"Stiff Upper Lip, Stout Fella, Keep Muddling Through"

Early tomorrow afternoon we will depart for the airport, and we will not return until late in the afternoon on August 19.

Yesterday’s visit to the Weisman Art Museum and the Walker Art Center were unremarkable. We did not spend a lot of time in either museum—we did little more than make a quick walk-through of each institution—and my sister was not particularly impressed with the art we viewed.

I have never especially cared for either museum, but Tuesday’s visit was only my second occasion to examine these collections. I have not made repeated and lengthy visits to these museums. A more intensive examination of their holdings must await the future.

Andrew and I took my sister to the museums by ourselves. Andrew’s mother and Andrew’s brother have been to the Weisman and the Walker so many times that they did not want to devote an entire day to seeing the collections for the umpteenth time. I can understand that.

The Weisman occupies a Frank Gehry structure. It looks like all Frank Gehry structures. I wonder what future generations will make of his monstrosities.

The Walker was voted the finest art museum in the United States last year by a nationwide panel of museum administrators. Such an assessment is ridiculous—the Walker is not even the finest art museum in Minneapolis, let alone the finest art museum in the U.S. The administrators at the Walker, however, are noted for their skill in currying favor with The New York Times.

In the two years I have lived in the Twin Cities, neither the Weisman nor the Walker has mounted an important temporary exhibition. This has been disappointing for me.

Andrew’s mother tells me not to take it personally—she says that the Walker used to mount superb exhibitions twenty and thirty years ago, but that the museum has lost its way over the last twenty years. It now devotes too much energy promoting its ancillary programs at the expense of fulfilling its core mission of collecting and displaying art. The Weisman mounts small, focused exhibitions, but none of these exhibitions has been remarkable since I moved to town. Perhaps things will improve by the time Andrew and I move back to Minneapolis.

Between museums, Andrew and I treated my sister to lunch downtown. We took her to a French Bistro because she had never visited a French Bistro before. We all three ordered French Onion Soup, but we ordered three different entrees: Salade Nicoise, Quiche Lorraine and Bouchee A La Reine. We passed the entrees around the table, each of us eating one-third of each entree. It was a good way for my sister to sample three different French foods. Each of us got a sampling of the seafood salad, the ham quiche and the chicken-in-pastry, and my sister enjoyed the lunch very much. It was a lot of fun.

This afternoon, Andrew’s parents, my sister, Andrew’s brother, and Andrew and I went downtown to attend today’s matinee performance of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Government Inspector” at the Guthrie Theater. This afternoon was the first time in her life that my sister had ever attended a professional theater performance of anything other than road-company productions of hit Broadway musicals, which she has seen in Oklahoma City and Dallas.

She was captivated—utterly captivated—by what she saw on the Guthrie stage.

The Guthrie staging of “The Government Inspector” was assigned to the theater with the thrust stage, which places the audience close to the actors onstage. My sister was amazed at what close proximity the actors were to members of the audience. She was also amazed at the quality of the stage design and the costume design, always extraordinary at the Guthrie. She could not take her eyes off the stage for the entire performance.

The proscenium theater at the Guthrie is currently presenting previews of a new musical, “Little House On The Prairie”, based upon Laura Ingalls Wilder. The studio theater at the Guthrie is currently presenting “Caviar On Credit”, an experimental “multi-discipline” work using young actors who have spent their summer months working in the Guthrie’s training program for young actors.

A month ago, Andrew’s mother had instructed me to ask my sister whether my sister wanted to see one or both of the other offerings at the Guthrie while she was in town. Andrew’s mother thought that perhaps my sister would want to attend a performance of the musical based upon the Wilder book or that perhaps my sister would want to observe young actors performing in an experimental work.

My sister elected to pass on the other two theatrical presentations. She thought that one play in Minneapolis would be sufficient for her, especially given the short duration of her stay here. She also knew that she would be attending six theater performances in Britain, so she would hardly be theater-deprived during her summer vacation.

I hope that Andrew and I have shown my sister a good time while she has been with us. A baseball game, a couple of museums and the Guthrie are the only attractions we have shown to her. Otherwise we have stayed home, eating, playing with the dog, and getting our things ready.

My sister seems to be happy and content with what we have shown her, and she has been very comfortable here. In any case, her brief stay in Minneapolis has been a mere staging ground for the main event of her summer, her first trip to Europe.

She is excited beyond belief. She has researched extensively every place and every site we will visit. She is eagerly looking forward to her first trans-Atlantic flight. She can’t wait for her first footstep on foreign soil. Everything about our trip seems to fascinate her.

I do not think she will be disappointed.

I have warned my sister that the food in Britain will not be good. I especially have warned her about the low quality of the fish, meat and vegetables she will encounter. My sister is not a big breakfast person, but I have passed on to her that breakfast is often the best meal of the day in Britain and that, as a general rule, it is a bad idea to skip breakfast when traveling in Britain. My sister says she will not care about the food as long as it is minimally adequate, which it will be. Further, she understands that this trip is not about epicurean delights.

She has enjoyed some epicurean delights the last couple of days. Yesterday and again today, she was treated to the full Andrew breakfast, and she is prepared to confirm to the world that Andrew is indeed the best breakfast cook on the planet. No one can match his scrambled eggs, no one can match any of his many ways of preparing breakfast potatoes, and no one can match his bacon (everyone else undercooks or overcooks it, and cooks it too quickly).

