Konzert bei Bilse

Painted in 1871 in gouache and held in the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, 'Konzert bei Bilse' (Concert at Bilse's) depicts the popular outdoor or indoor concerts given by the conductor Benjamin Bilse in Berlin, which were among the most democratic musical institutions of nineteenth-century German urban life — affordable concerts that mixed popular and serious music for a broadly middle-class audience. Menzel's interest in public entertainment venues extended from ballrooms and theatres to these more populist concert settings. The gouache medium, like pastel, allowed rapid atmospheric notation. The Kupferstichkabinett's collection of Menzel works on paper is one of the most important holdings of his private and documentary practice. Menzel's consistent attention to Berlin's popular cultural institutions, from elite ballrooms to populist concerts, gives his social panorama an unusual breadth.

The gouache medium provides a matte, opaque quality that suits the artificial interior lighting of the concert venue — Menzel can lay down light colours over dark without the transparency constraints of watercolour.