Taize chants to celebrate Christmas

Taizé chants start my musical celebration of Christmas on Future Radio this Sunday, December 23rd. If you have not heard the music of Taizé before you are in for a very special experience. This is Gregorian Chant updated to the 21st century, it is music written for communal celebration, and it is the perfect way to start Christmas. My header photo shows the Church of Reconciliation in Taizé which we visited again this September. The second half of my programme is drawn from the arrangement of the Christmas Vespers by Rudolf Mauersberger that is sung every year by the Kreuzchor in the historic city of Dresden.

The programme is broadcast at 5.00pm UK time on Sunday, December 23rd. Convert to local time here, and launch the audio stream here. Read more about the music of Taizé here, and the Dresden Christmas Vespers here.

Now visit the green hill faraway called Taizé.
Hear my Christmas programme on Future Radio on Sunday December 23 at 5.00pm UK time (convert to local time zones here). Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

It's about making the link

Having an opinion is unfashionable in some places these days. But not according to a link on A.C. Grayling's website.
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Why no Requiem atonal?

Today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK, when we remember all those who lost their lives in the struggle for peace and freedom. Remembrance Sunday has many musical connections, ranging from Benjamin Britten through Arvo Pärt, to George Lloyd, who was himself traumatised in action.

Next Saturday I will be at a performance in Norwich Cathedral of Herbert Howell's 1936 Requiem. This is an economic, intense and moving work that lasts for little more than fifteen minutes, and is scored for SSAATTBB and organ. There is an excellent recording of it on Naxos by the Choir of St Johns' College, Cambridge directed by Christopher Robinson. The CD also includes Take him, earth, for cherishing, the motet composed by Howells to mark the assasination of President John F. Kennedy. We will be remembering that sad event just five days after the Norwich Cathedral performance of Howell's Requiem.

My footer photo is a reminder of one of the more obscure musical connections to Remembrance Sunday. It shows the Cenotaph in Whitehall where the nation remembers the war dead today. The stark monument was designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, whose daughter we caught recently walking with Stravinsky. And that mention of 'Twelve-tone Lizzie' brings me to an important question that lies behind my scepticism about the current media hype surrounding John Foulds' World Requiem. Why does our public music of remembrance have to be 'accessible' and not too challenging? Why does it have to be so 'Classic FM'?

If you must have your Nimrod, but you like to be tonally challenged, why not try Thomas Adès' first string quartet Arcadiana? This was first performed at the Cambridge Elgar Festival in 1994. It is quintessential Adès, and you definitely won't hear it on Classic FM. But the sixth movement is titled O Albion, and for seventeen devotissimo bars in E flat, the key of Nimrod, it movingly pay homage to the time of Elgar and those that died in the trenches of the Somme. But if you come from the World Requiem 'big is beautiful' school why not try Geoffrey Burgon's 1976 Requiem, and give your loudspeakers a real workout? More on Geoffrey Burgon here.

In his peerless War Requiem Benjamin Britten stressed reconciliation as well as remembrance by specifying (but not obtaining) a British, German and Russian soloist for the work's first performance in Coventry Cathedral, the preserved ruins of which are seen below. If, like me, you value reconciliation as well as remembrance, and are uncomfortable with the jingoism associated with the Albert Hall, I give you two personal choices of music for Remembrance Sunday.


Toru Takemitsu's Requiem (for string orchestra) was written in 1957 in memory of the Japanese film composer Fumio Hayasaka. It is a slow, elegiac work lasting a little over ten minutes. The three movements are marked Lento, Modére and Moins lent. Disarmingly the composer later explained "I was never able to write an Allegro ..."

I write this waiting for the start of the BBC broadcast from the Cenotaph. A CD is playing that moves me even more than the Nimrod that will be played in a few minutes. Eleven young choristers from the famous Kreuzchor were among more the 25,000 killed in the British and American bombing of Dresden on February 13th 1945. As well as the terrible loss of its choristers, the famous choir also lost its its neogothic choir school on the Georgplatz, its library of sheet music and archive, and its very raison d'être, the beautiful Kreuzkirche (Church of the Holy Cross) which dated from the 13th century.

