Friday, August 9, 2019

Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen!

Just got back from a little day trip to Innsbruck and I have to confess that half the reason I went was because of the famous piece by Heinrich Isaac (and the other half was to take a train trip through the Alps). I didn't stay for the opera because I didn't know if there were tickets and I didn't want to stay overnight. But the trip was nice. Salzburg is proud of its newly-rebuilt train station:

Click to enlarge
With a lovely view of the Alps:


And nice new trains as well:


Austria feels like one big park. Everything seems so tidy and manicured, even in the countryside:


Innsbruck reminds me of Whistler or Revelstoke in British Columbia. It is like a town surrounded by ski hills:


Lots of lovely mountains on the way:



While there I ran across an Italian restaurant and had a pizza, their specialty. This was a single person Quattro Stagioni that I could only eat half of:


Our envoi must of course be the four-part song by Heinrich Isaac, "Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen."


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7 comments:

  1. Ken F.August 9, 2019 at 1:09 PM

    I was in Inssbruck in 1992 for exactly the same reason. Went to a bookstore to find anything on Isaac. Nothing, but I left with two volumes of Stockhausen's TEXTE.

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  2. Marc in EugeneAugust 9, 2019 at 5:06 PM

    Lovely country! one could almost make a musical....

    I did put some photographs from La Merope over at my blog that must have been from Thursday's performance or else from a dress rehearsal.

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  3. Bryan TownsendAugust 10, 2019 at 12:11 AM

    Wish I had run across that bookshop, Ken. I could use some TEXTE by KS.

    I will pop over to your blog to have a look, Marc.

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  4. Marc in EugeneAugust 10, 2019 at 8:10 AM

    Have been reading reviews (or, in the case of the German language ones, trying to interpret translation programs' product) of Alcina and La Merope. A bit of trivia: the Austrian chancellor (the caretaker head of government), Brigitte Bierlein, attended the premiere of Merope on the 7th: she is well-known to be a patroness of the arts and opera. The fantasy of Mr Trump attending five hours of Broschi was mildly amusing.

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  5. Bryan TownsendAugust 10, 2019 at 8:55 AM

    Well, can you see him giving the characteristic thumbs-up gesture coming out of the theatre?

    8^)

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  6. MauryAugust 10, 2019 at 5:30 PM

    Heinrich Isaac is indeed a forgotten man for reasons I don't understand. There was a brief flurry of recordings in the early 70s by Ruhland and a few others and very little afterwards even in the CD era. Anton Webern wrote his dissertation on Isaac but that didn't seem to result in much attention either. Ludwig Senfl was his best known student but he is not well represented in the recordings either. The early 70s German EMI LP of Senfl's secular music by Piguet is essential though. Not sure if it ever got reissued on CD. Senfl was Swiss not a Netherlander.

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  7. Bryan TownsendAugust 11, 2019 at 1:08 AM

    Yes, according to his influence and prolific composition he should be rather well-known--perhaps not as much as Josquin, but somewhere in that neighborhood. Listening to his Virgo prudentissima which is a lovely piece of vocal counterpoint in six parts.

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