memoirs, 1933–77 ❧ 25
which turned out to be a confi scated eighteenth-century country palace. I
heard the captain arguing vigorously with the hotel porter to the effect that I
was not to be given just a room but a suite of rooms. In due course I was ush-
ered into a series of some six or eight rooms, each of which had in it only one
piece of confi scated furniture, except for the last, which contained a hand-
some crystal chandelier and a bed, nothing else.
Having observed that neither the captain nor the chauffeur had displayed
much sense of direction, and knowing that I need to be in closer touch with
the instrument I am to use and with rehearsals, I have managed to get us
transferred to the House of Soviet Culture in the middle of the city. This also
has its advantages in giving me the possibility of providing a square meal or
two for some of my Leipzig acquaintances, such as Günther Ramin and his
wife. I have already noticed that in the transfer here my baggage has been
thoroughly searched, but since I am carrying nothing of any value or of any
political tendentiousness, it makes little difference.
This afternoon I was invited to tea with the Leipzig City Council in the
Ratskeller. There I found a most heterogeneous group of individuals, rang-
ing from the bourgeois with open collar and clothing that is obviously try-
ing to look as proletarian as possible to the old Geheimrat^10 of a generation
prior to the First World War, in starched wing collar and shabby but meticu-
lous dark suit. It was quite obvious that the number of subjects safe for gen-
eral conversation was very limited indeed, and despite my curiosity about
the political orientation and past history of these individuals, I was on the
whole relieved when the conversation began to revolve exclusively around
the question of what to do about J. S. Bach’s bones. After being dug up at the
end of the nineteenth century and more or less convincingly identifi ed, they
were reburied in the Johanneskirche, which has now been so badly bombed
that no one wants to rebuild it. Arguments were advanced both in favor of a
special monument and in favor of transferring them to the Thomaskirche.
I left the Stadtrat to go to the Friday afternoon services and motet at the
Thomaskirche, and afterward to greet Ramin, who is now Thomaskantor
and whom I had not seen since the days of my lessons with him in 1932.
My Russian captain was avowedly scandalized by the goings-on in the church
and particularly by the sermon. But the four of us, Ramin and his wife, the
captain, and myself came here to the Russian club for a dinner which has
fortunately ended early.
The concert with the Gewandhaus Orchestra was received with jubilation
but, in my opinion, it was a disaster. It was the fi rst bad orchestra and the fi rst
poor conductor that I encountered on the entire tour.^11 After the concert I
was taken to see the former Thomaskantor, Karl Straube. I found him utterly
charming and wondered why this revered and admired teacher has pro-
duced so many generations of bad musicians. Whenever I have to play with
- Highest-ranking officials in royal and imperial courts.
- RK may be referring to Herbert Albert, conductor of the Gewandhaus
Orchestra from 1946 to 1948.
KKirkpatrick.indd 25irkpatrick.indd 25 2/8/2017 9:56:31 AM 2 / 8 / 2017 9 : 56 : 31 AM
