Dresden October 2010

Part of the palace in Dresden; the Zwinger palace and a statue of Emperor Augustus.

We left Leipzig reluctantly, that Monday morning, October 18. We walked to the train station, which was right across the street, dragging our bags behind us, had our usual breakfast and then boarded the train to Dresden about 11:00am. It was a fairly short ride to Dresden, just a couple of hours. We were staying at an NH in Dresden, but I wasn't sure how close to the old town we were.

It turned out that we were nowhere near the old town. We were in an area out in the boonies, in among car showrooms and repair shops. What an rundown area! It was interesting,though, because the apartment buildings lining the streets were being renovated piece by piece. Old, rundown, grey apartment buildings were being transformed into newly stuccoed, painted ones. It reminded us that Dresden was part of the old East Germany, and renovations from the Soviet-style block apartments were less than twenty years old.

The NH hotel - a Spanish chain in which we have stayed several times - was a very nice one, but so far out from town. We figured that this area had enough space for big tour buses to be parked, so tours used this hotel to house their groups. Indeed, there were several tour groups staying at this hotel while we were there.

We checked in and found out that a tram straight into town was just "up the street, a few minutes walk". We were suspicious of these directions " just a few minutes walk", because the walk was usually at least ten minutes duration. However, we unpacked and walked up to the tram stop. It was not too bad, I must say, but at least a ten minute walk in good weather.

We bought a week tram ticket at the stop and waited for the #3 tram. Sure enough, it was only a few minute wait and then we were on our way. The ride into town was really a nice ride, and it took us over the river Elbe with a magnificent view of the city: the opera house, the castle, the churches. It was really worth the inconvenience of being so far from the city to be able to see this view everytime we rode the tram.

We got off where we thought it might be the way to the old town, and made our way through restaurants, cafes, shops and more churches. We came to the square and lo and behold, there was another NH hotel, right at the edge of the square. "Why didn't we stay at this NH hotel?" Jack wanted to know??? I didn't know either, except that maybe it was more expensive than our hotel? I would have to check it out. In the meantime, we spotted an arcade, which is a shopping mall, and made our way toward it. We also spotted a bankomat, for future reference for cash. We were off to a good start.

The arcade was a three-story glass building, with everything imaginable inside: stores, restaurants, grocery stores, drug stores and even a post office. There were stores outside the arcade also, the upscale stores we had seen in Berlin and in Leipzig. This place was thriving. We found a food court in the lower level, full of places to eat. Jack spotted a good bratwurst stand and we ate there almost every day. So did everyone else; it was always full of people, either taking a break from shopping or starting their day with a hot cup of coffee and a bratwurst roll or a plate full of fried potatoes and schnitzel.

I had heard about Dresden all my life; what a beautiful city it was and how it was burned to the ground by the Allied bombing, mostly in hopes that the German people would be so disheartened that they would press their government to stop fighting. That didn't work, so the whole city was destroyed. Then after the war, the Soviets took over and they didn't much like the Germans either, so they did not try to restore the city at all. They just threw up some cheap housing and probably some factories and didn't worry about the old town. It wasn't until Germany was reunited in 1990 that West Germany started pouring in millions of German marks into Dresden, to restore its beautiful churches, opera house, palaces, etc. So all of the reconstruction was really less than twenty years old. What was surprising though, was that the buildings looked old and worn out. It turns out that the stone they used for the restoration is loaded with some kind of chemical which turns black with just a bit of air reaching it. So the buildings looked like they needed cleaning, and they were really pretty new.

There were photographs all over the city, showing the total destruction of the city, the mounds of bombed-out buildings and the half buried churches, etc. But now the city was recovering and

tourists were coming back to the city. We figured out that there are many West German tourists coming to Dresden now, to see how the city has renovated itself. There are lots of Europeans coming to this city and enjoying its beautiful sites and museums.

