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April/May 2000
Walpurgisnacht: Shrieks and Spooks in Schierke
Heed the Tales of witches, werewolves, and other phantoms reveling on May Eve in the Harz Mountains
By STEENIE HARVEY
Unusual snippets of folk belief still surface in Germany’s Harz Mountains, a bewitching region of medieval mining towns and shadowland forests that belong to the province of Saxony-Anhalt.
For instance, there’s no need to panic if you encounter a pack of slavering Rottweiler dogs—just ask St. Waelburga for assistance. According to a local lore, evoking her name tames fierce or rabid
hounds.
Well, maybe the charm works on the average mad dog, but it has no effect whatsoever on werewolves. Two of them were prowling quite openly around Schierke village in the cold white
light of an April afternoon.
Intrigued by Harz tourism’s “witch on a broomstick” logo, I had wanted to discover more about this area’s reputation for mythic weirdness.
Why do giftstores carry an avalanche of witch-related paraphernalia: snaggle-toothed puppets riding brooms; horrid-looking crones crouching on bottles, plates, and woodcarvings? Apparently those who live here-abouts don’t wait until Halloween to cast the runes, scare the neighbors, or listen for things going bump in the night. April 30th—Walpurgisnacht(Walpurgis Night)—is the spookiest date in the Teutonic calendar, the main trysting-time for ghouls, ghosts, and witches.
Happy Birthday Johannes;
Mainz Celebrates Gutenberg’s 600th
Celebrate the life of this ingenious inventor of movable type and explore the city of his birth
By EDDA DÖRR-WESSELS
In this millennium year the city of Mainz celebrates the birth of a man whose birthday is not known.
No one knows what he looked like, but there is no question that he was one of the most influential men who ever lived. The authors Gottlieb and Bowers put him in first place in their book 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium.
His invention has only been surpassed in the present day, but for six
centuries it has shaped and changed the consciousness of humankind. He is Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz, the inventor of the type mold and printing with movable, metal type.
It was only 100 years ago that the city officials of Mainz agreed to date the birthday of Henne Gensfleisch of Gutenberg to the year 1400 and to celebrate his achievements with the founding
of the Gutenberg Society and establishment of the Printing Museum.
Nördlingen: A Medieval Gem with Roots in Outer Space
Discover the trail of a meteor’s path along the Romantic Road
By JOHN DORNBERG
Die Romantische Strasse—the Romantic Road—is a promotional brainchild of some anonymous wordsmith at the German National Tourist Office, coined in 1949 when the automotive age was just dawning in
Germany. Although the Romans used part of it, calling it the Via Claudia, it is not really a road but a route through southern Germany at its most picturesque and historic best.
Being a mere 220 miles long, you could probably drive it in five to six hours if you were in a hurry.
But what a shame if you did, for the Romantic Road—from Würzburg on the meandering Main River south across the Danube, through Augsburg and then on to Füssen in the Allgäu Alps on the Austrian border—is a splendid trail through the past: a glittering chain of majestic cities, storybook towns, and travel-poster villages studded with gems of art and architecture that span two millennia of human creativity and history.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Music Between Heaven and Earth
Listen to the lyrical life story of this master of the baroque period and follow in his footsteps
By ANDREA SCHULTE-PEEVERS
With all the millennium hype come and gone, Germany now marks the year 2000 by celebrating a personage of timeless stature. Johann Sebastian Bach, the baroque composer, is being honored
throughout the year on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of his death. Traveling in the footsteps of this great man—who gave the world such sublime classics as the Brandenburg Concertos, the B Minor
Mass, and the St. Matthew Passion—will be especially rewarding this year, with concerts, exhibits, and other events scheduled in the very places where he lived and worked.
Bach’s legacy looms large in the musical pantheon because, at least until the 18th century, his compositions were unparalleled in quality, originality, and sheer number.
They were also greater then the sum of their parts: Bach had a unique talent for absorbing the major musical influences of his time and processing them into something entirely new, resulting in music of great sophistication and complexity. There was hardly a musical genre that he left untouched, whether it was organ music, cantatas, or chamber music, oratorios, sonatas, or motets, and orchestral works. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Wagner, and Beethoven rank among his famous admirers, the latter having coined the oft-quoted phrase: “Nicht Bach, sondern Meer sollte er heissen” (“Not ‘creek’ but ‘ocean’ is what he should be called”, a play on the literal meaning of ‘Bach’).
The Mighty Milwaukee German Fest
Kick up your heels at one of the biggest fests in the Midwest
By KRIS RADISH
Cletus Muensterman has a smile on his face just about as long and wide as the Rhine River.
