Christine Schäfer and Jim Cunningham

Christine Schäfer set the mood of finality with her Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, which opened the program. Gorgeous! I spoke with her during intermission. She told me she’ll return to the Metropolitan Opera in two upcoming productions including Verdi’s Rigoletto. She was heard last season singing the role of Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. This was her first time with the Pittsburgh Symphony. She loved the experience and hopes to join the orchestra again at Heinz Hall. She said that among her discography, Schubert’s Winterreise is her favorite recording.

The concert began at 6:30pm on a perfect evening after a sunny day. Many orchestra musicians had been strolling the gorgeous old city, mixing in with the throng of Saturday shoppers. There’s an outdoor market near the Kappelbrücke, the historic landmark wooden bridge built in 1333 which nearly burned to the ground in 1993 due to a fire caused by a cigarette.

Lucerne's Chapel Bridge, built in 1333

The Bodu brasserie is near the bridge. I stopped there for lunch to enjoy its authentic Parisian feel. For the last day, I ordered their classic quiche Lorraine with a salad, and for dessert, blackberries in a white cream port sauce served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle. The food was great, and so were the newspapers such as the Bern paper Berner Zeitung, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Der Bund, the Lucerne paper, and the Swiss equivalent of People magazine Schweizer Illustrierte with its front page devoted to the wife of Swiss tennis star Roger Federer. The headline: ‘Mirka Federer –Sie Macht Roger Stark!’ Inside, I enjoyed the article on the Miss Schweiz competition, with the sechzehn schönheiten finalsinnen in Montreux on September 26. There was a profile of soprano Cecilia Bartoli, ‘Die Koenigin des Hohen C’ (Queen of the High C), with her home in Zurich—she has a feuriges (fiery) temperament, we read.

Merkur chocolates

The Swiss entertainment charts reveal that the top Klingeltöne (ringtone) for your cellphone is Poker Face from Lady Gaga and the top single is by The Black-Eyed Peas. The Swiss are going to see Inglorious Basterds more than any other movie this week.

After lunch, I wandered through the crowded streets and stopped at the Merkur chocolate shop. The beauty and variety of the selection was overwhelming. Then, a stop for a raspberry tart at Heini, Lucerne’s Meisterkonditorei with Feine Torten! (Master sweet shop with Fine Cakes). Cappucino with its artfully foamed milk and cinnamon spritzed on top will linger in my mind when I make my breakfast selection from the WQED vending machines at 6:30 am this coming week.

President and CEO Larry Tamburri tells me the orchestra is thrilled with the outcome of the trip and the invitation to return to the Lucerne Festival in 2011.

Lucerne Festival crowd at intermission

During the concert I sat with Helmut Mauro, critic for Bavaria’s Suddeutsche Zeitung, who is writing an article on Manfred Honeck. Mauro says he is very impressed with Honeck’s unorthodox approach to music making, his focus on the music and not career, and his deep musicality.

The intermission crowd moved out to the front of the Congress and Convention Center for champagne and a view of the lake.  The elegant crowd is interrupted for a  moment by a most un-Swiss happening. A scraggly, long-haired, unshaven, rumpled, and obviously inebriated man lurched toward the crowd shouting. He tossed a splash of beer toward the crowd from a can he held in his hand and violently spat on the sidewalk, cursing the privileged concert goers in German. There was a puzzled look from the Bruckner fans, and the Swiss security guards looked alarmed, but the visitor kept moving toward the lake and the incident was over.

Guten Abend und aufwiedersehen, Lucerne

After the concert, I joined the crowd that wished Manfred Honeck farewell in the downstairs conductor’s room, and then recorded his comments about the trip. He is totally relaxed and excited about the great reception for the orchestra as well as their great playing under trying and exhausting conditions. There is a warm, cheerful atmosphere with Mrs. Honeck and three of the Honeck children. 13 year old Anna Maria has perfect English. She told me she enjoyed their week in Pittsburgh with visits to the Warhol and Kennywood among the highlights. Leaving the Lucerne Culture and Convention Center, the lake couldn’t be more fairy-tale beautiful. Young people sit on the docks and the steps to the water—is that a whiff of pot I smell?  The hotels on the hillside across the lake are lit with their names across the top –the Montana, the National. A boat is lined with little Christmas tree lights along its sails. The fountain in front of the concert hall was illuminated in the soft warm air of this late-summer evening. Fabelhaft!

