O HEIDELBERG, YOU BEAUTIFUL NEST

220 years of Heidelberg Romanticism - a literary-musical winter Christmas special with welcome drink and sweet Christmas greeting

Special event on Friday, 19.12., 20:00, Gloria

with Brigitte Becker (piano), Elisa Herbig (cello)
Veronika Haas (Literaturherbst), Matthias Paul (Freier Theaterverein Heidelberg), Jutta Wagner (LiZ Literarisches Zentrum, DAI Heidelberg)
Author: Veronika Haas

By popular request and in view of the great demand in October, we cordially invite you once again to a special poetic-musical evening "220 Years of Heidelberg Romanticism" - a winter Christmas special.

"One can only think of the confectioner here in the ice and snow", enthuses Brentano about wintry Heidelberg, "All the oak trees stared out at me like spoons of thick porridge. I am amazed at how this land is blessed even in winter". During the Romantic period, Heidelberg became a place of longing that is still much sung about today, so much so that even Goethe was once refused a room in the hotel of his choice. "Heidelberg is itself a splendid Romanticism", enthused Eichendorff, "as if there were nothing meaner in the world". Heidelberg was dolce vita on the Neckar in both summer and winter: Goethe raved about Heidelberg chestnuts in roast goose in winter, Hegel feasted on crackling sausages, Robert Schumann warmed himself on a sleigh ride with delicious rum, which comforted him for the fact that he only had stockfish at Christmas.
And in summer? Jean Paul praises Heidelberg beer and wants to ride naked on a horse while intoxicated, Brahms praises twelve-egg pancakes in Ziegelhausen, while Eichendorff promptly prescribed himself a diet when he feared he would not cut a good figure compared to other students while bathing naked in the Neckar. Truly, "One ought to live here", exclaims Victor Hugo and wants to fire cannons at the castle to make it look even more romantic. - Some rave about Heidelberg, others complain about the high prices, even Lessing - in love with a Heidelberg girl - desperately squandered money playing the lottery. Traveling to or through the city by carriage or sleigh was also often dangerous, which is why Knigge invents a moose test for carriages in Heidelberg and incidentally rescues the first female hitchhiker of the stagecoach era. At the same time, the women of the Romantic period - such as Bettina von Arnim, Sophie Mereau (married name Brentano) and Clara Schumann - dared to take an epoch-making step: they emancipated themselves through writing and their own compositions and began to "let life rain down on them" (Rahel Varnhagen) far away from the domestic hearth.

A special evening of Romanticism that brings Heidelberg in the 19th century to life in all its facets - in summer and winter - with many unknown, serious and humorous incidents from Heidelberg's poetic-musical city history and with Romantic pieces of music by Robert and Clara Schumann, among others.

220 years of Heidelberg Romanticism - 220 years of the literary history of the Gloria Cinema

What better place to celebrate 220 years of Heidelberg Romanticism than where it was born: in today's Gloria-Kino, where the publishing house "Mohr und Zimmer" was located at the beginning of the 19th century. Not only was Brentano and Arnim's famous song collection "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" published here, which continues to inspire composers worldwide to this day, numerous important Romantics published their writings at "Mohr und Zimmer".
A bookshop, a literary lunch table and an almost legendary reading society were attached to the same building complex, where Romantics such as Arnim, Brentano and Görres themselves played a lively and friendly game of "potholing" with their actual "arch-enemies", the followers of classicism. In 1817, Karl Baedeker, whose name has long since become a global brand, was apprenticed to Mohr, and the "Baden Baedeker", as the Heidelberg professor and ambitious travel writer Aloys Schreiber was known, was also a frequent guest at 146 Hauptstraße.
The literary history of today's Gloria cinema continues until 1935, when Hermann Lenz, as a student, lived in a room above the projection room and wrote about his impressions of Heidelberg in "Other Days".