Our last day in Leipzig was truly grand with the performance of Bach’s Magnificat and Christmas Oratorio in Thomaskirche. My professors had told us to visit the church beforehand to take a look at Bach’s grave there (“It’s the closest you’ll get to Bach during the whole course!”), so I went in on the way back from my run. I felt silly coming into such a lovely church while listening to Cuban reggaeton music, and I actually didn’t see the grave; I mistook a plaque on the wall to be his resting place. Later, at the concert, I saw the actual grave: a plaque on the ground, in front of the altar, four times the size. Whoops.

We had the morning off, so I spent it going through the Christmas markets one last time, eating a Berliner (jelly donut), and reading about the Oratorio and an article on the Thomasschule choir boys. Fascinating stuff – go read “Where Have All the Sopranos Gone?” by Elizabeth Weil of the New York Times. It goes into how earlier onset of puberty has resulted in far, far fewer boy sopranos in the school. The soprano voices are maintained incredibly carefully with trainers. I also watched Frosty the Snowman, just for kicks. We then had a class to brief us on the Oratorio before heading to the church.

The Oratorio consists of 6 cantatas, to be performed the first 6 days of Christmas. The choir performed the first three. An oratorio is usually a religious drama of sorts; this one is not so dramatic, but just the story of Jesus’s birth and the word of Him spreading. Each cantata consists of alternating choruses, arias, and recitatives. The boys’ choir would sing the choruses, typically adults singing the arias and recitatives. The recitatives are usually accompanied by just one instrument and are basically stories told in a sing-songy way, while the arias are much longer and grander.

The boys choir was phenomenal and they even had some adorable 9-year-old sopranos singing the part of the angels. All the soloists had such energy, and their version of Magnificat was far more inspired than that of the Berlin Philharmonic. We had dinner at Coffe Baum after, the oldest coffee house in Germany (or something like that) to conclude the evening.

The past three and a half weeks here have been a wonderful learning experience and change of pace. I was really burnt out before this trip, so I was so happy to be free of obligation and able to explore and gain knowledge through experience. I am enormously grateful for the opportunity, so long story short: THANKS, MOM AND DAD!

A few final notes on my observations of German culture. I have enjoyed getting to know these people and their quirks. They are phenomenal bakers, dress nicely, and are very organized and efficient, just as their stereotypes say. Many have mistaken me to be German myself (I am half German by blood), but quickly get exasperated with me when I can barely speak their language. There’s a great seriousness in their demeanor, often. In fact, several times I found myself in the company of elderly German couples, and in all cases, they would sit in silence and stare at me. I don’t know why, but I found it alarming. My classmates and I hypothesize that Germans are so serious because they’re so dehydrated. No one drinks water in this country! I see no water bottles or fountains. Just lots of beer. They probably all have headaches and are tired and cranky because of it.

Not only do Germans seem impervious to the cold and lack of sunlight here, they also somehow dress very fashionably while keeping warm. There is an abundance of shoe stores here, and all the boots are very stylish. Germans also don’t dress in athletic clothes the way we slobby Americans do. They only wear them when actually working out. I saw Germans regularly on my runs, but they always looked way overdressed in sweats and were usually moving pretty slowly…which was an esteem boost.

The food was excellent, though not very diverse. Meat, potatoes, bread. Those are the staples. Aside from the glorious breakfast in Potsdam, I still firmly believe that America does breakfast best. The majority of our breakfasts here were solid, but had no protein. With only some toast, cereal, and fruit in my stomach every day, I was always ravenous for lunch. I need the hot stuff – eggs, waffles, pancakes – and I need my peanut butter back. Related to food, table service here is also not great, as there’s no tipping culture. I experienced the same in Cuba; without the incentive of a tip, your waiter or waitress can be pretty indifferent towards you.

