Happy new year, rabbit rabbit, everyone. I just tore apart the most deli­cious döner sandwich here in Berlin, where the inim­itable David Kaplan and I are re-tackling Shy and Mighty. We’ve been holing up at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule (whose logo actually did fool me into thinking it was a bad steak­house) where I derive pleasure from playing long stretches of repeated minor chords while our neigh­bors practice Bach and Chopin.

The closest I’ve found to contem­po­rary music here was watching the Phil­har­monic (with Mehta) rehearse Carter’s Three Illu­sions. Who knew that even the Berlin Phil­har­monic strug­gles to keep Carter’s unpre­dictable hockets from spinning off into oblivion? They had less trouble with Strauss and Beethoven (backing up Murray Perahia, who played with impec­ca­ble limpid­ness. No, really, that’s actually how he played!). I just wanted a behind-the-scenes tour of their record­ing setup; there were some­thing like 40 micro­phones hanging over the stage, which were controlled by a tech wielding a boom-box-sized remote.

I love the Berlin subway system. Somehow the lack of turn­stiles makes it seem that much easier to hop on and off (passen­gers are instead subjected to random ticket inspec­tions on board). There are LED displays at many stations that tell you how many minutes until the next two trains (though the older, flip-card ones are more beau­ti­ful, if not as useful). I (often) wonder if anyone at MTA reads this blog.