Our First Evening in Leipzig
The Gewandhaus Quartet performing Beethoven
Our train pulled into Leipzig in time for us to shlep to the old city center to get settled in our hotel, find a quick dinner, and walk to the Gewandhaus, home of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, where we had tickets for a chamber music concert.
This imposing concert center, inaugurated in 1981, replaced the one built in 1884, which was damaged during the war. I was blown away by the magnificent acoustics in the side hall where smaller ensembles perform, and impressed by the virtuosity of the Gewandhaus Quartet.
The Gewandhaus Orchestra began as a group of musicians that performed in private homes in Leipzig and later moved to the first floor of the original Gewandhaus, a building used by the textile industry.
Composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, whose Leipzig home we just visited (another highlight of Leipzig), was director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1835 until he died in 1847. He was unbelievably prolific, and I can remember the first time I heard the (at Ravinia) the first time I sang in the chorus for (IU Jacobs School of Music), hearing (performed by the Chicago Symphony), the that I played as a child, and hearing the famous hundreds of times.
I’d already played some Mendelssohn and knew of many other composers before I attended music school in Bloomington, Indiana, but in our History of Western Music class, we had to memorize the entire timeline of composers beginning in about the 6th century C.E. I’ve forgotten much of that timeline, so if you ask me about Palestrina (16th century), or Monteverdi (17th century), I only remember lush choral harmonies, but not much more.
Then we get to Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), choirmaster of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany, where he was required to teach in the school, conduct the choirs, and compose a cantata EVERY WEEK (he wrote over 300 cantatas in addition to volumes of other music). I plan to write more about him because he is SO important to music history, and I still keep my fingers nimble by playing a few of his preludes and fugues each day.
I plan to visit the Bach Museum and Archive here in Leipzig. Until then, I’ll share , a piece I sang in high school chorus (It was before I studied voice, so I sang alto then!) This recording takes place at St. Thomas in Leipzig, the very church where Bach composed, conducted, and taught. We walked through originally built in the 15th century on the foundations of a 12th-century church and monastery.
The Thomaskirche was destroyed in 1943 during the war, and later rebuilt, but there is much history here, including an important 16th-century lecture by Martin Luther. We walked under those gorgeous domes and saw Bach’s final resting place (his remains were moved here after WWII).
Some might be shocked to learn, knowing my proclivities, that along with the Bach Archives, Thomaskirche was one of the main reasons I wanted to visit Leipzig, a city once part of East Germany. My former in-laws were born here and escaped relatively late in the 1930s, when life for Jews was becoming intolerable. They didn’t reach Palestine for a few years because it was too difficult under the British mandate, but finally managed to get to Haifa.
I remember hearing my former mother-in-law (Z” L) wax rhapsodic about Leipzig’s beauty and culture. I also recall my sweet-natured former father-in-law (Z” L) wondering how a country that gave birth to Bach, Brahms, Goethe, Leibniz, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven (among other brilliant minds) could succumb to a far-right demagogue and an evil realm of hate and destruction.
Leipzig is a lovely city with a charming old town (where we stayed), beautiful old buildings, and a . Out of about 12,000 registered Jews, just 15 were still here by the end of WWII (some, like my in-laws, got out before the deportations started), and now there is a small community.
We saw only one kippah-wearing college student, whose parents immigrated from Ukraine. He is working part-time at a tea shop, and explained that he started wearing the kippah as an experiment, to see the reaction, mostly suspicion and some angry looks, so far. He enjoys explaining what Judaism and his kippah mean to anyone who asks.
We are only visiting four cities in Germany during this trip: Frankfurt, Leipzig, Berlin, and Munich, but we’d like to return, if possible, to see where some of the other great German composers were born, worked, and died, like Ludwig van Beethoven.
The chamber concert we saw on our first evening in Leipzig was riveting; two gorgeous Beethoven quartets, both in F major, and his dark and difficult . This was the first time I’ve heard it performed live. Imagine the richness of their playing, the consummate musicianship, and the lush sound of their instruments — sometimes I held my breath in astonishment.
After each piece, the packed auditorium (we fit in with all the gray hair) applauded until the musicians came out three times, after each piece.
It was spellbinding and a wonderful introduction to Leipzig. If you plan to visit, you can get tickets online — there’s a Shostakovich festival coming up!
