Carinthischer Sommer
Composer and soloist Alma Deutscher (12) brought cheers at the opening of the Carinthischer Sommer
She is only twelve years old. At the tender age of two, she began to play the piano, violin came along at three, at four she began to compose. In addition to other works, she composed the opera “Cinderella”, which premiered in 2016. So it wasn’t long before Alma Deutscher was labelled a “wunderkind”. Zubin Mehta even referred to her as one of the most important musical talents. Now the British girl could be heard as composer and soloist in the opening concert of the Carinthischer Sommer in the packed Villach Congress Center.
Her music is tonal, very catchy and strongly evokes the familiar and already heard (a little Mozart, a little Mendelssohn, etc.) but is developed very artistically. She herself stresses in interviews that she wants to write beautiful music and doesn’t mind taking into account that she may be considered old-fashioned.
After her very pretty overture “Dance of the Mermaids”, the audience heard a reworked version of her First Violin Concerto, in which Deutscher performed the solo part herself: her playing is sensitive and clean whereby she is also in a position to dig in powerfully. Her enormous virtuosity and self-confident maturity were surprising. As a finale, she was to be heard as soloist in the premiere of her First Piano Concerto: also here many fine tones and amazingly high technique.
She was accompanied very carefully by the Vienna Chamber Orchestra under Joji Hattori. In between, the music of another wunderkind was heard, namely the seldom-performed Symphony No. 1, K. 16 by Mozart, which he wrote at the age of eight.
And because the cheering of the audience wouldn’t stop, Alma gave a pianistic encore – but what a one! She let members of the audience take slips of paper that contained one note out of a little bag carried around by a young girl. With these four notes she began to improvise masterfully, so that sparks flew. Helmut Christian Concerts until August 26.
Information/ tickets: www.carinthischersommer.at