Cologne, Bonn, and the Musical Greats

Although it's been a while since I've journaled, I don't even know why I am still awake and writing, considering that my day started at 4:45 AM. Maybe it has to do with all the comfort chocolate I just ate, hmmm. I had my audition for the Pacific Music Festival today in Cologne. I was worried last week after the horrible hurricane-like storms that passed through Germany because I knew that the Deutsche Bahn (German's railway system) was shut down for a night because the weather conditions were so dangerous. There had to be some serious damage done to rails, signals, perhaps even trains themselves, and today's experiences with DB proved that to be true. I arrived at my audition at the Japanese Cultural Institute in Cologne after frantic delays and a crazy taxi drive at 10 AM...the exact time I was supposed to play. The committee was kind enough to give me 35-40 minutes to warm up, and so I felt decent when I walked in to play. Sure, there were things played out of tune and rushed, but I felt that over all, I managed to calm my nerves and control my playing much better than in previous auditions, and that is a lot of the battle with orchestral auditions. Even if they don't offer me a spot for the summer, I'm glad to have properly learned a set of rather difficult excerpts and played a focused audition. It is a bit annoying, though, that the committee assigns super early times to people who've got a long commute. I spoke with one Dutch girl from Amsterdam who had to board a train at 5:00 AM to reach Cologne in time - "I mean, they saw where I was coming from. Couldn't they have given me a later time in the day?" There are a million things you can say like that in an audition situation, and I've decided that most of them just take your concentration away from where it should be. A part of winning is beating all the odds, not just those related to your particular activity of performance. So in some ways, everything is somewhat arbitrary in an audition situation; due to the wandering and ADD-like nature of the human mind, auditions need to be really black and white. The difficult part of the day was over (yay!)so I hopped on a train to Bonn, Germany for a day of paying homage to Beethoven. To create a Beethoven-esque mood, I serenaded myself IPOD-style with Gidon Kremer's rendition of the Beethoven Violin Concerto on the way to Bonn's Hauptbahnhof - even introduced it to the Indian woman sitting next to me (Sushmita, a Bangalorean who studied in London and has a new job in Germany - "help, I don't speak this language!"). Upon exiting the station, I quickly assumed tourist mode (which I haven't done in a while here in Germany)- Lonely Planet in one hand, digital camera in the other and made my way for Munsterplatz. Here lies Bonn's central cathedral, a huge Romanesque + Gothic style building (flying buttresses and all) built on the tombs of Bonn's patron saints - Cassius and Florentius, two martyred Roman soldiers. Directly north of the church is the Beethoven Memorial from 1845, financed mostly by Franz Liszt, the famous pianist and composer. It's a towering monument, greened by time and a haven for pigeons. I am struck by how all the monuments and paintings of Beethoven are usually stormy and possess frightening qualities of inner violence and deep unrest. Yes, his music embodied those qualities, but so did that of many composers. Why do we put Beethoven in a category of his own? If anyone has any thoughts or feelings on this question, please post your answers - I'm curious. Next, I passed a colorful fruit market (the sellers' bargain announcements were oddly reminiscent of chai wallahs from Dadar Station in Bombay - it doesn't matter what language you say it in, I guess) in the triangular Markt Square, where the Altes Rathaus (Old City Hall) stands. It's an elegant building with pink and gold trimming and spiraling staircases. At one time, Bonn was the capital of former West Germany, and so the Rathaus was a symbol of a politically capitalistic Germany. Many UN offices are now located in Bonn, as well as important conference/convention centers. A little ways down from the Rathaus lies a small alley-like street called Bonngasse, and that's where the Beethoven Haus lies. Very inconspicuous and modest, the door stands maybe only 3 inches taller than me and except for a small window display, could be completely passed by as the house of Beethoven's family. For a small fee, you can explore 12 rooms of the house which are filled with displays of Beethoven's everyday grooming products (shaving scissors, quills, even the giant brass ear trumpets he used at the start of deafness) to many of the the instruments that his works were performed on (the original instruments of the Schuppanzigh Quartet are on display, along with Beethoven's pianofortes and organ...and even his viola!). I was a bit disappointed that the documents were mostly facsimiles, but I guess that's understandable considering how valuable they are. Particularly memorable for me was the completely eery "death mask" that the coroner made before his autopsy (they wanted to know why he went deaf so doctors performed an autopsy) - a mold of Beethoven's face after death. You can actually stare right into it; and then only a few feet away lies the tiny attic door and room where Maria Magdalene van Beethoven gave birth to him in 1770. The room has been roped off but you can peer into it, and the spot where a bed stood is now marked by a beautiful bust of Beethoven himself. It was an emotional moment for me, to journey to the beginnings of one of the greatest artists who ever lived. As a family, we often embark on pilgrimages in India to various holy sites of temples and both old/modern day saints, the effects of which stir humility. But that seems like a given - temples WOULD stir humility. To stand in the literal footsteps of a person whom I revere as god-like in ways was equally humbling. Outside of the house lies a peaceful garden with 2 lovely statues of Beethoven, and there is also a new media center where you can listen to all sorts of recordings, from famous conductors, soloists, and people playing the period instruments of the house. There were quite a few Americans visiting the museum, of which I'm not surprised - the Beethoven Haus is Bonn's biggest tourist attraction. I left the house and headed towards the Hauptbahnhof to catch a train to the more suburban neighborhood of Endenich, where an old cemetery holds the graves of Robert and Clara Schumann. A slight detour at H&M made for a good break... I was looking for jeans, nothing more! The euro is not exactly merciful to the dollar right now. I left empty-handed and took the bus to Endenich at Alfred-Bucherer-Strasse, and then had to walk another 20 minutes to reach the Alter Friedhof (Old Cemetery). It is a gorgeous place to walk, with majestic old trees providing graceful canopies and fresh ferns, mosses, flowers, and all sorts of green plants growing on the tombstones and through cracks in the pathways. When coupled with Germany's incessant rain, it makes for a lush and oxygenated place. I photographed Maria Magdalena van Beethoven's tomb (his mother), and read on her tombstone: "Sie war meine so gute Liebenswuerdige Mutter, meine beste Freundin." Or, "She was my wonderfully kind mother, my best friend." I then went to the Schumann's tomb, pulled out the IPOD and listened to Schumann's Piano Quartet, the Andante third movement - it's the sort of thing that makes you teary (especially when Pablo Casals plays the cello solos) regardless of standing in front of a tomb or not. After a few more quiet moments in the cemetery, I headed back to the Hauptbahnhof, and then the real trouble started. I made it out of Cologne just fine, and then about 10 minutes before approaching Bielefeld, the train got delayed 10 minutes....WHY, I have no idea. I missed my connection to Detmold by probably on a few minutes, and hopped on the wrong train. Within 20 minutes, I found myself stranded in a tiny town called Buende with no train for the next 50 minutes - I even asked a cabbie to strike a deal with me - "Guckmal, ich habe nur 10 euros, nicht mehr. Koennen Sie mir fahren nach Herford und dann ich werde etwas machen dort?" (Look, I have only 10 euros, no more. Can you drive me the Herford and then I'll figure out something else there?) He wasn't too happy with that idea, so I stood in below 0 temperatures, waiting 35 more minutes for the next stupid train to Herford. Well, I got to Herford, and there was no train to Detmold - the service was cancelled due to problems with the rail. We had to be driven back for over an hour to Detmold. Whereas I should have been in by 8:20 PM, I arrived by about 10:50. Pissed doesn't even come close. This just goes to show that privatization of public transportation often just DOESN'T WORK. The Deutsche Bahn used to be one of the most efficient train systems in the world, and now it's a cracked up rickety old machine that might as well be one of the Christmas tree trains that kids play with. The owners want to keep more profits for personal use, so they put less into maintaining the railways. I think it will only last for so long - Germans are always complaining about the inefficiency of the train system, and if there's one thing that Germans really dislike, it's inefficiency. So that was my day of traveling. Tomorrow, it's back to routine. So goodnight. Oh, and GO BEARS!! :-)