My Trip to Switzerland

Here are two pictures. The map of Switzerland shows with the white markers the three places that I will be staying. The first, at the very top of the picture, is the Isle of Reichenau. It is an island in Lake Constnace which is technically in Germany, but just across the Swiss Border. I will be staying there from July 22-24. Very near it, on a penninsula jutting out into the lake, is the town of Constance where there is a Cathedral which was once seat of the largest diocese in Germany. (The second picture shows more detail) It was for this cathedral that Heinrich Isaac was commissioned in 1508 to write the Choralis Constantinus - a polyphonic setting of the propers of the Mass for the liturgical year. (It was also where the Council of Constance was held in 1414.)

The next white marker is placed at the town of Appenzell (famous for its cheese and not giving women the right to vote until 1989) from which I will be visiting the famous chant connected monasteries of St. Gall and Einsleiden. I will be here from July 24-26.

The final place in Switzerland will be Muestair, which is the last white marker in the south-eastern corner of Switzerland just across the border from Italy. I will be there from July 26-29. I will probably hear some Italian , but this is supposedly in the Romansh-speaking section of Switzerland, so I may here some of that. "Romansh," as I have had further clarified is thought to have come directly from a "vulgar Latin," which was a rather degraded form of Latin which is the step reached in the 9th century just before the early forms of the Romance languages (Italian, Spanish, French, etc.). So when I find out my landlord has finally finished constructing the new steps to my apartment, they wouldn't necessarily understand me if I said, "Habemus gradus!"

Finally, I will be in Munich, Germany (hoping to visit the actual chapel in the Imperial residence where Lassus' pieces were first performed) from July 29-Aug. 1.