The cantor of the Kreuzkirche, Rudolf Mauersberger, completed his Dresden Requiem in 1961. It is a profoundly moving memorial to the victims of the bombing of Dresden. But it was also a living symbol of Dresden's resistance to the repressive political regime in the GDR until Die Wende in 1989. There is an excellent recording of the Dresden Requiem by the Kreuzchor on the German Carus label. My header image is a session photo from the recording in Dresden's Lukaskirche in 1994. This has been the venue for many famous recordings, including Herbert von Karajan's 1970 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Rudolf Mauersberger's Dresden Requiem was written for the boy's voices of the Kreuzchor. Much of the singing is a capella, but the score also uses a small ensemble of organ, celeste, trombones, double basses and percussion. It is certainly not atonal, but neither is it 'Classic FM'. And it has been performed in Dresden every year since its premiere more than fifty years ago.

You can read the full story of the Dresden Requiem, and listen to samples, here. To my knowledge it has never been performed in London. Let us remember the dead of the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki today, as well as all other victims of war. And let us hope for a London performance of Rudolf Mauersberger's Dresden Requiem in the future.

* Update - read here how the World Requiem un-Foulded.


Follow this path to see Dresden restored from the ruins.
Image credits. Header Carus, middle Wikipedia, footer Ministry of Defense Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Jet set maestro's swan-song

A reader in Paris tells me that Valery Gergiev (left) failed to conduct a performance of Lohengrin at the Opéra National de Paris at the Bastille last night due to travel problems. Dresden born Michael Güttler deputised at the last minute and made a big impact. Güttler is a very talented young conductor who is making a career out of picking up the ball in Wagner after Gergiev has dropped it - he first came to prominence when he deputised for Gergiev in the Ring and Parsifal at the Marinsky in 2003.

An apocryphal story tells how Herbert von Karajan gets into a waiting limousine in Vienna during his time with the State Opera there, and the driver asks him where he wants to go. "It does not matter", he responds, "I'm wanted everywhere." What a shame that forty years on maestros are still admired for the tempi of their travel arrangements rather than the tempi of their performances.

There is now legal protection which gives passengers a refund when a plane is late or cancelled in the EU. How about a similar refund to concert-goers for no-show conductors and soloists to focus attention on travel planning? Other examples from readers of jet-set musicians finding the boarding gate closed will be published here. Meanwhile I suspect Michael Güttler will be getting a lot more career opportunities courtesy of galloping Gergiev.

Now see Karajan's private jet and motor-bike
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So it goes ~ Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-1977

With many thanks to reader Storey Clayton who helped put this wonderful tribute together. More related links here On An Overgrown Path, and a nice appreciation, with the same title, in today's Observer.

Now read why we aren't marching in the streets anymore.
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Kurt Vonnegut's Dresden

The death of Kurt Vonnegut (left) has brought many new readers here. Vonnegut's novels include Slaughterhouse-Five based on his experience of the 1945 bombing of Dresden. Here is a summary of Dresden resources on the Path:

* Vonnegut gets his Dresden facts wrong ~ self-explanatory
* I am a camera - Dresden ~ inspirational pictures
* Dead, dead, dead everywhere ~ accounts of the bombing
* Dresden Requiem ~ contemporary music tribute
* The act of killing from 20,000 feet ~ a new book
* Intoxicating Heinichen from Dresden ~ happier times

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Intoxicating Heinichen from Dresden

If you like Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, and who doesn’t? Musica Antiqua Köln’s reissue of Heinichen’s contemporaneous Dresden Concerti should be in your collection.

The legendary Johann Sebastian Bach and the little known Johann David Heinichen provide an interesting contrast. The Brandenburg Concertos were dedicated to Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg, in whose household Bach was probably hoping to find work. The court at Brandenburg was a pretty cheerless place at that time under the rule of Ludwig’s uncle, the strictly Calvinist and despotic Friedrich Wilhelm 1, who was known as the Soldier King.

By contrast Saxony was ruled by the enlightened Catholic Augustus II, although the state and the people remained Lutheran in a move that renounced the established principle of ‘cuius regio, rius religio’. The electors of Saxony were great patrons of the arts, and their visionary patronage and policy of public access to artworks created the legendary Florence on the Elbe, and established Dresden as a creative centre ahead of Brandenburg’s Berlin.