Though I will not miss freezing my butt off every day (it’s actually coldest here at 1 p.m. – so weird) and constantly pulling/pushing the doors in the incorrect direction, I will miss the beautiful and delicious Christmas markets, the cobblestone streets, and the buildings full of rich history. I hope to come Bach someday (ha), but during the summer. But now, time to go home and have a warmer Christmas in good ol’ Warwick, NY. Thanks for reading, y’all!

I awoke to excellent news from my newly college-bound sister – CONGRATS, J! – and snow. We spent the morning reading scenes from Itamar Moses’s play, Bach at Leipzig. The play follows 5 or 6 organists, basically all named Johann or Georg, vying for the new position of cantor at Thomaskirche, as Johann Kuhnau has passed away mid-playing. They all are trying to foil each other’s success, even as Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Bach step on the scene. The whole thing is very comical and brilliantly written. I highly recommend it, though I suppose we got much more out of it from already knowing the historical background. There’s one scene in which Fasch describes what a fugue is to his wife that is particularly beautiful, and there’s even a speaking fugue. One organist starts speaking and slowly but surely, each one starts his own monologue until all 6 have entered and created their own speaking ricercar. So cool to perform.

In the afternoon, we visited Felix Mendelssohn’s house. As I wrote before, he was essential for the revival of Bach’s music and the second performance of the St. Michael’s Passion, 100 years after its first performance. He also had the statue of Bach built outside of Thomaskirche.

The first floor of the exhibit had artifacts from Mendelssohn’s time, a timeline of his life and years in Leipzig, and a conducting room. My favorite artifact was a “keyed” trumpet, which Mendelssohn thought was vile: “Like a pretty woman with a beard or a man with a bosom.” On the timeline, I learned that Mendelssohn actually studied with Goethe – everything connects in this course! And the conducting room was awesome. Long, pixelated poles labeled with different instrument names were arranged geometrically on the floor and would light up with different patterns as instruments entered pieces that you conducted. The music was displayed on a screen with a sensor, so you could pick up a conductor’s baton and speed up or slow down the music – and the displays – with a wave of your hand! Very neat.

Upstairs were restored rooms of the house itself. Like Goethe’s house, the rooms had lots of bright colors and ornate chandeliers. As Mendelssohn’s composition teacher, Zelter, was very fond of Bach, Mendelssohn naturally gained a deep love for Bach’s music. In his study is a bust of Bach and of Goethe, in fact. Felix was also a talented painter, and there was a room full of his detailed works of the Swiss Alps.

The top floor was a new exhibit dedicated to Mendelssohn’s sister, Fanny, an extraordinary composer in her own right. Her mother Lea said that from a young age, Fanny clearly exhibited “Bach fugue fingers.” (Bach’s harpsichord concerto no. 1 in D minor would eventually become one of her go-to pieces to perform.) She wrote a 12-part piece, one part for every month, to sprinkle the joy of music all year round. Her husband Wilhelm received the piece as a birthday present, and because he was an artist, he ended up drawing little pictures for each part. They’re displayed on different colored pastel papers, and just fun to stare at. Towards the end of her life, she took a long trip through Italy, which was enjoyable to read about. She noted, “It seems to me that in this country one is constantly either enchanted or appalled.” Despite the latter, she loved Rome for its sun (amen, sister) and the special treatment she got for being Felix’s sister. She did gripe that it forced her to be “damned agreeable,” but she also admitted the “rasping” (flirting, a term the Mendelssohn kids made up – what a fun fact!) she received was appreciated. Throughout this time and her whole life, really, she wrote countless letters to friends and family, which I totally related to. I hope she received more responses than I do from my college and high school friends.

During the evening, one of my classmates and I attended some of the Advent music concert at Nikolaikirche, Bach’s secondary church. The music was solid, not spectacular. Luckily, we got to hear two recognizable songs: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear and Gabriel’s Message. We also heard a cantata by Bach, which we sang along to, with difficulty. They actually got Bach’s death year incorrect in the program (1759 instead of 1750) and I felt unreasonably proud of myself for catching that. The choir did some excellent a capella verses and the church was stunning, consisting of massive pastel pink, light green, and white pillars. While it was a worthwhile visit, I am sure the Christmas Oratorio at Thomaskirche will blow it out of the water tomorrow.

