In case you couldn’t tell by the prolonged silence, life has been a little crazy as of late.
Well, crazier, anyway.
As of this writing, I’ve just about finished up my semester at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. My official classes were never that rigorous to begin with,1 but the choral groups kept me busy until our last concerts, which both took place this past week.
First came the madrigal choir’s final concert, which took place in the Dom. Nothing could have properly prepared me for that. I’ve certainly sung in old, resonant churches before. As you may recall, I sang in a church with a chamber choir back in December, and I’ve even sung in true cathedrals, such as St. Stephan’s Dom in Vienna. Indeed, I thought a lot about that experience leading up to the concert in the Dom. Foolishly, I assumed the experiences would be similar. But the concert in Vienna had taken place in August, in Europe’s hottest summer on record. My concert with the madrigal choir was in January… in a giant stone building… at night… and I had no coat.
To put it mildly, I was cold.
Aside from the deteriorating functionality of my fingers as the concert progressed, I had a good time. When I performed in St. Stephan’s, the audience were scattered everywhere, and the choir stood askance the altar at an odd angle, singing directly into one of the columns. Evidently, the Kölner Dom hires better event planners. Both choir and audience were stationed in the nave of the church. This resulted in a surprisingly intimate effect, considering we were performing in a giant Gothic-style refrigerator. It was also a privilege to be there. Outside of tour groups, laity do not normally enter the nave of the Kölner Dom. But with the Christmas decorations still in place, and the tomb of the Magi2 glowingly brightly behind the audience like some sort of giant golden hearth,3 it was one of the more beautiful places I’ve ever sung.
For me, the concert also felt like a touch of home. Our repertoire was almost entirely in English. Though I’ve had a number of occasions to butcher foreign pronunciation in the past,4 I had never been on the receiving end before. In early rehearsals, the auditory barrage of mistaken emphases and f*@%ed-up fricatives was enough to cause a vowel movement.
After a while, with a little help from their resident native speaker, the choir sounded almost English. True, they still sang of Mary’s “woam” and the Baby Jesus laying in a “crehhdle,” but at least sounding joys no longer repeated from the “fields and flutes,” and the “rocks, hills and plans.” And I was thrilled when they stopped announcing, “Joy to the World, the Lord is Scum.”
The following evening saw me once again under the baton of Marcus Creed. As I’ve said here before, Creed is an excellent director, and he expects an enormous amount of professionalism and dedication from those he works with.
I am also greatly amused by his approach to the German accent. Professor Creed has lived in Germany for many years, traveling between Cologne, Stuttgart, Berlin, and many other places. German is spoken with markedly different accents in these different cities. Rather than attempting one of these accents or a mix of all of them, Professor Creed chooses to speak German with no accent whatsoever. He simply retains his own plummy English diction in both languages. The German students admire him, so I think it is a sign of admiration when they impersonate his pronunciation of stock phrases like “Ja gut” as “Yaw gewt.”
As for the concert, the evening progressed from modern to Romantic – an improvement as far as I’m concerned. We began with an incredibly minimalistic, percussive piece by a composer whose name is pronounced “No-No...” which was also my internal reaction when first asked to sing it. This screeching racket was followed by Vaughn Williams’ Flos Campi, a wordless work that I now dearly love. I’ve liked Williams since I first encountered him in college, and this piece has a spiritual quality I have rarely heard elsewhere. It was also a blessing to perform it at the Hochschule, where the performers took it seriously enough to achieve the desired effect.
The evening concluded with Fauré’s Requiem. As with Williams' work, I first became acquainted with Fauré’s music in college. Though I find his fascination with three-quarter time bordering on fetishistic, Fauré is also consistently lyrical in a way I have found almost nowhere else. The Requiem had been recommended to me by friends over the years, but this was my first chance to really engage the piece as it is meant to be performed. Compared to, say, Mozart’s Requiem, I think Fauré’s piece is simpler, but it retains elegance, and is at times far more spiritual. Between this work and the Williams, the evening was one of the more satisfying musical experiences I have had since my arrival in Germany.
Of course, this concert wasn’t in the same league with singing Disney tunes, but you can’t hit them all out of the park.
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1In case you were wondering, the German word for “torpor” is Betäubung.