As well as collecting works by Raphael, Titian and contemporary artists the electors maintained a court orchestra of fine musicians who had chamber works written for them by Albinoni, Vivaldi, Fasch and Telemann, and in 1773 Bach presented his settings of the Kyrie and Gloria from the Latin mass to Augustus in Dresden. and these eventually became the first part of the B minor Mass. To this flourishing musical centre came Johann David Heinichen. Son of an Evangelical pastor, he studied at the famous Thomas-Schule in Leipzig under Bach’s predecessor Johann Kuhnau, who I wrote about some time back, and in 1717 the Protestant Heinichen was appointed Kapellmeister in the Catholic court of Dresden.

In the twelve years before his death Heinichen composed works ranging from serenades to Catholic liturgical works for performance in Dresden. In 1992 Reinhard Goebel recorded Heinichen’s Dresden Concerti with Musica Antiqua Köln, and their evangelising performances won a number of awards, and were acclaimed for showcasing a neglected composer. Archiv has now reissued the Dresden Concerti as a mid-priced double CD. The music is inventive and intoxicating, the performances are energetic, the sound from the early instrument band captured in the studio of Deutschlandfunk in Cologne is exemplary, and the booklet includes an excellent explanatory essay by Reinhard Goebel. What an absolute tragedy that Musica Antiqua Köln was forced to disband at the end of 2006 due to a neurological disorder impeding Goebel's playing.

Although Dresden was at its zenith in the early 18th century, the city remained an important centre of Western art until the 20th century. Sadly Reinhard Goebel’s wonderfully informative essay ends with these words: ‘The recording is also dedicated to the remembrance of the much-loved Dresden of the past, 'Florence on the Elbe', the Baroque city extinguished, at least physically, on 13 February 1945.’

Now see Florence on the Elbe reborn.
Header image, Dresden 1748 by Bernardo Bellotto, and the three smaller images are slices, and in one case mirrors, of Bellotto. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Dresden February 13th 2007

Nazi numbers were down to 1,600 – among them extremists from Hungary, the UK, Austria and France – for the 2007 annual fascist commemoration of the Allied air raids on Dresden in February 1945. For several years the event has been a key date in the German and international nazi calendar. Two years ago more than 7,000 fascists attended.

As usual the nazis marched with the slogan “No bombing Holocaust ever again”, ridiculing the victims of the real Holocaust, Hitler’s industrialised mass murder of Jews, Roma and Sinti. This year the demonstration was accompanied by an “action week” organised by an alliance of all Dresden’s rightwing extremists outside the National Democratic Party (NPD) under the leadership of “Free Nationalist”. The NPD’s leaders attended the march.

The nazis were faced with a strong protest from 1,000 mostly young anti-fascists who repeatedly blocked their path, delaying them and finally forcing them to shorten their demonstration. Some of the more militant nazis tried violently to break out of their own demonstration but ran into conflict with the police and anti-fascists. To some extent they succeeded but ended up fighting with police and anti-fascists.

Scandalously, however, the police this time allowed those nazis who had not already gone home in frustration at the anti-fascist blockade to demonstrate directly opposite the New Synagogue. Nevertheless, anti-fascists, encouraged by their success in ruining the nazi’s evening, are optimistic about preventing next year’s demonstration.

Frank Buschmann reports from Dresden via Antifaschistisches Infoblatt, Antifa-Net , and International Searchlight.

Now read about, and see, Dresden, 13th February 1945.
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All this ….. and what for?

The terrible raids on Dresden by British and American bombers took place on the nights of 13th and 14th February 1945. But the photographs here are not of Dresden, they show the damage inflicted by the German bombing of Norwich, where I live. 1432 people were killed or injured in Norwich by air raids between 1940 and 1943, and 85% of the housing stock was damaged. During April 1942 Norwich was one of the English cathedral cities heavily bombed in the "Baedeker raids" which targeted cultural centres selected from the eponymous German guide book. The photographs accompanying this article are taken from the official account of the air raids on Norwich published in 1944. This remarkable document, and remember it was written while World War 2 still raged, ends with the words below written by the novelist and war poet R H Mottram:


So the long tale of violence and attempted intimidation drags to its close, and as these words are written the seemingly endless vigil is being relaxed. Whatever we may suffer from “Revenge” weapons, we no longer anticipate organised attack. We have laid aside the steel helmet that so often oppressed our brow, and the respirator that we tested and tried on, hangs on its peg accumulating dust. We no longer look with trepidation for children who linger on their way home from school, nor do we stagger sleepily through the black shadows or the ghoulish light of flares to take up our posts of duty.