One for the road at Heini Konditorei

Group A had already gone, and my luggage is out the door. Bus to Zurich, Lufthansa to Frankfurt, then on to Chicago and Pittsburgh at last. Thanks so much for following along and please thank anyone you meet from Bayer, our tour sponsor who paid for the airfare and hotel. Thanks to Stephen Baum for his steadfast blog and photo editing, audio production, and joie de vivre, and my long-suffering colleagues Anna Singer, Ted Sohier, and Jim Sweenie for getting my reports on the air and enduring the tales of raspberry tarts. Stay tuned—there’s more to come on the QED Morning Show later next week and on the Pittsburgh Symphony broadcast series Sunday nights at 8:00 pm. Tschuss! Ciao Ciao! Vielen, Vielen Dank!

Tribschen, Wagner's Lucerne residence

The concert goers at Switzerland’s Lucerne Festival look like holders of Swiss bank accounts.They look like they are descended from royalty young and old. The fountain outside goes up and down with some irregular rhythm and is almost as big as the fountain at Point State Park. Boats are docked right in front of the hall. Lots of folks stand at little tables outside and sip champagne. You can eat at a terrific World Café cafeteria with Austrian noodles and bacon in butter sauce, Spanish rice, many salads, tortes, cakes, coffees—macchiato with cream, Amaretti cookies, fruit and much more. Take it outside and eat your meal by the lake. Men and women are mainly dressed in elegant black and many exude a tasteful whiff of fragrance.

PSO Horns share a lakeside laugh

Rehearsal went smoothly in the morning for a full two and a half hours. Viktoria Mullova was extremely kind in staying late for a short interview. After speaking with Principal Bass Trombonist Murray Crewe, whose brass colleagues were making faces from behind me in an  attempt to ruin his concentration, they turned the tables for a bit of fun while Principal Horn Bill Caballero gave his interview.

In the afternoon, CMU professor Millie Myers joined me for a taxi ride to the Wagner Museum at Tribschen, where Wagner lived for six years and where Cosima had the Siegried Idyll presented as a Christmas morning birthday gift. Richard arranged to have his musicians on the steps playing as a special sort of alarm clock. He lived downstairs and she was upstairs with the kids. Wagner had also lived for a time in the Hotel Schweizerhof where some members of the orchestra are staying. Cosima was Wagner’s second wife. I believe she met Wagner while he was on his honeymoon with Minna! Minna and Richard got off to a bad start when the minister who married them reported the two were quarreling at the altar during the ceremony.

PSO Board member Millie Myers

Jim Cunningham and Wagner

The mood at the Museum was extremely cheerful because we joined the patron tour with Mary Ellen Miller. Steve Elliot of BNY Mellon and his wife Beverlynn who have both been giant PSO fans and helpers over many years. Steve gave me a great interview the last time the Symphony performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London with Mellon’s support. He shuttles back and forth between Pittsburgh and New York with Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays as the days in office. He’s happy that BNY Mellon is expanding in Pittsburgh. I loved seeing our FM Angels Tom and Donna Hotopp. Tom was the topper at Mine Safety Appliances for many years. We were together once at Notre Dame where they told me they’d been married in the grotto, a sacred place in many ways on the Notre Dame campus as a recreation of the shrine at Lourdes in France. I remember it because the Hotopps gave me a ride on an amazingly icy cold December night.

Ed Clark, Rick Lebeau, Dr. Michael White, Barbara Berry and a few more I didn’t have time to check in with because we all enjoyed a recital on Wagner’s Erard piano which he brought to Lucerne from Venice. Professor Raphael Staubli, who teaches in Lucerne at the music conservatory, played a little of Wagner’s Tristan.  I admired Wagner’s silk-lined green felt beret, smoking jacket and pajamas. His death mask is there, and his whip for Russ the dog. The setting on the lake with the Swiss flag waving and the boats puttering by is out of a fairy tale.

Wagner's death mask

I stopped by the Casa Grande to look at the cuckoo clocks. I ran into Paul Silver who said he planned on observing Rosh Hashanah with his colleagues including Penny Brill.

