So about that radio show...

KMFA's Ancient Voices has been going strong for over 12.5 years, and I am delighted to be able to continue producing it from lovely Lübeck, Germany! 

I'm not the only KMFA producer who produces a show from outside the studios on North Lamar in Austin, not by a long shot. Some of them even have professional-grade studios in their homes!

A professional-grade studio is hard to fit into a suitcase, so it was time to get creative.

These days are behind us! 

I do have professional tools: a YETI USB microphone, sound editing software, and a blazingly fast computer. 

What I lack is the right acoustic space to record in. Most rooms are way too live, and mics pick that up. It doesn't sound good. You need 'stuff' on the walls and the floors to absorb sound.

Lacking a professional studio with acoustic tiles and other soundproofing measures, a closet makes a nice 'dead' environment, with the added touch of a blanket covering you and your mic like a little tent.

My house doesn't have a closet.

So, I consulted KMFA's amazing Jeffrey Blair, sound engineer extraordinaire.

Make a pillow fort, he said.

Now I love a good pillow fort as much as the next gal, Jeffrey, but I'm trying to make radio here.

But then the gears started turning, and I came up with a pretty good 'sound cave'!

Sara in The Cave

Our house came furnished with two room dividers. I set those up around the dresser upstairs to form a little enclosure. Added bonus: I can stand up to produce my show! I hung comforters on the dividers, and placed pillows behind my mic and computer. Throw a blanket over the top and voila! A nice, warm sound, which passed the “Jeffrey hearing test"!

Before leaving Austin, I produced a whole bunch of shows in advance, to give myself a nice buffer to get used to the new set-up, and the new editing software. Thanks to Jeffrey's help, and that of Phil Pollack, KMFA's Technical Operations Manager, the process was smooth and intuitive.

My first show 'from the old country' is now right around the corner! 

Here's another fun fact: the idea for this show arose from the amazing musical sights and sounds we heard on KMFA's Trip to Italy last October, such as the Odhecaton, which we saw at Bologna's excellent music library/museum. It dates from 1501, and contains the first polyphonic music printed using movable type.

Sara meets The Odhecaton

So tune in January 11 & 12, 2015* for Music from Bologna on Ancient Voices!

Ancient Voices airs Sundays at 10 AM and Mondays at 9 PM on KMFA 89.5 FM in Austin, Texas. You can hear the show via our live stream at www.kmfa.org.

*We had a slight mishap 'back at the ranch', and a different show aired on the original air dates (Jan. 4 & 5). I apologize for the confusion.

Merry Christmas from Lübeck (and Flensburg!)

Early music is my great passion, but sometimes, for a radio host, it presents a challenge. For example, one of the things people love about Christmas is the music, and what's a big factor in that love? Familiarity. A lot of Christmas music from the middle ages and renaissance, though gorgeous and moving, just doesn't make people say, 'Ah, now that I've heard that, it's really Christmas!'. 

Of course, there are exceptions, like Lo, how a rose, Riu, Riu Chiu, and Ding dong merrily on high, which began life as a Renaissance dance! 

That's why I was so happy to find Praetorius' Mass for Christmas Morning, performed by the Gabrieli Consort and Players. It has everything: solemnity, jubilation, lots of dance-like bits, solo organ works, multi-choral writing, sackbuts, and above all, familiar tunes like 'How brightly shines the morning star' and 'In dulci jubilo'. That piece has been a fixture on the Ancient Voices Christmas show for years, combined with gorgeous but lesser-known Christmas gifts from the past. 

A couple of weeks ago, I got to hear it live in Flensburg, a town on an inlet of the Baltic Sea, quite near the Danish border. How near, you ask?

About five miles!

We took the train up there, and had a fun day out. It was brisk and windy, but we had wrapped up well, and didn't feel it too badly.

Before Praetorius, there was lunch!

Being vegetarians, Stretch and I are excluded from one of Germany's finest culinary traditions: Curry-wurst: sausages smothered in a spicy curry sauce, served with fries. But I found a restaurant which served a vegetarian variant, and we both discovered what the fuss was all about. Yum!

Yay, now we are really German!

Of course, you have to have beer with Curry-Wurst. I had the local brew, Flensburger, and Jim had Schneider-Weisse, because Schneider. ;-)

Then we had a nice walk by the harbor:

Hmm, St. Nicholas' ship, perhaps?