Late Monday afternoon, before we headed out to the Twins game, Andrew’s mother gave us tuna salad sandwiches (and her tuna salad is the best tuna salad in the world, made from broiled tuna steaks) and pepper salad for an early dinner. When we got home from the game, Andrew’s mother had a late supper of chicken-vegetable lasagna waiting for us, followed by homemade boysenberry ice cream for dessert.

Tuesday night, we had pot roast for dinner, served with mashed potatoes, lima beans, sweet corn, glazed carrots and a fresh pineapple-nut salad. For dessert we had homemade black raspberry cobbler and homemade ice cream.

Our early lunch today before heading to the Guthrie was pasta with crab and peas, served with an Alfredo sauce.

Tonight’s dinner was roast chicken and stuffing, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, beets, butternut squash and apple salad. For dessert we were served peaches and cream.

Tonight’s dinner HAD to be roast chicken, because it was our last night with the dog (who is accustomed to eating roast chicken on most Wednesday nights anyway).

The dog knows we are leaving soon. He knows what luggage signifies. He knows what packing signifies. He knows what a lot of household activity signifies.

I also think he understands that tomorrow is the day we will depart. We have told him this, and I think he understands this. We gave him a bath tonight so that he will be nice and clean when we drop him off tomorrow. I think he pretty much understands exactly what’s going on.

He has been a little restless the last few days, reluctant to leave the side of either Andrew or Andrew’s mother. He views Andrew as his primary pal, and he views Andrew’s mother as his primary protector (and he views himself as her primary protector). He goes to everyone for play and affection and comfort, but he always goes to Andrew and Andrew’s mother first, especially when he is in distress.

The dog is in some distress now, but Andrew’s father says that he will be perfectly fine, and that the dog and Mrs. Anderson will be perfectly happy entertaining each other for the next three weeks. Certainly Mrs. Anderson need not fear intruders while he is with her!

We selected our travel books tonight. Books will be much more important on this trip compared to our last trip, because there will be several evenings on this trip for which we have no sightseeing planned and no theater performances scheduled.

My sister has recently become fascinated by F. Scott Fitzgerald, having read “The Great Gatsby” in her senior year of high school and having read a collection of Fitzgerald’s short stories earlier this summer. She has selected Fitzgerald’s first two novels, “This Side Of Paradise” and “The Beautiful And The Damned” as her travel books.

Andrew’s mother has selected “The Making Of Victorian Values—Decency And Dissent In Britain: 1789-1837” by Ben Wilson.

Andrew’s father, Andrew’s brother, and Andrew and I have selected five books, books of no particular theme but books we can pass back and forth, as necessary, as our interest waxes and wanes. We chose “Nixon And Mao: The Week That Changed The World” by Margaret MacMillan; “A History Of The English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900” by Andrew Roberts, a continuation of Winston Churchill’s four-volume history; “Anzio: Italy And The Battle For Rome—1944” by Lloyd Clark; “1920: The Year Of The Six Presidents” by David Pietrusza, an examination of the American Presidential Election of 1920; and “The Battle For Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939” by Antony Beevor. None of these books should be challenging or intense, but all should carry some degree of interest for us, the fine line to which all travel books must adhere.

This is my last blog entry for at least three weeks.

We return on Tuesday, August 19, but Andrew and I head East on Friday, August 22. We will stop in New York and visit Andrew’s older brother and his family on that Saturday and Sunday, but on Monday, August 25, we will proceed up to Boston. I have first-year orientation on Thursday of that week, and Andrew and I want to be settled as much as possible into our place in Boston (which we have not even seen yet) before my classes start and before Andrew starts his new job.

"Joshua Und Andrew Heraus!"

Andrew and I rose very, very early this morning in order to clean our small apartment from top to bottom and to wash all of our clothing and bedding.

Today is our final day in the apartment. In a short while, we will be turning the apartment over to Andrew’s brother and moving to Andrew’s parents’ house for the next five days.

Other than cleaning everything, our move does not involve much more than taking our clothes with us.

We are leaving behind our furniture, such as it is, as well as our computer, our sound system and even our books and discs. Even our cookware, dinnerware and tableware are remaining behind for Alex to use, as are our bath towels, dish towels, sheets and blankets.

The move will be very simple for Alex, too. All he need do is bring over his clothes and his television, and settle right in. Everything else he needs is already here for him, clean as a whistle, polished to show-room perfection.

In August, our move to Boston will be equally efficient. Alex’s cookware and dinnerware remain boxed up over at Andrew’s parents’ house, as are his towels and bedding and even his computer. When we return from Britain, Andrew and I will stamp new shipping labels on those unpacked boxes and ship them to Boston for our own use of the contents.

We planned all this back in May, before Andrew and I even headed out to Denver to help Alex prepare for his move home. We did so in order for all three of us to save hours and hours of aggravation involved in our moves. Effectively, only one moving project was involved for the three of us: Alex’s stuff gets shipped to Boston after a short stopover in Minneapolis.

I think this has been very efficient!

Over the course of the next few weeks, Alex will take a few of our books or discs over to his parents’ house every time he goes over for a visit, leave them behind, and bring a few of his own books and discs back with him.

I think this is very efficient as well.

Today Andrew and I hung the three Hans Rudi Erdt lithographs on our apartment walls. It is kind of ironic that we waited until our final day in the apartment to put anything on the walls.

However, we do not want to take the lithographs with us to Boston, and Alex likes them, and he will enjoy having them on the apartment walls.