Our first full day of Leipzig was eventful and fun. I woke up and took a city run and found a couple solid parks (Germans do parks well), but of course incomparable to Sans Souci. It was actually raining a lot, so that made things…interesting.

In the morning, we visited the Bach Archive, which is larger and more detailed than the Bach exhibit in Eisenach. Bach became the cantor for Thomaskirche, right next to the archive, on April 22nd, 1723, and would remain in that position for the rest of his life, dying in 1750. He initially didn’t apply for the job, as his wife Maria Barbara had just died in Kothen while he and Prince Leopold were traveling. (He married Anna Magdalena about a year and a half later). Leipzig cantor Johann Kuhnau had passed away, so the church was in need of a replacement. Other organists, including George Philipp Telemann, Christoph Graupner, and Johann Friedrich Fasch were all offered the job but turned it down; they only applied so that their current churches would offer them more money.

When Bach took over the position, he was assuming a lot of responsibility: music for Thomaskirche, Nikolaikirche, and other churches in Leipzig; writing funeral and wedding music; teaching and dorrm parenting at Thomasschule; giving instrument lessons; selling books and sheet music. Apparently Bach neglected a lot of his dorm parent duties – unsurprising, considering how much else he had to do. While in Leipzig, he set himself writing a cantata for every week of the year, with copiers immediately making perfected versions when he finished.

When we arrived, we were greeted by an archive director named Michael Mauer, a younger, well-dressed German and Bach fanatic. He explained that he traveled over 300,000 kilometers around central Germany in search of information about Bach and actually found the first piece of music by the composer discovered since 1928! He was on NPR. He took us into the main room which contained the legendary portrait of Bach, done by Elias Gottlob Haussman in 1748. It was the second one Haussman painted, the first in 1746. The portrait is Bach at around age 60 in official garb and wig. He’s holding a real canon in his hand – Michael thinks the hand is ridiculously unrealistic and puffy-looking (it is) – which we actually studied in class.

The exhibit also contained many of Bach’s original pieces written on cloth paper, in his hand or his copiers’ hands. Michael explained that a lot of work has been done studying Bach’s handwriting, the type of paper, and watermarks to determine the dates of the pieces. Bach always filled all the staves on his papers to be economical, wrote little notes on the next section of each piece while the previous section’s ink dried, and even made errors in the lyrics. He often borrowed sections of other pieces in his works, so you could say he was also a cover artist of sorts.

The whole exhibit was really well done. There was a full room dedicated to Martin Luther and his influence on Bach, plus an upstairs that carefully chronicled Bach’s life. The final room was dedicated to his time in Leipzig alone. At the top of the stairs is a large family tree that Bach himself painstakingly documented. The only noteworthy thing about it is his whole family is named Johann.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the instrument room. In the center were some of the obscure instruments in Bach’s work, and overhead, different Bach works would play. Around the room were little glass panels with drawings of specific instruments and their players. These panels would light up if that instrument was included in the piece playing. If you clicked the button in front of the panel, that instrument’s part would increase in volume, so you could pick it out of the piece. SO FUN. I loved emphasizing the kettle drums.

In the Leipzig room, I also liked reading all the details about what boarding at Thomasschule was like, as a former boarding school kid myself. These kids had it particularly rough – they’d get flogged or imprisoned if they missed church or left the dorms at night. There was a nice miniature of the school building and all the dorm beds, plus notes taken by Bach’s sons from their classes, with caricatures of their teachers! Overall, an enjoyable museum visit and still enlightening even after a couple weeks of learning about this guy.

After the museum, we went to lunch at the Auerbach Keller, a restaurant based off Goethe’s Faust. I have yet to read Faust, so I didn’t get the references, but it was delicious all the same.

