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

Rienzi at the Frauenkirche

In Dresden's Frauenkirche, listening to the Overture from Wagner's Reinzi, then mezzo-soprano Waltroud Meier singing Straus' Four Last Songs, I wonder, ' have I have died and gone to heaven?'

But no, I am alive and fulfilling a long held dream: to visit the Frauenkirche in Dresden and hear a concert. That is should include something written by Wagner then songs sung by Waltraud Meier is the unbelievable dream. 

The music (which I heard last night after a train trip from Hamburg) put me on such a 'high' that I was still spinning and sleepless at 2am.

Waltraud Meier and festival orchestra take a bow.

I was on level two, high above the performers (there is also a level 3) but the acoustics were wonderful and I heard every word. The Rienzi overture was fabulous and made me want to return for a Wagner binge.

 The Frauenkirche was destroyed during the second world war and rebuilt between 1994 and 2005.  During the intermission a local audience member told me he had studied in Dresden and had always hoped the pile of rubble in the city center where the Frauenkirche once was might one day be rebuilt. He said that when they did restart building they laid all the stones out in the city square, hoping to reuse them with use of a computer.  The German building rules, however, require that stones which have been subject to fire be tested for stability and when these stones were tested many of them, being sandstone, were found to be unstable. Those that are original are dark, the new stones are light coloured. The building is overwhelmingly light coloured. 

After the concert: Frauenkirche at night

Churches in Munich

As you walk along Munich's pedestrian street from the station you come to a building site covered with scaffolding . You don't see the facade and only when you come from the other direction do you you realise the sheeting over the scaffolding has a photograph of the building printed on it and is quite impressive.

Sheeting with printed image of St Michael's Church

I could see the glimmer of gold in the gaps between the scaffolding so I walked in underneath and discovered a very impressive and ornate church. This is Munich's St Michael's church.

St Michaels Church in Munich

I had been making my way to Munich's Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) and once I had seen St Michael's I thought the Frauenkirche might be similar but bigger.

The Frauenkirche is just off the pedestrian street: it is a tall church and you see it peeping out above other buildings as you walk  towards it. One tower is currently being renovated (there seems to be lots of building work in Munich at the moment.)

Frauenkirche in the background

You turn into the small street towards the church and find that it is too tall to fit in a photograph.

Side street leads to Frauenkirche

A large carved wooden door leads into the church and inside there is a foot impression in the marble floor. If you put your foot there you can look down the church and not see a single side window. When the church was built the end window was obscured by a statue and it is said that the devil came to see the church as it was being built; he stood there and looked, didn't see a single window and thought that the church would be a failure with no light.

Inside the Frauenkirche

It is completely different to the Church of St Michael and much less ornamented. The overwhelming impression in the church is height. The arches soar high above and are equally as difficult to photograph inside as they are outside.