Diversions Manifold

Well, the pun will: this enjoyable concert with the Bachchor Heidelberg last night, singing the Weihnachtsoratorio (Christmas Oratorio), or - to give it its full name - the   Oratorium in Festum Nativitatis Christi   from   C.H. Graun , was simply a delight. It's a charming piece dotted with not too challenging yet still interesting chorales and fugues for the choir, amongst the usual mix of arias and recitatives from the soloists telling and reflecting on the nativity story. Our conductor for this concert was  Jörg Halubek , whose website and photos make him look grander and more arrogant than he actually is. All in all, a light, happy concert bringing good cheer, if at least temporarily, for those who had to drive out of a packed centre of Heidelberg.

In the spirit of catching up on some drafts , I felt I had to get this one out sooner rather than even later. The impressions left upon me by Bruckner's Eighth Symphony, though very much attenuated by time, still resonate, amplified a little by completing this post - which is, of course, one of the key points of a blog. It was on the 22nd May 2012 that we left our daughters in the capable hands of Oma and Opa and cycled down to the Stadthalle in the warm evening sunshine to (watch? Hear?) experience the symphony played by the Heidelberg Philharmoniker under the baton (and hair) of  Cornelius Meister  in his final series of concerts before leaving for the richer delights of Vienna. The symphony is an enormous, programme-filling late romantic beast of a piece, very much on the cusp of a new era. Written between 1884 and 1887, when Mahler was hitting his stride and starting to redefine symphonic performance, with Stockhausen and his ilk were not far behind, it feels like th