Kneipp cure with tuba

"The tuba players play in the lowlands of music, in sound catacombs, (...) they are half-blind tone weights, they are the miners of music, the doormat of the orchestra." With these words, the German cabaret artist Olaf Schubert began his humorous presentation of the 2013 Echo Klassik prizewinner, the young tuba player Andreas Martin Hofmeir, at the concert for the award ceremony in the Berlin Konzerthaus. The eccentric Hofmeir, who plays barefoot like Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who is almost the same age, is the typical anti-star, someone who tries to shake things up, is involved in all musical genres and therefore cannot be pigeonholed: Orchestral musician, chamber musician, folk musician, pop musician, cabaret artist, lecturer at the Mozarteum Salzburg. A star after all!

Art needs such driving forces in order to create something new. And if anyone can tackle this for the "miners of music", it is Hofmeir. So it comes as no surprise that this exceptional artist asked his Hungarian tuba colleague and composer friend Roland Szentpali to write a work for him in order to generate literature for his underestimated solo instrument. Szentpali, only one year older than Hofmeir, presented a work with a curious instrumentation in 2014 - matching the curiosity of Hofmeir - with which he proved Olaf Schubert wrong: the Chill Fantasy for tuba, piano, percussion and string quintet. Everything is demanded of the soloist here, and the tuba turns out to be a highly acrobatic, agile solo instrument capable of incredibly high notes. The basic jazzy orientation of the piece is supported by the possibility of free improvisation (for tuba and piano) on jazz harmonies, whereby the composer offers a fully composed version for "non-jazzers". A solo piece for tuba that only conforms to a certain classical standard in its three movements, but is otherwise more likely to be understood and enjoyed as a musical Kneipp cure - barefoot, of course!

Roland Szentpali: Chill Fantasy for tuba, piano, drum set and string quintet, TU185; score and parts Fr. 78.00; orchestral score Fr. 42.00; Editions Bim, Vuarmarens 2015