Up the Rhine

To Rüdesheim

It is no night to drown in: 

A full moon, river lapsing 

Black beneath bland mirror-sheen, 

The blue water-mists dropping 

Having arrived in Köln (Cologne) in the dark, after a long day's travel, the quiet of the River Rhine at dawn is very soothing. I wake to shrouded trees and murky mists, to the gentle swishing of the Rhine, as pink clouds stain the horizon, the reflections of bare poplars bent by our bow wave. :

Scrim after scrim like fishnets 

Though fishermen are sleeping, 

The massive castle turrets 

Doubling themselves in a glass 

All stillness.....

Lorelei

Sylvia Plath

Then, as we enter the Middle Rhine Valley, the current tenses as the river narrows between rising hills, and great castles begin to loom out of the clouds. Here is Marksburg, the core of which dates from the year 1200.  This is the only one of all the castles we see that has not been destroyed or reconstructed.   

Marksburg

Marksburg

Further up river we pass the castles of the Hostile Brothers, one of which is Burg Liebenstein, perched above the village of Kamp-Bornhofen.....

Liebenstein Castle

And then, near the diminutive Burg Maus (Mouse), we see the imposing Burg Katz (Cat), which was originally built in the 14th century but which was bombarded by Napoleon's forces in 1806 and then entirely rebuilt at the end of the 19th century.

Burg Katz - St Goarshausen

Burg Katz

Burg Katz - St Goarshausen

On the opposite bank here there is the great medieval ruin of Rheinfels Castle:

The Fortress of Burg Rheinfels

And then we approach the dangerous charms of the Lorelei, associated with the narrowest, swiftest, deepest, most treacherous part of the Rhine Gorge, with a 430 metre cliff overhanging a tight bend in the river....

The Lorelei (herself)

The legend here is associated with the potential danger of this stretch of the river, and it has passed into literature and folklore, with a famous poem by Heinrich Heine (in 1824) becoming a popular song in German, but then many more appearances in different cultures, including poems by Apollinaire and Sylvia Plath, music by Schumann and Shostakovich, and songs by, among others, Townes van Zandt and The Pogues....

You told me tales of love and glory

Same old sad songs, same old story

The sirens sing no lullaby

And no one knows but Lorelei

The Lorelei (from downstream)

The Lorelei (from upstream)

We sail on, oblivious to the siren murmurs:

Pfalzgrafenstein Castle, Kaub

But then, not far away, in a Wagnerian twist that may not be totally unrelated, I am bewitched by the three Rhinemaidens, Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde:

Or am I mistook?  Could these be they?

Or might Flosshilde have leapt to her doom?

The Rhinemaidens are the first and the last characters seen in Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen  [Me neither: Ed]  These damsels of indeterminate origin (though possibly related to the poor Lorelei) have been described as morally innocent, yet with a range of sophisticated emotions, including some that are seductive and elusive.....

But let's move on:

We are now high above the vineyards of Rüdesheim, where the Rhine spreads and flows East to West, so the northern slopes catch the sun all day and also benefit from reflected light off the shining waters, while the wooded hill crests protect the vines from chilly winds from the north....  This area is known as the Rheingau and it is Germany's most prestigious wine-producing region, despite it only producing 2.5% of the country's output.  80% of the wine from here is Riesling.

Brömserburg Castle (which used to contain a wine museum)

At the top of the cable car, within gardens laid out in 1763 by Johann Friedrich Karl Maximilian Amor Maria Count of Ostein (1735 - 1809)  [Ah yes - Him!  Ed.] there is the Niederwald Monopteros, with idyllic Arcadian views across the Rhine to Bingen [Get on with it.... Ed.]

And then we meet the Prussian Madonna, aka Germania, a monument which commemorates the founding of the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, when 25 individual states were united into one empire (the Second Reich) embodied by Germania, and the Prussian King was proclaimed Emperor William I.  With her crown raised and her sword peacefully lowered, Germania looks towards the new state, keeping watch on the Rhine.....