After Friday night’s concert, I got to meet the grandson of Sergei Rachmaninoff who is fussy about photographs and wouldn’t let me take his picture. Alexander Rachmaninoff did give me a nice interview. He lives in a fantastic Bauhaus-style villa on Lake Lucerne with granddad’s piano and a plaster cast of Sergei’s hands and lots of other good stuff. This season he is organizing 16 festivals of Rachmaninoff’s music. He said he liked the Pittsburgh Symphony’s concert very much.

Frau Manfred Honeck was backstage with three of the Honeck kids, who were perfectly poised and loveable.

Murray Crewe

The Intendant (director) of the Lucerne Festival, Michael Haefliger, told me that he’s already invited the Pittsburgh Symphony back for 2011. I thought he didn’t have much to say about Chinese superstar Lang Lang who was here in Lucerne playing Chopin just a few weeks ago, causing the New York Times critic who reviewed the concert to comment that Lang Lang was more like ‘Bang Bang.’  Mr. Haefliger’s wife was at his side, very thin, wearing a little black dress, blonde hair tied behind her head, and charmed the backstage merry makers.

It was a fabulous concert with the two encores, Grieg’s Morning Mood and Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 after an even more supercharged Dvorak Symphony No. 8, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto played by Viktoria Mullova. It’s a nice, mild night with the temperature ideal at about 71 degrees. Tomorrow is the last night of the festival and the tour.

Original Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks in Lucerne

Jim Sweenie reminds me from time to time of Orson Welles’ line as the character Harry Lime in The Third Man, when Lime critiques the comfortable Swiss lifestyle by observing that despite warfare and terror under the Borgias, the Italians had produced Michelangelo, Leonardo, da Vinci, and the Renaissance. “In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 50 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” I like cuckoo clocks. My grandfather, the Reverend Elmer Ortner, brought me one from Europe and I have one at home now. I’ve always been partial to The Third Man for producing the greatest hit for the zither, played by the incomparable Anton Karas. It’s really a movie about Vienna, but the Pittsburgh Symphony arrived in Lucerne, Switzerland this afternoon.

Berlin Air flight

We left Cologne under the first clear sky of this tour with an hour-long bus ride to the Berlin Air Terminal. It’s a new, efficient, gorgeous, soaring metal-clad building. The path to the gate is the most unusual I’ve ever seen—it goes right through the high-end shopping with leather goods, alcohol and all sorts of things we didn’t have time to investigate. We flew on Berlin Air, which offered a currywurst snack for 6,50 €. You could choose between a sweet snack or a salty one. The sweet was a Snickers bar, and the salty a Wasa double cracker with some cream cheese. Manfred Honeck received a ‘Happy Birthday’ wish from the flight crew chief. It’s his 51^st, and his wife Chistiane is joining him in Lucerne for a celebration.

We’re all paranoid about having contraband liquids. All my carry-on stuff looks like the makings for a bomb, so I just hope for the best. The nice person in front of me had his big bottle of Purell confiscated after making the tactical error of asking the agent if it was okay. I slipped through with my shaving cream and full-sized Right Guard. It’s a function of the big bag having been shipped off last night at midnight. You have to anticipate what you’ll need and carry it on. The security agent did ask to see a can of Erdnüsse I had in with all my electronic gear. When he opened the can, he shrugged and said, “Oh, peanuts,” and waved me through.

A cloudy day in Lucerne

I was sorry to leave the InterContinental hotel in Cologne, known to the residents as the ‘InterConti’ when you ask for directions. The elevator is made of clear glass so that any time you go in or out, day or night, you see a view of the most famous landmark, the Dom, Cologne Cathedral. By the way, I noticed while looking for an Internet café that Germans pronounce the wireless Internet service we call Wi-Fi, “weefee.”

At the Beethoven Geburtshaus (birth house) in Bonn, the Frau who sold me the CDs of Beethoven’s piano and viola was drinking Pfeffermintztee (peppermint tea) from a thermos at her cash register. It was so aromatic, it made me want some. My favorite smells are at breakfast—the aromas of coffee and bacon. On any Pittsburgh Symphony tour, the trip is partially successful if breakfast is included with your room. At the ‘InterConti’ the buffet was included, with lots of fresh fruits and ausgezeichnet brot with caraway seeds and big pumpkin seeds on top. There’s always a pleasant chatter in the morning at breakfast with the anticipation of the new day. The musicians are a welcoming bunch and always invite new arrivals to sit down and join them in gorging on the ‘included buffet.’ Plus the newspapers were free. Nirvana.