We made our way to the tourist information center, because we wanted to see what music programs there were in the ten days that we were in the town. We immediately bought tickets to the opera and to a ballet, and we also found out that Kurt Masur, the famous German director, was going to direct a Mozart at the St Nicolas Church, so we wanted to hear that. We also bought tickets to the Messiah at that church. We wanted to hear the music, but we also wanted to visit the the opera house and the church where the concerts were to be held.

We were not disappointed; the opera house is just beautiful. I brought my camera the second time we visited to get a chance to capture the beauty of the building. The first concert was Giselle, the ballet. It was a modern approach to this classic ballet, but it was very beautiful and we enjoyed it.

The second visit to the opera house was to see Rossini's "The Girl from Algiers". I looked it up on the computer so we would know the story. It is a story about a beautiful girl who is kidnapped by a Turkish shiek who wants a younger woman for his harem. But the girl works hard to bring her boyfriend to the palace to rescue her, and sure enough, she tricks the Turkish sheik and she escapes with her boyfriend after some shennanigans. It is a light-hearted comedy and it was fun to watch. The leading tenor, the boyfriend, is a Mexican from Vera Cruz, so I felt like we had a neighbor in the cast. His voice was beautiful and he was really expressive, and the crowd loved him. I think he got the biggest applause of all the singers.

When we left the opera house, we just had to cross the street and wait a few minutes for the tram to take us to our hotel. What an easy way to get back and forth to these downtown venues.

During our stay they were working on the tram lines so several times the trams were rerouted into the city. So we got to see different views of the city and really got to know our way around. We also had to find the stamp store to find some old covers, so we investigated new trams for the ride. As we rode the new rides, we would be on the lookout for interesting places to eat or other sites that we wanted to come back and investigate.

A big draw for the city is the Zwinger Palace, a complex of buildings, connected by a beautiful garden. This was the place where the royalty lived, and they have restored it to its former splendor. The days we were there were sunny and bright, so we were able to get some good photographs.

One of the most interesting collections we saw there was the China collection. In the late 1600's the Dutch and the English had established themselves as sea traders, and they brought back beautiful porcelain and jade from China. These pieces were very costly and therefore very popular with the aristocracy and rich middle class. Many of these pieces are shown in one of the wings of the Zwinger palace, and they were unbelievably beautiful.

There were many shipwrecks during those years, so much of the porcelain was lost. That gave the German emperor Augustus the idea to start his own porcelain factory. So, about the year 1702, the German factory of Meissen was established. He hired local pottery artists, who passed down the craft year after year. They gradually designed their own "china" and it became more and more beautiful and precious. Now it is just as expensive and exquisite as the original china.

We took the train to the Meissen factory, right outside Dresden, and took the tour of the factory. They have artists showing how they make the porcelain and how they decorate it. The job looks very tedious and no room for errors. Their showroom had many examples of their work for sale, from dishware to tea services to elaborate decorative pieces like clocks and lamp bases, etc. We bought a few small cups for some friends, and I picked out a small plate for myself.

Later on, in stores in Dresden and in Vienna, we saw the Meissen porcelain in the window, with pieces that were worth thousands of dollars.

Our time in Dresden went much too quickly, and before we knew it, we were packing our bags and boarding the train back to Berlin for a couple of days before we left for Krakow. Dresden is a beautiful city and it is great to see it in its former glory and so many visitors there to enjoy it once again. I would recommend a visit to Dresden to anyone who wants to see a beautiful part of Germany.

Leipzig October 2010

Bach, his gravestone, and the Rathhaus in Leipzig.

October 7, 2010, we were on our way to Leipzig. We spent more than a month in Berlin, and I think we were ready for a new adventure. Leipzig was only an hour away, and our first class seats on the train were perfect. We actually stopped in Wittenberg, the home of Luther and his 95 objections pinned on the wall of the Schloss Church. We leaned out to see the huge bell tower of the church and remember our day in Wittenberg a couple of months earlier.