Das Niederwalddenkmal (The Niederwald Monument at Rüdesheim)

The erection of monuments such as this (the Berlin Victory Column in 1873, and the Hermann Monument in the Teutoburg Forest in 1875) was intended to awaken German national feeling, something that nowadays has to be contextualised as it expresses a culture of remembrance.  As with other monuments I have seen in Germany there is an ambivalence, but also a recognition that not all history is to be lauded. 

Far more subtle and yet easily as worthy is this modest stone near the river in Rüdesheim which commemorates the great republican poet of freedom, Friedrich Schiller:

Freude, schöner Götterfunken.

Tochter aus Elysium,

Wir betreten, feuertrunken,

Himmlische, dein Heiligtum.

Deine Zauber binden wieder,

Was die Mode streng geteilt,

Alle Menschen werden Brüder,

Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Joy, immortal incandescence,

Daughter of Elysium!

Breathing fire from thy presence

To thy temple-ground we come.

Whom the world estranged from others

Thy enchantments reunite,

Making mankind into brothers

Where thy gentle wings alight.

Friedrich Schiller

Ode to Joy (1786)

{I am indebted to my friend Dr Easton who reminded me of the following debate: At the outset, Schiller’s poem was conceived as an Ode to Freedom. The switch from freedom to joy must be understood as widening the scope of the Ode. Freedom may represent the basic foundations of our human condition, but Joy is the very blooming of this condition. Schiller revised the Ode around 1803. It is this revised version which Beethoven used to erect the impressive musical-textual monument of the fourth movement of his last symphony. He also modified Schiller’s text quite drastically in places, adding, by way of an introduction, a whole strophe of his own. I am still a little unsure, however, as the argument about Freude (joy) and Freunde (friend) doesn't account for the fact that freedom is Freiheit in German - I much prefer Freedom to Joy, though there are personal reasons for that.... }

And in the Christmas market in beautiful Rüdesheim with a hot glass of Weißer Winzerglühwein to keep out the cold, there is certainly an odour of joy, mingled with the Flammlachs and the Bratwurst....

And in the meantime, as the freight trains roll past, and the Rhine flows on, time, that imperturbable scourge of eternal youth, hastens us to dreamy sleep.....

River, river, have mercy

Take me down to the sea

For if I perish on these rocks

My love no more I'll see

But if my ship, which sails tomorrow

Should crash against these rocks

My sorrows I will drown before I die

It's you I'll see, not Lorelei

Philip Chevron

Lorelei

****

Dedicated to the Rhinemaidens and to my Lorelei

****

To be continued

Part 2

{wittily entitled Down the Rhine}

will follow shortly.....

****

Weimar - Travels in former East Germany - 2

Gouty (and Sheila).....

Flood of Life, Storm of Deeds

As readers of Finnegans Wake will know, James Joyce decreed that the triumvirate at the apex of European Literature were Dante, Goethe and Shakespeare....  on my honour of a Nearwicked, I always think in a wordworth's of that primed favourite continental poet, Daunty, Gouty and Shopkeeper..... 

Shadow play - Gouty in Weimar

So, Dante is well known as the stand-up comic of the late middle ages, though his comedy has perhaps lost something of its mass appeal in terms of stadium-filling.

Shakespeare.... well, they am still negotiating the film wrights of some of his works, and translations continuous are made.... Who don't know, To be or not?  nor, Et tu, Bro? nor, Tomorrow, and that.... nor, Romeo, Romeo, what's in a name, Rosie.... ect ect (sic)?

Shopkeeper - jauntily statued in Weimar

And therefore, who were this Gouty? What claim did Johann Wolfgang von Goethe make on the great Iris, JJ, to be linked in a trinity with our two way fambly favourites, the Scribbler of Southwark and Stratford,  and the Circumnavigator of the Circles Line?

Busty substances - the many faces  of Goethe

It maybe because I'm a Londoner... or so to speak, but Gouty's big disability is that he was foreign.  I know that reeks of UKIPologies, but ecktually the nuances of Goethe's German have never (apparently) been easily translated into the mother tongue of Air Traffic Controllers, as spoken in Thanet (for example).  Daunty, on the other cheek, is ultimately fairly simple to sing along with (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita....)  But try putting Faust (part II) into google translate (Alles Vergängliche/Ist nur ein Gleichnis;/Das Unzulängliche/Hier wird's Ereignis;) and it fairly rapidly sounds like a greek menu in Soho.... (For the record, the German means something like: All that must disappear/Is but a parable;/What lay beyond us, here/All is made visible.... and it does not contain the words Taramosalata, Houmous nor Tzatziki)....

