Museums and Music
Trip Start
Jan 26, 2008
1
15
36
Trip End
Feb 29, 2008
Berlin,
Germany
Saturday, February 9, 2008
The Pergamon museum is one of the museums on the aptly named Museuminsel - Museum Island. The collections at the Pergamon museum include: The Museum of Islamic art, a collection of classical antiquities and the Museum of the Ancient Near East
Pergamon Museum
. There was also a special exhibition of items from Edmund de Underg's collection of Islamic Art. One of the most impressive pieces in the museum is the piece that gives the museum its name - the Pergamon Altar. This is a giant altar dating from the 2nd century BC which is surrounded by a sculptured frieze depicting the Battle of the Giants. After gazing in wonder at the reconstruction of the altar for some time, we then went and looked at the impressive collection of Greek and Roman sculpture. I was interested to learn that many of the Roman sculptures were actually copies of original Greek bronzes, the Roman copies being done in marble. Once again, as we had seen in the Hermitage, the censors had been at the marble figures. this time they had not bothered to provide modesty protecting fig leaves but had instead taken to one statue in particular with a hammer and chisel, emasculating to the two male figures depicted. The Market gate of Miletus, another massive reconstruction in the museum, this one of Roman origin, is currently under restoration, repairing the damage from the last restoration which was done to repair damage inflicted on the exhibit by a direct hit from a bomb during WWII.This exhibit cannot really be viewed but the restoration is expected to be finished in early 2009 so, if you are planning to come to Berlin to see the treasures at the Pergamon Museum perhaps delay until next year.We next climbed the stairs to the special exhibition of Islamic Art, the many illuminated manuscripts were particularly impressive
Pergamon Altar
. After that it was back down to the Pergamon Altar and across to the other wing to view the incredible reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and Babylonian Processional Way, originally constructed at the command of Nebuchadnezzar II. It was particularly interesting to see the many Assyrian lions, in particular the massive Winged Assyrian Lions with human heads which were supposed to guard the entrance to a city and frighten away all the enemies of the king who ordered their construction. The winged Assyrians Lions here are in fact plaster copies of the originals which are in the British Museum so hopefully we will get to see the real thing once we get to London. The final exhibition was the museums permanent exhibition of Islamic Art. This was upstairs but instead of climbing the 4 flights of stairs we got some assistance from a couple of the security guards and took a ride up to the second floor in the comfort of the elevator. There were several tiled prayer niches on display which was fascinating as we had already seen one example of a prayer niche at he Hermitage in St Petersburg. There are two particularly impressive exhibits in the Isalamic Art Museum, the Aleppo Room, the highly decorated wall panels from an Islamic house dating to, I think, the 17th century, and the Mshatta facade, which comes from the walls of a 144 metre square quadratic complex in Jordan. The facade ended up in Berlin in about 1903 because the complex was going to be demolished to make way for something (a road?) and so it was donated to the Berliner Museum at their request. After the museum we headed to Unter den Linen, the main road leading to the Brandenburg Gate, and started wandering in the direction of said gate. We stopped for lunch at a pub/restaurant where I tried their version of Currywurst and Belle ordered a Wiener Schnitzel. Belles schnitzel arrived on a plate of approximately 30cm diameter and the schnitzel was larger than the plate in virtually all dimensions
Greek Vase
. Needless to say I got to have some schnitzel in addition to my Curywurst as Belle wasn't going to be finishing her Schnitzel by herself in a pink fit. After lunch we continued down Unter den Linden, took a detour to visit the Gendarmenmarkt and see the paired, matching cathedrals which sit either side of the concert hall. Back to Unter den Linden and we eventually came to the Brandenburg Gate. This was particularly impressive with the statue of 'Victory' riding above the gate. Next we headed to the Reichstag with the intention of going inside and visiting the dome. When we found the entrance there was an enormous queue with a sign at about the halfway point of the queue indicating that once you reached that point in the queue you only had half an hour to wait before getting inside. We took some photos of the outside of the Reichstag and decided that our best bet would be to come back at 8:00am one morning, when it first opens, and thus avoid, hopefully, the queues. It was getting late in the afternoon at this point as we wandered down towards Potsdamer Platz. We stopped to spend some time at the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas - the memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial is composed of 2,711 stelae, arranged in rows, each of a different heights and set at different angles over undulating ground. The stelae at the outer edges are quite short but as you move further towards the middle, the stelae get taller until they tower above you. We continued on to Postdamer Platz, visited the Sony Centre for a comfort stop and then continued on to the Philharmonie to try and track down some tickets to hear the Berlin Philmarmonic Orchestra. We got extremely luck at his point. There were about three tickets available for tonight's performance, two of which were together, cost 78 Eur and were in section B. Section B is in front of the orchestra and has an unimpeded view of the stage
Keep that chisel away from me
. We snapped these tickets up as the only other opportunity was for tomorrow night. The tickets available for tomorrow were substantially cheaper but were in a very inferior position, at the side and almost behind the orchestra, where the acoustics are not as good. We had about two hours between securing our tickets and the start of the performance at 8pm so we decided to head to the Hauptbahnhof station, a major interchange station which had a large shopping complex associated with it. We wandered the shops briefly but eventually found a seat a McDonald's where we took advantage of the WiFi access as we whiled away the minutes before heading back to the Phiharmonie.The performance started very promptly at 8:00pm. We got to our seats at about 7:45pm and drank in the atmosphere. Just before 8:00pm the doors were closed, right on 8:00pm the orchestra came on stage, at about 8:03pm the first chair violin and concertmaster came onstage and tuned the orchestra, and at 8:05pm Sir Simon Rattle came out and took his place at the head of the orchestra, gave them one bar and they launched into Beethoven's second symphony. The music was sublime and the acoustics unimaginably good. Every note was as clear as if you were sitting right amidst the orchestra. Every pianissimo, every fortissimo, every trill, diminuendo, rallentando and crescendo could be distinguished and appreciated as this marvelous orchestra brought to music of Ludwig van Beethoven to life. After the 2nd Symphony concluded there was an intermission followed by a performance of 'Variation for Orchestra, opus 30' by Anton Webern. This was a more challenging 20th century composition with its dissonance and atonality. I enjoyed it very much but the lady I was sitting next to got nothing from it and sat quite still during the general applause that followed the conclusion of the piece. The concert concluded with a performance of Beethoven's 3rd 'Eroica' Symphony
Grumpy Emperor
. During the performance of the two symphonies the conductor used no score but was so familiar with the music that he knew exactly where and when the various sections of the orchestra entered and exited the pieces. During the Webern composition, Sir Simon did have his score in front of him and, unusually for a top level orchestra, he kept time for virtually every beat of every bar with movement of his baton. This just highlighted how challenging the piece, was even for the performers, as it changed key, time signature and tempo constantly throughout. The performance finished at about 10:10pm, we made our way back to Haus Julia by S-Bahn and then U-Bahn, buying a pretzel for a snack when we passed a man with a basket full of them. Our night came to an end with us having fulfilled another of our major ambitions for the trip - see a performance of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at the Philharmonie. 
