Bells, ghosts, glass harmonica

Three older gentlemen with suspenders set up the room for their musical rehearsal. They push the walls and chairs into place, mumble to themselves and arrange their props. As they move around, two cowbells sound as if by chance in a common chord, one from the right, one from the left. But at the latest when the pushing noise of the chairs turns into a three-part piece of music, it is clear that the piece is about Ländler want a say nothing is left to chance at the Kapelle Eidgenössisch Moos. The trio led by Ruedi Häusermann opens the festival Schweizgenössisch - Die Schweiz in Berlin with a charming mixture of music theater, concert, tourist tour and public rehearsal. Their aim is not to avoid clichés. Rather, it seems as if the three musicians have set themselves the task of forcing all, really all ideas on this subject, even the silliest ones, into one evening: The music of Ländlerkönig Kasi Geisser, texts by Robert Walser, appearances by animals, a "choir doubler" realized with technical means, a yodelling machine ... The three devote themselves to all theatrical means with seriousness and musical precision. Poetic, subtle, funny, concentrated, overloaded and sonically dense moments alternate and finally culminate in a "convivial finale" with Swiss folk music on the banks of the Spree and in the evening sunshine: a very nice opening!

The music of the Yilian Cañizares Quartet from Lausanne is less rooted in Switzerland than in the world. The singer and violinist Yilian Cañizares, who comes from Havana, leads the audience through her varied program in Spanish, French and English. South American dance rhythms and unison jazz lines alternate with floating, esoteric ballads. The radiant Cañizares in the white dress takes samba steps, shakes her curls, improvises with violin and voice at the same time, always supported by the solid basic sound of her band. However, pianist Daniel Stawinski is particularly convincing as a soloist, who for this one moment is completely absorbed in the music, lost in it and takes you along on the waves of his piano playing.

Claude-Alain Sulzer's event, on the other hand, leaves one rather perplexed. One under the title Anna's mask The program says to expect a literary concert developed especially for the festival. Sulzer reads from his novella of the same name, which deals with the life of Swiss singer Anna Suttner - and in particular the scandalous circumstances of her death. We learn right at the beginning that she was shot. About her lover. And that she was a famous performer of Carmen. In between, a long-winded recitation of the biographies of all those involved in a self-congratulatory, overflowing style, mostly without punchlines, and also, again and again and for a very long time: music! Benjamin Nyffenegger on the cello and Oliver Schnyder on the piano play with virtuosity and feeling. What the Rachmaninov Sonata is supposed to have to do with the narrative, however, cannot be seen for the life of me. The novella's already rather thin arc of suspense is stretched over several episodes and musical interludes - which in no way improves a narrative with few surprises. What was developed here especially for the festival?

Jürg Kienberger, although a comedian, is not necessarily a master of timing either. His program I bee, ergo buzzin which he deals with the life and death of bees, begins with the appearance of a solo entertainer on the keyboard. The disguised Kienberger fires up the audience with thigh-slappers on a par with the title of his piece - and does himself no favors by closing the audience's ears to the finer things right at the beginning. And yet these are the greatest moments of his program: when a slight melancholy, when a forlornness becomes palpable: that of the bees, that of Jürg Kienberger, and the lost position on which everyone who deals with the small world of bees seems to have always stood. A beehive stands on the stage the whole time, from which a constant buzzing can be heard almost imperceptibly. At the end it has fallen silent. It is touching and sad when Kienberger picks up the glass organ and sings in a high, fragile voice: "What do we want to sing now, here in solitude, when all of us have gone, whom our song delights ..." The audience, which is eager to laugh, can't stand it and applauds in the middle of the floating last note. It's a shame that Kienberger's misguided dramaturgy takes the sting out of it.

The festival concluded with the music theater When I die directed by Thom Luz. Several keyboard instruments stand on the otherwise empty stage: pianos, a Wurlitzer, a glass harmonica. A woman sits at the piano with a porcelain cup on top. Slowly and in several attempts, she pushes the cup off the edge so that it falls with a clatter. The ticking of a clock comes to the fore. A male quartet sings English pop songs, the woman interrupts. It's about the life of Rosemary Brown, who in the 1960s claimed to be a medium and to be visited by deceased composers, most notably Franz Liszt. The composers would dictate the missing parts of unfinished compositions to her. The stage becomes an intermediate world. Imaginary space, apartment, sound space, concert hall, afterlife, death chamber. The composers appear, whisper, make music, disappear again. Rosemary Brown sings in a thin voice, plays along, speaks along, interrupts. Large black boxes roll across the stage as if by magic. Everything is darkened, dusky, shrouded in fog. The performers appear only as silhouettes against the light. And as voices that sing, speak, whisper.
When I die is a subtly arranged evening that uses all theatrical means, above all music, to tell the story of the unconscious. The characters and events remain strangely intangible and ambiguous, and everything seems somewhat removed. On the way out, it feels as if you've just seen a ghost.