Well....  Der truth is that Goethe was a wise guy.  And he struck it lucky in writing a piece called Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of the Young Werther) and scoring a hit with it in 1774 when its author was barely 25 years old. 

Following the sensational success (associated with the Sturm und Drang movement, you know) of this youthfully romantic epistolary novel (keep up) the then Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, made Goethe a member of his Privy Council. People of discernment, he said, congratulate me on possessing this man. His intellect, his genius is known. It makes no difference if the world is offended because I have made Dr Goethe a member of my most important collegium without his having passed through the stages of minor official professor and councillor of state.....  A diplomatic edict, for sure - worthy of FIFA.....

And so, dear reader, clever clogs Gouty became a sort of Alastair Campbell of the day, before having a sort of Blairite hissy fit (of course I exaggerate) in 1786 and disappearing to Italy for two years.

Which adventure near came to a sudden stop in Malcesine, when arrest threatened the supposed Austrian spy for sketching the castle....

It was indeed here, on the very day that the King (Elvis) died, that I first became aware of Goethe.....  As it is the population of this Lake Garda town all converse in fluent German, and it would seem as if it were but only the other day that Herr Gouty was actually imprisoned in said fortress....

But, hey, it didn't really happen, or at least it was only a Sturm in a Stein, and he made his way to la bella Roma, where, throwing off the pressures of the Weimar Privy Council, and the strains of his erstwhile unrequited love life, he allowed the jolly German aristos who made up a kind of artistic/literati conclave within the infernal city, to wine and dine young Werther until his head span....  As for the artistic tastes of the German colony here, I can only say: the bells ring loudly, but not in unison.....

A couple of days later (after mentioning Angelica Kaufmann, a Swiss painter, married to the Italian painter, Antonio Zucchi) he wrote, I find it becoming more and more difficult to give a proper account of my stay in Rome.  The more I see of this city, the more I feel myself getting into deep waters.....

Ah, poverino!  I had the same problem (though that's where the similarity ends!)  Goethe's Italian Journey is a most approachable book, which, if not the greatest literary achievement of a long life, gives us not only an insight into a different Italy, but also into the life of one that some at least rate as a near equal to Shakespeare and Dante.... I spent some happy, peaceful hours alone in the Public Gardens close to the harbour [Palermo].  It is the most wonderful spot on earth.  Though laid out formally and not very old, it seems enchanted and transports one back into the antique world..... 

[I wonder if it is the paucity of W H Auden's translation, or the superficiality of Gouty's own thoughts, but I am minded that I could have written that....?]

Nagging Gout....  Four horses afore the doors of the Gouty House in Weimar

Anyway, after a great deal of geological specimen collecting (he had 17,800 rock samples when he died), and observations on Raphael's skull (a brain-pan of beautiful proportions and perfectly smooth, without any of those protuberances and bumps which have been observed on other skulls and to which Gall's phrenological theories attach such importance.  I could hardly tear myself away.....)

Anyway, after all that, he made his way back to Weimar, where the good Grand-Duke had kept his place for him, and settled down to a literary life, occupying a vast house with garden on the Frauenplan.  

The house is much as he left it, with his collections of minerals, paintings, sculptures and ceramics on display. He and his wife, Christiane (who died in 1816), developed it into a meeting place and he was constantly holding soirées and receiving distinguished guests.  

Although famous as a writer (his drama Faust was highly influential throughout the literature of Europe; Schopenhauer cited his novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship as one of the four greatest novels ever written, along with Tristram Shandy, La Nouvelle Heloïse, and Don Quixote - though who was he to judge? - and just about everybody from Mozart to Mahler set his poems to music....) Gouty also produced a number of scientific works, and he was read by Charles Darwin, among others.  He himself considered his Theory of Colours (1810) to be his most important work.