We hope soon to be replanning Norwich, and only the broken-hearted can fail to hope that a better and finer city may arise on these ashes. Perhaps a new Germany will help to patch our gaping places and re-site our streets. But no skill will bring back those who lie under the long row of crosses that line the cemetery rail. These, who bore no malice, are a sacrifice to the evil forces still at work in the world. One may be tempted to recall the last lines of the play, appropriately entitled Strife, by John Galsworthy: “All this …. and what for?”

It is for a new generation to provide the answer.


Now playing - Arvo Pärt’s I am the true vine, (Paul Hillier directing the Theatre of Voices, Harmonia Mundi 90407). The photograph above shows the destruction in the Cathedral Close in Norwich, with the cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey in the foreground. The photo was taken from a vantage point on the magnificent Norman cathedral. Unlike the Frauenkirche and Thomaskirche in Dresden, Norwich Cathedral survived the terrible bombing despite two direct hits from incendiary bombs, and in 1996 Arvo Pärt was commissioned to write I am the true vine to celebrate the Cathedral's 900th anniversary. The work is an English setting of St. John 15:1-14, in which Jesus likens himself to "the true vine" and commands his followers to love each other.

Arvo Pärt now lives in Berlin, another city that suffered terrible war damage, and the CD I am listening to also contains his moving Berliner Messe. Writing in 1944 R.H. Mottram expressed the hope that: “a new Germany will help to patch our gaping places and re-site our streets”, and this is precisely what happened, although the writer could not have anticipated the four decades of agonizing delay caused by the Cold War. In 1989 the collapse of Communism was triggered by events in Leipzig, just a few miles from Dresden. This allowed the creation of a new Europe which now includes many countries that were part of the USSR.

Arvo Pärt was born in Estonia, one of several countries that threw off the Soviet shackles in the early 1990s, and became part of the new Europe. Today the region around Norwich is home to a large community of migrants from these Baltic countries. On Saturday we celebrated their culture with our first Baltic States Festival, thankfully confirming that a new generation of Europeans is starting to provide the answer to the question "All this .... and what for?"

Suffering knows no side in time of war, now read about the Dresden Requiem for eleven young victims
My thanks go to Helen Yates for her grandmother’s copy of Assault Upon Norwich (published by Norwich Corporation 1944). The location of the photographs in descending order are Rampant Horse Street, Westwick Street, and Cathedral Close. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Retail therapy for the US Vice-President

'We live in a capitalist society' was fellow blogger Alex Ross' timely reminder on my recent article about Sony putting PlayStation consoles into a London opera house. So, here today is an article celebrating that great capitalist society where the customer is king, or at least Vice-President.

In Berlin, there was a great surge in the popular mood when Vice-President Lyndon Johnson and the mayor of Berlin Willy Brandt’s triumphal progress towards the North Charlottenburg municipal housing project and Marienfelde was interrupted at around 2.30. Momentous news had been received. The US battle group from West Germany was approaching the border between the GDR and Berlin. The VIP’s must get ready to receive it. The limo turned south-west, weaving its way through back streets cleared by police cars with their sirens wailing and by skilful motorcycle outriders. The car was heading for the Avus highway, which would speed it down to the Dreilinden checkpoint. This was where the battle group would cross back into Western territory.

This moment, shortly after noon in Berlin on Sunday 20 August 1961, was a potential turning-point in the West Berlin crisis. Nevertheless, by Brandt’s account, as they roared towards Dreilinden in the open car, his Texan guest’s mind seems to have wandered to other matters. To shopping, in fact.

