Leipzig: Battles and Bach

October 2017
We have an additional holiday in Germany this year, 2017; one that comes along once every half a millennium. The 500th anniversary of the Martin Luther pinning his 95 theses to the church door in Wittemberg is on October 31st, which falls on a Tuesday. And the 1st of November is a holiday every year, so we took vacation on the Monday before that to make a five-day weekend. We were already in Wittenberg earlier this year, so we decided to visit Leipzig for the first time.

Today is October 30, which is nearly the 204th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations, so we went to see the monument.

The Monument to the Battle of the Nations (called Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig in German) commemorates the battle between Napoleon and a coalition armies from Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden, fought from the 16th to the 19th of October in 1813, in which  Napoleon was decisively defeated for the first time in battle. Napoleon's defeat was the beginning of his downfall, because it forced him to return to France, and the Coalition invaded France early the next year, resulting in Napoleon's abdication and exile to Elba in May 1814.

A half-million soldiers battled at this site near Leipzig for the political future of Europe in the bloodiest battle of the 1800s.

Model of monument

A monument to the victory was erected on the site of battle. It was constructed by Bruno Schmitz and finished in 1913 in time for the 100th anniversary. The monument is really a huge building, as shown in this model of the monument's cross section. It is 300-ft high made from 26,500 granite blocks, and roughly pyramidal in shape. In front is a reflecting pool, which represents the tears of the mourning people. (It was being renovated when we were there.)

You can climb through spiral staircases and narrow passages inside the monument up to the top of the highest dome.












You enter the monument at the very bottom, underneath the relief of the archangel Michael.






















and then climb up through the base into the crypt, in which there are eight large statues of fallen warriors, each one next to two smaller statues called the Totenwächter (Guardians of the Dead).

Guardians of the Dead

The statues of the monument were sculpted by Christian Behrens and his apprentice Franz Metzner, who finished the remaining statues after Behrens's death in 1905. The style seems to be Jungendstil (art nouveau), most obviously in the semi-circular stained-glass windows and frames.

Willingness to Sacrifice

On the second story are four statues, each one over 30-ft tall, representing the four legendary historic qualities ascribed to the German people: Bravery, Steadfast Belief, Willingness to Sacrifice, and Ethnic Strength. (I think I got 3 of the 4 correctly labeled.) Metzner used the Colossi of Memnon as a model for the statues.

Steadfast Belief

Ethnic Strength

At the top are 12 knights, who are the protectors of freedom. (There are also  324 reliefs of knights on the inside surface of the dome.)















In one wing of the monument is a museum about the battle. The museum has weapons, uniforms, equipment, pictures, and personal keepsakes. I especially enjoyed the 15 square-meter (about 150 square-feet) model with its 3000 figures. It describes the strategies and troop movements throughout the battle.







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Leipzig has a huge musical tradition. Johann Sebastien Bach was appointed the Cantor of the Thomasschule at the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) in Leipzig, from 1723 until his death in 1750. During this time he was also responsible for providing music to the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) in Leipzig.  Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was named conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1835, and he remained in Leipzig until his death in 1847. He also founded the Leipzig Conservatory. Robert Schumann went to Leipzig in 1830 at the age of 20 to take piano lessons from his old master Friedrich Wieck, and in 1831 he began a study of music theory under Heinrich Dorn, the conductor of the Leipzig Opera. In 1844 he left Leipzig for Dresden. But in the intervening years he jointly founded Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik ("New Journal for Music"), married Clara Wieck (the daughter of his old master), and composed many works (including 150 piano lieder in 1840 alone). Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig in 1813.

We went to the Bach Museum and Archive, which is near the Thomaskirche and the statue of Bach. It is a really good museum that has a nice collection of artifacts including musical manuscripts, letters, portraits, and historical instruments, including the organ console from St. John’s Church in Leipzig, which was played by Bach. The Archive has a research institute and a library, and one of its missions is to find lost works by Bach. As recent as 2005, an unknown composition by Johann Sebastian Bach was discovered by a classical music scholar and researcher at Leipzig's Bach Archive. An aria dated October 1713, when Bach was 28, was found  in a box of birthday cards in the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. The archive verified the piece as the work of Bach using various techniques described in the museum. There is an especially interesting exhibit on identifying Bach's handwriting, which changed over time as it does for all of us. His handwriting was different for his quick sketches than his neat final documents. Researchers also know what kind of ink he used and on which kind of paper he wrote.

Part of Bach's Family Tree

There was an interesting display on Bach's family and the many generations of musicians. Bach created the family tree himself, and so he is listed in the second column from the right in this photo. Not all of Bach's 20 children ( 7 with Maria Barbara Bach, who died in 1720, and 13 more with his second wife Anna Magdalena Wilcke) are listed; only the musically gifted ones! Bach started his family tree with his great-great grandfather, Hans Bach, who was the father of Veit Bach, "a white-bread baker", who in turn was the father of Johannes Bach I "der Spielmann" (the player). He at first was a baker, but became the first professional musician of the family when he became a piper.

 Bach is buried across the street from the museum in the Thomaskirche, where there is also a portrait of him in one of the stained-glass windows.

Statue of Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy

In front of the Thomaskirche is a statue of Felix Mendelsohn Bartoldy, who supported the church's Thomanerchor (the boys' choir founded in 1212) along with the opera and other musical institutions in Leipzig. We visited the Mendelssohn House, a museum in the house where Mendelssohn lived and died.

Mendelssohn's study with busts of Bach and Goethe