Architect Jean Nouvel's KKL Luzern, home of the Lucerne Festival

We landed in Zurich and were bused into Lucerne under overcast skies, but through lots of green farmland. We saw Swiss cows with their cowbells, and flower boxes beneath the windows of Alpine homes. This is the country of secret bank accounts, William Tell, the Red Cross, iconic army knives, neatly-dressed military, trains that run on time, chocolate, and watches. Plus one of the world’s most prestigious music festivals. This is the final weekend of the 2009 Lucerne Festival. The audience is stunningly elegant. There are also many blond-haired people in Switzerland.

Principal Piccolo Rhian Kenny in Lucerne

Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble returned this evening to a totally sold-out Lucerne Festival audience. Some seats were filled by Pittsburgh Symphony players, including violist Meng Wang who is a good friend of several members of the Ensemble including Yo-Yo Ma. It’s a wild mix of cultural influences from Iran, Egypt, Africa, China, and throughout Asia, blended with Western classical strings. One of Yo-Yo’s colleagues played tabla seated on the floor, a fantastic grooving Chinese mouth organ player danced while playing, and there was even some body percussion from one Silk Roader. There’s a little trance and jam band, show biz, and Osvaldo Golijov for good measure. Don’t miss it if you have a chance.

Water inside the KKL, Lucerne

The Kultur und Kongresszentrum Luzern (Lucerne Culture and Convention Center) still smells like a new car with a sort of rubbery scent, and super-modern look with spaceship blue and red lights. In front is an incredible fountain where I had some amaretti-flavored ice cream in a waffle cone. There’s always a scene with tourists and drifters from the Bahnhof train station right next door. Frenchman Jean Nouvel designed the building so that water from Lake Lucerne flows right into the lobby. It’s a brilliant design. ‘Breathtaking’ is overused but really true here.

Principal Piccolo Rhian Kenny told me her three daughters couldn’t come along on this trip because they’ve started school, and she worried that her husband Jack would forget to give them lunch money. Jack is an exceptional sculptor of tobacco pipes, even though Rhian says she doesn’t care for the habit. Of course, many people assume that classical music deejays are the sport coat with-patches-on-the-elbows, silk cravat at the neck, pipe-smoking type, so some time I’ll have to check out Jack’s—even if I never light up.

KKL concert hall

Rehearsal is early on Friday. I turned off the light last night noticing that Kabel 1 shows reruns of Hogan’s Heroes with  Colonel Klink dubbed into German!  I interviewed the Colonel, Werner Klemperer, when he came to Pittsburgh. He was rightly proud of the work he did as Klink. Also, he was proud to be the son of the conductor who helped to reorganize the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1936, although he said it wasn’t easy being the son of Otto Klemperer, a maestro who was known for his manic behavior.

Tomorrow, many orchestra members will get some shopping in after the rehearsal. This is a great town for cuckoo clocks. The patrons tour will visit Richard Wagner’s house Tribschen on Lake Lucerne, where Wagner and his wife Cosima lived. He wrote the Siegfried Idyll for her and had it premiered on Christmas morning as a wake-up present played by musicians gathered at the foot of the stairs. Wagner’s piano is in the house, and the Swiss flag flies out front.

Andy Warhol's Beethoven at Beethoven's Birthplace

The Pittsburgh Symphony played Beethoven from the city where the composer was born on December 16, 1770. The PSO played at Bonn’s renowned Beethovenfest with Viktoria Mullova as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Built in 1959, the concert hall has a concrete, solid, post-WWII look about it, but the audience is very fashionable and sophisticated. The theme this year is Im Licht (In Light) and there’s a big banner above the stage with an image of the moon. On the bus from Cologne to Bonn, I sat with Principal Trombonist Peter Sullivan. Pete was catching up on recent issues of The New Yorker. Alex Ross has an article about writers who create fictional composers in their novels. Proust created the tunesmith Vinteuil, and Thomas Mann imagined the composer Adrian Leverkühn. The August 24th edition also featured a man in Texas who very possibly was executed by mistake, and a profile of an intellectual Canadian politician who was of special interest to the Canadian-born Pete.

