An die Natur
June 7, 2024
TENET Germany Travelogue, Day 6
Steven Hrycelak, Bass-Baritone
I must say that, after Enrico’s epic post from yesterday, I feel the pressure to deliver today! Thanks for being the most, my dear friend and stand partner.
Knowing that I can’t compete, and based on the energy of my day, my update heads in a very different direction. We are in the most demanding stretch of the tour, with an evening concert yesterday, an evening concert tonight, and an afternoon concert in a different part of the country tomorrow. And I may have had one more beer than I intended last night (but it’s Germany! How can one resist?), so today had a slow start.
I made my down to the excellent hotel breakfast just before it closed, for a hearty meal and some much-needed tea and juice. Many from the group were headed back to the Wilhelmshöhe-Bergpark to see a few more sites, and I was tempted - but I had spent several intense and rain-filled hours there on Wednesday, following the famous Wasserspiel, the 2-km water course down the mountain side that Ellie mentioned in her post. So, instead, I took the number 1 tram into the heart of Kassel, and wandered around downtown for a bit. Highlights included visiting the lovely Martinskirche, getting Currywurst for lunch, some beautiful buildings, and happening upon a solar-powered car race in a central town square.
But the afternoon was mostly an incredible and unexpected escape. Facebook, love it or hate it, brought this afternoon’s adventure; a friend I hadn’t seen in years saw my first post from Kassel, and, having lived here (I had no idea), recommended a stroll through the park near the Orangerie, which she described as a sort of mini-Versailles. And park Karlsaue was indeed pretty epic! What struck me most about the experience was both the giant scope of it, but also, despite its proximity to the heart of town, the true quietness of the place. The sounds were dominated by birds and water and trees rustling, the smell filled with roses and intoxicating lavender, and, unlike my home parks in NYC, one could go literally 5 or 10 minutes without seeing another human. The trees were lush and enormous, and I was at first focused on how small I felt in the midst of it all. But then I let my focus shift to the smaller things: a mushroom, a feather on the ground, a patch of tiny flowers. An older couple with their walking sticks, inspecting a fallen tree, really made me smile. I thought about all of the German Lieder I had sung about nature, and the meaning of them deepened for me; there really is something unique about the verdancy and the scope of this landscape. It was all such a change of pace from the rest of the week (and my usual kind of aggressive style of tourism), and felt like such a nice recharge.
I, like Enrico, happened upon some monuments to composers; in this case, a staircase for Ernst Krenek, a new music favorite, next to the Staatstheater, and a staircase for Gustav Mahler leading down to the Orangerie. I ended my afternoon adventure having an ice cream with the composer Louis Spohr before hopping back on the tram to the hotel ;).
A keen eye may have noticed my Roland Garros t-shirt in some photos, and I am indeed a giant tennis fan. I caught the first two sets of the Sinner/Alcaraz semifinal in my room before hopping on the bus with the whole crew to our third concert.
And what a night it proved to be! The Stiftskirche Kaufungen was built in the 11th-century - a half millennium or more before any of the composers we performed tonight. The festival staff was kind and attentive, the town was charming, the acoustic was our best yet, and the audience was incredible. We added a new encore tonight - a sweet, hymn-like piece by JC Bach beginning with the text “Welt, gute Nacht” (World, good night), and it was a send off that I think moved us as much as it moved the audience, who wouldn’t stop clapping for us. Many of us stayed to chat with audience members, and even in broken German and English, the tears we saw in people’s eyes told us all we needed to know.
Oh, and Ellie and I visited some sweet horses stabled near the church just before the concert began. Maybe that - and the afternoon in the park - were why today felt like my most grounded, favorite show yet! Looking forward to one final show on this tour tomorrow.