We got to Leipzig at 1:30pm and hopped a cab to take us to the Novotel Hotel. The journey was all of about two minutes - the hotel was right across the street from the bahnhof! We did not realize it at the time. The cabbie was fine with the short ride. There were several hotels in a row just across the huge street in front of the train station. We found out that Leipzig was the publishing center of the medieval world and had conventions galore in those days. It is still a center for conventions; hence the row of huge hotels so close to the train station.

We settled in to our hotel room and then took a stroll around the city. This was a far cry from Berlin, for we were in the middle of everything: shops, restaurants, churches, opera house and concert house. We were loving it, mainly because it was hard to make our way around the city of Berlin. Here, everything was in walking distance. We were in heaven.

Leipzig was completely demolished by the Allies in the second world war also, so all of the buildings that we investigated were restored to their former beauty. It looked like an old town, but it was really just about twenty years old. It was part of the Soviet bloc from the 40's to the 90's, and only since Germany was reunited was it returned to its former glory.

We learned that the revolution to end the separation of east and west Germany actually began here in Leipzig. They had meetings in the St. Nicholas church in the square every Wednesday, until they meetings were broken up. Finally, the people of Leipzig met in the square in front of the opera house and demanded that they be set free. Protests then started all over Germany and the wall came down, etc. It must have been so exciting in Leipzig to be the start of the peaceful revolution and the reunification of Germany.

We strolled down the pedestrian area of Leipzig and found dozens of great stores and places to eat. It was a great first day and we were excited to explore for our short ten days that we would be here.

We wanted to make sure to attend as many concerts as possible here - so the next day we went to the Gewandhaus to get tickets. That night they were performing Hindemith and Bruckner - two composers we were not that familiar with but we were willing to hear them. As I mentioned before, the orchestra worked themselves to death on these two pieces! The night was wonderful, and the music was glorious. We had great seats and tried to soak up the pieces as much as possible. They were modern pieces, so to speak, so they used every instrument in the orchestra, which was fun to watch. After the concert, it was an easy walk back to our hotel.

Saturday was devoted to discovering Thomas Kirche, the church where Bach was choir master for over twenty years, in the 1700's. To think that this church was still here and still vigorous in the community was just unbelievable. We happened onto a choir concert - the St. Thomas choir was not in town at the time, but they had a German choir performing that afternoon, so we stayed to hear them.

The church itself is not that imposing, though it stands majestically in a square all by itself. The German choir actually sang what is known as an English evensong, with some hymns and some psalms. They were really good, and the Rutter, the Stanford and the psalm were excellent. I was really impressed.

There were lots of restaurants all around Leipzig, so we tried several of them. The Indian restaurant was good and very close to our hotel. On Sunday we attended a string quartet concert at the Gewandhaus, in one of the smaller concert halls. These guys: first, second violin, viola and cello, worked away at some beautiful Beethoven. Again, we had great seats and were able to see their communication and their enjoyment of the pieces. It was a wonderful morning.

The weather in Leipzig was getting colder, but it was very sunny there. I began to realize that I needed a coat to get through the winter, so I went in one of the big department stores they have there and bought a coat. Jack had tracked down a stamp store to pick out something for our friend Rick, so we met at the pub across from the St Thomas Church, supposedly where Bach used to frequent. It is a very comfortable little bar, and it has great pastries as well. We ended up there many times during our stay in Leipzig.

We found a great breakfast place not far from the hotel. I was never sure what the name was, but it had a huge elephant over the entrance of the cafe, so that is what I called it. We went there on Oct 12, Jack's birthday, and splurged with a champagne breakfast. That evening we had a great dinner at one of the restaurants, Augustus House.

Later on in the evening we watched CNN as it mentioned that the Chilean miners would be rescued the next day, the middle of the evening for us. We watched Euro News for hours during the night, as they were covering the entire rescue live. What excitement as each one was pulled to the surface. It is one of my most moving memories of 2010. I wrote each of their names down in my notebook and watched their families wait to see them in the capsule.

