Opening the Joseph Woelfl Museum in Bonn

On Sunday, 4 October, I will have the pleasure of taking part in the opening of the new Joseph Woelfl Museum at the Woelfl-Haus in Bonn. The inauguration will be followed by a festive chamber concert with the remarkable flautist Enrico Coden, cellist Felix Thiedemann, and curator Dr Martin Czernin, who will guide us through the occasion.

Joseph Woelfl (1773–1812) is one of those figures whose music makes one wonder why history has allowed him to become so little known. A contemporary—and, in the popular imagination, even a rival—of Beethoven, he was an internationally celebrated pianist, composer, and musical traveller whose career led from Salzburg and Vienna to Paris and London. His writing combines a superbly fluent keyboard idiom with a gift for melody, elegance, humour, and real dramatic propulsion. It deserves to be heard not merely as a footnote to a familiar canon, but on its own rich and distinctive terms.

It feels fitting to mark the opening of a museum with music of such lively sociability. Chamber music was not simply a smaller version of public concert music in Woelfl's world: it was one of the places where musical personality, conversation, virtuosity, and friendship could most immediately meet. I am very much looking forward to discovering this repertoire with Enrico and Felix, and to celebrating a new home for the legacy of this fascinating composer.

The concert begins at 16:00 in the Kammermusiksaal of the Woelfl-Haus, Meßdorfer Straße 177, Bonn. The hall is already at capacity, but a waiting list and a stream ticket are available; the stream may be viewed repeatedly for up to one year. Full information and tickets are available on the Woelfl-Haus event page.