Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts tagged ‘music’

My Vienna in Heiligenstadt: Beethoven, despair in deafness, & his 6th Symphony

Above/featured: Memorial statue in Vienna’s Heiligenstadt Park; more details below.

Composer Ludwig van Beethoven spent a total of 35 years in Vienna, from 1792 with his arrival from Bonn until his death in 1827. Every summer, he would leave Vienna to stay in a country- or farm-house in Heiligenstadt which at the time was rural; a stagecoach trip from the inner city required several hours. Today, urban development and expansion have reached and overtaken the once verdant fields right up to the flanks of the city’s northern heights.

By 1802, Beethoven’s hearing loss was almost complete. With his doctor’s recommendation, Beethoven had hoped time away from the noisy city would help recover some of his healing, but after the summer had passed, his initial fears had come true: his hearing would not return. In desperation, Beethoven wrote to his brother a letter, known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament“. He never sent the letter to his brother; the letter would only be discovered 25 years later with Beethoven’s personal effects, shortly after his death in 1827.

I’m tracing out some of Beethoven’s footsteps in Heiligenstadt wrapped inside the present-day city’s 19th district of Döbling. All locations can be visited comfortably on foot in a single day. The following description is part of a larger overview of my search for Beethoven in the Austrian capital city.

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Street musicians, Chinatown, San Francisco, California, United States, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, start

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

31 Dec 2011.

What I like about this image of street musicians in San Francisco’s Chinatown is a kind of “musical chairs”, and how the number of faces inside and outside seem to look in different directions, but share the common feature of looking to satisfy a singular moment or a question in curiosity.

I made the photo above on 31 Dec 2011 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/100-sec, f/5, ISO800, and 50mm focal length (80mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lvQ.

My Seattle: London Bridge Studio (Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog)

Pilgrimage is a noun, defined as “a journey to a place of particular interest or significance.”

There are three things you need to know about a personal music pilgrimage.

One, the music that’s stayed with me came about because I was tuned to `70s radio; I learned I liked the sonic combination of guitars and drums.

Two, on a recent visit to Seattle, I decided to spend the morning in a recording studio outside the city.

Three, at the studio’s location, little outside suggests some important music history was made here.

The two-storey building looks like a cross between a warehouse and ordinary office space. The surroundings include a small commercial complex and a storage-unit facility. Within a quarter-mile, there’s a gas station, some fast-food joints, and a shopping mall. This is the modest setting where London Bridge Studio resides in the city of Shoreline, WA, about 14 km north of downtown Seattle.

It’s unassuming and it’s also important to note how out of the way this location is from other popular places to visit. To visit this place of living music history, you’ll have to make a little more effort.

I’m more than curious, but there’s music that’s meant a great deal and stayed with me over the decades. Recorded in this studio are two important albums on personal playlist and timeline: Temple of the Dog’s 1991 self-titled album as tribute to Mother Love Bone’s Andrew Wood; and “Ten”, Pearl Jam’s 1991 debut album. Much of the credit goes to Rakesh “Rick” Parashar: born and raised in Seattle, first owner and co-founder of the studio, and producer for “Ten” and “Temple of the Dog”.

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My Seattle: Chris Cornell

Above/featured: Customers’ contributions on the walls of Beth’s Cafe in Seattle’s Phinney Ridge – 7 Mar 2020.

Where: Seattle, WA, USA.
Who: Chris Cornell.
Why: A search for traces he left behind in his birth city.

On 21 April 1991, an album of music both memorial and celebratory in nature was released, and changed not only the nature of rock at the time, but also the lives of many, both inside and outside the music industry. In the days and weeks after Andrew Wood’s death in March 1990, a group of people gathered to mourn and remember; they wrote new compositions and sang their songs. Temple of the Dog was born: the release of their self-titled album on that early-spring day in 1991 would be the only full-length album to the band’s name.

Decades later, the album’s 3rd track “Hunger Strike” is as compelling now as the first time the music video dropped in 1992 to grab my eyeballs and the harmony-melody-guitar-crunch latched onto my ears and brain. For lead singer Chris Cornell, intervening years included critical acclaim and success with Soundgarden and Audioslave, among solo efforts and other collaborations. Hours after performing on tour with Soundgarden, Cornell was found dead in his Detroit hotel room on 18 May 2017, shocking the community within Seattle and the community inside music at large; he was a young 52. Wherever they may be, that jam session with Cornell, Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, and Andrew Wood has got to be one for the ages.