2In case you don’t meticulously memorize everything in this blog, there is a relic in the back of the Dom, a golden triple sarcophagus that is said to contain the final remains of the three wise men who visited Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem.
3While we’re on the subject, can I just mention I find this really creepy? Under all the lights, the thing looks like an irradiated gingerbread house, and inside there’s not one, not two, but three dead people. And who, for that matter, got these guys back together after they all died? Maybe they did reunion tours.
4My French is a horror, like something from an ancient forgotten world. Scientists have theorized that every time I try to sing in French, the world becomes a quantitatively worse place.
Showing posts with label the Dom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Dom. Show all posts
Monday, January 14, 2008
Sunday, November 4, 2007
City of All Saints
As several notable bloggers have already mentioned, this past Wednesday was Reformation Day. I celebrated the occasion in proper Protestant fashion: I went clubbing.
The club was Gebäude 9, the same venue where I experienced a rather bizarre passion play during last month's Theater Nacht Köln. A former factory turned bar and dance club, Gebäude 9 houses parties much more successfully than it does theater, particularly bad theater with painfully obvious metaphors. The play, as you may recall, was a passion play with Jesus as an indie rocker, preaching authenticity and warning against selling out. It would have been clever if it weren't so heavy-handed.
Dance clubs are an interesting experience here. Cologne is often touted as the center of gay culture in Europe, and the KölnerInnen pride themselves on being "multi-kulti." Thus I was not surprised to find partygoers of every stripe. What did surprise me was the communal experience the club offered. I am not normally a fan of drum and bass music -- I'd never even heard of it until the night before -- but somehow, the pulsing music and heavy cigarette smoke1 combined to create an atmosphere that was almost warm. I was particularly struck by the absence of sexual tension across the dance floor. To be sure there were couples about, doing what couples ...erm, do, but the general aura was much more simple and free-spirited. It was lively, and it was fun. And that was all.
The crowd had filled Gebäude 9 from wall to wall, a somewhat surprising sight for a Wednesday. No doubt this resulted from the next day being All Saints Day. This being a Catholic region of the country, All Saints Day is an official holiday. So the next morning2 I went to the Dom, the cathedral, for Mass. In the plaza in front of the Dom, I passed a street performer doing balancing tricks on a unicycle. He had gathered a sizable crowd, so I paused briefly to watch. Upon entering the cathedral, I noticed attendance was sparse, which normally would not have surprised me. It occurred to me, however, that the crowd in the cathedral was far smaller than had been on the dance floor the night before. Indeed, it was even smaller than the gathering watching the street performer outside. My surprise waned throughout the Mass. While outside the people laughed and enjoyed the spectacle, inside they murmured through the hymns without enthusiasm and beat their breasts over their "ewige Schuld," their eternal guilt.
While the Dom lacked the festivity of Gebäude 9 or the street performer, the Mass offered contemplation, a reflection on what community is all about. In his homily, the priest spoke of both the consolation and the hardship of Christianity. He spoke of finding comfort in the family of the Church, but also of living up to the demands of what that community stands for. Community, in other words, is more than just a good feeling, more than a party or a good show. He was inspiring; it's unfortunate more people didn't hear him.
I have been thinking about these rather dichotomous twenty-four hours ever since. Many people in Germany, especially the younger generation, are by and large disaffected in regards to faith. And many of the faithful are disaffected in regards to them. I doubt anyone else from Gebäude 9 went to the Dom the next day. Nor could I imagine too many of the attendants of that Mass at a drum and bass club. I have heard it said that Cologne is a city of contradictions. The city shares a history with the Catholic Church since the middle ages, and its influence has continued into the twentieth century. As recently as the Second Vatican Council, the influential Josef Cardinal Frings hailed from Cologne, bringing with him an intelligent young theologian named Joseph Ratzinger. Yet the history of diversity and "Multi-Kulti" also has a strong tradition in Cologne, evident in the city's history of commitment to art and culture, and the amazing assortment of people who live here.
I am not so sure this dichotomy is a contradiction at all. In both Gebäude 9 and the Dom, I saw the people of Cologne seeking, in different ways, the same thing: a sense of community, a sense of belonging. It reminds me of that amateurish passion play I saw at Gebäude 9 last month, with Jesus as indie rocker. Perhaps the image is not such a bad metaphor for this city, with its different groups of identical desires.