Johnson chose this dramatic juncture to make an enquiry of the mayor, not about Brandt’s views on the crisis, or on the European scene, but about places where the Vice-President might be able to pick up some stuff to take home for the folks there. You know … what about the place where they did the wonderful china? Ah yes, Brandt responded helpfully. The former Prussian Royal Porcelain Manufactory, now the State Porcelain Factory. This was famous for its pale-blue chinaware, which had adorned the dinner table of Frederic the Great and was still produced for the international luxury market. They had an outlet, but of course, it being Sunday, the place was unfortunately closed. Johnson’s reaction reflected his position as leader of a nation that lived to shop, forced to endure the privations of a nation that still, at that point in its history, shopped to live.

‘Well, goddamnit!’ he exploded. ‘What if they are closed? You’re the mayor, aren’t you? It shouldn’t be too difficult for you to make arrangements so I can get to see that porcelain. I’ve crossed an entire ocean to come here …’

That true story is from the newly published, and highly recommended, The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor (Bloomsbury ISBN 0747580154), from which both photographs here are also taken with acknowledgment. Willy Brandt's version is taken from his book Begegnungen und Einsichten: Die Jahre 1960-1975. (Hamburg, 1976). Frederick Taylor is also author of the acclaimed book on the bombing of Dresden, on Tuesday 13th February 1945.

My header photo shows Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt and Lyndon Johnson during the Vice-President’s visit to the newly divided Berlin in August 1961. To the left of Johnson is General Lucius D Clay who was military governor in Berlin in the post-war period. He was sent by President Kennedy to represent US interests in Berlin after the Wall was built. In this photograph the US Vice-President’s mind seems to be on other things – porcelain perhaps?

Below is the scene the beleaguered Berliners were waiting for, the arrival of armed US troops. Sadly though the Western troops did little more that take part in a stand-off with East German forces, a stand-off that lasted until the Wall fell in November 1989. In the background can be seen the reconstructed Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church which I have written about on these pages.


Now, to understand how the Berliners really felt read The Berlin Philharmonic’s darkest hour.
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I am a camera - Dresden

In July 1960, Dmitri Shostakovich visited Dresden, which was then in the communist German Democratic Republic, to write the score for a film, 'Five Days, Five Nights'. This was the first time he had seen the devastation caused by the Allied bombing raids on February 14th 1945. The experience directly inspired his Eighth String Quartet, Op 110, which was written in just three days, and dedicated to the victims of fascism and war. The quartet became a musical symbol of the devastated city.

In the same way the rubble of the beautiful Frauenkirche (above), which was consecrated in 1734 and collapsed two days after the 1945 attacks, became a visual symbol of the ruined 'Florence on the Elbe.' The cathedral's famous organ by Gottfried Silbermann was also totally destroyed. It had been played by Johann Sebastian Bach in a recital in December 1736. The acoustics of the cathedral were said to have inspired passages in Wagner's Parsifal, and he conducted the first performance of his Biblical scene Das Liebesmahl der Apostel, Op. 69 there in 1843.

But a miracle has taken place. The Frauenkirche has risen like a phoenix from the ashes after sixty years, and the meticulously rebuilt cathedral with its restored Silbermann organ was re-consecrated in October. Last week we made a pilgrimage from Berlin through the former DDR to the restored cathedral. Here are some of my photos. Feast your eyes for this is truly a miracle.

Exterior of the restored Frauenkirche, taken from the left of the statue of Martin Luther seen in the top photo. 8400 outer facade pieces, and 87,000 internal masonry blocks recovered from the ruin were mapped onto a computer, and re-used where possible in their original locations in the rebuilding. The recovered stones can be seen as black blocks in the new facade. Photo - On An Overgrown Path

Above is the beautifully rebuilt interior of the dome. Below is the restored altar originally created by the Dresden sculptor Johann Christian Feige the Elder, and recreated from more than two thousand pieces of rubble. Above it is the magnificently restored Silbermann organ which has already been captured on CD. Photos - On An Overgrown Path


Anyone who doubts the ability of our culture to regenerate itself should make this pilgrimage.