21 April 2021 is the 30th anniversary of the release of Temple of the Dog’s eponymous album.

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Matthew Good

The MG(B) 20: sonic timescapes

Above/featured: see track no. 9 in the list below.

Music is a personal reflection, providing a living soundtrack to important personal highlights of joy and tragedy. For the amount of time I’ve spent on the road and within a city I love and adore, I’ve created the following lists:

The following 20 tracks are by Matthew Good, an artist who hails from Coquitlam in metropolitan Vancouver. I first discovered the Matthew Good Band in 1997 at Toronto’s North by Northeast music festival, and saw them live in small venues on Queen Street and at Lee’s Palace on Bloor West.

With this selection coming between 1995 and 2017, your kilometrage may vary. And if it doesn’t work for you, that fortunately isn’t my problem at all.

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Siegessäule, Grosse Stern, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany, fotoeins.com

My Berlin: 29 tracks for the German capital

Above/featured: Siegessäule & Grosse Stern, at night – 13 Nov 2012 (HL).

I compiled a list of songs accompanying my travel, a soundtrack that’s full of meaning and memories. This is another set, a listing of tracks I associate with Germany’s capital city. Music is always about personal selection, and every track fires a specific memory of time and place within Berlin. For example, watching “Lola rennt” (Run Lola Run) in a movie theatre in Toronto in the fall of 1998 planted the seeds for a move to Germany three years later. My first visit to Berlin soon after marked the beginning of a deep love affair with the “grand lady of BAER’leen.”

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Silent Night, Stille Nacht, Stille Nacht Museum, Stille Nacht Platz, Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Oesterreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

Austria’s Silent Night: 200 years, 300 languages

One of my early childhood memories surrounding Christmas is learning and singing “Silent Night”. This humble melodic carol is known around the world and sung in over 300 languages and dialects. 2018 is the 200th anniversary of the hymn’s first public performance, and that’s why I’m on a train traveling north from Salzburg to the Austrian town of Oberndorf.

With over 5000 residents, Oberndorf lies opposite the German town of Laufen along the winding flow of the Salzach river. Laufen-Oberndorf was once a single community whose people derived their greatest business and wealth with salt carried on barges from upstream in Hallein and transferred onto larger ships for transport downstream to the Inn river and Passau. After the arrival (and departure) of Napoleon’s French troops, the river became a border, and the town was split in two after over 1000 years as a single community#. Although Oberndorf and Laufen remain in separate countries, the European Schengen treaty has helped reforge their common bonds with the abolishment of border controls.

Short History

Between 1817 and 1819, Joseph Mohr lived and worked in Oberndorf as curate, minister, and schoolteacher for the salt-barger community. The organist for Oberndorf’s St. Nicolas Church was Franz Gruber, a fellow schoolteacher and sexton at a parish in nearby Arnsdorf. Mohr and Gruber tended to spiritual and education needs for their towns, and with their common zeal for music, they quickly became friends. On Christmas Eve 1818, Mohr brought his song to Gruber who added the melody. That very evening after evening mass at Oberndorf’s St. Nicholas Church, Mohr’s completed song, “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” was performed for the first time with Gruber on his guitar as the only accompaniment.

Over years and decades, the song had generally been considered to be Tirolian in origin, but handwritten letters show Joseph Mohr composed the song by 1816 when he lived in Mariapfarr, a town 120 kilometres southeast from Salzburg. The original German-language version of the song has six verses; the English version has three which are translations of verses 1, 6, and 2.

At Oberndorf’s Stille-Nacht-Platz (Silent Night Square), the two key elements are the Stille-Nacht-Kapelle (Silent Night memorial chapel) and the Stille Nacht Museum. The original St. Nicholas church was in bad shape and torn down in 1906. To maintain the memory of the first performance of the Christmas song, construction began in 1928 for a chapel at the same location, and the townspeople celebrated the chapel’s inauguration in 1937. With the museum’s opening in November 2016, exhibits describe the history of how the song came to be, highlight the lives of Mohr and Gruber, explain the context of culture and place of the times in the late-18th to early-19th century, illuminate the importance of the salt trade on the neighbouring Salzach river, and celebrate the song’s longevity and popularity around the world.

