Germany Tour: Spring 2019

• Join our Germany Organ Tour: Spring 2019 Facebook group to see photos from the recent tour, as well as day-by-day commentary from Michael Barone.

• For an in depth look at our tour brochure, check here!

• Click here for our complete, detailed tour booklet, with information about churches and instruments.

• Click here for a list of all the organs we will see on our tour.

• Should you be curious about future PIPEDREAMS tours, get on our mailing list to receive more information or contact Janet Tollund at Group Travel Directors (jtollund@gtd.org)

Pipedreams Friends:

Here we go again! I invite you to join me on our next Pipedreams tour), an adventure amidst instruments in Bach Country... pipe organs old and new in Saxony and Thuringia (May 22-June 4, 2019).

Though the very first official Pipedreams Tour in 2002 covered much of this territory, this is not a simple repetition, nor are we are closing the circle! Future tour plans are already in the works for 2020 and 2021, and this year’s schedule takes us to places and includes instruments not previously experienced.

Of course, our itinerary will direct us to Eisenach, Bach’s birth-place; to Erfurt, the home territory of much of the Bach dynasty before J.S.B.; to Arnstadt and Weimar, centers of the young Bach’s early employment; to Dresden, where he played at the Sophienkirche; and to Berlin, where he played for the King, in both instances hoping for a court appointment that never materialized; and to Leipzig, where he spent the major portion of his career and where his greatest works were composed and refined.

We will see, hear, and often play instruments known to Bach, particularly the work of Gottfried Silbermann in Freiberg, Dresden, Rötha, Reinhardtsgrimma and Störmthal, and of Zacharias Hildebrandt, whose imposing installation in Naumburg is said to represent Bach’s ‘organ ideal’. And we’ll revisit the mighty 1855 Ladegast organ in Merseburg, where Liszt’s masterpieces were premiered, this 80-stop instrument fully restored since our last visit.

But we’ll also make first-time acquaintances with the eclectic 72-stop Rieger organ in Fulda, with its ornate early 18th century case, the first stop on our very first day. We’ll hear the new 76-stop Kern organ at the Marienkirche in Dresden, only a pipe-dream when we visited back in 2002. And we’ll also experience the 1723 Wagner organ at St. Mary’s Church in Berlin and the 103-register Ladegast-Eule organ at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, both now fully recommissioned.

Visits to Bach’s Thomaskirche in Leipzig, the Liszt House in Weimar, the Handel House in Halle, the Meissen Porcelain Factory, and the concentration camp at Buchenwald will add important dimensions to our travels, as will a recital by David Briggs at the Berlin Philharmonic and optional opportunities to attend Korngold’s opera “Die tote Stadt” at Dresden’s Semperoper, a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic.

I hope you can be with us as we retrace historic foot-steps and relish the sounds of instruments antique and modern. I’m excited at the prospect, and look forward to greeting you!

Cheers,

Michael Barone