Another ‘half-full’ Bartok concert in Munich
mainHere’s the next in the series of Bartok for Europe, played by the Munich Chamber Orchestra at the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche last night. This was the downstairs area. The galleries were completely vacant.
Of the 400 seats available about 120 were occupied, according to a visitor. And perhaps half of those were paid for.
Poor Bartok.
UPDATE: The programme was:
JOSEPH HAYDN – Symphony No. 52 in C minor
SÁNDOR VERESS – Passacaglia concertante
MOZART – Oboe Concerto in C Major KV 314
BARTÓK – Divertimento for strings
BARTÓK – Divertimento for strings
Remember, Bartok is music like Elgar, Strauss, Ravel, Rachmaninov or Tchaikovxky, Xenakis and Stockhousen are MUSIC for the avant-gardists…
I don’t think I would go for a full Bartok concert myself so I don’t blame the public of Munich ! Music must remain a pleasure not a duty !
The program was not full Bartok. It was Haydn, Mozart, Veress and Bartok.
So this article could equally have been headlined ‘Another half-full Mozart/Haydn concert’.
I most certainly wood! It’s all old-hat here in England in 2016! But even the Germans have to choose what they spend their money on like we do. How much were the tickets? Nothing to.do.with beer drinking, and it’s not quite October … yet …
Bartok is last century music ….
That’s a shame. Veress is a very good composer, unfortunately underplayed.
Quite a few contemporary music organisations are going to be in trouble if we’re going to start saying that complimentary tickets don’t count. I’ve seen “sold out” new music events where more than 50% of the audience has comprised composers, publishers, PRs, critics and their students, sisters, cousins and aunts etc…
I found the gentleman in the photo – who rather sat in the last row instead of going for way better seat – amusing. Kinda put the whole situation in a nutshell.
Wonder if it makes a difference if this concert was held in a biergarten.
He can hear a more blended sound, other can hardly intererfere, and has a lot of personal space. Not bad.
Of course there are well selling and sold out concerts and opera performances in Munich during the Oktoberfest. The problem is less the composer or the repertoire, but rather bad publicity. In addition, the festival is suspected to be Hungarian government propaganda – see this article (in German):
https://www.br-klassik.de/aktuell/bartok-for-europe-festival-100.html