After yesterday’s exciting concert and late night, today was thankfully a very light day! We departed Berlin for Leipzig this morning at around 10:00 AM, and the commute was nowhere near as far (or delayed) as our commute from Frankfurt to Berlin. We arrived in Leipzig around 1:00 PM, and after settling in at our hotel, I went with a small group to get a late lunch at a nearby Irish place!
I admittedly don’t know much about Leipzig beyond the history that relates to Bach, but I’m looking forward to learning more about the history over the next few days. One interesting fact is that Mendelssohn, a chief advocate for the performance and preservation of Bach’s music nearly a century later, actually passed in Leipzig in 1847 rather than his hometown of Berlin. Leipzig is considerably smaller than Berlin (with a population of around 600,000 people), and it feels immensely walkable. The largest festival of Bach’s music in the world, appropriately called Bachfest, is taking place here over the next few days, and our choir is going to observe some performances and explore Leipzig in our free time. Leipzig will be a much more relaxing stay than the last few days in Berlin (full of concerts and three-hour rehearsals), and I think the whole choir will appreciate a more relaxing pace.
After we ate at the Irish restaurant, we noticed a nearby playground with a trampoline in the sidewalk. More mature tourists would’ve kept walking, but we would never claim to be that mature, so jumping and a photoshoot ensued!
After we returned from lunch and the trampoline, the choir headed to a service taking place at Nikolaikirche right down the street from our hotel. The performing choir was Kamerkoris DeCoro Riga from Latvia, and they ironically performed a Latvian setting of Long Road by Ēriks Ešenvalds called Tāls ceļš. If you don’t know Ešenvalds, he’s one of the more popular choral composers of the 21st century, and one of his most famous pieces Only in Sleep was commissioned by Dr. Hatteberg for the Cardinal Singers. Ešenvalds has maintained a great relationship with Dr. Hatteberg and the Cardinal Singers over the years, so hearing his music halfway around the world performed by a Latvian choir (Ešenvalds’ native country) was a really neat moment.
After the service, we made the short walk to Thomaskirche. Another Bachfest event was just ending, so we managed to get in and get some photos as the audience was exiting. During the bulk of Bach’s professional career, he resided in Leipzig as Thomaskantor, which entailed not only being the music director for Thomaskirche but also Nikolaikirche. In addition to his composing, he taught voice lessons, served as primary organist, and directed the choirs for both churches from 1723 until his passing in 1750. Walking around Leipzig, I feel as if I’m seeing the pages of my Choral Literature reports come to life before my eyes! One of my projects in Choral Literature last fall was to write a detailed report about J.S. Bach’s life including specific locations and years, so seeing Nikolaikirche and Thomaskirche in person less than a year later feels too good to be true. Just around the corner from Thomaskirche, there is a statue of Mendelssohn as well. Leipzig seems as if it holds music history on every corner, and not just regarding Bach!
To cap off the evening, I went to a nearby mall with some friends to get gelato and German McDonald’s. I got an “Oranger-Flip” from the gelato spot (orange juice poured over vanilla gelato), and a chicken sandwich with curly fries from McDonald’s (yet another thing to envy when comparing German McDonald’s to McDonald’s in the States). Tomorrow, other than attending a morning concert, the day is free, so I’m hoping to get some rest tonight and see as much of Leipzig as I possibly can while hearing some great music along the way. I’m finishing this post up at 9:00 German time instead of after midnight as it has been most nights, so I’m excited to catch up on sleep tonight!