The next day we visited the photography/modern art museum; it is a very interesting building in the middle of one of the squares - very modern and about five stories high. Inside, there are probably only about three stories, because each one was huge. A lot of times modern art needs huge spaces, and they have built this museum to house big exhibits. With so much modern art, the building is really the star and the so-called art is either weird or boring.

We found a great place to eat breakfast - don't laugh: in the train station. They have made the bottom two floors of the train station a beautiful mall, with stores and restaurants and cafes. The upper most floor is for the trains. Jack loves his bratwirst in the morning, and I am satisfied with a roll and a cup of coffee, so everyday but Sunday we marched across the street and had our breakfast. On Saturday morning we wanted to buy our train ticket for Dresden, so we went up to the higher level. We immediately noticed that there were dozens of policemen - everywhere. We got our tickets and our breakfast and walked back to the hotel. At this point, there were dozens of police vans parked in front of the train station. They had closed the streets around our hotel and lined up van after van along the street. We asked the hotel people and they said that the neo-Nazi groups had staged a demonstration for Leipzig, so the police were out in full force. They even had police forces and vans from Berlin for crowd control. They were not allowed to have a parade, just give speeches at the stand that was set up for them. All day long we heard the droning of the speeches, and lots of people milling about. Fortunately for the city, it rained heavily all day, so maybe that also helped with crowd control.

During this time the Texas Rangers were playing the Yankees in the American League Series to get the honor of going to the World Series. I got up early everymorning to get the score. Jack's cousin Marg, who is a big sports fan and watched each of the games, gave me a rundown of what had happened the night before. The Yankees always intimidated their opponents, but I was hopeful that the Rangers would be able to hold on.

One of the most enjoyable things we did was visit the Bach museum, right across the way from his church. It had just been renovated and it was beautiful. Besides being able to listen to any of his compositions on headphones, in a nice area with comfortable chairs, we learned a lot about the man himself. It turned out that he was quite a musicologist and traced a lot of the pieces that his family had written and transcribed them for posterity. He also did an extensive family tree and worked out the family history for many generations.

Our last day in Leipzig was one to just enjoy the city; we had breakfast at our Elephant House and then walked around to take in the sights once more. I had always heard of this city but never thought I would ever get here. It seemed so far east in Germany, maybe old and hard to get to. I never dreamed it was so pretty and so vibrant, and the people so friendly and warm. It was one of my favorite cities. Tomorrow we would travel to Dresden and experience its beauty, but today I was very happy in Leipzig.

Berlin and Leipzig - Music

German flag atop the Reichstag. Old Prussian Guard House that is now a peace memorial on Unter den Linden Strasse.

I decided to combine the music we heard in Berlin with the Leipzig music.

On Sunday morning at 11:00 we went to the Berlin Concerthouse in the Stadmitte area of town to hear the Carl Emmanuel Bach chamber orchestra. Jack had gotten great tickets, and we were seated on the first row! This concert house is beautiful - smallish but decked out in the beautiful red velvet seats with twinkling lights everywhere. The downstairs was full of people that morning, ready to hear some Bach and Mozart.

The chamber group marched in right at the appointed time and stood for the whole concert. The official name of the group is the Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra, with Hartmut Haenchen as the director. There were two musicians on each part: two first violins, two seconds, two violas, a cello and a bass violin. For some of the pieces there was help from some woodwinds.

The first piece they played was a modern take on Bach: ArvoPart Collage on B-A-C-H. It was fun and weird, but then they got down to business with a J.S. Bach (1685-1750) cantata, a W.F. Bach (1710-1784) symphony in dminor, a J.C. Bach (1735-1782) symphony in gminor. What a treat and they all enjoyed what they were doing so much.