The alternative was to store them at Andrew’s parents’ house, but we wanted them to be seen and enjoyed and not shoved into a closet. (I don’t think Andrew’s mother would want the lithographs to be hung in her house—she appreciates their artistry, but she is not, all in all, particularly keen on displaying lithographs of The Kaiser’s U-Boats.)

The most well-known of our lithographs is “U Boote Heraus!”, which in English means “The U-Boats Are Out!”

The most beautiful of the lithographs is “Bei Unseren Blaujacken”. Translated into English, its title is “With Our Boys In Blue”.

The most controversial of the lithographs is “Der Magische Gurtel”. A literal translation is “The Magic Girdle”, but a truer translation is “The Enchanted Circle”. It refers to and depicts the ring of U-Boats that circled and threatened Britain during the war.

Something tells me that Andrew’s mother would not want to hang “Der Magische Gurtel” in her living room or in her dining room or on one of her stairwells, where her guests might see it.

So “U Boote Heraus!” and its two companions shall remain here, in what will soon be Andrew’s and my old apartment, for Alex to enjoy.

“U Boote Heraus!”

And “Joshua Und Andrew Heraus!”, too.

Laptops, Lithographs, First Editions And Farewells

Last night was Andrew’s farewell dinner at his firm. The affair was held at a private club, and it was a splendid setting, a splendid dinner, and a splendid evening.

When Andrew and I arrived at the club last night, we discovered, to our surprise, that Andrew’s parents and brother had been invited, too. They had withheld from us the information that they had been invited.

The speeches were full of praise for Andrew and his work, and were very warmly and heartily delivered. Happily, Andrew will be welcomed back at his firm three years from now.

The firm’s gifts to Andrew were exceedingly generous: a First Edition of Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street” (the novel in its first printing was titled “Main Street: The Story Of Carol Kennicott”) and three World War I lithographs, beautifully framed, by Hans Rudi Erdt, a German graphic artist from the early 20th Century.

“Main Street”, set in the fictional town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, is one of Andrew’s favorite novels, and he was deeply moved by the firm’s gift of a First Edition. Sinclair Lewis is one of two major novelists from Minnesota who emerged in the 1920’s (F. Scott Fitzgerald is the other).

Andrew has been fascinated for years by Erdt’s lithographs created to glorify the German Navy during the First World War, and now we own three of them. The lithographs were ordered from a dealer in Germany, but all three were framed here in the Twin Cities once they arrived in the U.S. Our three lithographs are U-Boat lithographs. They are amazingly beautiful.

We are very, very excited. Andrew was literally stunned when he was presented with the Erdt lithographs—he had made a single offhand remark to one of his colleagues about the work of Hans Rudi Erdt more than a year ago and he was dumbfounded that his colleague had remembered his interest in Erdt, an artist totally unknown in the U.S.

I think that one reason Andrew was given the lithographs was because everyone who knows us believes that it is long past time for us to put something on our apartment walls!

My farewell luncheon was today, at a restaurant near the office. Everyone from my firm who was not on travel or in court attended, which moved me very much. It was a very nice lunch, and the people at my firm could not have been kinder to Andrew and me. My farewell gifts were a laptop computer, ideal for me to take to my classes at law school, and a Legal Dictionary, another item essential for law school.

Today was a very sad day in many ways. Andrew and I are today leaving jobs we love, and leaving behind people we like, respect and admire.

Tomorrow evening Andrew and I have a party to attend. The party is in honor of our departure from the Twin Cities.

Sunday is Andrew’s father’s birthday, and we have a special birthday celebration planned for him. Sunday will also be the last Sunday Andrew and I will be in Minnesota, and we will mark the occasion by saying “Farewell” to so many church members we know and love.

Monday my sister arrives from Oklahoma, and on her first night here Andrew’s brother and Andrew and I are going to take her to see the Twins play the White Sox (not that any of us are true baseball fans).

On Thursday evening, we fly to London.

Three days after we return from London, Andrew and I head for Boston.

Saint-Petri-Kirche

Saint-Petri-Kirche, another of Hamburg’s five Lutheran Hauptkirchen, is located in what is now the city’s main shopping area. The church is named after the Christian Apostle Peter, whom the Roman Catholic Church believes to have been the first pope. The church is situated on the highest point of land in the Altstadt. Saint-Petri-Kirche is the oldest parish church in Hamburg.

Saint-Petri-Kirche is also located in the midst of the original fortified settlement known as Hammaburg, Hamburg’s historic core edifice. It is believed that a church has occupied the site since the 9th century. It is known that a baptistery was on this site as early as the beginning of the 11th century.

First mentioned as a market church in documents from 1195, Saint-Petri-Kirche was rebuilt in the North German Brick Gothic style between 1310 and 1418. After The Great Fire Of 1842, the central part of the church structure was completely rebuilt according to the original Gothic model. Miraculously, World War II did not cause any significant damage to the church. Saint-Petri-Kirche is the only one of Hamburg’s five main churches that did not suffer significant, if not overwhelming, damage during the war. Consequently, the Saint-Petri-Kirche of today is more or less the same as it was in the early 15th century.

The steeple and the stepped roof are particularly notable architectural features of the church. The photo below, from 1920, provides an excellent view of the spire and roof.

The following photo of the side of the church also offers a glimpse of the unusual roof of Saint-Petri-Kirche.

The main entrance doors have a lovely lion’s head as a doorknocker, dating from 1342. It is Hamburg’s very oldest work of art.

