Sunday 2/12
I left from Gatwick airport Sunday morning around 9 AM, though I had to get to the airport at like 6. My flight was a bit delayed, but not by too much. It was a short two-ish-hour flight to Berlin.
The reason I’ve decided to come to Berlin for the first half of this mid-semester school break is because my history professor colleague, Patrick, who is also on sabbatical this semester, is spending the entire year in Berlin to do research on Nazi Germany, which is his major research focus. Patrick greeted me at the airport and then we rode a few trains back to his apartment where Priscilla, his wife, was as well. By the time we got there it was probably about 1 PM. I basically had time to change clothes and then Patrick and I were off to see the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. First, we went to a cute little coffee shop in their neighborhood.
It was an amazing concert! It was the Radio Symphony Orchestra, and they were conducted by female conductor Karina Canellakis. They played Beethoven’s The Creatures of Prometheus, op. 43: Overture; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by György Ligeti and the soloist was Augustin Hadelich violin; and finally, they played Concerto for Orchestra by Witold Lutosławski. They were all quite enjoyable works; the last two were a surprise to me how much I liked them because they were quite atonal, but WOW, just so wonderful to hear. And the violin soloist was phenomenal. If you have a chance, listen to these pieces, though I’m sure it won’t quite compare to hearing them live in the Digital Concert Hall, where they perform. The acoustics in there are phenomenal. Priscilla didn’t go because she is in a student choir at Humboldt University and they had a concert this evening as well. I was sad that both of those things were on the same night because I would’ve loved to have gone to the choir performance as well.
After the performance, Patrick and I walked across town to a very traditional German restaurant where we had a German beer and some German food. It was quite a good first day in Berlin!
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