Robert Schumann house in Bonn

Co-Principal Bassoonist David Sogg and Mrs. Sogg were on the other side of the aisle, solving a crossword puzzle and planning to visit the Beethoven Geburtshaus in Bonn after the rehearsal. David sang a phrase from Robert Schumann’s song cycle Dichterliebe about Schumann’s love affair with Cologne Cathedral and the Rhine, as we watched the river pass by from the bus.

After the rehearsal, Andrew Druckenbrod and I were driven to the Schumann House in Bonn by Silke Neubarth, the Press Referentin or chief press officer. The House was a revelation. It’s the former sanitarium where Schumann was taken after his attempt at suicide by throwing himself in the Rhine during Lenten Carnival celebrations. He was wearing his pajamas and was dragged, soaking wet, from the water by some fisherman. He never saw his wife Clara again. The doctors told her not to worsen his condition by visiting. Brahms and violinist Joseph Joachim did visit Schumann in the house, and Schumann wrote a few pieces of music there.

Trumpeter Neal Berntsen and daughter Molly at the Beethovenhalle, Bonn.

There’s now a great deal of speculation about why Clara didn’t disobey his doctors’ orders. Could she have wanted to spend more time with Brahms, or did she want to work on her piano playing career, or was she flipped out by  Robert’s madness? Isn’t love wonderful? Robert Schumann is buried in the central cemetery in Bonn. The house was partially destroyed during WWII. Now rebuilt, the house maintains a beautiful library, small concert hall, and the artifacts of Schumann’s life. It is eerie to look out the windows he would have gazed from. You can see a laurel branch that Brahms collected and gave to Clara, and the last letter that Schumann wrote to his wife. Ah, those German Romantics—throwing themselves in the Rhine, or across the railroad tracks, or shooting themselves in the head as in Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther.

At the rehearsal, Stephanie Tretick reminded me that the last time the Pittsburgh Symphony stayed in Bonn, the Polizei fined Charles Lirette $20 when he practiced his trumpet near some railroad tracks. The officers thought he was preparing to play his Abschiedsgesang (farewell song) and hauled him off to jail. Horn player Kenneth Strack, since retired, posted bail. I’ll need to verify the details of the story with Charles, but I think it’s mostly true. It was a big deal because the Deutsche Bahn briefly stopped all the trains to prevent any trumpet players from ending it all.

Jim Cunningham and Andrew Druckenbrod with WDR's broadcast truck at the Beethovenhalle

From the Schumann house, we took a taxi to the Beethoven Geburtshaus (birthplace). I loved the driver. She said she never listened to the classical station on the radio. I asked her if she thought that Angela Merkel would be re-elected this fall, and she said she thinks she will and should be. The campaign signs are everywhere. Wir Haben Die Kraft! (We Have the Power!), claims one poster. Another is just Merkel’s face and the feminine word for Chancellor , Kanzlerin!  You can vote for the somewhat conservative Merkel, you can go really far right and toss all the immigrants out of Germany, or vote Green, the leftist SPD, the Christian Democrats, and lots more.

Manfed Honeck was touring the Beethoven Haus. I loved seeing Beethoven’s ear trumpets, his John Lennon-style rimless glasses, and his walking stick. Manfred pointed out that the walking stick is rather short since Beethoven wasn’t very tall. Here you’ll find the compass Beethoven used for those nature walks, his writing desk, viola, and the grand finale—the room where he was born. It’s empty, except for a white bust of Ludwig on a pedestal to match his adult eye level.

Jim Cunningham at the Gasthaus Im Stiefel

After the Haus, a fantastic German meal at the Gasthaus Im Stiefel with marinated beef sauerbraten (against my conscience regarding eating once-living animals), red cabbage with a hint of cinnamon, apple sauce, and gigantic puffy dumplings. Why not make it even more challenging to stay awake during the Beethoven Concerto, since I’m running on fumes anyway?

It’s 3:30 am, so I must say, “Gute Nacht.” I’m now an expert on early morning German TV. On WDR 1–the set says 1 Live– program host Domian is a man wearing a blue and white sailor’s shirt and white jacket hosting a call-in show. He just looks into the camera while wearing headphones. In one corner of the screen, it says Thema: Wasser. The callers are all talking about water supply and pollution problems. Not exactly riveting TV.  In Deutschland, you say “Alles gute,” “Tschuss!” and “Ciao!” if you want to warmly say goodbye. As a hopeless romantic myself, I really hate goodbyes. So I’ll just say, “Aufwiedersehen.”