The church’s mammoth interior is all white, of classic Gothic design, with three naves and high, arched ceilings.

The church is famed for its amazing number of valuable treasures and artworks. Among other priceless artworks, the church has its own Hugo Van Der Goes and Sassoferrato paintings. The Van Der Goes alone would be worth millions and millions and millions of dollars on the open market. The paintings, windows, and figurines date from various centuries. There are altars from 1500 to the present. The original multi-paneled winged altar of Saint-Petri-Kirche was created by Master Bertram from 1379 to 1383. It is one of the greatest works of art from the International Gothic period of painting, and perhaps the single greatest surviving example from Northern Europe. It may now be admired in Hamburg’s Kunsthalle, where it occupies an entire exhibition room and where it is one of the museum’s most valuable and cherished holdings.

The main pulpit is one of the most intricate pulpits in Northern Germany. A Gothic mural from approximately 1460 portrays Hamburg’s first bishop, Bishop Ansgar Of Bremen, with the words “Apostle Of The North”. A column in the choir area contains a statue by Bernt Notke, from 1480, showing Archbishop Ansgar and the Hamburg Marienkirche, which he founded. From the 17th century are two famous oil paintings by Gottfried Libalt, “Jacob’s Dream” and “Christ’s Birth”. A famous history painting, “Christmas 1813 in Saint Petri”, is on a column in the south aisle of the church. It shows Hamburg citizens hiding in the church from Napoleonic invaders, fearful for their lives because they could not feed the French soldiers. In the front of the church are Neo-Gothic representations of the evangelists. A modern bronze sculpture by Fritz Fleer shows Nazi opponent Dietrich Bonhoeffer dressed as a convict, with his hands bound.

The foundations of the church tower date from 1342. The original tower was replaced in 1516 with a new structure that towered above even the old Hamburg Cathedral. However, the second tower was torn down in 1807, decayed because Napoleon’s soldiers had used it as a horse stable. In 1878, the current church tower—132 meters high, with a copper spire—was completed.

In the first half of the 20th century, Saint-Petri-Kirche lost most of its members as nearby residential neighborhoods were torn down, replaced by banks and department stores as the city center evolved into a pure business and shopping district. The parish currently consists of only a few hundred members.

Saint-Petri-Kirche was the most interesting of the five Hamburg Hauptkirchen, probably because it had the finest collection of artworks. We spent more than two hours exploring the church interior alone.

The church docent on the day we visited was a very nice and very highly-educated man in his late fifties or early sixties. He spoke flawless English. Like the elderly woman docent at nearby Saint-Jacobi-Kirche, he couldn’t take his eyes off Andrew.

The docent took us around the entire church, pointing out anything and everything of note, and then he disappeared into a private room and soon returned with books containing ancient photographs of the church and the neighborhood.

He showed us the old photographs at length, and he talked to us about other interesting Hamburg churches, giving us a long, long list of other Hamburg churches which, he said, were well worth a visit. Alas, we only visited churches in the center of Hamburg, and did not have an opportunity to explore churches in outlying districts.

The docent also asked us whether we were interested in a scholarly art book about Northern German churches. We said that we were. He told us that the book was out of print, but that he would attempt to locate a copy for us at one of Hamburg’s antiquarian bookshops, and that we should drop by the church in a day or two to see if he had succeeded in locating a copy.

We DID return to the church two mornings later (Saint-Petri-Kirche was only a short distance from the Levantehaus, our hotel), and the docent told us that he HAD located a copy of the book, and he provided us with the name and address of the antiquarian bookshop, which he said was holding the book for us.

We walked to the antiquarian bookshop that very day and bought the book. The book is in German, of course, but it contains lengthy discussions about the history and architecture of almost all important churches in Northern Germany, and it is filled with truly stunning photographs. All five Hamburg Hauptkirchen were addressed in the book, naturally, as well as several other Hamburg churches, a few of which we visited. Most of the book, however, is devoted to churches outside Hamburg. The book will be an excellent source of information for us in preparation for our next trip to Northern Germany (whenever that will be).

While we were touring the church interior, Andrew and his mother were riveted by one particular artwork in the church, a large and complicated marble relief of Christ’s Resurrection by one Hermann Schubert, a sculptor about whom we have been able to find no information whatsoever other than the fact that he was born in 1831 and died in 1917 and that the most recent of his works to come up for auction was in 1999 in Munich. The mural was dated 1859. According to Andrew and his mother, the relief was worthy of Pierre Puget, the greatest sculptor of the French Baroque. Puget was THE master of the marble relief, and Andrew and his mother said that the Hermann Schubert relief was as fine as Puget’s very greatest completed relief, “The Meeting of Alexander The Great And Diogenes”, housed in the Louvre. Andrew asked the docent about the Hermann Schubert relief, and the docent said that he had no information about it at all and no information about Hermann Schubert.

We did not climb the church tower the day we made our visit to Saint-Petri-Kirche. However, a few days later, Andrew’s brother and Andrew and I returned to the church in the very late afternoon for the express purpose of climbing the tower. (It is 544 steps to the top—there was no elevator—and we did not want to make Andrew’s mother climb to the top of the tower the day we toured the church interior.) Although dusk was setting, the views from the tower were magnificent.

Happily for us, the stairs were spacious and well-maintained.

Saint-Jacobi-Kirche

Saint-Jacobi-Kirche, dedicated to Saint James The Elder, is another of Hamburg’s five Lutheran Hauptkirchen (Main Churches). The lithograph above presents a view of the church exterior as it was in 1900.

