Gansch & Breinschmid: Live at Wiener Konzerthaus

German was not my best subject in college (actually, I didn’t have a best subject). This kind of thing would normally create a language barrier between Live at Wiener Konzerthaus and non-German speaking listeners, but thank your lucky stardust for translated liner notes and YouTube. Trumpeter Thomas Gansch and double bassist Georg Breinschmind have a Victor Borge/Canadian Brass/P.D.Q. Bach thing going on in their native tongue, and Live at Wiener Konzerthaus finds them performing to a very receptive audience. Sight gags, covering the Beatles, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie and Johann Strauss in various medleys and conversing with laughing concert-goers all go a long way to making this 79-minute (!) affair a jovial one, even if your maximum comprehension of German is “Guten tag”. I’ll leave you with the first stanza of “Klassik Gstanzln”; “Once I studied music and got my degree / Since then I’ve decided: Retirement’s for me.”