Leipzig Blog- Mateo

 After visiting the fast-paced Berlin, Leipzig was at once tamer, softer, sleepier. The grooved, cobblestone streets were wider, giving a larger path for pedestrians and the plentiful bicyclists. The architecture made the city look like it was from a fairytale. 

Renovated Renaissance church in Leipzig, Germany.

Riquet, an old European coffeehouse in Leipzig.

The highlight of Leipzig for me was the Rachmaninov ballet, piano concerto’s No. 2 and 3 choreographed with ballet dancers. This was the performance I was most excited for on the itinerary. For me, Act I was much less captivating than Act II, which had me hooked immediately. The dancers held tremendous skill and strength and evoked piercing emotions through their bodies, even with simple gestures, such as the two women who hugged in the center of the stage. The dancers made the choreography look easy and when they leapt into the air there was a moment when it looked like they were flying. The lighting was a character in and of itself in the production, acting as a sunset in the end of the second movement and moving around the dancers. Sometimes light would be red to symbolize war or passion, or blue. Sometimes the light would be above or below the dancers. The use of the lighting in this way combined with the color of the light and the smoke onstage made the ballet extremely atmospheric and cinematic. At times, the choreography felt more like an interpretive than ballet style, which I liked very much and thought was effective. That is a ballet I could never forget and hope to see again in the future.

Another highlight was the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s performance of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1, in which Brahms echoes a theme from Beethoven. Brahms said of Beethoven, “You have no idea how it feels—always to hear the tramp of such a giant behind you.” When he was just twenty years old, music critic Schumann called Brahms “Beethoven’s heir,”  adding pressure onto the young composer to live up to the legend. It took him twenty years just to finish his first symphony. In the next year, he wrote three more, having finally gotten the burden of the first over with. Perhaps the lesson here is that while there are great artists, do not let their excellence deter you from creating your own works of art.