Raising the Bar

     Today was our first full day in Berlin! In the morning we had a bit of an adventure buying week-long passes for the U-Bahn, since they didn't take our cards. Thankfully we got it all figured out in time to get to our tour. On the tour we saw a lot of interesting architecture and Berlin history, and it was really cool even though we were all kind of freezing by the end.

Brandenburg gate!

Berliner Dom

     After the tour we found a great little German cafe for lunch, and I had a really delicious salmon crepe! It also came with an awesome sweet potato soup. After lunch we had a few hours to kill until the Bennewitz string quartet concert in the Konzerthaus, so we wandered around the city some more.

Marienkirche and tv tower

Cool government building

     The Bennewitz string quartet definitely set a high standard for the rest of our concerts! I don't think I've ever heard such expressive playing in my life. The players were able to communicate SO WELL it was incredible!!! I almost felt like watching them perform was invading their conversation. I could even hear them breathing together to cue things from nearly the last row in the concert hall. I don't think I'll ever think of string quartets the same way again!!! They played a Dvorak string quartet first, and we were all falling asleep before the concert started. As soon as they started playing I really woke up, especially in the second piece they played! It was a Schulhoff piece of five short dances. They weren't just traditional straightforward dances, although they were arrangements of dances most people have heard of, such as the tango, Viennese waltz, tarantella, and a serenade. I could really picture people dancing to the tango and tarantella. The players were really engaging and they were almost dancing to their own music.

     The last half of the concert was even better than the first! They played a world premier called Songs of Immigrants, by Slavomir Horinka. It was about a shipwreck in October 2013 of Eritrean immigrants to Europe. A fire broke out on board and when the passengers moved to one side to escape the fire the boat capsized, and there were very few survivors. It was a very poetic and powerful piece, although some audience members didn't like it and left partway through. One man was so disgusted that when he let the door close rather loudly the second violinist looked up from his playing, and he was just about the most engaged of all the players. In the song the musicians used really cool effects with their instruments, like blowing into the f holes, strumming a violin like a guitar to play folk music, and playing squeaky notes that sounded exactly like seagulls. They also made sounds together that sounded exactly like waves crashing on a beach. At the end of the piece, as the waves were dying down, the players left the stage one by one and I thought that was the most powerful part. It was a very visual piece and I could definitely picture the empty ocean after the ship sank, with no evidence that it had ever been there. After the premier of that piece they played an encore of a Korean song of a wife singing goodbye to her husband going to war. They seriously sounded like they were playing Korean instruments! It was an absolutely incredible concert and I hope the rest of our concert can live up to it!! I think it's safe to say I will never underestimate chamber music again after hearing the Bennewitz quartet.