City of Music

The Porsche 4S E-Hybrid glides across Augustusplatz on electric power, no louder than a whisper, and comes to a stop directly in front of the new Gewandhaus. The center of Leipzig is also the epicenter of its music. On approaching this angular temple of tones, there is a natural desire to move softly and reverently. The great composers live on in their works here. The world’s largest professional orchestra plays here. With 185 musicians today, its roots go back to the year 1479.

She won the position that would change her life, and proceeded to discover the city on her own terms. “When I’m in one of the traditional cafés, I imagine how Robert Schumann might once have sat there himself and composed a melody. Wherever you go in Leipzig you feel like you’re walking in the footsteps of great musicians.”

Cho gets into the back seat of the Porsche Panamera 4S E-Hybrid. “How wonderful, I can control the sound system from here,” she says with pleasure, and directs the author to drive the sports sedan to the Musikviertel (music quarter) of Leipzig, where rows of well-preserved villas bear quiet witness to remarkable early years in the city’s history. 

By the fifteenth century, the city had already become one of the most important hubs of trade between eastern and western Europe. The cosmopolitan metropolis had money, and its cultural life thrived. A magistrate appointed three musicians to accompany festivals and ceremonies at theaters and the city hall as well as at church services. The program was so well received that it continued on until 1840. The musicians also performed with the orchestra of the Große Concerte, or Grand Concerts. Founded in 1743, its performances were attended by both the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. For thirty years, audiences enjoyed regular concerts at an establishment called Zu den drei Schwanen („At the Three Swans“). The city’s culture of fine music soon acquired a prominent reputation beyond its borders. A larger space was needed, which led to the name Gewandhaus, meaning “cloth-makers’ hall.” The large upper floor of their trading hall was not being used at the time, and was converted into a concert hall at the urging of the mayor. The first concert in the Gewandhaus took place in November 1781, and Leipzig became a key site on the musical map of Europe.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart headed off the list of great musicians in Leipzig. In 1789, two years before his early death, he paid the Gewandhaus the honor of a concert. Ludwig van Beethoven’s nine symphonies were performed for the first time as a cycle here during the 1825–1826 season, when the composer was still living. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy became Kapellmeister (director of music) of the Gewandhaus in 1835. Leipzig was where his Scottish Symphony and Violin Concerto in E minor (Op. 64) premiered. He conducted premieres of Robert Schumann’s symphonies and Franz Schubert’s great Symphony in C major at the Gewandhaus. In 1862 Richard Wagner conducted the premiere of his Meistersinger prelude here, and in 1879 Johannes Brahms did the same for the premiere of his only violin concerto. It was a century of music—and Leipzig was its stage. Composers produced fireworks that continue to light up the musical heavens to this day. The city has always exerted an irresistible attraction on great artists. Some came for a few months, other stayed for years.

This is also evident when we stop for the last time at an old factory on the edge of the Lindenau district. What used to be continental Europe‘s largest spinning mill is now known the world over for a different reason. The Guardian newspaper declared the Spinnerei “the hottest place on earth.” Major figures like the painter Neo Rauch have their ateliers here. The way art boldly appears to rise from the walls of the old brick building can be seen right around the corner, where a gigantic glass and concrete sphere is enthroned atop the Kirow Ardelt crane company. The Niemeyer Sphere is one of the last works by Brazilian star architect Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho, who died in 2012 at the ripe old age of one hundred and four. “It’s like history is repeating itself,” observes Yin-Jin Cho enthusiastically. “Like with classical music centuries ago, the city is experiencing another renaissance in art. It radiates magic and has a magnetic quality—I myself will certainly remain true to it.”

SideKICK: Partnership with the orchestra

Porsche has been at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s side since 2011—a partner to count on. The aim of the cooperation is to make classical music accessible to all. The free, open-air Klassik airleben concert series—which attracts tens of thousands of visitors to Leipzig’s Rosental Park—has been the focus of the partnership since 2014. Porsche also fosters a wide range of social, sports, and cultural activities, including the development of young soccer players as well as raising environmental awareness with its Porsche Safari program on the off-road grounds of its Leipzig site.