KARACHI: German composer and conductor Richard Wagner was known for his operas marked by high drama and soul-stirring orchestration. Pianist Stephan Rahn, mezzo soprano Judith Mayer and Pakistani pianist Usman Anees’s tribute to Wagner at the Goethe Institut on Wednesday commemorating his 200th birth anniversary was quite a special event.

Introducing the programme to the audience, Goethe Institut Director Dr Manuel Negwer said what they were about to hear were ‘smaller’ works of Wagner or excerpts from his works.

Then the evening formally began with Wagner’s ‘Overture to Rienzi’ (arranged for four-hand piano). Stephan Rahn and Usman Anees set the tone for the rest of the show by highlighting the dramatic effect that’s conspicuously present in the great composer’s works. Both Rahn and Anees expressed their fondness for the composition by playing the piano as if both had been rehearsing the piece for months. Obviously they were not.

Judith Mayer joined Rahn for the second piece (five poems for female voice) — Wesendonck lieder — a song for solo voice and piano. It was her powerful vocals that took the programme to another domain. She started off with ‘The Angel’ and followed it up with ‘Stand Still’, ‘In the Greenhouse’, ‘Sorrows’ and ‘Dreams’. In ‘Stand Still’, she showed how power and tenderness go together, when she struck both the high and low notes (lower and upper extremes) with effortless ease. In ‘Sorrows’, she touched the higher notes with great facility, and in ‘Dreams’, it has to be said, Rahn was as impressive as Mayer, for the effect that the lieder needed was first created by his scene-creating piano-playing matched by Mayer’s voice.

After that Anees presented Fraz Liszt’s Isolde’s Love Death (solo piano). Anees is some talent. His passion for music in general and the instrument he plays in particular is noteworthy. When he plays, as he should, he gets immersed in the performance. To boot, when he touches the keys he doesn’t play them for a decibel more or less than needed.

The second part of the programme commenced with a sonata. According to Dr Megwer, Wagner wrote a very few solo works and ‘Sonata for the album of Madame M W’ was one of them. Rahn seemed to enjoy the piece more than the previous ones as one could see him perform with renewed gusto.

Mayer one more time lit up the hall with Franz Liszt’s five songs. She told the audience that since the first number mentioned on the list ‘Lorelei’ had more drama in it they decided to shift it to number five. She was spot on. What began with ‘Bells of Marling’ and carried on with ‘Poisoned are my Songs’, ‘Thou who art in Heaven’ and ‘It Must Be a Wonderful Thing’ justifiably ended with ‘Lorelei’. The shifting of moods by virtue of the notes that she touched was quite impressive.

The last piece on the list was Wagner’s ‘Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg’