Monday, March 18, 2024

St Mark Passion

Red Baron listened to and blogged about Bach's St Matthew Passion (BW 244) in Eisenach in 2012, Leipzig in 2014, and Hamburg in 2023. I saw St John's Passion (BW 245) performed in Freiburg in 2022.


When walking in the neighborhood the other day, I saw Bach's St Mark Passion (BWV 247) announced on a poster, became curious, and bought a ticket.


So, yesterday, Red Baron sat in Freiburg's cold Minster Church for more than two hours to listen to the St Mark Passion, which wasn't composed by Bach but by church musician Andreas Fischer in 2015. Why? The original notes of BW 247 are lost; only Picander's libretto has survived in full.

The choir and instruments are waiting for the conductor
In the English Wikipedia, we read, "In 2015, church musician Andreas Fischer reconstructed the Markus Passion by parodying only works by Bach. He paid attention to the proximity of text and music and avoided using music from the known passions ..."

This latter statement is not valid. Red Baron found it a blessing when, in Fischer's work, at least three choruses applied a well-known tune that Bach had used in BW 159, a cantata, the Matthaeus Passion, and the Christmas Oratorio. Here is a recording of the chorus Wie soll ich dich empfangen (How shall I receive you)

Even back then, popular tunes were frequently plagiarized. This one originally came from a love song by Hans Leo Haßler, "Mein G'müt ist mir verwirret (My mind is confused)," about what could happen when you are in love.

Red Baron's Gemüt ist verwirrt, too, with Fischer's Baroque recomposition in the 21st century. Although I don't fully share Martin Elste's criticism, "What comes out of it is, stylistically speaking, possibly more 'Bachian' than anything that was understood by Bach's sound in the Baroque period, and yet turns into plagiarism à la Disneyland [...] In fact, overall, Fischer's music seemed a little too smooth to me.

That the St. Mark Passion is very text-heavy - the Evangelist's long recitatives are particularly striking - certainly suits a new composition. Here, Fischer succeeds in achieving a great dynamic in his work, particularly in the alternating singing between the Evangelist and the crowd in the "crucify him" scenes.

Aiming my threefold zoom lens. The choir is in full action.
Note Freiburg's famous Fastentuch (Lenten veil) in the background
On the other hand, the chorales are straightforward and only make you sit up and notice when Bach's "handwriting" becomes audible. Ultimately, Fischer's St. Mark's Passion lacks the moments of surprise that frequently pop up in Bach's ingenious music.

My favorite aria from Bach's St Matthew Passion, “Erbarme Dich mein Gott, um meiner Zähren willen! Schaue hier, Herz und Auge weint vor dir bitterlich. (Have mercy, Lord, on me, regard my bitter weeping, look at me; heart and eyes both weep to Thee bitterly) is one of Bach's strokes of genius.
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Saturday, March 16, 2024

The Task Before Us

Here is a Nachlese (gleaning) of my blog on Creative Democracy. What conclusions can be drawn from John Dewey's treatise?

In the past, Hannah Arendt criticized Dewey, pointing out that he was sitting in an ivory tower, professing faith in democracy as the moral ideal of a way of life.

It is not enough to think about democracy in solitude. Thoughts are welcome to develop in seclusion, but they must engage with the fundamental experiences of the time. Thinker and actor will no longer be separated when the actor takes on the task of thinking while the thinker embraces the world, an attitude that Arendt calls vita activa.

Thinking abandons passivity and loneliness and so becomes an activity that utilizes a potential plurality, which is a keystone for the future of our everyday world.

Much of Dewey's credo, Democracy being a way of life, can be found in rudiments as early as the beginning of the 19th century. For example, when Goethe, under the impression of the excesses of the French Revolution and Napoleon's rule, urges education to free people instead of striving for a German nation in his Xenia:

To form yourselves into a nation,
You Germans hope in vain;
Educate yourselves, you can,
But more freely as people.

But isn't it idealistic to continue thinking about democratic ideas when Brecht lamented human inadequacy? In times of crisis, democratic ways of life quickly end because people long for authority. They want leadership and put democratic freedoms aside.

The wise Michelle Obama recently moaned that our democracy is taken for granted, although you cannot take democracy for granted. She asked, "Will people vote, and why don't people vote?" Voting is actually a democratic duty.

Goethe already demanded in Faust I, "What you have inherited from your fathers, acquire it to possess it."

For Dewey, too, inheritance is not enough; democracy must always be acquired anew. Education takes on a democratic color and should attune people to a democratic attitude to life.

Ultimately, all young people living in a democracy must be educated in democracy because "the belief in democracy is one with the belief in experience and education. If one asks what is meant by experience and interaction, my reply is that it is the free interaction of individual human beings with surrounding conditions, especially the human surroundings, which develops and satisfies need and desire by increasing knowledge of things as they are," writes John Dewey.

The idea of lifelong learning is also present in Goethe's Faust II, where the chorus of angels proclaims, "Whoever strives with all his might, we can redeem."

But how can you educate and reach people who believe that they are being systematically lied to by "the media" in a democracy because politics and the media are secretly working together? Many of these conspiracy ideologists have comparatively little formal education. Of them, 58% want to vote for the right-wing AfD in the next German elections. With these people, all hope is lost.


So hope rests on the young, who enjoy the achievements of democracy and the freedom of the Internet to the full. But here, too, the AfD is ahead. In the upcoming elections to the European Parliament, 16-year-olds are allowed to vote. This age group receives its political education from social media. 



AfD channels have more likes than all other democratic political parties combined. Where are the other reputable media? Where is the German government to counter the targeted disinformation by the political right?
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Thursday, March 14, 2024

German Cuisine

Red Baron was raised on Westphalian cuisine. My mother learned to cook at her parents' farm in Nottuln, south of Münster.

My father liked simple Westphalian dishes, although occasionally, he asked my mother to prepare Berlin food, which he was brought up with and for which his sister, my aunt, was famous.

My mother cooked authentically and seasonally. The ingredients were regionally based on vegetables, occasionally including meat or fish. And we ate lots of vegetables, including all types of cabbage as there are cauliflower, white cabbage, red cabbage, savoy cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and in winter, kale, but only occasionally sauerkraut. Lentils, peas, and carrots were also high on the list.

The rare meat consisted of breaded pork chops or small hamburgers known in Berlin as Bouletten, which is why my mother called them Berliner Bällchen. When visiting grandma, my children's favorite dish was fried potatoes, a fried egg, and spinach.

In 1933, the Nazis decreed the so-called Sonntagseintopf (Stew Sunday), obliging citizens to cook a simple dish on Sundays.

Our family did not have Eintopf on Sundays but once a week. The money saved in this way had to be collected and donated to the Winter Relief Organization (WHW), short for Winterhilfswerk).

I was raised on Westphalian and Berlin food. Later, I learned German food is inedible and only beaten by English cooking.

Der Spiegel recently published an article: Was soll denn "deutsche Küche" sein? (What is "German cuisine" supposed to be?)

James Gillray
Let me confirm once and for all: There is no German cuisine, and although we are called krauts, sauerkraut isn’t our national dish even when Ludwig Uhland, one of our romantic poets, spread the sauerkraut myth in 1815:

Auch unser edles Sauerkraut,
Wir wollen‘s nicht vergessen
Ein Deutscher hat’s zuerst gebaut,
Drum ist’s ein deutsches Essen.
Our noble sauerkraut, too,
We don't want to forget.
A German prepared it first,
That's why it is a German food.

Choucroute Royale en Alsace (©L‘Alsace Royale)
Actually, the French and Belgians consume significantly larger quantities of sauerkraut on average than we Germans.

Do you remember the Turks besieging Vienna in 1529? They brought coffee to the West. And also, in the case of sauerkraut War was the father of all things*, i.e., fermented cabbage.
*Herodot, fragments B 53: ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων.

The troops of the Mongol ruler Batu Khan defeated a Polish-German army of knights at Liegnitz, Silesia, in 1241. The victors may have initially spread cabbage pickling in that Slavic-speaking region.

So, the supposed German national dish was possibly invented by the Mongols, going back to Korean "kimchi" or Chinese "suan cai."

People like Otto Ule lamented the absence of German cuisine, "But where is our German fatherland, our German cuisine? Germans scoff at the frugality of French cuisine and the coarseness of English cuisine, but as they have no distinct nationality, they also have no national cuisine."


German cooking was and will remain regional. Every part of the country has its specialties. For example, whenever Red Baron travels, he drinks local beer or wine and eats what is offered as food in a specific region of Germany.

