legend Håkon Jarl plays the leading role. In various scenes, Reinecke describes his impressions of the hero and other characters – whether heroically soaring, resembling a baroque dance or rather pensive. What exactly the characters experience is left to the listener’s imagination.

Further dates:
October 10, 2024, Ventana Cologne
October 11, 2024, Trinitatiskirche Bonn