The first mention of a church at this location can be traced to 1255, when Saint-Jacobi-Kirche was a small chapel located outside Hamburg’s city walls. After the city walls were extended in 1260, the church became part of Hamburg city territory.

Between 1350 and 1400, the old chapel was replaced by a large hall church of typical North German Brick Gothic design, with three naves. One hundred years later, a fourth nave was added. The attached sacristy was erected in 1438. The sacristy is Hamburg’s only surviving example of secular Gothic architecture.

The Gothic brick building has been constantly changed and enlarged over the years.

The interior of the church—a 1710 Baroque remodeling effort, never since altered—is itself unimposing, but its treasures and artworks are incomparable.

Saint-Jacobi-Kirche houses three magnificent medieval altars: The Holy Trinity Altar in the main choir (1518), The Saint-Petri Altar in the first south nave (1508) and The Saint-Lukas Altar in the second south nave (1500), which originally was installed in Hamburg’s Cathedral.

Medieval piety did not allow the retables to be opened during the week. Only on special Sundays, high festivals of the church and feasts of the saints were the wings of the altars opened and their panoply of panels displayed. Otherwise, the retables remained closed and only the outward paintings could be seen. On the outward panels of The Saint-Lukas Altar, a very special form of sponsorship may be traced: the donors of the altarpiece are prominently displayed among biblical saints. At the time, this was an accepted way of recognizing a donor’s generosity and piety and worthiness.

Saint-Jacobi-Kirche is also known for its ceiling and wall decorations. The Baroque ceiling murals, testaments to civic virtue, show the importance of maintaining both sacred and secular rectitude. The murals were painted, like the landscape paintings on the walls, by Johann Moritz Riesenberger. The many coats of arms on the walls designate the pastors, vicars and jurors who have served the parish since the 16th century.

The greatest treasure in the church, however, and the reason so many people make a pilgrimage to Saint-Jacobi-Kirche, is the Arp Schnittger organ in the West Gallery, one of the largest organs in the world and the most important organ in Northern Europe, famed since the day of its completion.

Built from 1689 to 1693, the organ has 4,000 pipes, 60 registers and 4 keyboards. This is the legendary organ that Johann Sebastian Bach specifically traveled to Hamburg—walking, for days—to see and to play in 1720. The organ has been carefully tended for more than 300 years, and was fully restored from 1989 to 1993 to mark its 300th anniversary.

We took the weekly guided tour of the organ and we stayed for the short organ recital that followed. The guided tour was supposed to be in German, but since we were the only persons who showed up for the tour that particular day, the guide quite naturally gave us the tour in English.

The organ recital that followed the tour, however, was attended by a couple of hundred persons, locals who worked nearby and who were attending the recital on their lunch hours.

In 1944, a bomb hit the church’s steeple and destroyed the dome. Luckily, most of the valuable interior was saved and from 1951 to 1953 Saint-Jacobi-Kirche was restored to its former glory. A new 125-meter spire was erected in 1963, but the new spire bears no relation to the original spire. The replacement spire looks cheap and out-of-place.

The photo below, from 1920, shows the beautiful church tower as it was prior to its destruction during the War.

The photo below shows the tower of today.

Hamburg churches employ pensioners as caretakers. They serve as guides for visitors as well as keep their eyes on the church treasures.

The day we visited Saint-Jacobi-Kirche, the caretaker was an elderly woman, approximately 70 to 75 years old, who spoke excellent English. She couldn’t take her eyes off Andrew, and she followed us around the church the entire time we were there.

She talked to us nonstop, but she didn’t talk to us about the church or its treasures. Instead, she wanted to know all about us—who we were, where we were from, what were our professions, why we were in Hamburg, how long we would be in Hamburg, what else we would be seeing in Hamburg—and she wanted to tell us all about herself.

She was very well-dressed and very well-coiffed, but she complained to us nonstop about how small her government pension was and how tiny her state-subsidized apartment was and how paltry were the sums the church was paying her for her hard work and how she did not have enough money to go to the opera as often as she would like.

Near the end of our visit, she told us that things were soon going to get far worse for her and for other Hamburgers: once the Eastern European countries were granted full membership in the European Union, Hamburg would be overrun by Jews.

Saint-Katharinen-Kirche

Saint-Katharinen-Kirche is another of the five principal historic churches of Hamburg known as Hauptkirchen (“Main Churches”). The base of its spire, dating from the 13th Century, is the oldest building preserved in the city of Hamburg.

The church is situated on an island near what was formerly the southern boundary of the medieval city, opposite the historic harbor area on The River Elbe. This may be seen in the photograph below.

Much the same view is offered in this photograph from 1920.

Saint-Katharinen-Kirche traditionally served as the church of Hamburg’s seamen, as well as shipbuilders and brewers living in the district.

The earliest attestation to the existence of the church dates back to records from 1250. From 1350 to 1425, Saint Catherine’s was rebuilt as a Gothic Basilica. It is this building that may be seen today.

The main body, consisting of a triple nave, was constructed in the North German Brick Gothic style.

