Men in black!

I'm sure I've said it before, but the color black is like the European National Uniform. I was in Munich the other day for a concert (more about that in a minute) and I was at the Starbuck's in the train station watching the teeming masses on the street corner. Over half of them were dressed in black. I then realized, much to my chagrin, that I too was dressed in black.

I then got on the subway and saw a sign about "Schwarzfahren." This is a term with which I recently became acquainted. It means "black riding" or "riding without a ticket." The subway is full of people and I think it must be very hard to check everyone for tickets. No one is really on the subway long enough for a controller to check tickets, but the penalty is steep if you "Schwarzfahren." Astoundingly, it's not as high as the penalties in Salzburg (40 Euro vs. 60 Euro) but then things don't seem to be as expensive other places as they are in Salzburg. I may revise that opinion when I go to Vienna in a few weeks, but for now I'll let it stand.

The concert I went to in Munich was a concert of Hebraic music at the Orff Zentrum. The Orff Zentrum is a state sponsored library/recital hall/ archive dedicated to the preservation of Orff's work. Mostly theater works, not so much pedagogical work. Most of that material is here at the Institut. To get to the Zentrum, you need to go through a walkway from the main drag - Ludwigstrasse - to quiet Kaulbachstrasse. You can see the stacks at the state library all lit up, and there's a kindergarten located on the walkway. And there are crows....

The BBC recently did a mini-series called "The Tutors" starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry the VIII and Jeremy Northam who was Thomas Cromwell. Things ended badly for Cromwell and he was executed at the Tower of London. Of course the mini-series had several shots of Jeremy Northam in his prison cell and the most creepy thing about it (other than "Oh my GOD they're going to execute Jeremy Northam!!!!!! OK, it's a middle age woman thing..). were the crows cackling in the background.

The crows in the States are pansies compared to the crows over here. The crows here are big and ugly and have the most evil and sinister sounding voices imaginable. It is REALLY spooky. They sound like they are literally over your shoulder when they are indeed many feet over your head. And they never shut up!!

So the lovely walkway is shared with these harbingers of doom. They don't bite or attack or anything, they just sound sinister.

I was happy to get to the Zentrum because it is a bright cheerful place. For those of you that are interested in such things, it is located on the same site as the Günther Schule was in the 1920s. There is a beautiful Bechstein piano in the recital hall and everything is very tasteful.

The concert was a series of pieces by Ernest Bloch, some songs by Ravel, and the Kreutzer sonata by Beethoven. An interesting mix to be sure. Bloch is not necessarily my favorite, but the violinist was AMAZING!!!! The entire concert was top notch and the evening was rounded out by a reception afterwards (with wine!) where you could talk with the artists. It was lovely and the audience truly appreciated the evening. There was even an encore written by Orff!

Of course, all this sonic beauty was somewhat tempered by the fact that I had to walk the crow gauntlet to get to my hotel. But no matter. I had a hard time falling asleep because the concert had been so wonderful!!