Artistry, Animals, Impressions!

This was the title of the concert with which star pianist Roland Batik opened the new season of his “Salon Batik” on 12 April at the Volksheim Ebergassing. Together with his wife and pianist Yuko Batik and the “Wiener Neustädter Instrumentalisten”, he presented a top-class music programme.

“Artistic” was the virtuosic “Concerto for Two Pianos” by the French composer Francis Poulenc. It is truly impressive to observe the nimble fingers of the two pianists up close in the Volksheim as they glide across the keyboard to chords that are as subtle as they are extraordinary.

“Animalistic” was “The Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saëns with the witty texts by Loriot. I admit, in this piece of programme music, my preference is for Loriot’s texts: when the mealworm blows kisses to the tortoises, a marmot covers its ears with the explanation “Today every donkey sings too”, and the fox calls the swan, adorned with hibiscus blossoms, a “vain imbecile”. – The only drawback: the microphone of the otherwise excellent narrator Friedrich Krajnik kept cutting out.

Not just for me, the highlight of the evening: Roland Batik’s “New Impressions for Two Pianos”. Together with Yuko, the student of the incomparable pianist Friedrich Gulda toured from late Romanticism through Latin jazz to a furious and much-applauded finale. Some say it’s not really jazz. Others say it’s not really classical. I say: This is Batik, and that’s a good thing.

Location and Service

The Volksheim Ebergassing may not have the charm of a Viennese Musikverein, but it is a good venue for high-calibre music events for up to 300 people. Solid technical equipment and, according to many professionals, “very good acoustics”. Accessible and even equipped with good kitchen facilities. The kitchen remained cold on the Batik evening, but in return, lord of the manor Georg Aichelburg and his wife served good wine – for a voluntary donation.

All in all: a concert evening that could also have taken place in the Vienna Musikverein. However, hardly with a ticket price of 35 Euros.