And up and down Flensburg's charming streets. It was very hilly there, which surprised me.

After tea in a tiny cafe with gothic vaults, it was time for Praetorius!

I had done some reading about Flensburg's Nikolaikirche beforehand, and was super-excited to hear this beauty, one of the most important Renaissance organs in northern Germany, which was commissioned by King Christian IV of Denmark.

I was delighted to see that Praetorius is enough of a draw to fill a church in Germany!

The performance was excellent: we heard great choral singing by the combined choirs of St. Nikolai, wonderful vocal soloists of the Himlische Cantorey, and the superb instrumentalists of Hamburger Ratsmusik, with my friend Simone Eckert playing gamba. 

Like in Praetorius' day, the congregation participated too! We got to sing along during a couple of hymn verses.

All in all, it was a splendid way to get into the Christmas spirit! 

Back in Lübeck, I finally rode in the Riesenrad!

It's astonishingly hard to get good pics from a ferris wheel, even before consuming Glühwein, but I managed a couple:

St. Jakobi

  

St. Marien

Yes, churches again! But hey, there are a lot of them around, they're very large, and make easy targets for photographers with freezing fingers in windy conditions. :-) 

And finally, a Christmas selfie from Flensburg! Merry Christmas from Stretch and Slim! 

  

Of Light, Warmth, and Christmas Markets

Hi again from Slim! Happy Advent, and happy December!

Here are a few wintry thoughts from the Queen of the Hansa. (Not ME, silly. That's one of Lübeck's nicknames.)

Anyway... Lübeck is quite far north. 

World map with arrow pointing to Germany
Lübeck is in northern Germany,
near the Baltic Sea

How far north? 53°, which puts it roughly at the same latitude as Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. This means, as we approach December 21, the days are short. Today, the sun rose at 8:11 AM, and will set at 4:00 PM. That's not a lot of light. Especially when you have just moved from sun-drenched Austin, Texas, which is at 30° latitude.

It's been interesting for me to note how the short days mess with your mind. For example, I have a pretty good internal clock, and can usually tell what time it is (with a small margin of error) without looking at my watch. Not anymore! I routinely have the feeling that it's about 9:30 PM, when in reality it's 5:30! Weird.

I know from the years I spent living in the Netherlands that I am prone to seasonal affective disorder, so Jim and I invested in a full-spectrum 'bright light' which has been shown to be effective in managing the 'winter blues'. 

The "Sanity Box"

We both try and use the light for 30-60 minutes each day. So far so good!

It has also finally gotten cold here, which means high temps in the low thirties, lows in the mid-twenties, and usually a mean little wind. We've been keeping nice and warm in our little house, which has central heating (don't laugh- my house in Amsterdam didn't!) and a lovely wood stove. 

In the meantime, Lübeck has turned into a Christmas wonderland! 

It's Christmas Market season, and streets and squares around town are populated by little wooden stalls which sell food and drink (Glühwein! Sausages! Poffertjes*!) and gift items, like handmade Lübeck mugs, beautiful wooden cutting boards, all kinds of decorations, etc. People come from all over to visit the Weihnachtsmärkte, so it really feels like a festival around here! 

*Poffertjes are delicious treats from the Netherlands that are like fat little pancakes, but better. They are steaming hot when you get them, slathered in butter and doused with powdered sugar. I was tickled to find them here in Germany!

I also found:

A special kind of spicy Dutch treat that is somewhere between cake and bread, with nuts all around the top and sides. Jim said it changed his life. :-)

Oh, and there's this, too:

Yes, I'm going to make Stretch take me for a ride. :-)

Das Marienwerkhaus, or "Buxtehude's House" as I call it, watching over the Christmas craziness. :-)

It's December, so it's ok to listen to Christmas music. Here's a gorgeous setting of In Dulci Jubilo by a Hamburg organist and composer whose music Buxtehude would certainly have known: Hieronymus Praetorius. 

[Note to self: try to get Stretch to start calling me the Queen of the Hansa.]

Thoughts of an Immigrant

It will surprise absolutely no one who knows me that my heritage is mostly German, with a touch of Dutch and a smidge of English, just to keep it interesting. ;-)

My paternal grandmother was named Margret Gertig. 

