Leipzig, city of music

In 1723, Bach was only the third choice as a Cantor of St. Thomas. And he, in turn, complained about the city's "strange authorities and their disregard for music." So what did he manage to create under such circumstances? Nothing less than musical perfection. Bach spent 27 years in Leipzig, which gives the city's Bachfest a singular authenticity.

In 1479, the Leipzig Council hired wind players. Called "Stadtpfeifer" (city pipers), they played their brass instruments to stir up a lively mood for the city - like that at royal courts. The city equipped its musicians with summer and winter garments, an apartment on a street called the "Stadtpfeifergasse" and a communal bathhouse with ovens on stone pedestals.

Invariably associated with the St. Thomas cantor Johann Sebastian Bach, the renowned choir was actually founded back in 1212, making it one of the world's oldest. Today, its singers are celebrated on world tours like rock stars. Their days are structured by a strict rehearsal schedule and a disciplined boarding school regimen. Communal matters come first.

In 1692, Elector Johann Georg III decreed that a public opera house in Leipzig be established to offer 15 performances during each of the city's three annual trade fairs. Telemann and Heinichen were soon composing for the new opera company. Years later, the Leipzig Opera was an important center of musical Romanticism. The current opera house on Augustus Square opened in 1960.

"Res severa verum gaudium" (True joy is a serious matter): in stone letters, the quote from Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger adorns the Gewandhaus Orchestra's headquarters. Founded in 1743, the orchestra moved to a former exhibition hall for textile merchants in 1781. Hence the name, which translates to "House of Garments." The current Gewandhaus, opposite the Leipzig Opera, opened in 1981.

In 1835, the Gewandhaus directors opted for a new type of conductor. Mendelssohn was considered modern because he conducted with a baton, among other reasons. His Gewandhaus concerts were enthusiastically received. During his time in Leipzig, he lived at three different locations. His last residence, at Goldschmidtstraße 12, now houses the Mendelssohn Museum.

Leipzig was also the home of another great composer. 18-year-old Robert Schumann was Friedrich Wieck's piano student there. His ambitions as a piano player were curtailed after a finger injury, so he turned to composition. In 1834, Schumann founded the magazine "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" (New Music Journal), thus becoming one of the world's first music journalists.

Friedrich Wieck drilled his daughter Clara in the art of piano playing. At age 12, she fell in love with Robert Schumann. The romance led to years of dispute between Schumann and the elder Wieck, resolved only after a court decision enabled Robert and Clara to marry. The Schumann residence on the Inselstrasse became the meeting place for the musical celebrities of the day. Today, it's a museum.

Born in Leipzig in 1813, Wagner went to school there - or often skipped it to secretly take music lessons. The budding musician wrote his first compositions in Leipzig. The city long neglected its famous son - until the Wagner bicentennial in 2013, when a statue by Stephan Balkenhol was unveiled.

"He's like a magician with the orchestra," said the composer Peter Tchaikovsky about the conductor Arthur Nikisch, who became conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1895 at age 40 and remained its head until his death in 1922. Nikisch, just like Mendelssohn had previously, established a second golden era in the history of the Gewandhaus.

In 1970, Kurt Masur was appointed principal conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and initiated the construction of the third Gewandhaus in 1977. Masur remained in office for 26 years. In October 1989, some of the most important demonstrations against the East German government took place outside the Gewandhaus hall. The most important advocate for peaceful negotiations was Kurt Masur.