The nearly four-hour train journey north from Munich whipped us past a landscape of farmland, old Bavarian villages and rolling hills. Our destination: the historic city of Bamberg. We booked a small room at the …
March 25, 2014
Bamberg, Germany: the "beer city"
Summer of Wagner
July and August are Wagner months on account of the annual Bayreuth Festival in Bayreuth, Germany. The festival has been running since 1876, and has been impossible to attend for most of that time. However, …
September 1, 2014
Berlin in 7 Days or Less
I knew Berlin was a big city, but I never knew how big until I explored it on foot. I had seven days to see the major and not-so-major sites. Since the fall of its …
September 4, 2014
Mignon isn't just a cut of beef
Esoteric pick of the week: Requiem für Mignon by Robert Schumann. Schumann is not an esoteric composer, but Mignon is definitely a specialized topic of interest. In Europe she is considered the most successful heroine …
January 10, 2015
Absorbed in history-rich Berlin
Berlin was always on our list of places to go someday, but the timing just never seemed right for one reason or another. As it turned out, May 2015 was the 70th anniversary of the …
Wave of the baton creates political intrigue
Politics in classical music is not new. Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Shostakovich, and countless other composers were politically active and, at times, censored. Almost every mid-20th-century conductor, singer, and instrumental soloist was politicized by World War …
August 30, 2015
Zen Buddhism on the conductor's platform
Alexander Scriabin was the composer who wanted to compose us all into nirvana. Sergiu Celibidache was the conductor who wanted to conduct us into enlightenment. Celibidache brought Zen Buddhism to the conductor’s podium along with …
September 10, 2015
Juan Vargas, international hipster
Congressman Juan Vargas and his staff are getting ever more familiar with Germany, thanks to repeated free trips there provided by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Robert Bosch Stiftung, two big …
November 11, 2015
Lohengrin and the feminine redemption
The time has come to baptize this little playlist. We’ve worked around the Germanic pantheon of composers with Beethoven, Mahler, and Bruckner but it’s time to bring the lumber and add Wagner. This scene, Lohengrin’s …
November 17, 2015
Fresh Stone beer for Europe Monday
Monday, December 7th, European countries will get their first official taste of Stone brews on draught, as the inaugural batch of beers out of the new Stone Brewing Berlin brewhouse will simultaneously debut at 6 …
December 3, 2015