conductor

Kurt Masur conducts a historic concert

Monday demo and music

October 9th, 2023 by Jochen Eichner

Leipzig, October 9, 1989. Kurt Masur conducts a concert by the Gewandhaus Orchestra. But it wasn’t a normal concert. On the contrary: the evening was to have a decisive influence on German history.

Image source: picture-alliance/dpa

The calendar sheet to listen to

It takes a few minutes – the applause in the Leipzig Gewandhaus never ends. There is hope and relief in this stormy gesture from the audience. Despite all fears, the day had passed peacefully, and the Gewandhaus’s bandmaster played a large part in this. Kurt Masur was to conduct Richard Strauss that evening, “Till Eulenspiegel’s Funny Pranks”, as well as the concert for trumpet, timpani and orchestra by the composer Siegfried Matthus, as well as the Third Symphony by Johannes Brahms.

Call of the “Leipzig Six”

Two hours before the concert, the Leipziger Stadtfunk – a system of city-wide loudspeakers – broadcasts a call. Written by the so-called Leipzig Six: the theologian Peter Zimmermann, the cabaret artist Bernd-Lutz Lange and three secretaries of the SED district leadership. Kurt Meyer, Jochen Pommert and Roland Wötzel. The appeal was presented by the most famous among them – the Gewandhaus bandmaster Kurt Masur.

The appeal

Our shared concern and responsibility have brought us together today. We are affected by the developments in our city and are looking for a solution. We all need a free exchange of views about the continuation of socialism in our country. That is why those mentioned today promise all citizens to use all their strength and authority to ensure that this dialogue is conducted not only in the Leipzig district, but also with our government.
We urge you to exercise caution. So that peaceful dialogue becomes possible. The speaker was: Kurt Masur

Memories of the Maestro – Leipzig Conversations with Kurt Masur (1995)

Leaflets call for non-violence

Demonstration in Leipzig on October 9, 1989 | Image source: dpa-Bildfunk This call from the Leipzig Six is ​​also broadcast on normal radio; it reaches not only the demonstrators, but also the law enforcement officers. Kurt Masur’s group is not the only one calling for non-violence. This Monday, around 30,000 leaflets calling for non-violence are circulating in the city. For weeks, the Leipzig Monday demonstrations had become increasingly popular, as had the peace prayers in the St. Nicholas Church. The SED district leadership knows that such a Monday demonstration is planned again this October 9th – after the peace prayer in the St. Nicholas Church. They want to “nip possible provocations in the bud” and are putting 3,000 armed and 5,000 “social” forces on standby. In addition, several hundred “loyal comrades” occupy pews in the St. Nicholas Church.

70,000 take to the streets

But it is not only in the St. Nicholas Church that the peace prayer takes place as planned – despite the efforts of the SED. People also gather in three other places of worship, including for the first time in the Thomaskirche, where Bach once served as cantor. After the prayers, people take to the streets, 70,000 chanting “We are the people” and “No violence!”

No shot is fired

The “Leipzig Six” with Kurt Masur on October 9th, 1989 | Image source: picture-alliance/dpa The fear of bloodshed is great: the demonstrators are afraid of what they call a “Chinese solution”, similar to the massacre on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square just a few months earlier. There is a rumor going around in Leipzig this Monday that blood supplies have been delivered to the city’s clinics and that doctors are standing by to treat gunshot wounds. But no shots were fired that day, the police did not intervene – not even the 1,500 soldiers of the National People’s Army who were waiting outside the city to be deployed. The miracle happens, there is no violence that day, that evening. The Peaceful Revolution has overcome the first major hurdle.

Images go around the world

And the pictures from Leipzig go around the world. It was shot by cameraman Siegbert Schefke – from the church tower of the Reformed Church, together with his colleague Aram Radomski. In view of the recordings of 70,000 people demonstrating peacefully, he said: “Today the world will change. If the images are shown on Western television tomorrow, then it will not only change the GDR, not only Germany, but all of Europe and the world !”.

“A single question mark”

They were on Western television and they changed the world. A West journalist smuggles the pictures into the West via Berlin that night, and the next day the recordings are shown on ARD in the evening. The turning point of change had been reached – something that people on the street, but also in the Gewandhaus, perhaps suspected but could not yet know. Kurt Masur later said that evening was a “one question mark.” Playing “Till Eulenspiegel” was like singing “Lache, Bajazzo”: “There is nothing stranger,” says Masur.

Richard Strauss – Metamorphoses (Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Kurt Masur)

What happened today

You can also listen to our series “What happened today” on notable events in music history on the radio at 7:40 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 4:40 p.m. on BR-KLASSIK. You can find more episodes to listen to here.

Broadcast: “Allegro” on October 09, from 6:05 a.m. on BR-KLASSIK

2023-10-08 22:33:24
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