Every year, evening mass on Christmas Eve from the Silent Night memorial chapel is broadcast to the world on webcam.

# The 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna enforced the Salzach river as the border and separation between the nation-state of Bavaria (Laufen) on one side and the Austrian Empire (Oberndorf) on the other side.

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Lands End, Sutro Baths, Point Lobos, Pacific Ocean, San Francisco, CA, USA, myRTW, fotoeins.com

21 sonic landmarks to travel by

Above/featured: Late-winter sun over Lands End, San Francisco, USA – 18 Mar 2012 (HL).

These are sonic landmarks and signposts marking passages of time. They’re also some of my favourite tunes to set the tone by which I’ll travel or while away the hours. That’s when I allow my mind to wander in dreamless landscapes, disentangle wished-upon possibilities, trek through inaccessible realms, sail on faraway seas, and arrive at a distant universe where Dad’s kickin’ it large with age.

With a sprinkling of songs in German and Spanish, your kilometrage may vary with these songs between 1975 and 2017. Select a single track or the entire playlist; I hope you enjoy listening to one and all.

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New Zealand, true-colour image from NASA Terra satellite, December 2002.

New Zealand: Māori anthems Pokarekare Ana, E Ihowa Atua

New Zealand is located in a part of our planet that’s about as far as one can go. The country provides easy inspiration with her striking scenery and friendly people. Memories remain sharp and fresh after multiple visits to Wellington and Auckland, as well as a solid three weeks in early-winter on the South Island. Truth is: I’ve got a real big soft spot for “Aotearoa“. The longer I’m in country, the more the land reveals deeper insights about her culture and language.

New Zealand recognizes three official languages: English, Māori, and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). Of immediate connection to this land are two Māori songs, “Pokarekare Ana” and “E Ihowa Atua”, which are the unofficial and official national anthems, respectively.

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Europe at night, 2012: NASA Earth Observatory

Favourite 10 German songs (mid-2012)

When I moved from Canada to Heidelberg, Germany in late-2001, I had no idea how my life would change.

After two years in Heidelberg and frequent visits since 2003, I’ve become a Germanophile, and I’ve learned that my nature is more European than North American; such is the relative ease I feel every time I’m back in Germany.

Like an ongoing soundtrack, music provides snapshots to key memories and important events. I’ve been learning the German language over the last decade with the help of the domestic music scene. Even after several listens, I’m not good at picking out song lyrics, so I’ve generally sought them online.

It was difficult to limit the list to just ten. The following are listed alphabetically by title, and corresponding weblinks go to their respective videos on YouTube.

  1. “Elektrisches Gefühl” — Juli, 2010. Broad translation: “electric feeling”.
  2. “Himmel auf” — Silbermond, 2012. Broad translation: “open sky”.
  3. “Ich, Roque” — Sportfreunde Stiller, 2004. The title is wordplay on “Ich rocke” or I rock. The band members are fans of FC Bayern Munich, and one of their favourite players at the time was Paraguayan striker Roque Santa Cruz.
  4. “Meer Sein” — Silbermond, 2006. The title is wordplay on “Mehr sein”, to be more. “Meer” is another word for the sea.
  5. “Mensch” — Herbert Grönemeyer, 2002. Translation: “human”.
  6. “Nur ein Wort” — Wir Sind Helden, 2005. Broad translation: “just one word”.
  7. “Schiffsverkehr” — Herbert Grönemeyer, 2011. Broad translation: “ship traffic”.
  8. “Stadt” (featuring Adel Tawil) — Cassandra Steen, 2009. Translation: “city”.
  9. “Steh Auf, Wenn Du Am Boden Bist” — Die Toten Hosen, 2002. Broad translation: “get up if you’re down”.
  10. “Unendlich” — Silbermond, 2006. Translation: “endless”.

A favourite is the band Silbermond, a quartet from the humble origins of Bautzen in the southeast corner of the country. Lead singer Stefanie Kloss appeared recently (May 2012) on Deutsche Welle’s Talking Germany and Typisch Deutsch programs; here is her interview in English.

This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress (fotoeins.com) on “musikalischer Montag” (musical Monday).

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