It is June 4, 2021. Not a cloud can be seen in the blue sky. It’ll be hot later. I’m still a bit hungover because last night I celebrated my birthday with my best friend. I lay on the beach on the Baltic Sea all day, listening to music on the Walkman, and then racing back to my family. We live in a beautiful new house with a view of the Elbe that we built together with our friends. One is an architect and the other is a set designer. He has just presented a new set for an opera by Richard Strauss in the Semperoper.
After a cup of coffee on the roof terrace, I took our daughter to kindergarten and rode my bike to work. I work in the state library, where I have my own office and my own little computer with which I can search all the libraries in the world. The inventor of the computer is now the richest man in the world. Today I am visiting the National Library in Prague and trying to find out more about the composer Jiří Svoboda, after my former school is named.
In the afternoon the whole family eats cake. Then my eldest son rushes into his room and plays correspondence chess on his computer with chess players all over the world. My middle son slams himself on the sofa. He has found out how the electric piano can play automatically and is listening to an interlude by Johannes Brahms. He also reads a book about computer games. A photo arrives via our videophone! Our 88 year old grandmother shot it because my uncle got married today at Sanssouci Palace. My grandma drove there in a new, electrically powered car. Everyone is waving in the photo. The car looks nice.
Now it’s time to get ready for the concert! The Dresden Music Festival begins tonight in the Dresden Kulturpalast. The palace is now half a century old, and it has just got a great new concert hall, in which the music sounds even better. The director of the music festival is the cellist Jan Vogler. He no longer plays with the Staatskapelle because he has moved to New York and only visits Dresden in the summer. The artist of the evening is the pianist Arkadi Volodos, who was born in Leningrad. After the mayor has personally welcomed the guests, Arkadi Volodos plays works by Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms. The grand piano sounds round and fine, like a carillon. As a first encore he plays the piece by Brahms that I heard at home that afternoon!
The audience is excited and claps and claps. Arkadi Volodos played encore after encore for almost an hour. At the end everyone claps and cheers while standing. On my way back I ride my bike past the new Frauenkirche. The trumpeter Ludwig Güttler had it rebuilt at the old location. It’s a warm night. Everywhere the people of Dresden sit at small tables in the squares and eat and drink. These are sure to be great music festivals.
(Photo: Oliver Killig)
Program of the 44th Dresden Music Festival: www.musikfestspiele.com
05.06.2021 ▪ Martin Morgenstern ▪ Reviews
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