In 1657, a Baroque rooftop was added. A spectacular Baroque spire was added two years later, designed by Peter Marquardt, who also designed a spire for Saint-Nikolai-Kirche (the old Saint Nicholas's, destroyed in The Great Fire Of 1842). Saint Catherine’s Baroque spire, with its two magnificent rotunda arcade levels, reaches a height of 115 meters. This is the spire that adorns the church today, a copper-plated feature that is one of the greatest landmarks of the city. A Baroque west façade was added in 1737 in order to stabilize the church tower. The church’s exterior, aside from its spire, has been criticized, said to resemble a humble country church enlarged to gigantic dimensions. I think such criticism has some validity.

The interior of the church is home to two pieces of priceless ecclesiastical art: a 14th-Century Crucifix and a 14th-Century statue of the church’s patron. Otherwise, the church’s interior is a reconstruction of the medieval church, rebuilt in the 1950’s.

Any distinction in the church interior results from the contrast between its massive round pillars, which support the cross-shaped vault, and the airy height of its middle nave.

The church was severely damaged during World War II—only the outer walls and the base of the spire were left standing. The building was carefully restored to its previous form between 1950 and 1957.

When Hamburg’s free port was founded in 1881, residents of the area were required to vacate, resulting in a loss of 20,000 members of Saint-Katharinen-Kirche’s congregation. This loss forced the parish to look for new tasks. Since the church’s current members are scattered throughout all parts of Hamburg and environs, the church concentrates on offering church services and special events for the entire town. The church is the official church of Hamburg’s main university.

The photograph below, from 1930, is an ideal bird’s-eye view of the church and its surroundings.

We enjoyed visiting Saint-Katharinen-Kirche, but it was probably the least interesting of Hamburg’s five Hauptkirchen because the interior was so spare. We spent only thirty minutes in the church interior, and we did not even bother to climb the church tower.

Saint-Katharinen-Kirche is only three or four city blocks away from Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, and the views are very similar. We visited Saint Catherine’s immediately after visiting Saint Nicholas’s, where we HAD taken the elevator to the top of the tower. We decided not to go to the top of Saint Catherine’s tower, as there was no elevator at Saint Catherine’s, and we did not want to make Andrew’s mother climb the tower.

Saint-Nikolai-Kirche

Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was formerly one of five Lutheran Hauptkirchen (“Main Churches”) in the city of Hamburg. Now in ruins, it serves as a memorial and as an important architectural sight of the city.

All five main churches of Hamburg were damaged or destroyed in World War II. In contrast to the other four, however, Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was never rebuilt—its ruins, instead, serve as a memorial against war, dedicated to “the victims of persecution in The Third Reich”. Only the spire, caked in black soot, and a few walls from the church remain. The church, a stark contrast to the rebuilt city of Hamburg, leaves an unforgettable impression.

With the founding of a settlement and a harbor on The River Alster in the 11th century, a chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, was erected. This wooden building was the second church in Hamburg, after The Cathedral Of Hamburg.

In 1335, some years before the onslaught of The Black Death, construction of a new brick building began. The structure was a hall church in the typical North German Brick Gothic style. This building stood until the middle of the 19th century, even though it had been changed and expanded—and had to withstand destruction—several times. The original tower, erected in 1517, burned down in 1589. A new tower built to replace it collapsed in 1644. The last tower of the old Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, from the late 17th Century, was designed by noted architect Peter Marquardt. The Marquardt tower was 122 meters high, with its characteristic dome a landmark of the city and the jewel of its skyline.

The drawing below shows the old Saint-Nikolai-Kirche shortly before the church’s destruction in The Great Fire Of 1842, which destroyed the entire city of Hamburg.

The end of the old Saint Nicholas’s came in May 1842, the first significant victim of The Great Fire Of 1842. The destruction of Saint Nicholas’s is described by chroniclers as an especially haunting event that deeply jarred the citizens of Hamburg and brought before their eyes for the first time the magnitude of the fire disaster. The destruction of the old church, the first large public building to burn in The Great Fire Of 1842, was the first indication of how catastrophic the fire would become.

Shortly after the fire, it was decided to rebuild the church. The English architect George Gilbert Scott, designer of so many buildings we visited in London and an expert in the restoration of medieval churches and an advocate of the Neo-Gothic architectural style, designed an 86-meter-long nave, with a vault 28 meters high. The architecture was strongly influenced by French as well as English Gothic, but the pointed spire was typically German.

Construction started in 1846. In 1863, the new church was consecrated, although the 147-meter spire was completed only in 1874. At that time, Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was the tallest building in the world, a distinction it held only for two years, until the completion of The Cathedral Of Rouen in 1876.

Below is a drawing of the George Gilbert Scott church structure, made shortly after the building was completed.

Below is a photograph of Saint-Nikolai-Kirche from the 1920’s. This photograph displays the surrounding buildings, too, all of which were destroyed in 1943.

The photograph below, of the front of Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, is from the 1930’s.

Saint-Nikolai-Kirche suffered heavy damage in World War II. The clearly-visible spire of the church served as a control and aiming point for the pilots of the Allied Air Forces during air raids on Hamburg. On July 28, 1943, the church was heavily damaged by aerial bombs. The roof collapsed and the interior of the nave suffered heavy damage. The walls, however, although damaged, did not collapse. Neither did the spire.

After bombings, the basic structure of the Gothic construction had remained intact to a large extent and the condition of the building as a whole permitted a potential reconstruction to appear realistic. Nevertheless, Hamburg authorities decided to demolish the nave and to leave the spire untouched. As the area surrounding the church was no longer a residential area, a new Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was built in the Hamburg district of Harvestehude. In 1951, the nave was finally demolished and rubble from the church was partially used for reinforcement of The River Elbe embankment.

