A haze of mist, a flashing video screen, and a stage that was empty but for a harp, an electric keyboard and a back line of percussion. It didn’t look like we were about to hear an orchestral concert – but for Kristjan Järvi and his multinational Baltic Sea Philharmonic, that’s the whole point. They promise “a new dimension in concert experience”. They dispense with music stands (a handful of iPads could be seen blinking in the gloom), they play standing, and the standard concert format goes out the window for something more spontaneous, free-flowing and improvisatory.
Babylon Pärnu was their contribution to the 2023 Pärnu Music Festival: an evening-long fantasy on music from the TV series Babylon Berlin, composed variously by Johnny Klimek, Tom Tkywer and Järvi himself. Järvi and his collaborators wove cues from the TV score into what can best be described as a tribute to the spirit of Weimar Berlin reimagined as a non-stop (seriously; they barely paused even for applause) orchestral rave. So the lights dimmed, drums and basses laid down a pulse and Järvi and the orchestra boogied and shimmied on stage, blasting out the Babylon Berlin main title, with horns deliquescing and flutes squealing over that pounding, driving beat. The men had pork-pie hats and braces; the women wore feather boas and sparkly fascinators.
Up front in white sneakers Järvi danced, gestured and bounced up and down as the video screens flashed art deco psychedelia and the orchestra, playing at least partly from memory, powered their way through the score. In addition to the keyboards and percussion there were full woodwind and brass sections and a smallish string section, plus accordion, piano, banjo and what looked like an electric ukelele. Imagine Mahler with backbeat, alternating with Kurt Weill remixed by Godspeed You Black Emperor. Lasers strobed across the auditorium of Pärnu Concert Hall, and at key moments the entire stage flushed blood-red with only a single soloist picked out in blinding white.
Volume and raw energy has its limits, however, and the solo spots were the heart of the thing. The sensory assault eased off, the orchestration thinned out and a team of five locally-based vocalists – Elina Netšajeva, Hanna-Liina Võsa, Sandra Uusberg, Erkki Ostman and Oliver Kuusik – took turns to deliver Tykwer and Klimek's smoky pastiches of Weimar cabaret songs. With no programme or spoken introductions, it was hard to know who sang what, though that was hardly the point. Even so, it was in these quieter moments – with the orchestra reduced to a twanging Dixieland banjo and muted trumpet, or piano alone – that you briefly had a sense of a real connection to the era, and the art, upon which the whole project was based. A sentimental duet hinted at a sweeter, gentler lost world of operetta, and Ostman channelled Joel Grey in a marvellously eerie, half-whispered solo, before returning, smouldering in full, fabulous, drag.
Time paused for a moment. Then the rhythm resumed, the brass blared and the parade swept on. It’s hard to judge the quality of an orchestra, let alone a singer, when everything is amplified, but the energy and technical skill of the BSP was unarguable. As to the music: well, after two solid hours a packed Pärnu audience of all ages jumped to its feet and demanded more. The orchestra danced off, the lights went up, but Järvi seized a drum and kept the beat going to the last. Apparently he went out afterwards and played a DJ set until 5am. I can believe it.
Richard's press trip was funded by the Pärnu Music Festival
