Concert & reading with culinary delights

The Jahn Museum, Eatbar 51Grad and the Freyburg Winegrowers' Association are hosting a cultural experience in a class of its own.

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of E.T.A. Hoffmann's death, the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Museum together with the Eatbar 51 degrees and the Winzervereinigung Freyburg, on November 19, 2022, in the Anisium Freyburg, a musical-literary evening with culinary accompaniment under the title: "Tönende Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr" (Beautiful Views of the Life of Murr the Cat)

The collaboration was initiated by Thomas Fritzsch, an Echo-Klassik prize winner who lives in Freyburg, and the Jahn Society. Both have independently dealt with Hoffmann's whimsical tomcat - one musically, the other historically. "We've looked a little more closely at Hoffmann this year, because when Jahn is arrested for demagogic activities in 1819, his life path crosses that of arguably the greatest multi-talent of German Romanticism."says the director of the Jahn Museum, Manuela Dietz.

When E.T.A. Hoffman, born in Königsberg in 1776, was writing "Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr," he was appointed to investigate the demagogue trial of the "Turnvater" Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. The appointment to the "Königliche Immediat-Untersuchungskommission," which ultimately resulted from the political upheavals and the "Karlsbad Resolutions" of 1819, was an important station in Hoffman's legal career. He incorporated the experiences and adventures of the demagogue persecutions into his novel and the subsequent work "Meister Floh". The legal profession, however, was more a means of earning a living than a passion. Hoffmann's heart belonged to the fine arts. Thus he confessed: "On weekdays I am a lawyer and at most a bit of a musician, on Sundays I draw during the day and in the evenings I am a very witty writer until late at night..., [but] music is the most romantic of all arts."

Hoffmann's piano and composition teacher was the Königsberg cathedral organist Christian Wilhelm Podbielski, an original and bizarre figure whom he portrays in the "Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr" as Master Abraham Liscov. As can be read in Robert Schumann's Leipzig Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1840, Podbielski was "also quite exquisitely virtuoso on the viola di gamba, the instrument with which Echo Classic Prize winner Thomas Fritzsch achieved musical world fame. Among other works, he will perform a viola da gamba composition by Podbielski. His viola da gamba, built in 1784 in Breslau, proves to be a witty, graceful, gallant and characterful entertainer, with which Fritzsch turns the audience into contemporary witnesses of that lost world. He is accompanied by Gewandhaus organist Michael beauty on a pianoforte by John Broadwood, which was built in London in 1805.

The musical performances will be framed by Axel Thielmannwho, in readings from the novel, lends his voice to Master Liscov and his cat Murr.

So that the whole thing is not only a feast for the ears but also for the palate, the Eatbar 51 degrees the guests with a 3-course menu. The matching wines provides the Freyburg Winegrowers Associationin whose anisium the cultural spectacle of the extra class takes place.

Tickets for the event can be purchased now at the Jahn Museum.

Admission including a 3-course menu with a matching wine for each course amounts to 149.00 euros per person.

It pays to be quick, as the event is limited to 80 guests.