Another chapter in Leipzig’s musical history: ‘Leipziger Notenbogen’ opens on 6 September

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With the Leipzig Notenbogen, the Leipzig Notenspur is launching another musical city exploration route, this time focusing on Jewish music. To mark the festive opening of the ‘Leipziger Notenbogen’ (Northern Route) and its inclusion in the European Cultural Route of Jewish Heritage, the ‘Notenspur’ invites you to a public walking concert featuring Antje’s ‘Weltempfänger’ on Sunday 6 September, starting at 11.00 am. Frequenz (Eastern) Europe and to a celebratory event featuring welcoming speeches and music at 1.00 pm in the Höfe am Brühl.

Alongside the Notenspur, the Notenbogen is a second permanent discovery trail marked out in the cityscape of the musical city of Leipzig. The route leads through the urban expansion areas of the Gründerzeit era to the west of the city centre and delves into the musical world of the Romantic, Late Romantic and Modern periods of the 19th and 20th centuries.

As Jewish people were not permitted to settle in Leipzig again until the 19th century following their expulsion in the late Middle Ages – and chose the new districts as their home – music and the authentic sites where they were active form the focal points of the Leipzig ‘Notenbogen’.

The audio scenes produced by Buchfunk and schools in Leipzig tell moving stories. One recounts the rescue of the Neues Operettentheater by Johannes Merz, who formally took over the institution from the Jewish Kroch family during the Nazi era and joined the NSDAP as a cover. This proved to be his undoing after the war, in the course of denazification.

Notenbogen pylon, Station 8: Blüthner pianoforte factory. Photo: W. Schneider

The stations include what were once Leipzig’s most important synagogues (the Liberal Great Community Synagogue and the Orthodox Ez-Chaim Synagogue in the Kolonnadenviertel) and the only surviving Brody synagogue on Keilstraße. The Notenbogen explores buildings where Richard Wagner was born and where Albert Lortzing, Arthur Nikisch and Heinrich Marschner lived.

It also offers an opportunity to discover Leipzig’s most important Jewish composers, such as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Gustav Mahler and Erwin Schulhoff, as well as Jewish cantors and choir directors such as Samuel Lampel and Barnet Licht. Last but not least, it commemorates the sites of musical venues such as the Altes Theater and the Neues Operettentheater in the Centraltheater. All the stops can already be explored digitally on the website.

The Northern Route comprises stops 1–7 and 14–19. The stops on the Southern Route (8–13) will open in 2027.

From 2027, the Southern Route of the Notenborg will open up even more opportunities for exploration. It will take visitors past musical educational institutions of international renown (the St Thomas Choir/Education Campus, ‘Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’ University of Music and Theatre), highlight locations housing collections of musical treasures (Bibliotheca Albertina, Peters Music Library in the City Library) and rediscover the sites of the Blüthner pianoforte factory and the Second Gewandhaus.

With its various facets, the Leipzig Notenbogen broadens the picture of Leipzig as a city of music, reveals the richness and diversity of its musical traditions, and traces a path right through to the 20th century.

Opening of the Northern Route of the ‘Leipziger Notenbogen’ on Sunday, 6 September, at 11.00 am at the site of the former Ez-Chaim Synagogue, Apels Garten (behind Norma): a walking concert featuring Antje’s ‘Weltempfänger’. Frequenz (Eastern) Europe, 1.00 pm, Höfe am Brühl (entrance on

Richard-Wagner-Platz): Celebratory event with welcoming speeches and music (limited capacity | registration at schalom@notenspur-leipzig.de Under the patronage of Mayor Burkhard Jung. A project by Notenspur Leipzig e.V.; organised in accordance with the City Council resolution of 2008.