It’s time to tune in to Leipzig’s classical past
IT was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.’ That’s the first line of Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.
I can see what Gabriel means — not about unrequited love, but about the concept of smell. A scent or odour can transport you across decades more quickly than anything else. The most ephemeral of the senses, it also the most enduring and evocative.
There is a certain smell of roasted coffee that immediately takes me to those German coffee shops that specialise in Kaffee und Kuchen — coffee and cake. Yes, I know, I know. There’s a thin person inside us all struggling to get out. But they can usually be sedated with a huge apple strudel with lashings of cream, and a strong, dark Teutonic coffee.
I thought fondly of Germany’s coffee shops on reading a bulletin from the city of Lepizig’s tourist board. The Leipzig people have ascertained that Bach, who lived and worked in the city, is the most streamed classical composer ever on Spotify.
BACH’S most popular composition Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major has been streamed more than 162 million times. The royalties earned would have been in the region of $24,729,209.
Next year June 9-19, 2022, the city will celebrate the composer. The festival ‘BACH — We Are Family’ will feature a score of Bach choirs, societies, festivals and associations from six continents, taking part in over 100 events.
The Leipzig Tourist Board has been promoting its city, with total justification, as one of Europe’s great music centres.
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, established in 1743, is one of the oldest symphony orchestras in the world. Leipzig was also home to Mendelssohn, Grieg, Schumann and Wagner — all lived and worked here, and most have museums, galleries or concert halls dedicated to them in the city. Friedrich Schiller wrote his poem Ode to Joy here; Beethoven subsequently set them to music, coming up with one of the most recognisable pieces of classical music of all time.
If you’ve ever heard classical music referred to as ‘music without drums’, Ode to Joy will disabuse you of that idea. When you hear this part of Beethoven’s Ninth played at full throttle by a symphony orchestra you’ll hear plenty of drums.
Once you’ve had your fill of classical music, a spot of sight-seeing is in order. So brush the crumbs off your jacket and head for St Nicholas’s Church at the top of Nikolaistrasse. If you’ve been having coffee and cake in the wonderful Café Kandler (mention my name; they may remember me) it’s just across the road.
The 12th century church, at the centre of the East German uprising, saw peace prayers grow into protests against the communist DDR government. The church was transformed into a rallying point for Leipzig’s citizens. Soon the East Germans wobbled, and the Iron Curtain was no more.
I have only one observation about Leipzig that introduces something of a sour note.
Leipzig is twinned with Birmingham in England but surely room could also be made for a twinning arrangement with Jenkinstown in Co Kilkenny? Legend has it that
Thomas Moore, aged about 21, wrote The Last Rose Of Summer after seeing a rose growing in a secluded garden in Jenkinstown. Overcome by the beauty of the scene, he put his thoughts to paper, and adapted the tune of The Young Man’s Dream to carry the words. The first published version of the song appeared in 1805. It thereafter became one of the most popular songs of the era across Europe — Beethoven even incorporated it twice into his output.
But what puts The Last Rose of Summer up there with Bach is that Moore is believed to be the first composer from Ireland or Britain to sell a million copies of one song in the US. This was purely as sheet music, long before Spotify. Indeed long before even radio or records.