Margret in the summer of 1913

She was born in 1894 in a small town called Kobyletz, near Posen, which at the time was part of the German region of Prussia. 

This is presumably Grandma's home in Germany
She is on the far right. 

She emigrated to America in 1912 with a cousin, and entered the country at Ellis Island. She eventually made her way to Wyandotte, Michigan where she married my grandfather, John Boettner. 

John and Margret's wedding picture
Dec. 24, 1914

Sadly, I have no memories of her, since she died when I was two, but have always enjoyed the stories my parents and siblings told about her. She didn't like talking about her life in Germany; it was a hard life, and the family of six children was poor. 

Apparently her father wasn't a very good provider: in a rare moment of openness about her background, Grandma said, “He was only good for making babies.” As an adult she couldn't bear to eat potato soup, since she had subsisted on it for much of her early life.

Margret was a typical German lady of her generation: very thrifty, no-nonsense, and a firm believer in calling it like she saw it.

She would open the bills as soon as they arrived in the mail, then march downtown with savage efficiency to pay them in person that very day. To her, being on time meant being five minutes early.

My Mom has told me how generous Grandma was: helping my Mom and Dad with their (then) four kids, always bringing along some useful item like a big pan of soup, and doing whatever needed to be done around the house.

Other fun stories about Margret include her quirky turns of phrase, some of which entered our family lexicon. Upon discovering some marvel of technology, she could be heard to say, “What they don't all make.” Or, if one of the kids came to her with a boo-boo, she would comfort them by saying, “Dat'll get better before you get married.”

Margret married into the Boettner family, as I mentioned. 

Newspaper photo of John and Margret
honoring John's retirement
from Wyandotte Chemical after 49 years

For a very long time, we didn't know where in Germany the Boettners came from, or when they emigrated. Not long ago, my Mom handed me some old family papers she had found, and one of them was an emigration document, dated 1870. It was written in German in longhand script, and as such nearly impossible to decipher.

But I gave it my best shot, and managed to read a few things: a man named Boettner and three of his children were leaving their hometown of Bilzingsleben to emigrate to America. I was able to discern the name of one of the children: Alvin, my great-grandfather.

Excited, I raced to Google Maps to find Bilzingsleben. It's a tiny town (current population 710!) in the German state of Thuringia, which I thought was cool. Some pretty awesome people came from that area: one of my favorite composers, Matthias Weckmann, and a whole musical dynasty named Bach. Jim and I were just a stone's-throw from Bilzingsleben when we visited Thuringia in 2009, but we weren't aware of the family significance at that time.

Google Map of Bilzingsleben, showing the location
of Hans Böttner Zimmerei (carpentry).
Must be a relative! 

So all this has me wondering what my ancestors would think if they knew that one of their progeny decided to 'up sticks' and move back to Germany. They would be intrigued to know, I think, that the country they left to escape economic hardship is now one of the most prosperous in the world. 

There's no comparison between what Jim and I did to get here to Lübeck and what my ancestors went through to escape a life of poverty. They undertook a long, perilous, and emotionally fraught journey, knowing they would never see their families again. 

Grandma Margret made the crossing in November, 1912, about seven months after the Titanic sank. That must have added an extra layer of anxiety. She probably wouldn't understand leaving loved ones and a perfectly good and comfortable life to move halfway across the world just because you want to.

On the other hand, even though my ancestors learned English and acculturated to life in America, in many ways they retained their 'Germanity' in spades, and passed those traits down to their children. Perhaps they did retain some pride in their country of origin, and would take pleasure in the fact that some part of them is home again.

L-R John, Sara, Margret, Dad, Jan
April, 1974

Sara in Thuringia
March, 2009

Grandma's name on the Ellis Island
Immigrant Wall of Honor

A BIG shout-out to my sister Marlys, honorary archivist, who scanned and sent the historical family photos you see in this blog. Thank You!!! :-)

You know you're in Germany when...

Hello again from Slim in Lübeck!

Back in the saddle with Kaiser Max

Many things have happened since we last met: our semi-permanent move to Germany is nearly complete (Stretch will be joining me in a couple of days!), and I had an amazing trip to Italy with about 30 fabulous KMFA listeners. I promise a few stories and pictures from Italy in the near future.