With some free time in the afternoon, I visited another bouldering gym, about a half hour walk from the hostel, called Boulderhalle Leipzig. Pretty similar experience as Berlin, but this gym was about 2.5 times the size. 7 euro, no waiver, and very, very greasy holds. They definitely didn’t care as much as the staff at Boulderklub, but it was still worth the visit.

In the evening we saw a Mendelssohn concert. Mendelssohn was absolutely essential in the revival of Bach and even arranged for the St. Michael’s Passion to be performed for the second time 100 years after its first performance. We heard an overture and a Clavier Concert by Mendelssohn, which included a brilliant Argentinian pianist. He really hammed it up entering, playing, and bowing at the end. After these two pieces, we heard Beethoven’s 7th, also solid. The orchestra and conductor overall were very young, but talented.

On to the Mendelssohn House tomorrow!

On Sunday we arrived in Potsdam, a suburb about 45 minutes outside of Berlin. It’s a lively town, basically a small city in itself. My professor Ofer had told us to look forward to the breakfast at the hotel here, and he was not lying. I don’t want to annoy readers with an entire break-down of its offerings…but I’m going to anyway. Eggs, bacon, sausage. Chocolate pretzels, cookies, stollen. All flavors of yogurt, pineapple, pomegranate, mixed fruits. Croissants, bread, waffles. Every flavor of jam, syrup, honey, and compote, plus Nutella and different flavors of butter. A full spread of cold cuts and cheeses. A juicer with fresh oranges, grapefruit, and carrots. Multiple types of muesli with absurd fixings like aloe vera and goji berries. And an espresso machine. They even served us smoothies every morning. This morning, there was apple croissant bread pudding. I couldn’t handle myself.

On Monday morning, I went for a long walk to digest, and unknowingly visited the place we’d see as a class: Frederick the Great’s palace. The palace and all of its gardens and buildings are located in this glorious park called Sans Souci – “Without worry.” I said to Ofer, “Yeah, like Hakuna Matata.” He replied, “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

Frederick the Great apparently wasn’t so great as ruler, but he did have some noteworthy feats. First, he had all his dogs buried right outside of the palace, because they were his best friends. He also is known as the Kartoffel Kaiser, or Potato Emperor, because he had potatoes brought to Germany when he saw that so many of his people were going hungry. Considering all of the incredible potatoes I’ve eaten here, I can say all hail the Kartoffel Kaiser. Finally, the connection to Bach comes from his son, Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, who was the court organist for Frederick. Carl told Fred about his dad’s great music, so Fred wrote Bach a fugue to improvise on. Apparently the fugue didn’t go over well for Bach; unclear whether he was having a bad day or Frederick just wrote poorly. So Bach left Potsdam to write an offering for Frederick that was much, much better. He wrote a solid theme and a six-part fugue, called a ricercar (reech-er-cahr), with 14 variations including complicated canons. Frederick was impressed.

Unfortunately, Frederick’s palace was closed when we arrived, so we made our way instead to the “new palace,” his summer palace. This magnificent pink building was the most extravagant thing I have ever seen. One of its marble tiles is probably worth more than all the money I will make in my lifetime. Huge grand ballrooms with shiny gold chandeliers, gems of every color, giant paintings and frescos, and silk fabrics. Really not even possible to depict with words. Our German guide did not hesitate to snap at us every time we strayed from the designated walking carpet or tried to take a picture. My favorite room was Frederick’s concert hall, just for the information I learned about it. Apparently, Fred never met privately with people; he’d only meet here in this hall, with his band playing. He had wood special-ordered to improve the acoustics. And the paintings he acquired in a funny way. Many rulers had refused to buy the paintings off the artist for the pictures had, in their eyes, too much nudity. Frederick, who had initially also turned the artist down, caught wind of this rumor and jumped on them, in order to prove himself a real progressive, open-minded man. Honestly, these paintings have no more nudity than any other paintings of the time, in my opinion.

We had some down time to explore the Weinachtsmarkt here – this one was the biggest yet, with a carnival! – before having a short class on symbolism in Bach’s work and canons. A dinner of Indian food and then it was off to bed.