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1Among other unmistakable aromas.
2Okay, fine, afternoon... late afternoon.
The club was Gebäude 9, the same venue where I experienced a rather bizarre passion play during last month's Theater Nacht Köln. A former factory turned bar and dance club, Gebäude 9 houses parties much more successfully than it does theater, particularly bad theater with painfully obvious metaphors. The play, as you may recall, was a passion play with Jesus as an indie rocker, preaching authenticity and warning against selling out. It would have been clever if it weren't so heavy-handed.
Dance clubs are an interesting experience here. Cologne is often touted as the center of gay culture in Europe, and the KölnerInnen pride themselves on being "multi-kulti." Thus I was not surprised to find partygoers of every stripe. What did surprise me was the communal experience the club offered. I am not normally a fan of drum and bass music -- I'd never even heard of it until the night before -- but somehow, the pulsing music and heavy cigarette smoke1 combined to create an atmosphere that was almost warm. I was particularly struck by the absence of sexual tension across the dance floor. To be sure there were couples about, doing what couples ...erm, do, but the general aura was much more simple and free-spirited. It was lively, and it was fun. And that was all.
The crowd had filled Gebäude 9 from wall to wall, a somewhat surprising sight for a Wednesday. No doubt this resulted from the next day being All Saints Day. This being a Catholic region of the country, All Saints Day is an official holiday. So the next morning2 I went to the Dom, the cathedral, for Mass. In the plaza in front of the Dom, I passed a street performer doing balancing tricks on a unicycle. He had gathered a sizable crowd, so I paused briefly to watch. Upon entering the cathedral, I noticed attendance was sparse, which normally would not have surprised me. It occurred to me, however, that the crowd in the cathedral was far smaller than had been on the dance floor the night before. Indeed, it was even smaller than the gathering watching the street performer outside. My surprise waned throughout the Mass. While outside the people laughed and enjoyed the spectacle, inside they murmured through the hymns without enthusiasm and beat their breasts over their "ewige Schuld," their eternal guilt.
While the Dom lacked the festivity of Gebäude 9 or the street performer, the Mass offered contemplation, a reflection on what community is all about. In his homily, the priest spoke of both the consolation and the hardship of Christianity. He spoke of finding comfort in the family of the Church, but also of living up to the demands of what that community stands for. Community, in other words, is more than just a good feeling, more than a party or a good show. He was inspiring; it's unfortunate more people didn't hear him.
I have been thinking about these rather dichotomous twenty-four hours ever since. Many people in Germany, especially the younger generation, are by and large disaffected in regards to faith. And many of the faithful are disaffected in regards to them. I doubt anyone else from Gebäude 9 went to the Dom the next day. Nor could I imagine too many of the attendants of that Mass at a drum and bass club. I have heard it said that Cologne is a city of contradictions. The city shares a history with the Catholic Church since the middle ages, and its influence has continued into the twentieth century. As recently as the Second Vatican Council, the influential Josef Cardinal Frings hailed from Cologne, bringing with him an intelligent young theologian named Joseph Ratzinger. Yet the history of diversity and "Multi-Kulti" also has a strong tradition in Cologne, evident in the city's history of commitment to art and culture, and the amazing assortment of people who live here.
I am not so sure this dichotomy is a contradiction at all. In both Gebäude 9 and the Dom, I saw the people of Cologne seeking, in different ways, the same thing: a sense of community, a sense of belonging. It reminds me of that amateurish passion play I saw at Gebäude 9 last month, with Jesus as indie rocker. Perhaps the image is not such a bad metaphor for this city, with its different groups of identical desires.
--------
1Among other unmistakable aromas.
2Okay, fine, afternoon... late afternoon.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Kölner Kirchen, Part One: The Dom
I have heard Cologne referred to as the City of Churches. The name is apt. Though Cologne began as a Roman colony, that age is most evident in the many Romanesque churches that overlook the streets. Sadly, there’s not much of the city's history to be seen besides the churches. Most of Cologne was bombed during World War II, and virtually all of the current urban landscape was built in the postwar reconstruction or thereafter. Many of the churches, however, survived the bombings. Those that were damaged underwent extensive and careful repairs, a process that went on into the 1990’s, and still goes on in occasional spot work today.