Now to the matter at hand. You know you're in Germany when you're eating breakfast on Oct. 31,  2014, listening to the news on North German Radio, and the fact that today is the day that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a chapel in Wittenberg in 1517 is a news item.

Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder

This interests me as someone who was raised in the Lutheran church, and who loves the early music of that faith enormously. More on that in a moment.

It interests me especially these days. The act of protest which launched the Reformation happened on Emperor Maximilian's watch, and was perpetrated by one of his subjects.

Maximilian I by Ambrogio de Predis

How did this very Catholic emperor react to this provocation? By doing a whole lot of nothing. He didn't seem to take much notice, and didn't even bother to make a window in his schedule at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg in 1518 to follow Luther's examination by the Papal Legate, Cardinal Cajetan.   Maximilian left the Diet two days before Luther arrived.

The emperor who did take notice was Maximilian's successor, his grandson, Charles V. Luther appeared before Charles at the Diet at Worms in 1521, where he famously refused to retract his writings.

Charles V in 1520 by van Orley

So where does this leave me? In Lübeck, where I will pay tribute to my Lutheran roots by attending a Reformation Day service at Buxtehude's former church, St. Mary's.

I will imagine Buxtehude confusing the heck out of the parishioners one long-ago Reformation Day with his fabulous and heavily ornamented setting of Luther's chorale 'Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott'. It was the organist's job to let the congregation know which hymn was coming up by improvising a chorale prelude. At a certain point, the church council of St. Mary's just gave up and had hymn boards installed, since no one could recognize the hymns in Buxtehude's preludes.

Dieterich Buxtehude: musical rebel since 1637. ;-)

Back in ATX

So Stretch and I are currently back here:

Where it is currently:

103.3 °F

Feels Like 105 °F

Which is kind of rough.

We had planned return to the US after approximately 90 days, since we were 

not at all sure the German government would give us a residence permit, 

and 90 days is the maximum a US resident can stay in the EU (or Schengen 

Area) without a visa. 

Luckily, we did get our permit (yay! Thank you, Ausländerbehörde!) and will 

be returning long-term in October, just in time for the long, cold, dark winter, 

where on the shortest day the sun sets at like 4:30 PM. :-)

In the meantime, we have house-stuff to deal with (i.e. finding tenants and a 

property manager), and I will be doing some radio work and a pre-concert 

lecture for Texas Early Music Project (La Pellegrina, Sept. 13-14! Everybody 

come!) 

Here are some things I like about being back in Austin:

1) Seeing family and friends

2) having a dishwasher instead of being one

3) going to the gym/pool again

4) having access to UT's libraries again. 

Here are some things I miss about Lübeck:

1) Not being dependent on a car 

2) The church bells 

3) My awesomely scenic jogging route 

4) The frequent organ recitals and other concerts

5) Oh heck, just read this. 

The Great Breton Bride Robbery

or

Why it is important to consummate your proxy marriage as soon as possible

Sometime in the 19^th century, Emperor Maximilian I came to be known as 'The Last Knight'. Whether or not that's an accurate nickname is another subject, but he was a knight, and as such, did his share of rescuing damsels in distress, with varying degrees of success. 

Emperor Maximilian I by Burgkmair
(1508)

Here I relate one of his less successful rescue attempts.

The province of Brittany (Bretagne) is now part of France, but it used to be an independent duchy. Anne of Brittany (born 1477) became duchess upon the death of her father.

Anne of Brittany by Bourdichon
(detail)

The first thing she needed to do was find a husband, preferably one who was not allied with France, so that Brittany could remain independent. He also needed to be powerful enough to keep France at bay, since they were very interested in absorbing the wealthy little duchy into their territory.

Anne approached Maximilian, in a kind of 15^th century speed dating. He fit both of the criteria, and had been a widower since the death of his first wife, Mary of Burgundy, in 1482. He agreed, and they were married by proxy in Rennes on December 19, 1490, with Wolfgang von Polheim, a longtime noble servant of the house of Habsburg standing in for Maximilian.

Why wasn't Maximilian present at his own wedding, you ask? Because he was busy fighting off the Hungarians back home in Austria, and had a lot on his mind. It was also sort of a habit with him: Maximilian was married three times, all three by proxy.

King Charles VIII of France was not amused by this development.

