Gewandhaus zu Leipzig

The Gewandhaus zu Leipzig on Augustusplatz, opened on 8 October 1981, is home to the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig — one of the oldest and most renowned civic concert orchestras in the world, with a tradition reaching back to 1743. It is the third concert hall of this name: the first, built in 1781 to plans by Johann Carl Friedrich Dauthe inside the city's former cloth merchants' hall (Gewandhaus), saw the premiere of Beethoven's "Emperor" Piano Concerto in 1811. The second Gewandhaus in the Musikviertel, opened in 1884, was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943-44. The foundation stone for today's building was laid in 1977 by Gewandhauskapellmeister Kurt Masur, who made its reconstruction his cultural mission. Designed by Leipzig architect Rudolf Skoda, it remains the only concert hall built in the GDR. During construction, the Great Hall was filled several times with East German army soldiers to test the acoustics at full capacity. The amphitheatrical Great Hall, seating 1,900, is graced by Sighard Gille's monumental ceiling painting Gesang vom Leben — at 712 square metres one of the largest ceiling paintings in Europe — and is considered one of the acoustically finest spaces in Germany. Above the organ prospectus glows the motto Res severa verum gaudium ("true joy is a serious matter"), a Seneca quotation that has accompanied the Gewandhaus since 1781. Since its founding the Gewandhausorchester has been led by some of the most celebrated conductors in classical music: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (from 1835), Arthur Nikisch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Franz Konwitschny, and Kurt Masur — who in 1989 opened the hall for the historic Gewandhaus Talks during the Peaceful Revolution that led to German reunification. Since 2018 the Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons has served as Gewandhauskapellmeister. The orchestra fulfils a threefold mandate unique in the world: concerts at the Gewandhaus, opera performances at Oper Leipzig, and sacred music at the Thomaskirche, where Johann Sebastian Bach once served as Thomaskantor.