The next day, we were free to explore Berlin on our own before meeting for dinner and then hearing Bach’s Magnificat at the Berlin Philharmonic. Berlin is huge. I honestly don’t think you can do a good job of exploring it in 3 days, let alone one. All of us seemed to have our own agendas in mind, so we went off to do our own things. I wanted to rockclimb. Period. I had researched gyms in Germany and was desperate to compare and contrast one with the gyms I go to in America. As soon as were dropped off, I walked 2.5-3 miles to Boulderklub Kreuzberg, failing three times to try to figure out the subways. I was frustrated, but I just wanted to get there.

The walk wasn’t very pleasant. I found Berlin to have kind of a grungy look to it, no matter where I went. The gym was in a more residential neighborhood, and it actually was above a supermarket. I made my way up the stairs to a door covered with stickers, stepped through a curtain, and found myself in a classic rock gym, but with some German twists.

To start, the day pass cost only 6 euro, basically $7.50. I’d say the average day pass in America is twice that. I signed the waiver and was shown their grading system. They didn’t use the V0, V1, V2, etc. system, but had colored tags to indicate the level of difficulty. It didn’t really matter to me; I just wanted to climb.

The gym was all bouldering and had great variety. Many of the problems used really large, bulky holds or features. I found the movement of them very natural and comfortable, unlike a lot of the aggressive, forced boulder problems I attempt at home. And it was so calm. Normally, all I hear at the gym is “C’MON, DUDE! YOU GOT IT. BREATHE. BREATHEEE. C’MON.” And other grunting noises to express one’s masculinity. Here, everyone was just quietly climbing alone or in pairs, the music a soft, electronic beat. Everyone seemed strong and fit, but there simply wasn’t this competitive nature as I’m so used to. I’d say the gender split was around 65% male, 35% female, which I think is likely similar to home. And when I left, I could even buy a beer from their cafe for 2 euros! I didn’t, but I could have.

After climbing, I found a little speciality burger shop and got myself a Mediterranean veggie burger. I had only a few hours before I had to meet the group for dinner, so I was unsure I could realistically see a museum. But I knew I had to see the Berlin Wall. I ended up figuring out the train to get myself to the East Side Gallery, which was incredible. Awesome graffiti displays spanning about a half mile. I even saw an artist making a new design with spray paint by a small section of wall by the water. After that, I somehow managed to find the right train to get me within a half mile of the restaurant. I took it and explored, shopped around a little. Then the group met at an Asian restaurant before attending the philharmonic.

The philharmonic was gorgeous. An absolutely massive space with seats at odd angles and levels and beautiful lighting. The group consisted of 5 soloists – a soprano, second soprano, alto, tenor, bass – the full orchestra, and a choir. We first heard a piece by Zelenka, who we haven’t studied (a light piece, pleasant but somewhat unremarkable), followed by Bach’s Magnificat. The Magnificat had 12 movements, alternating between arias and choral songs. I enjoyed all of the arias that the alto sang the most – she was dressed in a beautiful gown and sparkly earrings and had an excellent voice – and the flautists and oboe player were particularly skilled.

We left Potsdam this morning for Leipzig, our final destination. I really liked Potsdam, even though we spent little time in it. Sans Souci park was just great. I took two incredible runs through it, weaving through trellises, trimmed trees and bushes, and gardens, gazing at all these exquisite palaces. I felt so alive, and I wish I could run there every day.

Leipzig is arguably my favorite place so far, and we’ve been here only a couple hours. It’s bigger than Weimar, clean, and has beautiful buildings. The Weinachtsmarkt seems almost endless here, and there’s even a giant ferris wheel. I’ll have to take a ride at some point, even though I’ll probably freeze at the top. Next to it, there’s a huge, modern-looking church with shiny glass paneling as one of the main university buildings. I dig it. I can’t wait to see what else we find.

The trip is almost over, but there’s much more in store. Tomorrow, the Bach Museum – even bigger than Eisenach’s – and a Mendelssohn concert. Stay tuned.