Since so much of Cologne’s remaining architectural history is tied up in these beautiful buildings, I thought I should give them some consideration here. And any discussion of Cologne’s architecture, history, or most anything else really, must begin with Cologne's Gothic cathedral, the Dom.
The cathedral, the center and symbol of the city, is simply called the Kölner Dom, or just “die Dom.” It is the tallest building in the city at 509 feet, and with the exception of a few skyscrapers that have sprung up outside the Altstadt, it towers over everything like a behemoth. The Dom can be seen from just about everywhere, and is often used as a directional guide, e.g. “Head towards the Dom, keep the Dom on your right, etc.”
The history of the Dom is well documented, and I would be doing little other than a disservice, were I to attempt to summarize it here. What I can say is that the building took 600 years to build, and its presence gives a unique character to the city. For instance, when I change lines on my morning commute, I rise out of the U-Bahn to a platform that faces the bridge across the Rhine. This bridge leads to Cologne's central station, which is directly next to the Dom. Thus, if one enters the city from the east side of the Rhine, then the Dom greets your entry.
The Dom is the second tallest church in Europe, and it just barely misses first. Students can climb the southern tower for just 1€, and from there one can see the entire city.
It’s worth the hike.
The interior of the church is also spectacular. Regrettably, the stained-glass windows were all destroyed in the war, but they were beautifully reconstructed… though they do incorporate the occasional oddity. This stained-glass window can be found on the western wall when entering the church. In the bottom right corner, there is a picture of the planet Saturn, a picture that very closely resembles the symbol of the popular German electronics store of the same name, which just happens to have an outlet directly outside the church.
The symbol...
...which can be seen on the store across from the cathedral, on the left side here.
The most difficult thing to explain about the Dom is its size. It is practically impossible to express the sheer physical presence of the cathedral in words and pictures. To give some scale, however, you'll note the two Kreuzblumen adorning the Dom's towers:
Here's a to-scale replica on the ground.
Even that comparison does not do justice to the impression the Dom makes on visitors. After all, if pictures did the Dom justice, it probably wouldn't be the single most visited building in Europe. But as the Kölners would note, it's not like it's hard to find, either.
See what I mean?
Since so much of Cologne’s remaining architectural history is tied up in these beautiful buildings, I thought I should give them some consideration here. And any discussion of Cologne’s architecture, history, or most anything else really, must begin with Cologne's Gothic cathedral, the Dom.
The cathedral, the center and symbol of the city, is simply called the Kölner Dom, or just “die Dom.” It is the tallest building in the city at 509 feet, and with the exception of a few skyscrapers that have sprung up outside the Altstadt, it towers over everything like a behemoth. The Dom can be seen from just about everywhere, and is often used as a directional guide, e.g. “Head towards the Dom, keep the Dom on your right, etc.”The history of the Dom is well documented, and I would be doing little other than a disservice, were I to attempt to summarize it here. What I can say is that the building took 600 years to build, and its presence gives a unique character to the city. For instance, when I change lines on my morning commute, I rise out of the U-Bahn to a platform that faces the bridge across the Rhine. This bridge leads to Cologne's central station, which is directly next to the Dom. Thus, if one enters the city from the east side of the Rhine, then the Dom greets your entry.
The Dom is the second tallest church in Europe, and it just barely misses first. Students can climb the southern tower for just 1€, and from there one can see the entire city.
It’s worth the hike.
The interior of the church is also spectacular. Regrettably, the stained-glass windows were all destroyed in the war, but they were beautifully reconstructed… though they do incorporate the occasional oddity. This stained-glass window can be found on the western wall when entering the church. In the bottom right corner, there is a picture of the planet Saturn, a picture that very closely resembles the symbol of the popular German electronics store of the same name, which just happens to have an outlet directly outside the church.The symbol...
...which can be seen on the store across from the cathedral, on the left side here.
The most difficult thing to explain about the Dom is its size. It is practically impossible to express the sheer physical presence of the cathedral in words and pictures. To give some scale, however, you'll note the two Kreuzblumen adorning the Dom's towers:
Here's a to-scale replica on the ground.
Even that comparison does not do justice to the impression the Dom makes on visitors. After all, if pictures did the Dom justice, it probably wouldn't be the single most visited building in Europe. But as the Kölners would note, it's not like it's hard to find, either.
See what I mean?
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