The sound reflector and lighting fixture above the stage at the Essen Philharmonie

Essen is a modern city having been rebuilt after World War II. The hall is new and sounds great; comfortable seats and a backstage cafeteria with an attendant for the musicians. The stage door staff was relaxed and bemused at their guests from Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Regional Alliance was on the scene with a row of guests representing possible business connections.

The new Philharmonie is in a leafy park not far from the Essen train station. The city is buzzing this week with a welders and foundry workers convention. A number of musicians, as well as Post-Gazette Music Critic Andrew Druckenbrod and your correspondent, found a terrific Turkish restaurant named Tablo on Huyssenallee where we had Turkish coffee and a spicy eggplant vegetarian stew with paprika. I’m not a big fan of lamb, which figured in many of the menu items. I visualize big puffy white sheep with pink noses.

Cellist Hampton Mallory backstage in Essen

Lots of players enjoyed a box dinner and hung out backstage in the time between the rehearsal ending at 6:00 and the start of the concert at 8:00.

Once again, the Essen Philharmonic publishes a huge full color prospectus of their season with countless guests—Seiji Ozawa and the Berlin Philharmonic; the Vienna Philharmonic with Lorin Maazel; Marek Janowski and the Berlin Radio Orchestra playing Bruckner; Rudolf Buchbinder and the BBC Philharmonic; the Seoul Philharmonic; the Jacques Loussier Trio; Hélène Grimaud and the Stockholm Radio Orchestra; Kurt Mazur and the National Orchestra of France; Nigel Kennedy and the Orchestra of Life; Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra; Bruno Weil, Anne Sophie Mutter and the London Philharmonic; the Capitol of Toulouse Orchestra, and dozens more, mixed in with a complete season of the Essen Philharmonic and their Music Director Stefan Soltesz.

Christine Schäfer after Strauss' Four Last Songs

Speaking of conductors named Stefan, Harold Smoliar’s violist daughter Rachel is playing in the Florida orchestra lead by Chautauqua’s Stefan Sanderling whom we heard last summer from the Amphitheater. Rachel said she is really enjoying her season in Florida and being along with Dad on this tour as a substitute.

Schäfer wore her hair tied back, severe elegant cabaret style, with a lacy black top over an elaborately folded floor-length, plum-colored gown. There were more than the usual bows. I didn’t count carefully, but  I’d say over a half dozen. Backstage, she said she was nervous but there was no sign of it.

There were flowers for Christine and Manfred after the concert. Two encores followed Bruckner’s “Romantic” Symphony No. 4. The Grieg Morning Mood from Peer Gynt, and the Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5. I’ll leave you with a little video clip of Brahms from the Pittsburgh Symphony’s encore in Essen. Bis Später!

Brahms Encore in Essen (mp4 video, 8 MB)

Hier ist ein Berliner!

I still have one Berliner left from yesterday. They were two for a Euro at the Merzenich bakery (seit 1896!) and sold from an outdoor window in Cologne. The Berliner became famous when JFK made his famous speech in Berlin to assure the city that the US would support West Germany after the Berlin Wall divided East and West and food had to be airlifted in. It’s been suggested that Kennedy’s words “Ich bin ein Berliner!” actually meant “I am a jelly doughnut.” Not so. I’ve been told that the Berliner in the city of Berlin is actually a bit different than in the rest of Germany. In Cologne, it is a strawberry-filled doughnut with lots of sugar on top. Gut! I noticed President Obama speaking to Wall Street on several of the European cable networks yesterday afternoon.

I spoke briefly this morning with Co-Principal Clarinet Thomas Thompson and wife Chris about their day in Cologne. They enjoyed a tour of the Rhine river by boat. Violinist Hong Guang Jia spent some time back in China this summer after the Orchestra’s last tour to Beijing. Mr Jia teaches in China, making the long trip at least three times each year, where he works at the Central Conservatory. In 1986, he was the first Chinese violinist to play in an American orchestra when he joined the Baltimore Symphony and David Zinman. Now, the Pittsburgh Symphony has at least seven musicians of Chinese origin or descent.