Here are some examples. Click on the blue links to see the pictures:

Hamburg

One of the musts in Hamburg is Finkenwerder Speckscholle (a plaice baked in finely diced bacon) served with a potato salad. As a dessert, you eat Hamburger Rote Grütt (red berry groats here with vanilla ice cream instead of the original vanilla custard).

Grünkohl (kale) is well-known in Germany's north. While traveling with a group, I had kale in Hamburg. Freiburg organizes a traditional kale dinner for all those Nordlichters (northern lights is a mocking name for people from Germany's north).

Finally, the real Bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes) are found in the north of Germany. Red Baron devoted a particular blog to the various ways of frying potatoes.


Berlin

While in Berlin, I had Kohlroulade (stuffed cabbage roulade), roasted Blutwurst (black pudding), and Erbsensuppe (pea soup).

Berlin is well known for its Currywurst. Here, you may read about its history.


Cologne

Reibekuchen (potato fritters) are a must in Cologne. 

The Halve Hahn (half a cook) served in the shadow of the famous cathedral may shock you. It is only a chunk of medium-aged Dutch cheese and a Röggelchen.

Another specialty in the region is the Rheinisches Schwarzbrot (Rhenish black bread).


Bavaria

In Bavaria, the famous dish is roast pork with crackling, red cabbage, and potato dumplings

I had the typical Weißwurst with a white beer in Augsburg.


Saxonia

In Little Paris, I had Frittiertes Ur-Krostitzer Bierfleisch mit Kümmel, Knoblauch, Bratkartoffeln und Zwiebeln (Deep-fried Ur-Krostitzer beer meat with caraway, garlic, and fried potatoes with onions Leipzig). The meal was topped off with Sächsischen Quarkkeulchen (Saxon chops made from curd cheese and sides).


Thuringia

Red Baron wrote a blog about Thuringian food he had at Weimar. There is Thüringer Sauerbraten mit Rotkohl und Thüringer Kartoffelklößen (Thuringian sauerbraten with red cabbage and Thuringian potato dumplings). Famous is  the Thüringer Bratwurst (Thuringian bratwurst). The Zwiebelsuppe (onion soup) differs from the one served in France. Thüringer Rostbrätel (a marinated cutlet of pig neck, grilled over charcoal with roasted onions and a dumpling) is delicious.

The Ratskeller also serves a delicious Rindsroulade (beef olive).


You can eat Wiener-style breaded schnitzels with French fries anywhere in Germany (Freiburg, Westphalia) all year round, but this is not a German dish. Please note that an authentic Wiener Schnitzel is made from veal and is rarely found on German menus.

Asparagus is seasonal and grown everywhere. The Germans, along with Red Baron, are crazy about white asparagus. Here is a blog about some aberrations. The area around Freiburg is a particular growing region. Due to the warm weather, overpriced white asparagus is expected as early as Easter this year.

During the chanterelle season in fall, which each year starts earlier due to climate change, this mushroom is served in cream sauce all over Germany. Red Baron hates cream sauce but loves chanterelles sautées with chopped bacon and onions. Here, I had them in Hamburg, Potsdam, Assmannshausen on the Rhine, and as a starter in Freiburg.
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Friday, March 8, 2024

Herwig Schopper


Professor Herwig Schopper, my director general at CERN from 1981 to 1988, turned 100. So, it was natural that the Organization arranged a seminar on the occasion and in his honor.

One of the speakers called it a Herwigfest.
I was among those who asked to attend the presentations at the main auditorium online, and CERN granted me the privilege.

Herwig Schopper was born on February 28, 1924, in Landskron, formerly Sudetenland, now Czechia.

How did he become 100 years old?
  

Herwig's children and Prof. Albrecht Wagner of DESY started showing many slides shedding light on Prof. Schopper's private and scientific life. Other friends and colleagues followed with their contributions. I present a few of those self-explaining slides, although some have comments. Click the slides to enlarge!
        










Here, Herwig is seen with the still-popular German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt,
who died in 2016 at the age of 97!
Following his deep-digging scientific talk,
American Nobel Prize winner Prof. Samuel Ting handed Herwig a T-shirt.
Another former DG of CERN, Chris Llewellyn Smith, informed
the audience about Prof. Schopper's achievements during his mandate.
During a sabbatical at CERN, American Noble Price winner Burt Richter
worked out a proposal for a high-energy electron-positron collider.
In his talk, Chris Fabjan presented Herwig's most excellent hallmarks.
Superconducting cavities are a must for a Large Electron Positron ring.

