{"id":7048,"date":"2016-06-07T15:17:13","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T15:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/?p=7048"},"modified":"2016-06-07T15:20:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T15:20:30","slug":"currey_seminar_carnes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/2016\/06\/07\/currey_seminar_carnes\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Contributor: Archival Adventures in Leipzig"},"content":{"rendered":"

Currey Seminar<\/a> Awardee Mallory Carnes traveled to Leipzig, Germany in May 2016 to study the German Protestant hymn\u00a0\u201cHerzliebster Jesu.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mallory<\/a>

Mallory Carnes at the Rose Library Fellowship and Award Celebration<\/p><\/div>\n

Thursday, May 12, 2016<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Reading Room of the Leipziger Stadtbibliothek (Leipzig Municipal Library)<\/p><\/div>\n

Today was my sixth day in Leipzig, Germany and my second-to-last day working in the Leipziger Stadtbibliothek (Leipzig Municipal Library). I\u2019ve had an amazing trip so far and am
\nso glad that I had this opportunity. I\u2019m really proud of what I have accomplished so far considering that this is my first time in Europe, plus I am completely by myself and don’t really know any German!\u00a0 Today was definitely a test of my confidence, patience, and spirit, but I persevered and have more information and more souvenirs to show for it!<\/p>\n

This morning, I followed my normal Germany morning routine: wake up, get dressed in business attire, hand my key to the front desk associate on the way out of my hotel, and grab breakfast before heading straight to the library. Thankfully, the library doesn\u2019t open until 10:00, so I didn’t have to get up too early. I arrived at the library and walked up several floors to the Lesesaal (Reading Room), where I had the privilege of handling some of the oldest and rarest hymnals in the world. Every day it baffles me that they allow me, a foreign undergraduate student with almost no knowledge of the German language, to hold these beautiful (and in some cases, disintegrating) books.<\/p>\n

\""Herzliebster<\/a>

“Herzliebster Jesu” music<\/p><\/div>\n

However, this morning there was a complication. Every day, I looked through approximately ten hymnals, scanning for instances of the hymn \u201cHerzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen\u201d and analyzing them.\u00a0 At the end of the day, I put in a request for books for the following day.\u00a0 Yesterday afternoon, I submitted my request list to Frau B\u04d3rwald, the young woman I worked with in the library.\u00a0 When I arrived this morning to get my cart of new hymnals, though, I was presented the exact set of hymnals I used yesterday.\u00a0 Because I traveled such a distance and only had a short time frame in the library, it was imperative that I was able to see these hymnals, so I approached the new librarian at the desk.\u00a0 He was an older gentleman who I had not previously met, so I was timid considering my mere month of online self-taught German skills.\u00a0 I attempted to explain the problem to him, but he stormed off down several flights of stairs to get a younger man who could translate for us.\u00a0 After explaining myself several times in various attempts at English and German, the older librarian finally understood and stormed off again to get the new set of books.\u00a0 Feeling very shaken and upset, I was not in a great mindset to start the morning, but I was determined to make the best of the day.<\/p>\n

\"Praxis<\/a>

Praxis Pietatis Melica is the hymnal publication of the original composer of \u201cHerzliebster Jesu”<\/p><\/div>\n

I am so glad that I didn’t given up today, because I got some great data!\u00a0 Today, I used ten hymnals from over one hundred years of Protestant German history. I found instances of \u201cHerzliebster Jesu\u201d in over half of the hymnals, including everything from a 1782 J.S. Bach Choralbuch to the original composer\u2019s own hymnal publication (Praxis Pietatis Melica<\/em>) in a later 1676 edition. I found different versions of the original text and tune, which allowed me to make important comparisons across time, space, and denomination! This will definitely make for a great addition to my research paper about the English-language translation and adaptations of \u201cHerzliebster Jesu\u201d (\u201cAh, Holy Jesus\u201d in English). I\u2019ve worked hard on this research project all year and it will be quite fulfilling to round out the paper with the addition of my research on the German-language origins of this hymn, which has since become so important to the Lutheran Church and many others.<\/p>\n

After numerous hours at the library, I decided it was time to venture out for gelato and some sightseeing.\u00a0 The musical culture of Leipzig is so alive and the history is incredibly rich \u2013 exploring the city has definitely brought a renewed sense of passion and a deeper understanding not just to my research project, but also to my pursuits in instrumental music performance.\u00a0 Being in a city that famously housed J.S. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, Richard Wagner, and Robert Schumann, to name a few, was renewing and reinvigorating!\u00a0 This afternoon, I planned to explore the Mendelssohn-Haus, Mendelssohn\u2019s final apartment where he passed away after two heart attacks, which has since been converted to a two-story museum and music venue.\u00a0 Leipzig\u2019s Zentrum (City Center) is well-organized and features many signs pointing to tourist attractions, so I followed these signs toward the Mendelssohn-Haus.<\/p>\n

\"Mallory<\/a>

Mallory visited several cultural institutions during her stay, including the Mendelssohn Haus.<\/p><\/div>\n

The museum was amazing, to say the least!\u00a0 I toured the garden, Mendelssohn\u2019s personal study where he composed, and even stood in the room where he reportedly passed away.\u00a0 After being brought to tears standing in the performance space where Yo-Yo Ma, Janine Jansen, and many other internationally renowned soloists have performed, I left the museum, utterly amazed with the musical history of Leipzig.\u00a0 After the chaotic start to my morning in the library and the difficulties I had finding the Mendelssohn-Haus, I hoped that my next stop would be easier: I hoped to visit the Museum of Musical Instruments, one of the three museums under the Grassi Museums umbrella.\u00a0 After only a short walk on clearly labeled streets, I found the museum, purchased my ticket, and went inside.\u00a0 I again found myself dumbfounded by the musical history of Leipzig.\u00a0 I saw more harpsichords that I could ever imagine in one place, as well as instruments from more than five hundred years of European history.\u00a0 I could hardly believe my eyes to watch the history of the modern violin and viola develop before my eyes.\u00a0 Even though I couldn’t read the labels on the exhibits, it was profoundly moving to see these beautiful instruments in their glass cases glistening under the museum lights.<\/p>\n

All in all, today was beyond words.\u00a0 I have seen and experienced things that I could never dream were possible.\u00a0 It seems too good to be true that I am exploring Leipzig by myself with only the most basic understanding of German, Germany, or the history of this area.\u00a0 However, I am learning so much and so grateful that my \u201cYes!\u201d to Dr. Crist\u2019s offer to help me with a research project led me on a trek across the globe this summer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Currey Seminar Awardee Mallory Carnes traveled to Leipzig, Germany in May 2016 to study the German Protestant hymn\u00a0\u201cHerzliebster Jesu.” Thursday, May 12, 2016 Today was my sixth day in Leipzig, Germany and my second-to-last day working in the Leipziger Stadtbibliothek (Leipzig Municipal Library). I\u2019ve had an amazing trip so far and am so glad that Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3517,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[446,426,447,427],"class_list":["post-7048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marbl","tag-bach","tag-currey-seminar","tag-herzliebster-jesu","tag-undergraduate-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3517"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7048"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7058,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7048\/revisions\/7058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/marbl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}