Concert #1 in Berlin

     Wow. That was a truly incredible evening. We just got back to our hostel after a day full of sight-seeing in Berlin and seeing the Bennewitz String Quartet perform at the Konzerthaus, and I am still high on the energy of that concert. The Konzerthaus was a gorgeous venue; it's in the middle of a square with three of the largest, most grand buildings I've seen in one place. Ironically, when it was still East Berlin under the communist regime, it was one of the slum spots of the city. Now you can eat 5 course meals across the street for $400 and up. On our tour of the city, we were filled in on all the details we forgot and never learned in high school European history, particularly when it came to Prussian architecture, the damage Berlin suffered during WWII, and post-war culture on the east side. Looking at photos of Berlin before and after photos in the 20th century was perhaps the most eye opening part of the tour. It's also fascinating to think that just 25 years ago, our hostel was behind the wall.
     The Bennewitz String Quartet started out playing a piece by Dvorak, which was gorgeous, but a bit too gorgeous because I was super tired and was lulled to sleep during the first and last movement. But, even with my soporific tendencies, I was still plenty able to be blown away by the precision with which the musicians played and their attentiveness to one another. I'm pretty sure the second violinist and the cellist never looked at their music more than twice each.
     The next piece the quartet played was by Schulhoff, and that was really fun, but it was the third piece that really blew me away. If I wasn't awake before, boy was I awake then. This piece, by Slavomir Horinka, presented just about every way you could play a string instruments, from blowing into it to playing it like a ukulele to dragging the bow across the restricted strings, emulating the sound of lapping waves. The piece, "Songs of Immigrants," was a tribute to the Eritreans who died in the shipwreck in 2013 on their journey to Europe. Interspersed and sometimes overlapping with the music were tracks of recorded voices and ocean waves. The joy of the folk tunes, the anxiety of the impending disaster, and the anguish and fear of the drowning were captured beautifully. I was in a trance the whole time. I had no idea string instruments could do those sort of things.
     Bennewitz topped off their performance with an encore piece that was a direct transcription of a South Korean folk song, originally intended for Korean instruments. The way these Western strings were transformed into vehicles for a totally foreign sound was phenomenal. I would go to that exact same concert over and over again and never be disappointed. AWESOME DAY!!