Circulating electrons and positrons lose energy in the form of synchrotron radiation. RF cavities must continuously feed them with energy to keep them in orbit. Energy-saving superconducting RF cavities come in handy.


Red Baron was involved in the construction of LEP. In many meetings, the local population and the French and Swiss authorities had to be convinced that no radiation would escape into the environment, as shielding calculations proved. In particular, I enjoyed my frequent trips to Paris and the animated discussions with French colleagues and experts in radiation protection.
A rich harvest: The LEP experiments discovered
both the Z and the W bosons that mediate the weak interaction.

When the construction of a Superconducting Super Collider was discussed in the United States ...
 
... came prompt: A Large Hadron Collider should fit in the existing LEP tunnel.
While Herwig Schopper was CERN's DG, there were more highlights.
When Red Baron, who participated in the initial LHC planning, was forced into retirement (mit 65 ist Schluss!) in July 2000, Prof. Schopper campaigned to establish an International Center for Synchrotron Radiation for Experimental Applications in the Middle East (SESAME).

Take note of the partly enemy countries.
The aim was to promote science in the Middle East and contribute to peacemaking.
     

This was achieved under the umbrella of UNESCO, following the example of CERN. A site for the project was chosen in Jordan.
   

A medal well deserved
Another medal
After chairing the planning committee, Herwig was president of the SESAME Council from 2004 to 2008.
   
For the project, Germany donated the magnets from the dismantled BESSY,
the Berlin Source of Synchrotron radiation, and had them shipped to Jordan.

CERN's present DG, Fabiola Gianotti, congratulated Professor Schopper after the lectures. Both are music lovers, but they differ in their musical tastes.
   
Congratulations came via the Internet... 
... and the jubilarian watched attentively
The Fest seminar ended with the Heisenberg Medal being awarded to Prof. Schopper.
   
Here is the certificate ...
... here is the medal.
I want to join the seminar participants and wish Prof Schopper all the best for the years to come. 
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Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Freiburg‘s Memory


Last Saturday, on the Germany-wide Day of Archives, which was themed around Food and Drink, the Freiburg City Archive offered guided tours of its new premises.
 
After moving to Freiburg, Red Baron enthusiastically visited the Freiburg City Archive. I spent many hours in the reading room of the historic Haus zum Herzog* studying publications on Freiburg's history.
*In the past, for easier identification, houses carried names: House to the Duke

The city archive's archival collection consists of documents on Freiburg's history and the city's and city administration's files.

The archive was bursting at the seams at its "old "central location on Salzstraße. The historical treasures kept in various rooms in the surrounding area were not always stored under ideal conditions.

The city archive is on the ground floor and in the basement
At the end of last year, the archive moved to its new premises far from the city center in a building on Freiburg's exhibition grounds.
 
After a long walk from the final streetcar stop on Madisonallee, I reached the building, where a large crowd had already gathered for the 2 p.m. tour.


Red Baron was lucky to be guided by the director of the city archive himself, Dr. Andreas Jobst.

In the new premises, the archive material is now kept in air-conditioned rooms in roller cabinets. The parchment or paper documents are stored in flame-retardant, acid-free cardboard boxes.

Nowadays, more and more archive material is delivered in digital form and stored in databases. Copying ensures that the archive material can still be read by future generations.

Visitors crowded the Lesesaal (reading room) ...
.. with the Handbibliothek (reference library) on new shelves.
The Stadtarchiv keeps historical films and, on occasion, shows them.

February 1933, Fasnet (carnival) parade on Bertoldstraße.
Note the snow on the roofs.
In the spring of 1933, Germany wake up!
Soon, the brown SA hordes marched on Bertoldstraße.
The Arbeitsdienst (labor service) ended unemployment, and men marched with shouldered spades.
Labor service is the will for peace, the greatest expression of the German people.
Six years later, these men will shoulder their rifles.
Baden's Gauleiter (Governor) Robert Wagner (left) meets
Freiburg's Oberbürgermeister (Lord Mayor) Franz Kerber
In front of Freiburg's town hall:
A welcome with children and flowers is always a crowd-pleaser
The new Stadtarchiv keeps Freiburg's Memory safe. It is a double milestone in quality, and it is far away from the city center. May there be many visitors, not only online.
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