Last night I spoke with Jeffrey Turner, PSO Principal Double Bass. Jeffrey has connected with one of his former bass students at Duquesne, now playing in one of the German orchestras.  Jeffrey is  heard playing the important bass solo on the new Mahler Fifth Symphony CD with Manfred Honeck, but he hadn’t had a chance to listen to the final product yet. He plans to conduct a bit more this season. We heard his terrific-sounding concert with the Duquesne Symphony on the radio just a few months ago. He’s juggling care of his four year old Ella with his wife, who is a path-breaking surgeon at UPMC working in the specialized area of entering the body just above the eye to perform neurosurgery.

I’m not much with tennis, but lots of folks have been watching Roger Federer at the US Open in their rooms, as Principal Oboe Cynthia de Almeida told me she had spent much of yesterday afternoon while making reeds. I’m fascinated by the range of European TV. Here in Cologne, you see all the German networks: ARD, WDR, NDR, and no less than five channels from the Middle East including one from Abu Dhabi. A man wearing the traditional flowing white garb of Kuwait was on a game show. His head was covered and phone numbers for Yemen and Iraq flashed on the screen for audience participation. The RTL II network had a German reality show of some kind with two young women Danielle and Natalie – it is called the Aschenputtel Experiment. Natalie is wearing a hot pink T-shirt that says, “Sleep Now, Study Later.” They talk to the camera, and there are tears over their romantic entanglements. The commercial load is amazing—shorter but more. In  a single blast I saw Activia, lots of hair care stuff like Syos, and hair color Wellaflex, hair spray, Nissan and Kia twice in the same break, Dr. Oetker’s frozen pizza, L’Oréal, Persil detergent, Ritter Sport chocolate, and five program promos.

BR Bavarian TV had a documentary about Nazis. Germans sometimes tell me they never hear much about WWII but it’s my experience that every evening there are the tanks, Auschwitz, and more with Hitler on TV in Germany. When we got here, I was watching a bit of a program on the Hitler Jugend, or Hitler Youth. You can’t help but reflect on the effects of war in Cologne which was leveled by Allied bombing and only the Cathedral standing  in ruins on the landscape at the end.

Contrabassoonist James Rodgers with groceries in Cologne

Then there’s CCTV from China, RAI Uno and Due from Italy, Turkish TV, Sounds of Worship mixed in with the Arte network broadcasting a complete Mozart Don Giovanni and four sports channels with hockey, soccer, tennis and more. MTV Deutschland had a funny anti-smoking PSA—“Fur ein rauch freies leben,” there’s  Law and Order overdubbed, and that Harrison Ford movie with the evil US President dubbed in German, Clear and Present Danger maybe?

Germany is still a place where poetry is appreciated. I admired a monument to the poet Karl Cramer near the Town Hall yesterday.

Contrabassoonist James Rodgers bought his own brown bag dinner last evening after a day enjoying the Cologne Zoo with a ride in its aerial tram. Jim and I will have a get-together at the Carnegie Library Main Branch on September 29^th, in a book discussion of Vivaldi’s Virgins by Barbara Quick. You don’t have to have read the book to join us—please come. Tonight, the Pittsburgh Symphony will bring a poetic touch to Essen with Bruckner’s Romantic Symphony and the Richard Strauss’ Four Last  Songs. There’s a 90 minute rehearsal at 4:30 with Christine Schäfer. James Rodgers told me that working with her will be one of his personal career highlights.

Jim Cunningham at Cologne Cathedral

You can climb to the top of the cathedral towers but it’s a long and I think strenuous climb with the wind blowing, climbers in front and back in the claustrophobic stairwell. I was happy as a clam in the gift shop picking up CDs of the glocken (the cathedral bells), a Weinachten CD you’ll hear at Christmas, and a CD of the organ with a transcription of Liszt’s Les Preludes – radio theme of yore for … was it Sargent Preston of the Yukon? Plus a DVD of the history of the cathedral.

Last night or this morning at 2:00 a.m., I switched off the NDR network broadcast from London of the Last Night of the Proms with Saint Louis Symphony Music Director David Robertson (who has guest conducted in Pittsburgh) and blonde trumpet siren Alison Balsom playing Gershwin. Tuxedoed BBC hosts commented as at a sporting event, and there were lots of noisemakers in the hall. The Sat network was broadcasting an opera, Carmen, conducted by Karl Böhm. Late at night on German cable TV there are several channels devoted to misguided young women offering erotic conversation in erotic poses if you simply call the number on the screen with your credit card. Interesting combination of cultural and economic influences!

