MORE CONCERTS
Again a quiet day in my apartment until the afternoon when I went to a recorder concert in the church hall for old people in the community. I was as old as anyone there but for some reason felt that I was being lumped with a group of doddering old people dragged to a concert where they would sit uncomprehendingly. Actually, I was the only old person there that was fairly clueless, not being able to understand very much, and must have looked lost. Many of the others were very interested in the music and asked good questions about the different kinds of recorders. For years I had heard about Elke’s recorder group and this time I got to see them in action. One of the blockflute recorders was five feet high and played a deep bass, some were much shorter and played the soprano part.
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After the concert we had tea and coffee, and then were off to the next concert in Wietze a village ten miles away where Heinrich was a young teacher when they married and she had her first child, Christian. They lived in a tiny apartment, didn’t have a washing machine and Elke didn’t drive while Heinrich was away at work all day.
The concert was held in a beautiful old Catholic chapel built by a large Italian landowner, Francisco Capellini Stechinelli in 1692. But since this was a Protestant part of Germany he was not allowed to build a conventional church with a high steeple. He had to disguise the chapel as a sheep stall, which it looks like from the outside. But inside it is a very ornate chapel with separate seating behind windows for the Stechinelli family. He had 13 children by two wives. The portraits of the children are worked into the ornate decorations on the ceiling.
Some years ago an organist of a large church in Hannover took an interest in the chapel and raised money for a new, small, but old appearing very fine organ for the chapel. Once a month he gives a short concert combined with talk about the qualities of the organ. I am including photographs of the building and a video of a portion of the concert.
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After the concert we had dinner in a marvelous old restaurant in Wietze.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 