“But for the premiere in Savannah earlier this year, Brandauer was ill with pneumonia,” Hope recounts, “and the replacement actor we found at the last moment was… The amazing thing is that you can put anything into that concert. You can play Schnittke, Kurt?or Ligeti and they will still enjoy it. It’s absolutely possible to show people that this music is marvellous and “accessible” just by adding that visual, narrative element, without turning it into a circus and without detracting from the music in any way.”Hope and Brandauer’s first project was entitled War and Pieces, centring on Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale but integrating readings from Goethe and the poetry of young Bosnians caught up in the Balkan conflict and even arranging Beethoven’s Egmont Overture for the same musical forces as the Stravinsky.
“But they’ll come to a Brandauer evening, which strikes them as being different and creative, with something going on, and then they’ll like the music. The violinist Daniel Hope, 29, who was awarded this year’s Classical Brit for Best Young British Artist, has been collaborating extensively with Klaus Maria Brandauer. He has discovered that the results not only galvanise his own generation into hearing music they might otherwise avoid, but also add hugely to the possibilities of his repertoire.”I have friends who wouldn’t be seen dead at a classical concert,” Hope remarks. The actor Malcolm Sinclair, who reads the words of Schumann and Brahms in Beloved Clara, remarks: “Storytelling is the most ancient form of art and that’s still true today, when music and poetry have just about disappeared from our TV screens People love being read to. And for someone like me who doesn’t sing but loves music, it’s extraordinary to be part of a musical performance. My first experience working with musicians was when I had to replace Meryl Streep at short notice, narrating A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Extracts of the play make more sense of the music, but to speak Oberon’s words over that wonderful Mendelssohn score is overwhelming.”Not surprisingly, it is the younger generation of musicians who are most eager to develop this new form of music theatre. Afterwards, people told me this had added greatly to their appreciation of the piece; the response was so strong that I realised it could be taken further. Beloved Clara has had the most positive response of any concert I’ve ever done. It’s an extremely emotional story, and even if you know nothing about music, you can’t help but be drawn in by the human content.”Audience appeal is key to this new genre: the elusive, new, younger audiences that the music world is desperate to attract simply love storytelling. And in Finland, the Turku Philharmonic has launched an evening called Stravinsky Scandal, recreating the notorious world premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring complete with audience rioting. The possibilities seem limitless, fertile and dynamic.Lucy Parham came up with the idea for Beloved Clara through talking to audiences at her own recitals.