No. 4711, the Cologne that's synonymous with the city.

But I  digress. At breakfast this morning I sat with Bass Jeff Grubbs and principal English horn Harold Smoliar. Harold’s daughter Rachel is playing violin on this trip. Seems like a moment ago she was a child! Harold told me his White Tie Group jazz ensemble will play for the exclusive G20 spouses get-together at Teresa Heinz’ farm in Fox Chapel, and a string quartet led by Concertmaster Andres Cardenes is playing for the G20 cocktail reception at the Phipps. Harold said he’ s looking forward to talking about music with pop singer Carla Bruni who is also the wife of French President Sarkozy. And who wouldn’t like to play some piano favorites by Duke Ellington for Mrs. Michelle Obama while she’s in Pittsburgh?

You can hear the White Tie Group at the Pittsburgh Jazz Society fall concert at the Rhythm House Cafe in Bridgeville. Harold’s tour reading matter, which he highly recommends, is a book: The United States of Arugula.

I noticed the European version of CNBC on the cable last night had a promo of the forthcoming G20 coverage with the Pittsburgh skyline in the background.

After breakfast, I visited one of the most exquisite CD shops I’ve ever found anywhere. It’s a coffee and CD place called Carroux, which is the name of the Hamburg-based coffee they brew.

Archaeological dig in Cologne

I dragged along PSO fan Linda Shooer and tour physician Dr Ted Osial. Linda works for CMU’s Software Engineering Institute, which with its Department of Defense connections has special concerns about security during the G20. The shop has connections to the Edel company with lots of former East German business still active as Berlin Classics and the Eterna label.  What blows me away is the sophisticated German and European jazz  they sell there. Anymore, it’s amazing anytime you find a CD retailer since the iTunes and Amazon revolution has killed most CD shops worldwide.

Wow! While I’m typing this, the the WDR classical radio network is running a promo for its live broadcast from the Beethoven Festival in Bonn with Victoria Mullova playing the Beethoven Concerto and Manfred Honeck conducting our Pitsburgh Symphony. Sometimes you have to wonder if the tour really makes a big splash in culture-mad Europe, but hearing the national radio network promoting  our Orchestra is convincing evidence of the impact.

Mark Huggins at the Cologne Rathaus

It’s been raining off and on all day but not enough to prevent looking around. Assistant Concertmaster Mark Huggins and I walked over to the Town Hall, the Rathaus, where they are doing an extensive archeological dig to reveal an ancient synagogue. So much of Cologne dates back to the Romans. Next to the Cathedral there’s a museum devoted to the antiquities of the Roman era with a giant stone mosaic floor visible through the window; since the museum is closed Monday it’s all I could see.

The Rathaus is in the Altstadt, or old city, with its cobblestone streets where bass Don Evans and his cellist wife told me they enjoyed Sauerbraten with many members of the PSO last night. Also touring the Rathaus dig were cellists Hampton and Lauren Scott Mallory.

Huggins told me was having dinner with his chemist brother who lives in Leverkusen, the headquarters of Bayer — his former employer before his division was sold in a corporate shift. Mark lived in Cologne as a member of the WDR Orchestra and the Cologne Salon Orchestra where he made numerous recordings.

PSO President and CEO Larry Tamburri told me he’s off to Bonn this evening to hear a sold-out concert of the City of Birmingham Symphony and Simon Rattle.

West German Broadcasting (WDR) in Cologne

After the flight to Chicago, a five hour wait in the airport, safe arrival in Frankfurt, and a two hour bus trip, the two groups have arrived safely. It’s a gray day in Cologne. Our group, Group B, was briefly delayed by an accident on the smooth six-lane highway into town as the Polizei and emergency team attended to a motorist on the side of the highway. Our bus driver played some unusual music for the passengers – light country hits including the original Bonanza theme and a live recording of some sort of crossover bagpipe group. Watched Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious 4 on the Lufthansa flight, and a few minutes of one of the worst movies I have seen in my life, The Hangover, about a bachelor party gone wrong. Also on the in-flight TV, a one-hour documentary on Albrecht Meyer, the Berlin Philharmonic’s principal oboe, who is wildly popular in Europe. His documentary was shot by Unitel at the Lucerne Festival where the Pittsburgh Symphony will bring down the curtain on the summer season in just a few days.