Tango in the Church of St. Nicholas

For the first time, the Brandenburg summer concerts are welcomed to Oranienburg

"The tango as a dance is the most beautiful of all things. One must approach it with force and with great affection." This statement was made by district cantor Elisabeth Brunnemann-Rademacher in introduction to the "Tango im Blütenmeer". It was an event of the Brandenburg summer concerts. For the first time Oranienburg was included in this selection of musical host towns, and on the Sunday the Church of St. Nicholas was as full as it only otherwise becomes at Christmas. With the appearance of Cuarteto Rotterdam, the connection with the Netherlands – home of the electress Louise Henriett - was made once more.
Did the walls of Oranienburg’s Church of St. Nicholas ever held such musical power and tenderness, passion and melancholy before? The flames of the fireworks of sound flew high, loaded with virtuosity, refined arrangements, expressiveness and romantic and sensual interpretations. Around 600 guests, who at some points appeared to hold their breath and who almost raised the roof at the end with their cries of encore, experienced the tango as fellow travellers, in its most artistically ambitious and expressive form. And in it they also experienced the transition between dance and concert styles. The result was the successful relocation of this most sensual of all dances from the streets and bordellos of Argentina in the 19th century to the stage of the concert hall. That is to the credit of Astor Piazzolla and his "Tango Nuevo", which could not fail on Sunday.
Cuarteto Rotterdam is the name of the globally played quartet, founded in 2004 by students of the Rotterdam Academy for World Music. It was with great abandon that the interpretation by Judy Ruks, the sole Dutch member of the group, enraptured. She lives out her love of the tango on the piano with breathtaking piano runs and painstakingly arrested temperaments. "Wonderful", "fabulous" and "grandiose" raved the guests at the end of the concert afternoon.
The concert in the Church of St. Nicholas was integrated into a mutual gathering for coffee, a tour of the castle museum and old town and a reading by the former priest of the Leipzig Church of St. Nicholas, Christian Führer, in the orangery.

Rotraud Wieland
Märkische Allgemeine, 11.08.2009

Return