Peter Mönkediek, Trumpete – Karl-Heinz Steffens – WDR Sinfonieorchester, Kölm – June 7, 2013 – WDR, Köln –
Over to Germany (again) this week for a concert by the WDR Sinfonieorchester, Köln, led by Karl-Heinz Steffens and featuring Peter Mönkediek, trumpet in music by Schubert, Hummel and Fuchs.
Beginning with the overture to Rosamunde by Schubert and then Peter Mönkediek joins the orchestra for a performance of Hummel’s Trumpet concerto. The concert finishes with Symphony Number 2 op. 45 by Robert Fuchs. It was broadcast live on June 7, 2013 and preserved for posterity by WDR, Köln.
Peter Mönkediek first studied at the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf before moving to the Detmold University of Music. There, in addition to his school music studies, he was taught by Prof.Max Sommerhalder, who significantly influenced his trumpet playing. After engagements as principal trumpeter in the Westphalian Symphony Orchestra Recklinghausen (later Neue Philharmonie Westfalen) and in the Münster Symphony Orchestra from 1991 to 2002, he has been principal trumpet in the WDR Symphony Orchestra since 2002. Since 2004 he has also been a member of the festival orchestra of the Bayreuth Richard Wagner Festival. In 2007 Peter Mönkediek was appointed professor for trumpet at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf, where he has been teaching ever since. He was a member of the artistic advisory board of the WDR Symphony Orchestra for 10 years.
For the first part of his musical career, Karl-Heinz Steffens was a solo clarinetist, and also served as principal clarinet with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.
From 2009 to 2018, Steffens was music director of the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz in Ludwigshafen. During his tenure, the orchestra received such honours as the ECHO award for Best Orchestra in 2015 for their recording of works by Bernd Alois Zimmermann.
The reason Robert Fuchs’ compositions did not become better known was largely that he did little to promote them, living a quiet life in Vienna and refusing to arrange concerts, even when the opportunities arose. He certainly had his admirers, among them Brahms, who almost never praised the works of other composers. But with regard to Robert Fuchs, Brahms wrote, “Fuchs is a splendid musician, everything is so fine and so skillful, so charmingly invented, that one is always pleased.” Famous contemporary conductors, including Arthur Nikisch, Felix Weingartner and Hans Richter, championed his works when they had the opportunity but with few exceptions, it was his chamber music which was considered his finest work.
Enjoy the concert.
(Caveat: During the opening bars of the Rosamunde, there is a digital dropout and some missing notes. It doesn’t happen again, but you should be warned – sorry.)