The loss of a valuable Gothic Revival architectural monument was regretted by many, but after the war Hamburg had other priorities—the city’s entire housing stock had to be replaced. Contrary to the Baroque Saint-Michaelis-Kirche and the German Gothic churches of Saint-Jacobi, Saint-Petri and Saint-Katharinen, the Neo-Gothic Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was not regarded as one of Hamburg’s most important landmarks. The spire and some remainders of the wall were preserved as a memorial against the war, but the remainder of the ruins was allowed to disintegrate.

This situation changed in 1987. The Rettet Die Nikolai-Kirche (“Save The Nikolai Church Foundation”), founded that year, is responsible for the restoration of the ruin. The foundation is supported in its work by The City Of Hamburg, the congregation of Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, and various corporate sponsors and private contributors. The organization takes care of the maintenance of the building fabric, the repair of known damaged sections, and administration of the church’s programs, such as the arrangement of events and displays at the church. Even some rubble from the destroyed nave was reclaimed from the embankment of The River Elbe in 2000.

When Hamburgers mention Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, it is generally this church that is meant, and not the new Hauptkirche of Saint Nicholas, located in the Harvesthude district.

Our visit to Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was an extensive one. We visited the church on a Thursday so that we could hear the 12:00 Noon Thursday Carillon recital.

At 12:30 p.m., we visited the exhibition center, constructed in the church crypt, which recounts a history of the church. The crypt displays remnants of statues salvaged from the post-bombing rubble and various memorabilia about the church’s history, including numerous photographs. The crypt also presents a two-hour film about Hamburg during The Third Reich, in German only, which was riveting. We had never seen much of the historic footage before, and we watched the film in its entirety.

After our visit to the crypt, we took the elevator to the top of the spire. The platform, 75-meters above street level, offers inspiring views of Hamburg.

Hamburg Theater

Hamburg is a city of theaters.

Befitting its status as the wealthiest city in the European Union, Hamburg is the theater capital of Germany (with some assistance from the fact that Hamburg is also the media capital of Germany—and suffers from lots of bad weather, which tends to foster indoor activity).

There are three enormous state-owned theaters in Hamburg, each employing literally hundreds of persons full-time.

One of the state-owned theaters, of course, is the Hamburg State Opera.

The other two state-owned theaters are professional theater companies, performing year-round, each offering a vast repertory of plays over the course of a year.

The Deutsches Schauspielhaus is the largest and most beautiful theater in Germany used for spoken drama, and it houses Germany’s most prominent resident theater company. Its repertory concentrates on the classics.

Designed in Neo-Baroque style by the Viennese partnership of Fellner and Helmer, the most famous theatrical architects of the day, the Schauspielhaus originally contained over 1800 seats. It opened its doors in 1900, and originally operated as a private theater with a subscription audience.

The theater was nationalized when the National Socialists came to power, and it has been a state-operated and state-subsidized theater ever since.

The theater escaped serious damage during World War II, but for three years after the war the building was requisitioned by British occupying forces and only returned to its original function in 1948. Within a decade, the theater had re-assumed its position as Germany’s finest theater company. All of the great European directors have worked in the theater, even the great Giorgio Strehler.

In 1984, the rococo red-plush-and-gold auditorium was scrupulously reconstructed pursuant to the original designs. In addition to the main auditorium, the building has two smaller stages. Busts of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing and Kleist are displayed in the public promenades, reminders of Germany’s great theatrical heritage.

The Thalia Theater is Hamburg’s other large-scale state-owned theater company for spoken drama. It is one of the oldest theater companies in Germany, and one of the finest. With a staff of 340, the company stages 40 plays in repertory each year, nine of which are new productions. Its repertory is more contemporary than the repertory of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus.

The theater was founded in 1843 and named after the muse Thalia. The present Neo-Classical building opened in 1912. Like the nearby Deutsches Schauspielhaus, the Thalia Theater was nationalized in the 1930’s.

In addition to its main stage, the Thalia Theater presents repertory performances in another, smaller theater in nearby Altona.

The Thalia Theater survived the 1943 Hamburg firestorm, but fell victim to bombs in 1945, just as the war drew to a conclusion. The theater was rebuilt in the late 1950’s and reopened in 1960.

Unbeknownst to the German authorities, the basement of the Thalia Theater served as headquarters for local resistance forces against Hitler.

The Thalia Theater is a grand old traditional theater, with excellent sightlines and sumptuous decoration. The main auditorium has 1000 seats.

We attended a performance at the Thalia Theater of “Die Katze Auf Dem Heissen Blechdach”, known in the English-speaking world as Tennessee Williams’ “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof”. We all enjoyed the performance very much, although I doubt that we would have wanted to see a play that was not already familiar to us.

There are several commercial theaters in Hamburg that offer long runs of popular musicals. Some of these commercial runs have lasted literally for years: when we were in Hamburg, “The Lion King”, “Mamma Mia” and some German musical I had never even heard of were in the middle of multi-year runs.

Hamburg has two English-language theaters, too, owing to the large contingent of British citizens who live and work in Hamburg. There are 100,000 British residents of Hamburg, a reflection of the longstanding mercantile ties between Hamburg and London going back five centuries.

One of the English-language theaters, the aptly-named English Theatre, is fully professional and offers performances year-round. We attended a performance at the English Theatre of Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off”. The performance was not very good.

Hamburg Laeiszhalle

While we were in Hamburg, we heard three orchestral concerts. All three concerts took place in Hamburg’s primary concert venue, the Laeiszhalle (also known as the Musikhalle).

