Helen FieldsScience Writer

The Washington Bach Consort is in the process of performing every one of Bach’s 215 cantatas at a series of free noon concerts at a church downtown. Actually, this is their second time through; they finished the first round in 2006, said, hey, that was fun, and started over on period instruments. That means trumpets with no valves, baroque violins, the whole crazy nine yards.

Yesterday they performed “Komm, du süße Todesstunde” – it’s about longing for death and is really quite lovely. Since the concert is 50 minutes and the cantata is only about 25 minutes, there was plenty of time for the group’s conductor to chat before the singing started. He asked one of the recorder players to talk about pitch.

You might think a pitch is a pitch is a pitch, but it’s not. Orchestras all tune to the A above middle C, but it’s not always the same A. The standard A is 440 Hz (cycles per second), but some orchestras tune higher, and baroque music is usually played about a half-step lower, at 415 Hz. Some instruments, like violins, can tune to more or less whatever, while others, like clarinets and organs, have to be constructed to the right pitch.

In Bach’s time, the recorder player told us, the pitch of A varied from country to country and even from town to town. Sometime in there, woodwind instruments like recorders were refined in France and imported to Germany – but they generally had a lower pitch than German instruments, so when they came back in, one side or the other was always transposing. The last time this group played this cantata, he said, he and the other recorder player kept having to switch between alto and tenor recorders because neither one could quite cover the range required; this time, the group was playing it lower, so everyone else would have to transpose while the recorder players played happily along on their tenor instruments.

Since I don’t have perfect pitch, I had no darn idea what pitch they were tuned to, but I can tell you it was a lovely concert. I’ve been to the last two cantatas and hope to make it to many more.

Here’s a blog post about A from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

After I found out I was going to Berlin, I found out U2 was touring this year. And I was like, oh, great. I bet they play Berlin when I’m in D.C. and D.C. when I’m in Berlin. But I held out hope, you know? What are the chances they’d be exactly wrong? But indeed, they played Berlin about a week before I got there, and played D.C. about a week before I came home.

This wasn’t all bad, because it meant I went to the Southwest last week to see them on the best vacation ever.

But now Kate points out: They’ve done it again! They’re playing a free concert at the Brandenburg Gate in November! Hello! Guys! I’m IN THE U.S.A. now. Could we please work this out in the future?

Whew. After 2.5 months in Berlin, I came home for a week, then went to Arizona and Nevada for a week to see U2 twice and do some sightseeing. Fellow science writer Kate flew in from Oregon, we rented a car, and we had the best vacation ever. Oh, I’m sure you think you’ve had some good vacations in your time, but sorry – this was the best one ever.

It’s a little embarrassing to be a big U2 fan. They’re so mainstream. And yes, I know it’s ridiculous to fly most of the way across the country to see a band. But they know how to put on a darn good show. And due to a complete failure on their part to check with me before scheduling this tour, they played D.C. in September (while I was in Berlin) and played Berlin in July (while I was in D.C.)

If I may be allowed to brag (gush?) for a moment, this is how close I was in Phoenix last Tuesday:

(That’s Bono. Hi Bono!) The crazy huge set is like a donut with a round central stage (at right in this picture), an “inner circle” where a couple thousand fans can stand, and an outer catwalk thing. We were in the front row, leaning on the railing, right outside the catwalk. For this we got to the stadium at 7:30 a.m., prepared for a really awful, hot day – but the genius Phoenix stadium staff had put the general admission line on the north side, out of the sun. I wore a sweater most of the day. I got a lot of knitting done in the 9.5 hours we were in line.

For the show in Las Vegas on Friday, we were coming in from the Grand Canyon, which meant we would’ve had to get up at, like, 2 in the morning to line up that early. We’re fans, but we’re not crazy. Instead we strolled up at five and stood in the inner circle. Where we were also ridiculously close:

AND we got the full band-immersion experience, because we had stage on both sides of us, plus the inner stage and outer walk are connected by these moving bridges that swung over our heads:

(That’s the Edge. Hi Edge!) It was so! cool! I’m already plotting how I can see them on the next leg of their tour – they’re swinging through the East Coast again, so this time I won’t need to travel quite as far. (Sorry for the cruddy photos. I didn’t want to carry a purse, so I only had the camera on my phone.)

Wednesday afternoon I was reading a book on a bench by the canal, waiting for my neighbor to get back from the playground with his kids so I could get back into my apartment. And this guy came over and asked me if I could take a picture, because the self-timer on their camera was broken. I mean, what else was I doing, right? Sure, I can push a camera button.

So the guy (Andreas) and his friend (Peter) told me they were recreating the cover art from Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. They’d already taken the picture on the back cover, of Simon and Garfunkel in front of a chain link fence, and they’d been trying and trying to get the front cover one right. They were dressed like them and everything, in jackets from the thrift store with the tags still on. (Before every series of pictures they had to grab the tags and hide them again.)

Why were they doing this? Yes, that was my question, too. It turns out they’re artists, and the photos are for the covers of the catalog for an exhibit they’re doing in Munich later this year. The project: They wrote a song for each of five shopping malls around Berlin, then performed the songs at the malls, while videoing their performances and their interactions with security and whatnot.

I feel like this is the kind of experience you come to Berlin to have: helping random strangers create the exhibition catalog about their run-ins with mall cops. So it’s a good thing they found me, two days before I leave town. They were super nice and we had a half-hour or so photo shoot by the canal.

I really hope they use one of my pictures. They said they’ll send me a copy of the catalog, which is, of course, a songbook. Sing-along party at my house!

When the Washington National Opera wants to entertain the masses with the gift of free opera, it chooses Porgy and Bess or The Barber of Seville. (Coming up Sept 12.) Easy to follow, lovable. Catchy tunes. So what does the Staatsoper in Berlin offer for its free outdoor performance?

Tristan and Isolde. Yikes. I mean, I hope to be there, but…it’s hardly light entertainment. Well, not that Porgy and Bess is light. I cried at the simulcast on the Mall. But still, it’s got, you know, tunes.

I got into a little frenzy of quiz-writing right before I left for the Bering Sea, and here are the fruits of my labors.

Music – Knowing how bagpipes work will help you here.

Human Genome – I applaud the art person for finding pictures for this quiz.

Actually, I think I wrote some others, too…I’ll let you know when I figure out where they are.