His red, black, and yellow cap, loaded down with metal pins, is doing a fairly terrible job of hiding his sparkling eyes and his feet have taken on a life of their own—bouncing uncontrollably as the Chikeria Tanz und Showband is cranking into their second song. Is Muensterman in Munich by chance? Hardly. It’s Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and German Fest, and that means Muensterman is in heaven. “I love it, absolutely love it,” shared Muensterman. “The food is good, the music is good, the entertainment is absolutely wonderful, and this is just the most fabulous festival.”
Muensterman and his wife Rosemary from Evansville, Indiana, are not alone in their love for what has become North America’s largest German Fest celebration.
Thousands of people from across the world—including Germany—flock to the festival site snuggled along the shore of Lake Michigan near downtown Milwaukee each July.
Events
Frederick, MD
April 1-2 Fruelingsfest
Annual Spring Festival at the Schifferstadt Architectural Museum. For information, contact Tel: 301-663-3885
New York, NY
April 7: Concert, A Walk on the Weill Side, the music of Kurt Weill and Stephen Sondheim. Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway at 65th. For tickets call 212-239-4699
Washington, DC
April 8-9: Mass in B Minor, JS Bach. At the National City Christian Church. For information, contact the Washington Bach Consort, Tel.: 202-686-7500 Web: www.bachconsort.org
Los Angeles, CA
April 10: Stockhausen plays Stockhausen. Works by Gyorgy Kurtag, Stefano Scodanibbio and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Goethe Institute. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Bing
Theatre. For tickets call 323-857-6010
Fredericksburg, TX
April 15: Van der Stucken Music Festival
Music performed by the Fredericksburg Children’s Chorale and the Verlbert Children’s Choir. For information, contact Tel.:
830-997-0212
Fredericksburg, TX
April 22: Easter Fires Pageant. Depicts the founding of the city. Staged by German descendants. For information, contact Tel.: 830-997-2359
Gretna, LA
April 26: Historic German Churches of New Orleans. Lecture by Raymond Calvert. At the German-American Cultural Center. For information, contact Tel.: 504-363-4202
Philadelphia, PA
April 29: The 75th Stiftungsfest Celebration of the Gebirgstrachten Verein Almrausch. For information, contact Tel.: 215-672-9866.
Austin, TX
April 30: Maifest 2000. At the Old German Free School. For information, contact Tel.: 512-482-0927.
Fredericksburg, TX
April 30: The 2nd Annual Blaskappellen Fest (Brass Band Festival). For information, contact Tel.: 830-990-4314.
Amana, IA
May 6-7 Maifest (Mayfair). At the Amana Colonies. For information, contact Tel.: 800-245-5465.
Jessup, MD
May 7: The 30th Annual German-American Festival. At Blob’s Park. Sponsored by the Association of German-American Societies of Greater Washington, D.C. For information, contact Tel.: 202-544-2664.
Web: www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/1945/AGAS.html
Leavenworth, WA
May 12-14: Maifest (Mayfair). For information, contact the Chamber of Commerce, Tel.: 509-548-5807; email: info@leavenworth.org
Columbus, OH
May 13: Maitanz (May Dance). Germania, 543 South Front Street, in the Brewery District. For information, contact Tel.: 614-461-8095.
Convington, KY
May 19-21: Maifest (Mayfair). Sponsored by the Main Strasse Village Association. For information, contact Tel.: 606-491-0458.
Hermann, MO
May 19-21: Maifest (Mayfair). City-wide celebration. For information, contact Tel.: 800-932-8687.
East Hartford, CT
May 20: Alpenland Taenzer Schuhplattler Verein of New Britain’s 40th Anniversary. For information on this family event, contact Tel.: 860-589-8024 or email: kbenoit02@snet.net
Leavenworth, WA
May 20: International Folk Dance. For information, contact the Chamber of Commerce, Tel.: 509-548-5807; email: info@leavenworth.org
Washington, D.C.
May 20: Mostly Motets. At St. John’s Episcopal Church.
May 21: Mostly Motets. At Holy Trinity Catholic Church. For information, contact the Washington Bach Consort,
Tel.: 202-686-7500. Web: www.bachconsort.org
FILM
Boston, MA
April 6: Nach Saison (Off Season)
April 13: Slask/Schlesien (Slask/Silesia).
April 27: VOKZAL¾Bahnhof Brest (Vokzal¾The Brest Station).
May 4: Muede Weggefaehrten (Tired
Companions). At the Goethe Institute. For information, contact Tel.: 617-262-6050; email: ckodis@giboston.org
CONFERENCES
Victoria, TX
April 8: The 16th Annual Texas-German Society State Convention. At the First English Lutheran Church Activity Center. For information, contact Tel.: 361-578-6658 or 361-575-0560.
Send information about upcoming events to:
German Life Calendar,
1068 National Highway
LaVale, MD 21502
editor@germanlife.com
Information must be received four months in advance.
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