The Laeiszhalle is the home of Hamburg’s primary orchestra, The NDR Orchestra Of Hamburg, which presents weekly subscription concerts in the hall. The Laeiszhalle also is the home of the city’s secondary orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony. Further, the hall regularly presents orchestral concerts by the orchestra of the Hamburg State Opera.

In addition to hosting the local ensembles, the Laeiszhalle presents an active schedule of visiting orchestras and artists. It is one of the world’s most famed venues for orchestral concerts and artist recitals.

In our three nights in the hall, we heard a subscription concert by The NDR Orchestra as well as guest concerts by the Oslo Philharmonic and the Paris-based Orchestre Des Champs Elysees.

The interior of the hall is beautiful, and the acoustics excellent. The public staircases and promenades are beautiful, too, vast and grand, but always serious and understated.

Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle was built with a donation bequeathed by shipping magnate Carl Heinrich Laeisz and his wife. Portraits of the couple are to be seen in relief on the main staircase.

The Laeiszhalle was erected between 1904 and 1908 to a design by architects Martin Haller and Wilhelm Emil Meerwein. It is a representative, even magnificent, example of the Hamburg Neo-Baroque style, reflecting the Baroque brick-built architecture of the city from the 17th century.

The opening of the hall was a grand occasion for the city of Hamburg, as for the first time in its history the city could boast of a world-class concert hall.

The main concert hall, with a large and powerful Beckerath organ, seats 2,000 concertgoers. The small concert hall seats 640 concertgoers. In the foyer of the dress circle are two marble busts honoring Hamburg native Johannes Brahms and Peter Illich Tchaikovsky.

The Laeiszhalle survived World War II undamaged. It was completely renovated in 1983.

The square in front of the concert hall was named Johannes-Brahms-Platz in 1997, to mark the centenary of Brahms’ death.

The hall itself celebrates its centenary this year.

In a few more years, the city of Hamburg will have a second major concert hall. A new concert hall is being built directly upon the city’s harbor front. When completed, it will become the home of the city’s second orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony, an orchestra the city of Hamburg is committed to transforming into a major ensemble.

Hamburg State Opera

The Hamburgische Staatsoper (Hamburg State Opera) is one of the leading opera companies in Germany, home to a large resident opera company and a large resident ballet company.

Opera in Hamburg dates back to 1678, when the “Opern-Theatrum” was inaugurated. The Opern-Theatrum was not a court theater, but the first public opera house in Germany, established by music-loving citizens of Hamburg. It remains the only German opera house of significance not founded as a court opera.

Until the 19th Century, Hamburg resisted the dominance of the Italian opera repertory—it concentrated on staging German works, and rapidly became the leading musical center of the German Baroque. In 1703, George Frideric Handel was engaged as a violinist and harpsichordist at the theater, and performances of his operas soon followed. In 1721, Georg Philipp Telemann, a central figure of the German Baroque, joined the Hamburg Opera, and became a leading figure in the theater.

A new, larger theater was constructed in 1826, on the site of the current building. It served for the next 117 years. Music directors in the old house included Hans Von Bulow, Gustav Mahler, Karl Bohm and Eugen Jochum. Otto Klemperer was on the conducting staff early in the 20th century.

World premieres at the house have included Handel’s “Nerone” in 1705, Busoni’s “Die Brautwahl” in 1912 and Korngold’s “Die Tote Stadt” in 1920.

The auditorium and front façade of the theater were completely destroyed by bombs in 1943. The theater’s fire curtain, made of iron, prevented the destruction of the backstage portion of the building. Work on rebuilding the Staatsoper began in 1952. The current Staatsoper reopened in 1955.

The exterior of the present building is functional. The theater is located in one of Hamburg’s business districts, and it is almost indistinguishable from surrounding office buildings. Indeed, one might pass the house without even realizing that it is an opera house, in large part because the building is not set back from the street.

The exterior of the building is somewhat more impressive at night, because the lights shining through the windows draw the eye into the building, at all levels.

The interior, however, is another matter. It contains one of the world’s great opera house auditoriums, simply designed, elegantly proportioned, brilliantly lighted, and suggestive of a great sense of occasion. It puts the Metropolitan Opera House, with its vulgarity and gaudiness, to shame.

We attended a performance of Puccini’s “La Boheme” in the house. It was a new production, but we were unaware of this fact prior to ordering our tickets online. The production was different, but not unduly bizarre.

We sat in one of the loges on the right side of the house (from the onstage vantage of the photo below, our loge was on the left). We had the loge to ourselves, and we loved it. The loges are arranged so that loge patrons may not observe patrons in other loges on the same side of the house. This trick is accomplished, in part, by very, very high seatbacks, which block the views of persons sitting in other loges. It creates an impression of great privacy and cosiness—and the seats are very comfortable, unlike the seats in so many European opera houses.

From our experience, the Hamburg State Opera had a very good audience. The audience was extremely well-behaved. The audience members were quiet and attentive, and held their applause until the end of each act. The audience did not applaud scenery, and the audience did not applaud individual arias. There was rhythmic clapping, European-style, at the conclusion of the opera (amidst the booing, inevitable in any European theater).

The public areas were spacious but spare. It was the public areas that most reflected the era of the building’s design, the 1950’s. The lower-level bar, with white, rounded, contoured fixtures and designs, was the worst offender, seemingly inspired by a Douglas Sirk film.