MARTIN HASELBÖCK
Credit: brucknerhaus.at
Martin Haselböck enjoys a whirlwind international career as conductor and organist that includes posts as Conductor/Founding Director of Orchester Wiener Akademie, organ professor at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts and Music Director of Long Beach-based Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra – of which the group will perform Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on April 9 and 10 at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. “Our vocalists and instrumentalists are superb specialists and my interpretation of this work is based on rhetorical concepts which enable Bach to speak to us through his music,” says Haselböck.
Born in Vienna, Haselböck’s musical background is far reaching having studied composition with new music innovator Friedrich Cerha and conducting with Claudio Abbado. And although he has given world premieres of organ works by Schnittke, Cerha, Krenek and Amy Gilbert as well as performed under conductors such as Riccardo Muti - he is a champion of the Baroque and Classical played in a context of historically informed performance.
“To perform music, we have to collect as much information as possible about the composer, the specific work and since music is a sounding form of art, we have to get close to the sound the composer had in mind. There is also the concept of musical aura which for me means goosebumps when I touch an organ played by J.S. Bach or when we use the same piano played by Franz Liszt for his second piano concerto.”
Haselböck’s globetrotting guest appearances as conductor and organist in Europe, South America, Israel, Japan and the United States include acclaimed performances of operas by Handel and Mozart, at European music festivals, and orchestral repertoire with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and National Symphony, among others.
Haselböck has made over 110 recordings encompassing releases with Wiener Akademie and as soloist in the complete organ works of Liszt that received the Diapason d’ Or award. Among these is a gem called The Sound of Weimar which features Liszt’s orchestral works performed by Wiener Akademie on period instruments (Gramola, 2018). There is more of this composer to embrace at Liszt Festival in Raiding, Austria, his down-home birth town that boasts a state of the art concert hall and birth house/museum.
Having visited there once to hear a concert at the chic Liszt Center and eat goulash in a nearby rustic restaurant, the impression was quite magical. Haselböck’s insightful comments about authentic performance help illuminate the issue and oftentimes debate about trying to recreate a historical performance. “Music is a fugitive art: it has a beginning and an end and you cannot observe it like a painting. The moment the concert is over the music is over, unless it has been recorded, and listening to the recording is not the same as attending a performance. Composers have left us a score which we follow as closely as possible, but the way you read this score can be different from musician to musician – even from concert to concert.”
Haselböck observes that Wiener Akademie has recorded RESOUND BEETHOVEN of which all of this composer’s symphonies were performed in original halls where he conducted, using instruments from Beethoven’s time. “We did use electric lights instead of candles, so we did get very close to authenticity in the sense it would please the composer.”
On April 9 and 10 Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra will perform Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Los Angeles - a masterwork that was initially premiered in Leipzig in 1727 and subsequently revived in an abridged version by Mendelssohn in 1829 in Berlin. Haselböck observes that the upcoming Musica Angelica performance will use the same number of singers and players for choir and orchestra that Bach used at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. “To have a 100-piece choir was not the concept of the composer. He used 8 soloists divided into 2 groups to tell and sing the story plus 16 singers to enlarge the vocal sound. The Evangelist narrates the story but also sings a few arias and in all the choruses, as does Jesus.”
Haselböck adds that this Passion employs a double orchestra, the largest Bach ever used and the instrumentation is quite diverse and includes three different oboes. “In 2007, my Vienna orchestra did an 18-concert tour of St. Matthew Passion together with Musica Angelica and since then this piece has become central to our repertoire. We are glad to take up the tradition again following the 2-year hiatus caused by the pandemic.”
Returning to new music, Haselböck points out that Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha (now 96 years young) and Ernst Krenek (who lived for many years in Palm Springs) became influential to his work. “Krenek, the grand composition master of the 20th century, whom I met in 1977 in Los Angeles, wrote several major organ works for me. At the moment, I am involved with editing the correspondence between us which contains more than 240 letters. Cerha edited and performed Baroque works and I learned an incredible amount from him. In my early years, I composed quite a few pieces in his style but in 2000 I decided it would be impossible for me to have the energy to perform, conduct and compose.”
Although Musica Angelica and Wiener Akademie focus on Baroque repertoire, Haselböck mentions that the emphasis has expanded with the latter group recently giving a concert at the Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein in works by Mahler, Schoenberg and Bach’s cantata Ich habe genug – all on period instruments and at two different pitches. “Wiener Akademie started with Baroque but now performs works from 1600 to 2000, all on the instruments of their time.”
Haselböck says Musica Angelica offers high quality interpretations of Baroque and Classical music on historic instruments that include works by composers such as Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel, Haydn and Mozart in addition to discovering new and unknown scores of historic music. “Charles Colburn, one of the founding donors of this group told me after the first concert, ‘Promise me never to play any music after Beethoven,’ – so our goal is to bring the best of Baroque to the communities of Long Beach, Los Angeles and Southern California.”