The abandoned Jewish cemetery of Diespeck, Germany. Born in 1990, I grew up in a world that was growing ever-closer with unprecedented speed. Every day as a teen when I opened the newspaper I would sure enough find yet another step towards a unifying world. International trade was mostly flourishing, visa-free travel was introduced across more and more countries and the EU … Read More →
The Bach Collegium Japan was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki. Photo credit: http://www.creatio300.com. Originally, I had planned on publishing this post right after the actual concert on November 7th at Zankel Hall (part of Carnegie Hall, NYC). As it often happens I had to shelve it until now – when I am finally stuck on a plane for 12 hours and due to the simply unfathomable fact that … Read More →
Lessing and Lavater as guests in the home of Moses Mendelssohn. Painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim 1856 Spoiler alert – this book is currently only available in German. This book on the not-so-well-known story of a great friendship that developed between Moses Mendelssohn and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, two giants of the Enlightenment period, had a great impact on me. Beyond their fascinating correspondences and meetings, their very connection and lives themselves symbolise … Read More →
David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center Having just returned home from David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, I had to take a few moments to relax. One doesn’t simply come home after a Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto and goes about daily business. Tonight’s program started off with The Isle of the Dead, which Rachmaninoff wrote with inspiration from the work of a … Read More →
A new species is born: homo globalis – and we are defined by our intimate connection to the global infotainment network, which has turned ranking and rating people on scales of wealth and celebrity into an obsession. According to Dr. Carlo Strenger, professor for psychology and philosophy at Tel Aviv university and author of this … Read More →
It was a true privilege having been invited to the premiere of Lulu at the MET Opera in New York by a dear family friend. As someone who is very interested in works by the incredibly productive and innovative pre-war German writers and artists, I was particularly curious about Alban Berg’s Lulu. This was the first time … Read More →
At this point I should probably disclose that I am a big fan of the baroque composer’s music. In fact, that doesn’t quite do it justice. To me, Johann Sebastian Bach has composed music so extraordinarily beautiful, both in a melodic and technical sense and in such quantity that it is hard to believe any … Read More →
Moses Montefiore - Jewish Liberator. Imperial Hero. This book was not a serendipitous purchase. I have always liked biographies for several reasons. Many argue that life still produces the most interesting stories – often more empathetically engaging and visceral than anything an author could dream up. What makes them my favourite literary genre, however, is something else. Well-written biographies capture not only … Read More →
by Photos8.com Leading Up to New Regulation Leading up to the 2008 financial crisis lay a period of unprecedented growth for the industry. This was accompanied by an inflation in bankers’ remuneration packages, which started to move into the spotlight amid the crisis that caused hundreds of thousands to loose their jobs across the world economy but … Read More →
Foreword Other than the economics courses I took in high school, I didn’t receive any further formal education on the subject. This text is entirely motivated by thought-experiments that might lack deep formal economic analysis, but are nevertheless interesting to me, and enough so that I decided to write them down. Nothing more, nothing less. Make of that … Read More →
