Sound and Image closes
Via Salzburg Season

Sybille Forster-Rentmeister

The end of Via Salzburg’s 11^th season was yet another innovative surprise. The title of Sound and Image referred to the second offering of the evening, a composition by German born (Ulm, 1968) composer Michael Oesterle. He is one of Canada’s most lauded young composers, winning all sorts of amazing prizes.

“Unreasonable world” rests on ideas about science and reason versus its opposite or rather the social impulses nature presents us with in many different forms. Enter Christopher Hinton, a multiple award winning animator and you have a unique presentation of what music or sound looks like in the mind of one individual.

Translating one art form into another is not unusual, words inspire music or the other way around, a poem might lend inspiration to a painting and so on, a composition might translate into a ballad…music might be used to create a painting - and we have seen it on that same stage - but it is unusual in this particular constellation.

The animated, minimalistic line drawings wiggled and jumped as a response to the sounds created by the chamber orchestra and were not devoid of humorous notions, illustrating that in an unreasonable world it is reasonable to expect the unexpected, which can give rise to odd constellations that can invite laughter as part of the reasoning.

Like it or not, agree with it or not, the attempt was an interesting experiment that had strong communication to offer to Via Salzburg’s always interested audience.

Framed was this work by all British composers, namely Sir Edward Elgar and Benjamin Britten, familiarizing us with some very lovely works.

It is always a pleasure to listen to program explanations and introductions of the evening by cello player John Marshman, who in his humorous way lets us know who is who and how they got there and what they do or not do. It is also noted that the next season is shaping up nicely and has been created as a plan already, including a young composer competition. For all the details one should visit the website of Via Salzburg (www.viasalzburg.com) to learn more about Mayumi Seiler and her merry band of superb musicians.