An interview with harpsichordist, fortepiano player, pedagogue and composer Johann Sonnleitner. The long-time companion of Nikolaus Harnoncourt talks about his musical career and, above all, about his main field of research: historical tempi.

An encounter with an extraordinary musician, researcher and human being.

Recorded in Zurich on March 15, 2019.

Playlist on Youtube

Photos: Andi Dietrich

The first “child” of the A Tempo project has seen the light of day as a CD/DVD: Beethoven A Tempo. The presentation concert at St. Laurenzen Church in St. Gallen was well attended. I gave a general introduction to the A Tempo Project and introduced the subject of tempo in a playful way. I then played – not Beethoven, but the work that forms the third part of the A Tempo project: Robert Schumann’s wonderful and passionate Fantasy in C major, Opus 17. 

The audience was enchanted by Schumann’s poetry and listened to these unique sounds with great focus. – And afterwards there were many nice conversations at the crowdfunding table as well as at the CD table.

A Tempo Project 

Another concert as part of my "A Tempo Project": The final concert of the second "Look into the Future" festival in Burghausen/Raitenhaslach featured Franz Liszt's magnificent Fantasie und Fuge über Ad nos, ad salutarem undam at the center.

This was my second time performing at the festival and I was delighted to see some familiar faces again! 

An innovative new organ project is being implemented in the church of St. Laurenzen. The project involves the complete retention of the existing Kuhn organ and its simultaneous comprehensive expansion with three new pipe locations. These are designed according to the three main timbres of the organ. Opposite the current organ, on the west gallery, principal stops focusing on the bass range will be built, flute stops on the south gallery and string stops on the north gallery. The entire system is operated by a mobile general console, which can be placed discreetly to one side for the liturgy and visibly in the baptismal font area of the church for concerts.

Following an extensive discussion, the proposed deficit guarantee was approved by an overwhelming majority at the citizens' meeting of the Protestant parish of St. Gallen Centrum on April 28, 2019. The detailed planning of the instrument lasted until 2022. Installation will take place from January 2023.

The press response has already been very positive:

• Organ renovation in St. Laurenzen church creates a unique sound (TVO, January 9, 2023)
• Surround sound for St. Laurenzen: How a unique instrument is being created in the Protestant Reformed City Church in St.Gallen (St. Galler Tagblatt, 23.1.2023)
• Church of St. Lawrence (St. Galler Tagblatt, April 5, 2019)
• St. Gallen could soon become an even more attractive organ city (St. Galler Tagblatt, April 24, 2019)
• Organ extension is approved: St.Gallen parishioners with a keen ear for music (St. Galler Tagblatt, April 29, 2019)
• St.Gallen becomes an organ city (St. Galler Tagblatt, April 29, 2019)

The live recording of the world premiere of my choral work "Auf die Tiefe: ein irdisch' Fahrtenlied (De Profundis)" has now been published on YouTube. The recording has become an art project: the music is accompanied by photos by Andi Dietrich, which capture the world of the music in an amazing way and thus create a visual counterpart of great expressiveness. I am extremely pleased with the result...!

A big thank you to the whole team with Cornelius Claudio Kreusch, Hans-Martin Buff and Christopher Link, to the St. Gallen Concert Choir, the soloists and instrumentalists!

Murnau’s last film is one of the strongest and at the same time most fragile testimonies of the silent film era. Filmed in 1929 and 1930 in the South Seas, the tragic fairy tale impresses with its almost magical visual language and enormously sensitive and tender narrative style. The film opened the 5th St. Gallen Silent Film Festival on January 18, 2019, shown in the restored 35mm print. I accompanied the masterpiece on the Wurlitzer organ. The audience let themselves be drawn into the magic of the film….

www.stummfilmkonzerte.ch
www.wurlitzerorgel.ch

This recording was also made as part of my Beethoven A Tempo recordings in St. Laurenzen: a small-scale piano piece that I dedicated to the photographer Andi Dietrich. He took all my pictures for "Liszt & The Black Hills" and "Echoes from Chrysospilia" and is also significantly involved in the A Tempo project. His art is extraordinary and I am very grateful for this fruitful collaboration that has now lasted for years!

The world premiere of my choral work "Auf die Tiefe: ein irdisch' Fahrtenlied (De Profundis)" took place on September 7, 2018 as part of the "Laurenzen Konzerte". The piece is written for mixed choir, vocal ensemble and instrumental ensemble: solo violin, 2 horns, double bass, percussion and organ. The piece was written to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and draws on the ancient psalm tradition. The text is based on a modern recording of the famous Psalm 130 "De Profundis", which the Luxembourg writer Bernd Marcel Gonner composed at my request. In his language, the traditional penitential psalm has become an independent, wild, tender and very free song to that dimension that shapes the life of every human being in one way or another.

Concert Choir St. Gallen

Ursina Leuenberger, soprano; Maja Hermann, alto; Jens Weber, tenor; Bernhard Bichler, bass

Elisabeth Kohler, violin; Grigori Katz, double bass; Sebastian Schindler and Brigitte Halter, horn; Hans Peter Völkle, timpani and percussion; Bernhard Ruchti, organ

Conductor: Roman Digion

Concert review by Bettina Kugler
Preview in the "Saiten - Ostschweizer Kulturmagazin" 
Preview in the St. Galler Tagblatt 
Recording of the premiere

Photos © Augustin Saleem

The first release as part of my "A Tempo Project" is online! Two piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven, played according to the metronome numbers handed down by Carl Czerny: to my knowledge the first recording of this kind ever. The sonatas are combined with background information and insights into the interpretation and research workshop in German and English.

My recording team of Cornelius Claudio Kreusch, Hans-Martin Buff and Christopher Link have done a great job. And above all, I'm looking forward to the discussion that I hope will begin on this enormously fascinating topic - a topic that will ultimately bring a new Beethoven to light.

Here go to the videos!
Slower is better (Saiten culture magazine, May 2019)

Jacques Brel and Hildegard Knef: both born in the 1920s, one a giant of French chanson, the other one of Germany's two great divas. Both of them and their songs are the focus of the chanson program "so oder so ist das Leben" with Regine Weingart and myself. The Theater Parfin de Siècle creates the ideal setting for the intimacy of this music about life and love, about failure and success. While Knef's songs are particularly captivating due to the immediacy of their performance, Brel's chansons are among the most brilliant in this genre, both lyrically and musically. "Ne me quitte pas", "La Chanson des Vieux Amants", "Für mich soll's rote Rosen regnen" and many others can be experienced live in "so oder so ist das Leben"!

www.parfindesiecle.ch
Preview St. Galler Tagblatt
"A brilliant performance either way" (St. Galler Nachrichten)
"The charm of thorny roses" (St. Galler Tagblatt)

Samuel Forrer