What a difference a letter or two make

The German newspaper 'Die Zeit' has an article on an Austrian lady who was a guard in one or two concentration camps, and who may have contributed to quite a number of deaths, beatings and so on. She had been interviewed twice by Austrian and German police after the war, but got off scot-free. Recently, however, she was within inches of being taken to court. She died before this happened.

Her name is Erna Wallisch.

Which reminds me of Ernst Wallfisch, the fabulous viola player.

And of the delightful Raphael Wallfisch, the cellist, his mother who played the cello in Auschwitz, for her life, and the rest of that talented family. (Not sure if they are related to Ernst).

Isn't it creepy what difference a little letter or two can make to a name? Like put you on different sides in the camps?

Incidentally, I see that Raphael is playing in the Berlin Konzerthaus on 8 May, to celebrate the end of WWII on that day 63 years ago, and also the founding of the state of Israel 60 years ago. Not sure that I would want to push the latter quite so much, given the more recent history. For that I would be very happy to chuck eggs at Mr Wallfisch, even in Germany. (Nothing more than eggs, mind, and making sure they'd miss the cello). They will be playing Schelomo by Bloch, something by Pavel Haas (who perished in Auschwitz) and some other pieces, all Jewish music. It would have been nice to add Kol Nidre to that - would he play it like Misha Maisky in that memorable Vilnius concert in 2004?

Play the cello with the Berlin Philharmonic

My friend Lynne from the US sent me this little gem. Learn to play Saint-Saenss' Swan like a Berlin Philharmonic cellist - with your computer moushka!

What will be the next instrument they'll feature?

What I like about Friedrichshain

Berlin Friedrichshain is in the former East of the City; it's now joined together as a local government district with Kreuzberg, across the river (Spree?). It's a bit odd because Kreuzberg is full of migrants and Friedrichshain is relatively 'white' and German. It's the place my son moved to when he first lived in Berlin. At the time I knew nothing about it and was a bit dismayed that he had not gone for Prenzlauer Berg, the 'in place', but actually, I think Friedrichshain is cool.

To be fair I have never spent more than a few days there, so perhaps I am not the best judge. I also know that there are many issues in Friedrichshain, such as racist attacks - but these exist in Prenzlauer Berg, too; only the other day I thought I heard a racist comment in PB. However, this article in the Berliner Zeitung totally slates Friedrichshain, and I don't think the author, Sabine Reichel, is being entirely fair. She's a journalist in her 60s (grew up in the 50s she says) who moved from Los Angeles to Friedrichshain; but she's a native Hamburger, so to speak. Probably she does not have the right background and expectations to survive in Friedrichshain.

So she complains and complains... about her cold flat (which might apply anywhere in Berlin, surely), the rudeness of the shop assistants, the number of people with body piercings, the dog shit (fair enough), the market, people sitting around in parks, drinking and listening to loud music, the public transport system and its clientele, and so on. She thinks Friedrichshain is a fake, but finally she realises that she may just have got old.

I like Friedrichshain because it's different and it's funky. During my Berlin trip I visited the far west of the centre, Wilmersdorf, and found myself in a neighbourhood where the only people under 70 were Polish care assistants, and the flat I looked at faced a hospital and a funeral parlour. The capuccino was cheap, though! Prenzlauer Berg is becoming stunningly beautiful, but also very gentrified and middleclass - as is reflected in some of the very expensive shops there. Now everyone has young children - in 20 years it'll also be a pensioner's paradise.

I like the mix of people in Friedrichshain, most of whom are quite young. Many of whom are punks or have other reasons for piercing their faces - and they will pay for it later with dental bills. At the same time there are also many more established residents from before the wall came down. Perhaps coming from California the writer was not used to a slightly robust way of communicating. Those of us who spent much time in the satellites of Glasgow, Scotland, can well deal with that - but I found all shop assistants friendly, apart from my first visit to a little ear ring shop in Kopernikusstrasse. And if they are grumpy, you just grump back or you are so nice to them that they finally melt. It's nice watching people and seeing what they do and how they behave. The punks don't worry me, the racists do. It would be good if Friedrichshain was more ethnically mixed, but perhaps that will develop.

The buildings range from stunning to decayed, though the modernisation is moving on relentlessly. There are lots of little interesting shops selling all sorts of weird and wonderful things, and there is a great little bookshop, Buchbox, which may not have that many books, but almost all are those I would read. Other shops range from a busy organic supermarket to cheap supermarkets, and a wide range of other goods, many cheap and nasty, and others quite ok. And there is the little market in Boxhagener Platz which on a Saturday has a wide range of vegetables, organic and otherwise, meat, delicatessen etc, and on a Sunday is a flea-market where, if you look carefully, you can pick up interesting things.

