Wrapping up.

Public art--Kollwitz portrait after her self-portraits.

As I get ready to leave Dresden in a couple days, one last bit of Kollwitz. Just about two blocks from me is the street that runs along the Elbe, called Käthe-Kollwitz-Ufer, or Käthe Kollwitz Embankment. In a posting last May, I wrote of Kollwitz's Dresden connection. Street namings are another aspect of that. The Käthe-Kollwitz-Ufer is the biggest one.

More pictures from this street.  The local electrical utility, Drewag, has a number of small transformer stations (I think they are) all over the city, and they are painted in a huge variety of ways, often in trompe-l'oeil style. Here's the one down the street. Incredibly well done. And no, the building is not made of bricks.

In another lifetime, I would go around the town seeking out and photographing all such stations.  They're all over, and quite wonderful.

a "prince" of a bike.

Sad news: I just sold my bicycle in preparation for leaving. I had bought it used soon after I got here, and it served me incredibly well. I practically lived on it. Rode it on average 7 days a week. Perfect for the cobblestones and often holey streets of Dresden. Sold it for cheap to my next-door neighbor, who bought it for his 15-yr-old son. I now have a real appreciation for mountain bikes, which I had previously disdained.

As for this blog, I do plan to add a little more to it after I get home Monday night. (Perhaps long after.) I would like to say a little more about the musical projects I have been working on in Dresden, which are ongoing. There is plenty more for me to do that I can handle online from Pittsburgh.

Der Freischütz by Weber

Saxon Switzerland

Composer Carl Maria von Weber was born in northwestern Germany not far from the Danish border. He spent the last ten years of his short life in southeastern Germany not far from the Czech border, as the Music Director of the Court Opera in Dresden. He lived in a house on the Elbe a bit upstream from the city, and is known to have enjoyed hiking in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains a little further up. These mountains, long ago dubbed the "Saxon Switzerland," are full of dramatic high cliffs with deep gorges. While composing his most famous opera, Der Freischütz, Weber found inspiration here for the Wolf's Glen scene during which the two characters cast the magic bullets at midnight, accompanied by all the horrors of hell. (See my May 23 posting for two of the ingredients for the magic bullets--the eyes!)

Backdrop to the Felsenbühne.

In the middle of this area, a natural bowl was turned into an open-air theater in the 1930s, called the "Felsenbühne," approximately Cliff Stage. I'm sure the primary inspiration for opening such a theater was the Wolf's Glen scene from Freischütz. It was made for that. And indeed, the opera is one of the most often-performed pieces at the Felsenbühne.

View toward upstage, where the bullets were cast (under the frame).

So last Sunday, I went. It was truly a spectacular experience. The production was quite true to the intentions of the composer and librettist--unlike most European opera productions these days. But here, how could you do otherwise? The biggest directorial conceit was to use picture frames of all sizes throughout the production. A picture falling from the wall figures in the plot of the opera. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I had to make due with the lousy camera on my cell phone with its grimy lens.

The State Theaters of Saxony, which have productions across the state, run the Felsenbühne. Their orchestra plays, and the singers and production workers are employed by the State Theaters as well. Quite competently done, excellent wind playing in the orchestra, and the soloists were very good (but not great). It's certainly a tough venue to play. It threatened rain the whole time, and I learned that if it starts to rain, they stop the production for a few minutes (I guess to put on raincoats, etc.), and then continue. It didn't start.

The tuba is smokin'!

The state government of Saxony recently decided to save money by dissolving the orchestra of the State Theaters and folding it in with another orchestra (which is already the result of other dissolutions). In May, there was a big demonstration in front of the Parliament building downtown, and I was there. Lots of music, and speeches of course. The last I heard, the final decision was made to dissolve. But for some reason, there is hope for finding another solution. In any case, a lot of musicians' jobs are on the line, as not all can be saved by joining with another orchestra.

Back to the Felsenbühne. The show was a total thrill, seeing it performed right there where it happened.

VW ad

This post sponsored by Volkswagen:

Subtitles available.

(I don't mind plugging them, since they have a major new factory here in Dresden, and they support the arts here bigtime.)

Spreewald

The Spreewald is the forested area around the Spree River about halfway between Dresden and Berlin. Much of it is a nature preserve. The river, which flows through Berlin, has an especially flat incline in this area, so it is very slow moving, and there is an enormous network of canals. The area is not exactly a forest, though it is called one. Farmland, mostly.

Ladies on a flatboat in the town of Lübben munching on pickles.

Pickles. That's what it's known for throughout the land. They grow cucumbers, transport them on small, barge-like boats, and pickle them in various ways in gigantic wooden barrels. And everywhere you go in the area, it's pickles.

My German friends, the Weidners, invited me for a weekend up there in the Spreewald in mid-July. One day, we rented kayaks and paddled the river and canals (never sure which was which), and the other day, we did a bike ride, mostly on dykes between waterways and farmland. Stayed the one night at what was essentially a B&B run by a middle-aged woman on her grandparents' old farm. (She gave me a jar of you-know-what as a parting gift.)

One of many bike trails in the region. The Pickled Pedaler?

No, they don't have 43 words for pickle in Germany. Their word for pickle is Gurke, which is also their word for cucumber. If you need to be specific about it in German, you would precede "Gurke" with the word for the flavor of pickle (spice, garlic, etc.). The German word "Pickel" means pimple.

The waterways are interspersed by small locks, some of which you can operate yourself. Interesting to get to see how it all works.

To cap it all off, the highlight of the trip, the final sight before heading home was, yes, the.....

Pickle Museum!

Phoenix

It's been a long time since I've written, and of course the big thing that has happened in the meantime is my trip to play two concerti in Phoenix.  Or more accurately, at Arizona State in Tempe.  The concert went well and was well received and all that, but the main thing is that I got to Carolina's again after 18 years.  Worth the trip, and the wait.

It's hard to think of what else to say.  Most everyone was there.  It's always fun to play a concerto with orchestra, something I do on average about every 4-5 years.  I do feel a little funny when all those players are working just for me, it seems.  And I wonder (if not assume) if they're hating it and waiting for the service to be over so they can go home.  I do some of that when I'm accompanying a soloist, but usually I listen critically to the soloist and imagine how I would do up there.  So here was one of my rare opportunities to see. 

I remember from the first public performances I gave at the UNICEF Youth Concerts that I practically had to be pushed out the door onto the stage to play, I was so scared.  Now, it's more intellectual:  I tell myself I can do this, and I believe it.  Then I tell myself to just do it, and I walk out decisively and play.  Then, all the dumb things happen, but I won't go into that.  I know how much the audience likes it.  At least I think I do.

Carolina's hasn't changed in any way but prices.  Can't wait to go back.  Just west of the airport, if you're ever in Phoenix.  You could do it by taxi during a layover of a couple hours.