The three colour pictures were taken by me on an 'old-school' Nikon F50 on 25th November 2005 (by an extraordinary coincidence 300 years to the exact day that the Silbermann organ was originally dedicated). The interior shots were hand-held using 200 ASA film. Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk Image owners - if you do not want your picture used on this site please contact me and it will be replaced
Now take An Overgrown Path to Dresden Requiem for eleven young victims

* This article was originally published on December 3, 2005, and is reblogged here as part of On An Overgrown Path's second anniversary celebration of Music beyond borders. Follow this link to read the comments posted to the original article.

The act of killing from 20,000 feet

Today's Guardian reports the attempted suicide bombings at UK airports under the headline 'A plot to commit murder on an unimaginable scale'. Any attempt to take human life is abhorrent, and thank heavens the alleged plot was foiled. But let us not forget that killing on an unimaginable scale by aircraft is not the monopoly of any one ideoology.

'As German fuel supplies dwindled in the autumn of 1944 and into the final months of the war, aircraft were grounded, tanks halted, training for replacement pilots could not be maintained, and most of the new and highly effective Messerschmitt 262 jet-fighter aircraft (photo above), of which over 1,200 had been produced by the end of 1944 and which might have considerably prolonged the war, had neither fuel to fly nor trained pilots to fly them. The ME 262s were anyway extremely fuel-hungry aircraft, and those that went into action had to be towed to their end of their runways to conserve fuel, cows were used to do the towing to further save the fuel of tractors.'

On the night of 13th to 14th February 1945 RAF Bomber Command carried out two devastating raids on the city of Dresden. In all 768 aircraft dropped 2,646 tons of high explosives, incendiaries and flares. Shortly after midday on on 14th February a formation of 316 bombers returned for a third attack in which a further 782 tons were dropped. All three raids met with minimal resistance from German aircraft or anti-aircraft guns for the reasons explained above. The city was crammed with refugees fleeing from the advancing Soviet forces. The death toll from the raids will never be accurately known, but conservative estimates put it at about 25,000.

The quotation in the second paragraph is taken from Among the Dead Cities. This is a brilliantly researched and written, and deeply disturbing new analysis by philosopher A.C. Grayling of the Allied policy of 'area bombing' that led to death and destruction in Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo and many other cities. A brilliant study of one of the most complex issues of morality of modern times which concludes that the policy of area bombing was unecessary, disproportionate, and was in defiance of accepted moral standards.

In his final chapter Grayling asks: 'What is the moral difference between bombing women and children and shooting them with a pistol? Is it that when you bomb them you cannot see them - and you did not intend that particular child to die - and any way they may escape the bombing, perhaps by reaching a shelter? But if they are here against a wall just feet away from the muzzle of your pistol they cannot escape: it is more personal; you can see their eyes. Is that the difference - the anonymity of the act of killing from 20,000 feet?'

Another new addition to the Dresden literature is Firestorm, the Bombing of Dresden, 1945, edited by Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang (Pimlico, ISBN 184413928). This is an antholgy of contributions to the colloqium on Dresden organised by the Centre for Second World War Studies at the University of Edinburgh in 2003. Particularly noteworthy are Nicola Lambourne's chapter on the reconstruction of the city's monuments (see I am a camera - Dresden), and Alan Russell on why Dresden matters. The latter includes a survey of post-war musical activity (including Rudolph Mauersberger's scandalously neglected Dresden Requiem), and gives us a timely reminder that the first performance of Britten's War Requiem outside the UK took place in Dresden in 1965.

Related resources On An Overgrown Path include * Dead, dead, dead everywhere ... * Dresden Requiem for eleven young victims * I am a camera Dresden * The Radiance of a thousand suns *

Image credit - Me 262 Aeronautics.ru Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk.

Dresden Requiem for eleven young victims

Eleven young choristers from Dresden's famous Kreuzchor were among more than 25,000 who died in the British and American bombing of the city on February 13th 1945. As well as the terrible loss of its choristers the famous choir, which is shown in a contemporary photo above, also lost its its neogothic choir school on the Georgplatz, its library of sheet music and archive, and its very raison d'être, the beautiful Kreuzkirche (Church of the Holy Cross) which dated from the 13th century.

The history of the Kreuzchor dates back to the 14th century, and its reputation grew through the Reformation and into the 20th century. In 1932 Rudolf Mauersberger was appointed cantor, and the choir's reputation spread through its acclaimed performances of Bach's choral music in the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy tradition. The Kreuzchor made two tours of the USA in the 1930s before the outbreak of war in 1939 started the terrible events that ended with the carnage of 13th February 1945.