A Brown Study - where Gouty worked (and died)

With his friend Sheila (aka Friedrich Schiller, 1759 - 1805) who lived a street away, Gouty founded the Weimar theatre, and together they stand to this day on the Theatreplatz, with fresh flowers at their feet every day.

Sheila's claim to fame, apart from being partially responsible for the term Weimar Classicism, lies in his dramas (several of which became famous operas, such as Verdi's Don Carlos, Donizetti's Maria Stuarda and Rossini's Guillaume Tell) and in his poem, An die Freude, which became the Ode to Joy in the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.  

Not a bad claim to fame?

Sheila at home - shame about the wallpaper

Schillers Wohnhaus is an altogether more modest affair than Goethes Wohnhaus und Ausstellung, 

But both give some idea of the lives lived within them, and both have extensive additional space devoted to exhibitions. In Gouty's case, it is an exhausting labyrinth of cases demonstrating just how (indisputably) great the man was, which was in fact the intended destiny of his house (it was open to the public within hours of his death and has remained so ever since).  In Sheila's case, the current exhibition is of works by another worthy Weimar resident (his house still stands on the Marketplace), Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 -1553).

Sybille of Cleves (not unlike Prunella Scales)

Cranach portrayed himself, next to Martin Luther, in his masterwork, the Triptych Altar Piece in the City Church of St Peter and St Paul,

Lucas Cranach the Elder, with white beard, being anointed with the blood of the crucified Christ

Though apparently several of his greatest works mysteriously went missing in the middle of the twentieth century.  One very fetching Venus can still be seen in a photograph of Hitler's study, though the original is no longer to be found....  The exhibition notes put it clearly:  The Nazis attempted to reassess Europe's cultural heritage from their standpoint of racial chauvinism.... [They] held Cranach the Elder aloft as a representative of 'Germanic artistic creation'....  This ideological instrumentalization (sic) of art went hand-in-hand with their justification of power....  

This had nothing, of course, to do with the fact that Hitler's favourite Cranach was a decidedly sexy young lady wearing nothing but a bee sting..... 

Gouty too was a collector of Cranachs, though his taste was clearly more religious.....

The UNESCO World Heritage committee added Classical Weimar to a list of world heritage sites in 1998, thereby acknowledging the art-historical significance of the public and private buildings and park grounds dating back to the height of Weimar's classical period and the outstanding role Weimar played as an intellectual centre of European life in the late 18th and early 19th century.

It wasn't only Gouty and Sheila, nor the paintings of Lucas Cranach, père et fils, that created this extraordinary heritage.  J S Bach lived and worked here,

The Church of St Peter and St Paul, also known as the Herder Church.
Several of Bach's children were baptised here.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche lived here for a while, and as Master of the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts Architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus here.  In 1540, five years before his death, 57-year-old Martin Luther wrote to his wife from Weimar, that I’m doing well here. I eat like a Bohemian and drink like a German, thanks be to God for this. Amen.

Martin Luther on the balcony of the Elephant Hotel - the same balcony from which Hitler addressed the local people....

Another famous resident, whose house is also open to the public, was Frans Liszt. He lived here, with his friend Princess Carolyne zu Sayne-Wittgenstein, for the summers between 1869 and 1886, and the music conservatoire of Weimar is named after him. [Fancy having a conservatory named after you!]

Fliszt in the Park

With all this Kultural History it is not surprising that Weimar was European Capital of Culture in 1999, though I suppose it only fair to say that perhaps Joyce's Gouty played the biggest part.....   

But what Gouty would have made of Finnegans Wake..... We have to had them whether we'll like it or not.  They'll have to have us now then we're here on theirspot.  Scant hope theirs or ours to escape life's high carnage of semperidentity by subsisting peasemeal upon variables......

[Aktually, I think the true of them would have gott off like a horse of fire.....]

The Goethe Gartenhaus in the Park on the Ilm

You don't play the flute by just blowing - you've got to move your fingers!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
28th August 1749 - 22nd March 1832

Flood of Life; Storm of Deeds