The Zeitgeist Duo

The Zeitgeist Duo www.zeitgeist–duo.de

At 3.15 pm we gathered for the girl’s third recital, a concert of meditative music. Each of their performances has gathered a larger audience than the one before. Today we number several hundred.

The violin is such an evocative and emotive instrument in the right hands and Angelika’s are definitely the right hands. The violin tells the story and the piano provides the backdrop, providing the platform vital for the pieces. Occasionally the piano dances with the violin taking alternate steps in the dance. What surprises is the ability of the violin to affect the listener in such a deep and personal way. Particularly penetrating are the final lingering high pitched dying notes of the pieces.

They play a beautiful piece by Ennio Morricone, one that I recognise immediately and I delight and marvel at the piece as it moves through its various stages. What a genius he is. It activates the tear ducts, my head overheats and my brain seems to bursting with the perfection of the performance.

On they play with a John Williams composition taken from the Hollywood movie “Schindlers List”. I wonder if they were aware of the content of the film, set in Nazi-occupied Germany during WWII where a brave German factory owner saves as many Jews as he can by employing them in his factory. It’s a bold choice of music, by two young German musicians, to play on a British cruise ship barely 70 years after the war. I have to confess I have yet to watch the movie myself as I’m not sure I am strong enough to sit through it.

Next came the wonderful “Clair de Lune” by Debussy. By now we are just an emotional mass of blubber, human jelly. We have been beaten into submission and are powerless to resist the tugs on our heartstrings. Its powerful stuff and there is no risk of falling asleep during this recital.

They are rightly loudly applauded at the end of their 45-minute performance.

Angelika Löw-Beer, violin and Marina Lieberman, piano formed the duo over ten years ago in Germany and are now based in London where the girls currently work on their debut CD with the UK’s #1 classical crossover producer John Haywood.( source is their website address given above)