There is the cutest little cinema set in the groundfloor of a block of flats, and Friedrichshain now has many restaurants for all levels of income, except the very highest. It's between two lines of the S-Bahn allowing for quick transport to other parts of Berlin - yes, you get crazy people in the S-Bahn, but you do in public transport everywhere. It's because they can't get a driving licence what with being drunk or crazy...and welcome to the real world! I would be happy to live in Friedrichshain, though I would not necessarily buy a flat overlooking a park....

Mahler and Barenboim

Can't say if I have heard Mahler's 9th symphony before; possibly not, it's not that often performed. This is a relatively straightforward symphony, without choir or other added bits, though the also normal 4 movements, in terms of tempo, are in a different order compared to other symphonies. According to these programme notes there is a mystique around 9th symphonies, looking at Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckners all of whom had their 9th as their last (unlike Leif Segerstam who is hale and hearty and about to premiere his 150th symphony). It was Mahler's last full score, and it is suggested in full anticipation of his own death (his daughter having died earlier and him having been diagnosed with serious heart disease). It begins with an Andante and ends with an Adagio. The very long first movement seemed quite bitty, not quite hanging together, and would need to be heard again (the whole symphony needs to be heard again). The second movement, Rondo-Burlesque is a bit of a dance, (a Laendler? or am I thinking too much of Austria?) and quite easy on the ear. Perhaps the Vienna Phil could have done this one even more sublimely. The third movement has a very nice viola solo or two, and Felix Schwartz, the solo violist of the Staatskapelle, did his very best with it. The final movement has the most amazing ending, keeping dying away, and reviving itself, until it finally peters out altogether. Barenboim did this wonderfully, outstandingly....It was the last concert of a Mahler series conducted alternately with Pierre Boulez; justifiably Barenboim and the orchestra received a long standing ovation.

Masturbation, gang rape and Booh!

Another [normal?] night at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. A night out for two young companions (one who had played in it in an orchestra, the other one a very visual person) and me, for something that is easy on the ear, and, in a promised staged performance, good on the eye, too.

Hmmm. This interpretation by Götz Friedrich has had me rushing to research the content of Carmina Burana. It's based on 12th and 13th century poems found in Bavaria. This is the same period of Chaucer's very bawdy Canterbury tales. According to this the poems are about the twists of fate (2), spring, nature and love awakening (7), drinking and gambling (4), love (10), and a repeat of the fate theme - I see one of the last lines in the love section refers to 'virgin most transcendent' - not in this interpretation, it wasn't. Also I never realised the Carmina had so many words! The spring theme also reminds of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and this interpretation's treatment of the woman is not far off a sacrifice.

So the stage opens with a woman tied up; she then frees herself, rushes about, and at anything in trousers - even at the body builder who joins her on stage is rather underdressed in tiny green briefs and a green hood (the not very jolly green giant?). When a man is not available she uses a rope or anything else that comes to hand to pleasure herself. At one stage a person pops out from a giant pair of lips (oral, but displayed vertically...). During the pub scene another woman enters the stage with huge balloon breasts and buttocks which are then pierced by someone's [metal] pin. In passing our woman, now half-naked, is raped by a bunch of guys. The tenor takes off his clothes (not all of them, thankfully, he's a big guy) and at one stage sings from a steaming bath.....

I suppose that the interpretation might reflect the approach to women in the 13th century - who really knows? The verses are vastly more subtle and beautiful than this interpretation could ever dream to be - it's romance with a jackboot. Then again this refers to the [a?] woman as a 'medieval sex worker'. One of my companions wondered about the image of women as reflected in the show and whether the rape, nakedness and all that were a way of attracting attention? But in 1995 when the production was premiered that was already a bit old hat in Germany.

On the musical front it was a bit disappointing. Maybe we are too used to having bits of Carmina Burana blasted out at us in adverts and films, but the choir seemed weak, as if sung by thin elderly men well past their sell-by date. It was also felt that choir and the huge orchestra were not always entirely together.

This was the first show ever where I heard 'booh' from the audience. It seemed to be directed at the poor conductor, which was a bit odd, but perhaps it was because he was the only person in charge present in the theatre. But it seemed to be the same male who shouted a number of times; thankfully only during the applause, not like last week in Vilnius apparently, where a member of the audience, during Hamlet, shouted abuse during the whole first act, was ejected and taken away handcuffed, apparently turned loose outside the theatre, and returned for the third act with more of the same, to be again arrested...

Now if you go to see it, you know what to expect!