Culture in and around Leipzig!
 

Dragon, Middle Age and Carmina Burana

This year was the 15th Wave Gothic Meeting in Leipzig. It started on the Friday before Pentecost and ended on the Monday after. Gothic institutes like Dark Flower usually start on Thursday evening. This year, there was a large ball, but most people who visited WGT come on Friday evening, that’s why it wasn’t very important.

Nearly 20,000 people from all the world took part in the Gothic- and Middle-Age-Spectacle. You could see Germans, English, Americans, Turks, Asians and lots more. The whole town was included. From the AGRA to Haus Auensee, there were a large amount dark-clothed people. The trams were overcrowed, especially numbers 11, 10 and 16. There were even events in famous buildings, for example churchs like Thomaskirche. There was a Pentecost prayer.

A special attraction is always the village of heathenism. You can eat home made bread wtih bear’s garlic and cannabis cakes. You can drink home made wine and liqueur from many fruit and herbs that you have never seen before. Many events were all-day at this time in the village, but the most interesting event was the play with the dragon. It was made out of paper, linen, leather and other materials. The blood of the dragon was a red liquid. It came out when a bad knight hurt the holy dragon. Don’t worry, he is still alive. The kids at the festival were fascinated by the dragon. They looked at the play with bright eyes and open mouths. After the show, they wanted to get the dragon and they wanted take it home. You could buy a small version of it for 15 Euros.

Other attractions were the concerts, certainly!  More than 150 bands and interpreters made their fans enthusiastic. The greatest attraction and the end of the festival was a concert by a band called Corvus Corax. They presented their version of one of the most famous concerts of our country – Carmina Burana. The concert was called Cantus Buranus. It is a collection from the Middle Ages. In the 18^th century, the componist Carl Orff set the opus to music. On the stage, you could see a chorus of monks, a chorus of nuns, a director and a real orchestra. There was certainly the band, too. They played on instruments from the Middle Ages. A soprano singer fascinated the crowed of people. At nearly 3 am, the concert ended with a great sound and music spectacle. After standing for 30 minutes at the tramstation in a very cold spring night, you could go home. (by Nadja K.)

The Story of the Bassoon

The bassoon is a big woodwind musical instrument. It´s possible to play bass or bariton. I play bassoon in a Big-Band-Orchestra with 50 other musicians; bassoon is a not a typical instrument in a big band, but this is the specialty of our orchestra.

The bassoon has got a long history. At the end of the 16th century, they were built in Italy from the model of a bagpipe. They were very large and heavy because it was made from massive big wood. In the 18th century in France, they other bassoons with better and lighter woods were built(for example maple wood), so it was much easier to play. After 1850, the bassoon got a lot of metal-claps, so it was possible to play over 3 octaves. The instrument is in all classic orchestras, first in Europe and than in America and Asia.

In expression, tone and colour, it can range from cheerful to comic and grotesque, from soft and gentle, but also warmly eloquent, to melancholy and sombre.  The bassoon is scored for the symphony orchestra and military band, in chamber music and a solo instrument.

Usually in an orchestra there are 4 bassoons (2 on the first and 2 on the second voice. In our orchestra, we have only 2 bassoons. A special bassoon is the double bassoon. It´s a large bigger, heavier and more expensive but you can play 1 octave deeper. Only big orchestras usually have a double bassoon.

Finally you find out the price of the instruments: For a pupil-bassoon you must pay at least 5.000 €, for a professional instrument 10.000 € (open end) and for al double bassoon about 20.000 €. (by Thomas R.)

© picture by Vincent Sauvion

Writing to Stay Alive

Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924) was born on the third of July in 1983 as the son of a Jewish merchant. He was the oldest child of the six silbings. Two of them died very quickly – his brothers Georg and Heinrich. The others of them were his sisters: Eli, Vali and Ottla. When his brothers died, his mother was very upset too look after her living son. Kafka was also shocked because of the tragedy, but nobody cared about this. As the only son, his father wanted him to be his succesor. Kafka didn’t want this. In life, he was attracted to writing and reading. He was a very sensitive child but they told him a boy mustn’t look weak or even cry. That’s why he didn’t tell them about his problems and feelings. If the situation forced him to show his feelings, he felt so guilty. He didn’t know why and so he started to think that he was different than normal people like his family. The only person who knew him was his youngest sister Ottla. She wasn’t like him. She could get through against their father. His mother loved his father too much and so she didn’t dare to against him. In his own fantasy world, he was at home, not in his father’s house. And so the writing and reading were his main activity – that way to be able to stand his own destiny.

He was sick and sad from the beginning of his life till the end of his life. Because of this, he could write. If he would have been lucky and had a thinking of a normal man with a wife and children and a normal occupation, he couldn`t write. His writing contained so many sad feelings, fantasy feelings far away from our normal time. The person who encouraged him to write and publish was his closest friend Max Brod. He believed in Kafka’s writing abilities. His tombstone was placed near Kafka’s at the new Jewish graveyard in Praha.

After Kafka’s death he saved his opus and letters from Hitler’s men and took them away to America.

That’s why we can read Kafkas writing and feel his feelings. We have to say thank you.
(by Nadja K.)