Charles VIII of France
Artist unknown

First of all, the fact that Anne had married without his consent was a treaty violation. The fact that she had married Maximilian meant that France was now hemmed in by Habsburg territories and/or allies.

So, he pounced. He sent troops to Brittany, and placed Anne under house arrest. She found herself in an impossible position; Charles would give her safe conduct to leave Brittany to join her husband in Austria, but that would essentially mean surrendering her land to France.

Anne begged Maximilian for help, but in typical Max fashion, he was too wrapped up in his own affairs (and too strapped for cash) to fight a war on two fronts, so he sent neither money nor troops to aid his wife.

Charles pounced again. He wrote to Rome for papal dispensation to have the marriage by proxy dissolved, due to non-consummation, and married Anne himself. They say he dragged her off to bed as soon as the ceremony was completed.

Charles wasn't done twisting the knife. While he was at it, he also obtained dispensation to dissolve his existing betrothal.

He had been betrothed to Maximilian's daughter, Margaret of Austria since 1483.

Margaret of Austria
c. 1500
attr. to Pieter van Coninxloo

Maximilian wasn't the type to forgive and forget. Years later he was heard to complain that no one had ever double-crossed him like Charles VIII.

He wouldn't let Charles forget it either. Years later, during some negotiations with France, the French emissary asked Maximilian if he had any special messages for the King. Max sneered, “Give the queen my regards!”

Anne and Maximilian were eventually connected in a unique way: they shared a funeral motet. When Anne died in 1514, Costanzo Festa composed this motet for her: Costanzo Festa – Quis dabit oculis.

No original funeral motet for Maximilian has survived. What has been transmitted is a reworking of Festa's motet, which is sometimes attributed to Ludwig Senfl. Manfred Cordes: Weser-Renaissance Bremen – Quis dabit oculis

History will have her little jokes. 

Life in the Hellgrüner Hood

Satellite view, with a marker on our street

So what is daily life in the Hellgrüner Gang like? 

Blissfully free of car traffic, for one thing. The nearest busy street with cars is called An der Untertrave, which runs along the Trave River. It's about 50 paces from our door, accessible on foot through a narrow passageway, but not one you have to bend over to walk through!

To An der Untertrave

Unlike this one!

We've had a very pleasant summer weather-wise, so we keep our windows open most of the time. There are no screens, but neither are there stinging insects (this place is surrounded by water, but somehow free of mosquitos. I'm tellin' ya, Lübeck is a magic place!)

So, we get a lot of neighborhood ambience through the windows. Like kids playing in the playground behind our terrace.

Sometimes a soccer ball comes sailing over the hedge, and then an emissary (or an entire scouting party) comes to retrieve it. They can't climb the hedge, so they have to come knocking at the front door. Last evening, three solemn little boys (I'd say age 5-8 or so) came looking for their ball, which was stuck in our hedge. Jim found it for them, and all three of them very politely said 'Danke' before racing back to the playground.

Other ambient sounds: a man who lives somewhere in our little warren, who sometimes goes around calling for his dog. I have not been able to discern what the dog is called. It sounds something like “Oh-Vay”, which, if true, would mean that the dog is named “Woe is me”. I hope that is not the case, for both of their sakes!

The bells of nearest church (the Jakobikirche) chime every quarter hour: one bell at 15 minutes past, two bells at 30 minutes past, and so on. You have to keep track of the hour on your own!

Jakobikirche in the evening light

Sometimes we can hear boat horns from the Trave or the harbor.

During the World Cup semi-final game between Germany and Brazil (you know, the one where Germany won 7-1!), I could clearly hear cheers from all over the neighborhood when Germany scored, even though I was watching a movie on my computer and wearing headphones! Ha!

Germans seem to live out of doors when the weather is nice. So we've heard our next-door neighbors having coffee on their terrace several times, reading the paper or chatting quietly to each other.

We've nodded to the lady who lives on the end of our row as we're both hanging up or taking down our respective loads of wash. One day, she loaned some garden shears to Jim when she saw him trimming some over-ambitious hedge inhabitants with scissors. :-)

And then there are the tour groups who visit regularly, as mentioned here. 

All in all, the Hellgrüner Gang is a quiet, friendly place to live, and we feel like we're part of the neighborhood!