Following the devastation Mauersberger was determined that music would literally rise from the ashes of the choir school and Kreuzkirche. His first response was the composition of the heart wrenching funeral motet 'Wir liegt die Stadt so wüst' which was first performed by the Kreuzchor in the burnt-out shell of the Kreuzkirche on August 4th 1945, with Mauersberger using the rubble of the ruined church as a podium. (Photo to right.) We use the description 'moving' so glibly these days, but what must the young choristers have felt as they sang this lament not just for their destroyed city, but also for eleven of their own friends who had been killed just six months before?

The composition of the choral cycle Dresden (RMWV 4/1), from which the funeral motet is taken, was followed by Mauersberger's masterpiece, his Dresden Requiem (RMWV 10). This was completed in 1948, but was revised several times with the final version dating from 1961. Although Mauersberger's reputation was built on his Bach interpretations his Requiem is not re-heated Bach, but is very much a work of the 20th century. Like Brahms' Requiem, which the Kreuzchor sings every year, the Dresden Requiem is sung in German. It draws heavily on Luther's translation and includes six Lutheran chorals which provide links back to Bach and the Reformation. The imaginative scoring is for three choirs (all SATB) in different locations in the church. Spatial effects are used with a distant choir of young voices representing the departed in a dreadfully moving way. The Agnus Dei is an alto solo written for the young Peter Schreier who was a chorister with the Kreuzchor at the time of the first performance. Much of the singing is a capella, but the score also uses a small ensemble of organ, celeste, trombones, double basses and percussion.

It is something of a mystery as to why Rudolf Mauersberger's Dreden Requiem is not better known outside Germany, particularly when other 'war horse' Requiems are trotted out for so many routine performances. It is a magnificent and poignant work which ranks alongside Britten's War Requiem in its use of music to reflect on the horrors of war. The German text (apart from the Latin introit) is an obstacle, but finally the demand on the singers is the real barrier to performance. Mauersberger wrote the work specifically for the boys of the Kreuzchor, and there are few other choirs who meet the required standard. But the good news is that there is an absolutely first class modern recording by the Kreuzchor under its young, and very talented, current cantor Matthias Jung. The fine recording is on the Carus-Verlag label, and can be bought from the Carus web site or Amazon Germany.

Here are two audio samples from the Kreuzchor singing these moving works:
Opening of motet 'Wir liegt die Stadt so wüst' -
Opening of Introitus from Dresden Requiem -

The Kreuzkirche was rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1955. Every year since then the Dresden Requiem has been performed in the restored church. Following the performance a long procession of local people carrying lighted candles walks to the Frauenkirche. As well as remembering the dead the candlelit procession became a symbol of silent protest against the repressive East German regime until democracy returned in 1989. Rudolf Mauersberger was cantor of the Kreuzchor for forty years. It is an irony of our times that thirty-eight of these were under the tyranny and dictatorship of the Nazis and Communists, and during this time he successfully saved the choir from secularisation in the face of ideological and political pressures. Mauersberger lived to see the reopening of his beloved Kreuzkirche, but died in 1971 some years before the fall of Communism, and that other event which marked the final triumph of light over darkness in Dresden, the reconsecration of the Frauenkirche.

The Dresden Requiem is preceeded in performance (and on the superb Carus recording) by Rudolf Mauersberger's motet 'Wir liegt die Stadt so wüst'. This is a setting in German of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Here are the words which are so horribly relevant to the tragedy that befell Dresden on the 13th February 1945, the photo alongside shows the Kreuzchor singing Vespers in the burnt-out Kreuzkirche in May 1946:

+ How lonely sits the city that was full of people. All her gates are desolate. The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street. From on high he sent fire; into my bones he made it descend. Is this the city, which was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all earth. +

The exact death toll from the bombing of Dresden on 13th February 1945 will never be known due to the large numbers of refugees in the city, but official estimates put the figure at more than 25,000. In the whole of the Second World War the death toll on the UK mainland from bombing of cities was 60,595, and in North America it was six.

