Concert in Bad Godesberg

Dani and I went to a Johann Sebastian Bach concert tonight in Bad Godesberg, a municipality south of Bonn. Bad Godersberg is home to a number of embassies that still have not moved on to Berlin. The concert was held in a mansion built in 1792 by the son of the Empress of Germany. One inaugural performance was given by Ludwig von Beethoven.

The room in which the concert took place was remarkably intimate. Only about 250 people fit in the room. We were seated so close to the stage that we were able to hear reverbarations of the musicians' fingers against their instruments. The performance was particularly special since it featured a lute and harpsichord, instruments we had never seen used before.

Our seats were directly in front of a group of four Spaniards who were chatting away loudly before the show began. About ten minutes into the concert, one of them started coughing. Since this was a 400 square foot room, everyone could hear her. She couldn’t control herself and soon the cough turned into a hack. I thought I was going to be hit in the head with a wad of phlegm. After getting dirty looks from everyone in the audience, she got the hint and left the room. However, she decided to have her coughing fit right outside the door and we could still all hear her. Embarassing moment. During the intermission, we saw the woman and her Spanish cohorts standing outside smoking their cigarettes which led Dani to nickname her “Smoky the Bear.”