The concert begins. A young female pianist sits down at the piano and the sounds float through the salon. Visitors at the Sunday matinée in Leipzig’s Mendelssohn House enjoy not only the music, but also the atmosphere: this is where Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy lived until his death in 1847. It is where the former kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus composed his famous oratorio Elias and also where the maestro strove – like an intermediary between Baroque and Romantic music – for a revival of the works of the then forgotten Johann Sebastian Bach.
Although this late Classicist building and its performances alone would provide grounds enough for a visit to Leipzig, the Saxon metropolis has even more music greats on offer: Telemann, Bach, Grieg, Wagner, Schumann, Mahler, Lortzing, Janácek – all these famous names are associated with the city. Leipzig is considered the city after Vienna where the most musical geniuses gathered through the ages and where they also left a lasting mark. Rich as a result of the regular trade fairs, the wealthy burghers created institutions like the Gewandhaus and the Opera, an academy of music, libraries and an instrument collection. Composers endlessly came and went at the city’s publishers. Edvard Grieg, for example. How many people would spontaneously associate the famous Norwegian with Leipzig? Yet this is where he studied piano and composition at the academy of music as a young man. In the music salon of the beletage, which continues to be used for concerts today and is now the Grieg Centre, the up-and-coming artist played his new compositions to the publishing director of C.F.Peters Verlag. The Czech composer Leoš Janácek also later studied at the same academy.
In order to make this multifaceted musical and historical treasure more accessible, Leipzig has laid out a “Music Trail” through the city: Germany’s first music history walking tour. A five-kilometre stroll will take you to 23 different places of interest that include not only the many monuments and all the “live and worked here” sites. Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum, the tradition-steeped coffee house, is also one of the focal points of European music history. Here stood the table where Robert Schumann and his father-in-law Friedrich Wieck regularly discussed music and had the idea for the music journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Wagner, Grieg, Lehár and Nikisch were also regulars. In addition to theme-based city tours, music tourists have only had access to various leaflets as orientation for the Music Trail. “That will change in 2011,” says Werner Schneider, chairman of the Music Trail association. “The Trail will be marked directly on the pavement, thereby indicating the route to the all sights.” There will also be sound installations and a wall that is intended to remember Leipzig’s music publishers and the development of musical notation.
Richard Wagner is considered to have played a special role in Leipzig’s musical history. “Richard is a Leipziger!” local Wagnerians like to stress. Although the house where the composer was born was demolished after his death, the Richard Wagner Association in Leipzig has compiled a tour of places linked with the composer. The Music Trail also includes Old St. Nicholas School, which he attended in his youth, St. Thomas Church, where he was baptized, and houses where he visited fellow musicians.
Johann Sebastian Bach also made a profound mark on the city’s musical history. He founded the now famous St. Thomas Choir in Leipzig. However, the cantor did not have a particularly easy time dealing with the city – and vice versa. Because the composer Georg Philipp Telemann turned down their offer, the city councillors had to make do with Bach, who is said to have complained after his first choir practice: “Oh what a raspy lot I’m taking on here. At most, only 30 of the 55 boys can sing!” You can discover a lot more about the composer at the Bach Museum, which reopened recently following renovation and extension work. It is just one of many examples that prove Leipzig has music in the air.////
