"I'll Be Bach" (June 18th)

"I'm Bringing Sexy Bach"

Today was filled with two of Germany's most notable figures...Johann Sebastian Bach and Martin Luther. I was literally doing "Bach" flips all day long! No pun intended...but really I was. We drove to Leipzig. It was probably one of the bigger cities I had been to on this trip. I am not much for modern larger cities, but I was very taken with Leipzig. This is another place that I would not mind going to school or living. The main reason we came to Leipzig was to see St. Thomas Church, the place where Bach ruled as organist and St. Thomas conductor. St. Thomas has one of the oldest boy choir's in the world. It is at least 800 years old. The church was nice. Bach is supposedly buried there as well, but he was moved there later because he was born in a common grave. So it could be Bach, or it couldn't be. I don't think they plan to rip up the floor and do a DNA test anytime soon.

St. Thomas Kirche

St. Thomas Kirche

Bach

Bach is buried beneath this floor

Organ

What really impressed me was the Bach Museum. It had several of his instruments and other artifacts. He was the master of the Baroque era and the art of the fugue. There is not another person who was like Bach. The museum was really well done, with effective flow, excellent audio guides, and really cool interactive rooms. This one room in particular had pictures of baroque instruments (not broke instruments) where you could push buttons to hear what they sounded like. But not only could you hear how it sounded, you could become the concert master. This room played a few of Bach's musical works, and if the picture was lit up, you could press the button and the instrument would play louder. The average person could form an orchestra. It was really cool to mix and match sounds that you liked best. Every sound had its correct note and its correct position in the music. It was phenomenal.

Bach is a very fascinating individual. He produced a new church Cantata every week, he comes from a long line of well known musicians, and he collected music from his ancestors. He finished and preserved this music, and some of these pieces of music are the only known recorded works of music from earlier periods of music. This collection was lost after WWII, but was found in Keiv in the 1990's. It is now housed in a safe location and available for research. If I was a music historian, this would be something that I would love to research.

We walked around the city and stopped at the Auerbach Keller. It is a restaurant that has murals depiction Goethe's Faust, as Goethe wrote many things while he was a student. So I could potentially go to the same school that Goethe attended. I don't mind that one bit.

Auerbach Keller

Before we left Leipzig, we stopped at St. Nicholas Church. This was the location and meeting place for the people who sought German Reunification. The inside was fabulous. We could not walk around. There was a choir working on a major work with a wonderful soloist. It is too bad that we had to leave, otherwise I would have loved to come back for the concert.

After Leipzig we drove to Wittenberg to see where Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses. The church was under construction and not open at the time. The door where Martin Luther nailed the famous document no longer exists. Rather, there is a bronze casting on the side of the building. A lot of Martin Luther's location are being fixed for a major Luther Anniversary coming up in the next couple of years. Tomorrow we would see Wartburg Castle, the place where Luther translated the Bible into the vernacular. 

Wittenberg

This is where Martin Luther preached his first non-Catholic Mass

I would say that today was the first time where I realized how long I have been in Europe. I had been on the move since the day I arrived, and it finally hit me that I am tired of traveling. However, I would not trade these experiences for anything. I am thankful for the opportunities that I have been given in my life.