Musical Journey to Scotland and Ireland – Reinhausen

The voice sounded both Scottish and Irish at a well-packed town hall on Saturday. In its annual concert, the Oberhausen Music Society takes on the challenges of modern and classical music and about these countries. In mostly narrative and therefore particularly varied pieces, the orchestra showed what it could do musically. Right up to the beginning of the performances, the youth band and orchestra filled the hall with the wonderful sounds of the British Isles and made the audience excited.

The Youth Ensemble Introduction, which Angel Sommer first performed at a concert, sounded dance-like. It is true that music teacher Fritz Neubeck’s composition for youth wind orchestras does not come from the islands. But the combination of lyrical and dance forms put the audience in an appropriate mood for the traditional sound. With pieces from the popular dance show ‘Lord of the Dance’, the youngsters were in the middle of the drama of the Irish Celtic sounds and demonstrated the musical maturity the young musicians had reached.

The challenge for the orchestra is concentrated in pieces such as “Suite from Hymn of the Highlands”. In it, Philip Spark let his musical imagination soar about heights in a concert style and created a narrative series of motifs – from the delicate to the pompous. The conductor Marcus Frye and the musicians mastered the musical sparks from the island in a special way. They opened a musical portal to the audience’s fantasies and thus demonstrated the qualities of all the recorders. Some in the audience immediately had the right images from the mystical world ready for the poem from The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s fantasy can take place anywhere in the world and in all kinds of underworld. But it fits perfectly into the realm of Celtic mythology into which the orchestra has taken us.

Musicians and Riegel’s Fire Brigade Barbara Durasiak and Christoph Gerber brought a special touch to the concert. They played bagpipes – right from the coronation of the new King of England, Charles III. Coming from London. There, the sound of bagpipes, associated especially with the music and spirit of life in Scotland, was intended for the celebration of the United Kingdom. At the Bürgerhaus, many of the motifs from the Celtic past revolve around the fact that the Scots and Irish are not English and that their traditional sounds also signify resistance against invaders.