On its way to Munich, the Orchestra makes a lunch stop in the city of Leipzig. A city rich in musical and cultural tradition, Leipzig was home to Johann Sebastian Bach. For musicians, a trip to Leipzig to visit the St. Thomas Church where Bach worked is akin to a pilgrimage. Leipzig was also home to Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, at many other musical luminaries at various times.
YO members in front of the Bach statue at the St. Thomas Church
After a hot concert Berlin, YO members cool their heels a bit in a crystal clear stream in Bayreuth, home to the Wagner clan.
Headquarters for the next 5 nights is Munich, with a concert in the city a few days later. But first, the YO performs in two well-known and nearby Bavarian Summer Festivals, in Passau and Ingolstadt.
A two-and-a-half hour ride east brings the Orchestra to Passau, where they are guests at the prestigious European Festival Weeks, in its 56th season.
Passau is a beautiful riverside town in eastern Bavaria with a population of only 50,000, twenty percent of which are students in the local University of Passau. Passau’s history dates back to the 5th century with a construction of a large monastery, and, in 739, an Irish monk founded the diocese of Passau, the largest diocese of the Holy Roman Empire for many years. The organ in the St. Stephen’s cathedral is the world’s largest pipe organ, with Passau is also known as the City of Three Rivers as it sits at the confluence of the Danube, Inn, and Ilz rivers, near the Austrian border. It's incredily charming.
St. Michael's Church in Passau
The Youth Orchestra’s concert is in St. Michael’s Church, a former Jesuit church on the bank of the Inn River, built in 1670. To preserve the architectural dominance of the town’s main St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the exterior of St. Michael’s remained somewhat restrained; but certainly makes up for this with its magnificent interior stucco work.
The YO rehearses in the church, yet another acoustical challenge after performing in a converted shipyard and the Berliner Philharmonie. The reverberant sound of the church interior requires wholesale changes and careful instruction by Benjamin Shwartz to adjust the various works on the program. One sincerely doubts the church acoustics were built for the volume of the brass and percussion in John Adams’ Lollapalooza.
With tight quarters in St. Michael's the Youth Orchestra's dressing rooms are next door, in a former monastery building built in 1612, currently used as a college preparatory school with emphasis on the Classics and Theology. The 17th-century stucco work on the ceilings makes for an inspirational warm-up.
Once again, the house is full, as a delightfully young crowd fills St. Michael’s, with many standing in the highest reaches of the church.
The Orchestra makes the best of the church's acoustics and performs very well. The buses leave Passau for the trip back to Munich just as an all-night festival begins throughout the town, with the adjacent former monastery now filled with the sounds of a strangely alluring techno-skaa-deathmetal-dance band (with amplified tuba, of course). Wow…the YO can really get a party started.
Oh...I almost forgot: as it was the Fourth of July, the local German presenter surprised the Orchestra with a little touch of home. Not milk and cookies this time, but just as wholesome and much appreciated by all.
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