Concert review by Fritz Jurmann in theVorarlberger Nachrichten, Februar 25th 2024.
Röthis. It is not only their shared, idyllic hometown in the Vorderland that has nurtured the remarkable artistic friendship between composer Gerda Poppa and pianist Hanna Bachmann in recent years. It is also their mutual understanding of what music can achieve, coupled with a shared, often impulsive creative energy, that has secured this mother–daughter duo a strong presence in the musical world.
Most recently, Hanna Bachmann delighted her steadily growing audience with her fourth digital Advent calendar. Only a stubborn flu kept her from appearing three weeks later at the next of her own Schlössle concert series — a programm now rescheduled for Saturday evening. Perhaps this forced period of rest did the young artist good, allowing her to re-center herself within her now international career as soloist, accompanist, and chamber musician, and to reconnect with her classical roots.
Thus, even a so frequently played work as Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” at the opening sounded like a measure of peace in turbulent times. Even the virtuosic third movement here was no struggle or strain, but rather a triumph of craftsmanship in the spirit of the composer himself.
Then came the turn of composer Gerda Poppa, whose first oratorio will premiere in Rankweil on March 17th. Her active creativity had been abruptly interrupted by the pandemic in spring 2020 — or rather, transformed. For out of the mood of the first lockdown she composed a piano work for Hanna Bachmann not drawn from external images but from raw emotion.
The result is Poppa’s most radical composition to date: a ten-minute portrait of the uncertainty and solitude of its time, compact and uncompromising in its articulation of fate — lost chords and extinguished melodies mirroring loneliness and disquiet. It is a compendium of her emotional world at that moment, driven by a despair that presses the virtual reset button: back to the beginning. “Reset” is also the title of this captivating piano work, which Hanna Bachmann interprets wide awake, bringing out both its biting contrasts and its blend of disturbance and hope. The Austrian premiere earned warm appreciation from the audience.
To conclude her “Picturesque Piano Recital” Hanna Bachmann chose “Das Jahr” (The Year), the piano cycle of twelve character pieces by the German composer Fanny Hensel from 1841 which was inspired by her journey to Italy. This emphasizes her focus on women composers through the centuries. Moreover, her idea of visually accompanying the cycle with contemporary paintings proved a triumph.
With some persuasive charm, she succeeded in engaging the well-known painter Christian Stl Holzknecht, based in Ortisei in Val Gardena. Inspired by the piano pieces, he created a masterful series of paintings in his new technique on spruce-wood panels: works of strong, often figurative expression, bold color, and originality of motif. As these images were projected during the performance, the live music seemed to bring them to life. Their colours shone in vibrant dialogue with the shimmering, sculpted sounds of the piano, and for nearly an hour an intense atmosphere filled the hall.
Hanna Bachmann, highly focused, gave this cycle the decisive brilliance it required. The petite 31-year-old transformed this little-known but technically demanding work, with its full textures, melodic richness, and Romantic chromaticism into a finely shaded, masterful achievement of pianistic art, and thus another milestone in her young career. The Röthis audience was enthralled.