As well as the tragic loss of life in Dresden our cultural heritage suffered terrible loss. Among the buildings destroyed in the city centre by the British and American bombs were the Semper Opera House where eight of Richard Strauss' operas were given first performances, including Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier and Intermezzo, and where Wagner's Rienzi and Flying Dutchman were premiered. Also destroyed were the Königlich Sächsisches Hoftheater where Wagner's Tannhauser was first performed, and the Frauenkirche where Johann Sebastian Bach played in an organ recital in 1736, and where Wagner conducted the first performance of his Biblical scene Das Liebesmahl der Apostel, Op. 69 in 1843.

There are many related resources On An Overgrown Path including + Dead, dead, dead everywhere + I am a camera - Dresden + Dresden 1945 - London 2005 + For unto us a child is born + The Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour + Kurt Vonnegut gets his Dresden facts wrong +

* The scoring of the Dresden Requiem is 3 Choirs: SATB/SATB/SATB, 3 Tr, 3 Trb, Tb, Timp, Perc, Cb, Cel, Org.
* Audio samples linked from Carus-Verlag web site from which the score of the Dresden Requiem is also available.
* I cannot trace a recording of Mauersberger's complete choral cycle Dresden (RMWV 4/1) from which the funeral motet 'Wir liegt die Stadt so wüst' is taken. Any information from readers on available recordings would be very much appreciated.
* Image credits:
- Kreuzchor from Brahms-Gesellschaft Schleswig-Holstein e.V.
- First performance of funeral motet in ruins of Kreuzkirke from Peter Schreier biography
- Carus CD of Dresden Requiem from iClassics
- Kreuzchor singing Vespers in the burnt out Kreuzkirche, and singing in restored Kreuzkirke from choir web site
* Image owners - if you do not want your picture used in this article please contact me and it will be removed. Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

I am a camera - Dresden

In July 1960, Dmitri Shostakovich visited Dresden, which was then in the communist German Democratic Republic, to write the score for a film, 'Five Days, Five Nights'. This was the first time he had seen the devastation caused by the Allied bombing raids on February 14th 1945. The experience directly inspired his Eighth String Quartet, Op 110, which was written in just three days, and dedicated to the victims of fascism and war. The quartet became a musical symbol of the devastated city.

In the same way the rubble of the beautiful Frauenkirche (above), which was consecrated in 1734 and collapsed two days after the 1945 attacks, became a visual symbol of the ruined 'Florence on the Elbe.' The cathedral's famous organ by Gottfried Silbermann was also totally destroyed. It had been played by Johann Sebastian Bach in a recital in December 1736. The acoustics of the cathedral were said to have inspired passages in Wagner's Parsifal, and he conducted the first performance of his Biblical scene Das Liebesmahl der Apostel, Op. 69 there in 1843.

But a miracle has taken place. The Frauenkirche has risen like a phoenix from the ashes after sixty years, and the meticulously rebuilt cathedral with its restored Silbermann organ was re-consecrated in October. Last week we made a pilgrimage from Berlin through the former DDR to the restored cathedral. Here are some of my photos. Feast your eyes for this is truly a miracle.

Exterior of the restored Frauenkirche, taken from the left of the statue of Martin Luther seen in the top photo. 8400 outer facade pieces, and 87,000 internal masonry blocks recovered from the ruin were mapped onto a computer, and re-used where possible in their original locations in the rebuilding. The recovered stones can be seen as black blocks in the new facade. Photo - On An Overgrown Path

Above is the beautifully rebuilt interior of the dome. Below is the restored altar originally created by the Dresden sculptor Johann Christian Feige the Elder, and recreated from more than two thousand pieces of rubble. Above it is the magnificently restored Silbermann organ which has already been captured on CD. Photos - On An Overgrown Path


Anyone who doubts the ability of our culture to regenerate itself should make this pilgrimage.

The three colour pictures were taken by me on an 'old-school' Nikon F50 on 25th November 2005 (by an extraordinary coincidence 300 years to the exact day that the Silbermann organ was originally dedicated). The interior shots were hand-held using 200 ASA film. Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk Image owners - if you do not want your picture used on this site please contact me and it will be replaced
Now take An Overgrown Path to Dresden Requiem for eleven young victims