Then the featured soloist came out: Karl Leister, clarinettist. They played a Mozart clarinett concerto, with the famous adagio movement. I am sure everyone would recognize the beautiful piece, even if they didn't know the name of it. I recalled that in the movie "Out of Africa" this adagio was heard on the little phonograph that Dennis gave Karen.

Because of the structure of the concerto, we could not clap for this movement - we have to sit there and only clap at the end of the whole piece. I noticed that German audiences do not jump to their feet so much at the end of the piece as the Dallas audiences do, but they continue to clap and clap and give several calls for the musicians. That is what happened at the end of this concerto. So the group gave us an encore. And the encore was this adagio movement of the Mozart - it was even more beautiful than the first time. This time we clapped up a storm. I thought what a wonderful thing this director did by playing this movement again and giving us an opportunity to clap especially for it. Maybe they do that all of the time, but I had never witnessed that before.

The next concert we went to was at the Berlin philharmonic, near Potsdammer Platz. We ate an early dinner at the arcade, then walked over to the concert hall with everyone else. I mentioned before that the hall was really a strange one - very modern but the orchestra is almost in the round. Our seats were perfect - almost like box seats - up a little high and to the right and not behind anyone. We could see the director's face as he turned to the cellos, so we were not exactly behind him. The acoustics were very good.

We heard two pieces that night. The first was from an opera: "Juliette" by Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959). The Mezzo soprano was Juliette and most of the singing. The Tenor was also a featured singer. It was a beautiful set of pieces, quite modern, so all of the orchestra was put to work.

The second piece was Antonin Dvorak's Symphony nr. 7 in dminor. This piece was fantastic, and the entire orchestra worked hard on it. It had everything - so much to watch besides listening to the music. When it was over, the audience again clapped and clapped, not standing but great appreciation for the musicians. Even when it looked like the evening was over and the musicians were gathering their stuff and heading out, as we were, some people kept clapping until the director came out again, for another call. The audience certainly knew what they were doing.

During the intermission, we went downstairs and had a glass of wine. We noticed that most of the audience was made up of older people, but there were some young people mixed in also. We wondered if young people had given up on classical music, but not in this town.

When we got to Leipzig, the first thing we did was to get some tickets to concerts. The first one we picked was the Gewandhaus orchestra, with director Herbert Blomstedt. They were playing Paul Hindemith's Symphony " Mathis der Maler". This piece was a musical tribute to one of Grunewald's paintings on the Crucifixon. If you know the artist, you know that his paintings are usually very stark and bloody. And this piece was very descriptive. There was every conceivable kind of instrument playing, including all kinds of percussion.

The second piece was a Bruckner. Mind you, we probably would have preferred some Bach or Mozart, but we were only in Leipzig about ten days, so our choices were numbered. Anyway, this Brukner, one of his romantic symphonies, was a beauty. And again, every musician in the orchestra was playing almost all of the time. It was quite a treat.

Another concert we went to in Leipzig was to hear the Leipziger Stringquartet. Just four guys, one on a part. This concert was in a smaller chamber, and we had great seats again, in the front row. We could see how they communicated with each other and who the leader was, and how much they enjoyed what they were playing. They played all Beethoven that morning, and they worked hard on every movement of every piece. They were wonderful.

We also went to an organ concert at the great hall in Leipzig. They have a Schuke organ at the Gewandhaus. The organist was Michael Schonheit. He played Bach, of course, and Mendelssohn. The Bach was my favorite. The organist was very good, and we really enjoyed the concert.

I have tried to give a picture of Berlin by describing topics instead of a chronolgy. I hope I have given a flavor of the city. We never could figure out whether we liked the city or not. It is so huge and has so many neigborhoods that are different from each other, it is hard to describe Berlin as one city. It has gone through a century of defining history and it is still trying to get its bearings as a unified city once again. I would recommend anyone to visit there, but have at least a couple of weeks there to really get a feel for the city. Seeing all of the sights is one thing, just letting the city's atmosphere sink in is another.