KAPmeets: Alleskönner Kontrabass

With music by Haydn, Rota, Bologne, and Kraus, Dominik Wagner and François Leleux bring a playful energy to the stage

François Leleux proves once again in the secondKAPmeets eventof the season that he is a “jack-of-all-trades, magician, and gifted musician” (Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung). The evening’s soloist is Austrian Dominik Wagner, making his debut at the Nikolaisaal, who brings out new dimensions in the double bass—sometimes jazzy, sometimes classical.

In Nino Rota’s highly virtuosic *Divertimento concertante*, the deep-rumbling instrument dances nimbly through the registers, its singing tone revealing a burlesque irony. Musical humor can also be found in Haydn, who, in his Military Symphony, reflects the compositional foresight that resonates in the music of his contemporaries Joseph Bologne and Joseph Kraus. Kraus’s Symphony in E-flat major, with which Leleux opens this program, is a powerful work brimming with ingenious ideas and theatrical flair.