Maximilian Schnaus (*1986)

In the center of Dresden, near the Frauenkirche is a booth selling festival tickets. I asked there about a good place to get a salad. 

They not only recommended Vapiano restaurant on the other side of the square (good choice), but told me about a free pre-concert concert taking place at 7pm in the Frauenkirche. It was an organ concert by Maximilian Schnaus, who has a stipend with Stiftung Kunst und Musik für Dresden. He was playing his work Come Sweetest Death. 

I went, primarily to have a chance of seeing the inside of the church  before dark, but oh how glad I was that I went.

I usually find organ music rather boring as it never seems to change - but not this time. It was exactly the sort of music one would expect of a 21st century composer and the sort of music you wished you heard more often.

It began with sounds of things water somewhere far away (reminded me of Wagner's Rheingold) and high pitched distant birds then moved slowly into the loudest thunder. I wondered if it might  shake the church foundations. There was no room for boredom in the half hour piece which ended with the sweetest of melodies.

Thank you Maximilian Schnaus!

Frauenkirche: ceiling