Today Hans-Ulrich Erbsloeh and I took the train to downtown Hamburg, about a 35-minute ride away. It’s super convenient to take the train from his house—only two houses away from the station! By taking the train, we won’t have to hassle with trying to find a parking space, which is always a challenge.

Our first destination was St. Peter’s, where there is a Beckerath organ from 1955. Beckerath took pipes from the existing Walcker organ to build a new instrument. It has since been restored by Schuke in 2006 as you can see by a plaque on the organ.

What really grabbed my attention, though, was a large sign at the entrance to the gallery which lists all the organists of the church, as well as all the organs.

Wow! Do you see the names Georg Philip Telemann and Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach as former organists?!

I spent about 45 minutes here, playing through many pieces from Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, and trying out the many colors of this instrument. The organ sounds absolutely gorgeous in this reverberant acoustic, with a full plenum where needed, but with many sublime solo stops.

It was heaven! I told Hans that I would like to take this organ home, and he added that I should take the building along with it. Yes, yes, yes!

Look what someone put on the organ!

I was also enamored of the combination system—over 4000 combinations possible! I especially liked the fact that you could punch in the numbers of the level you wanted, something we cannot do on the Beckerath at home where we only have up and down arrows.

We then walked toward the town hall, and I found a monument to Felix Mendelssohn who was born in Hamburg.

We decided to have lunch in a restaurant near the harbor. It has been a succession of gorgeous days—blue skies and not too hot (in the 70s F.)—just perfect!

After lunch we got back on the train for only one stop to see St. Michael’s (Hauptkirche Sankt Michaelis), which is considered the most famous church in the city.  It has been completely restored (2006) thanks to the generosity of a couple who gave 14 million euros to the church! There are three major pipe organs and they are all stunning.

For sure, this is a gorgeous church. However the building has been rebuilt several times due to lightning strikes, a destructive fire and World War II bombing. Apparently Johannes Brahms was baptized and confirmed in this church.

We went into the crypt and found the graves of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach and Johann Mattheson, as well as historical photos of the building.

Our next destination was the top of the tower, and what a stunning panorama we saw—On a clear day, you can see forever . . . Back to the house, then Hans, Christiane and I walked to dinner in a nearby Greek restaurant. We returned home where we opened that bottle of wine from Mondsee Monastery which I got from the Hawaii Masterworks concert. It was pronounced delicious!

Every night we relax in the Erbsloeh’s “Winter Garden,” their glassed-in patio. What a life!