Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Kongsberg - Where Silver is King

Wednesday July 1 we enjoyed our final breakfast at Per’s, following which Per played some music for us, first on his Hammond B3, and then on one of his accordions. He is an excellent musician, and we heard more evidence of this in the car on the way to Kongsberg as he played us a recording from a band he was part of. He also gave us a CD of his most recent recording and we look forward to being able to play it when we get back to Canada.

Per and Truls drove us to Kongsberg (saving us from taking the train, a very generous act on their part). Along the way they showed us various places of interest (and told us that the round straw bales wrapped in white plastic are known in Norway as tractor eggs). We saw the largest Ski Jump in Norway, and I wondered if that sport would ever grow in Canada. With the Olympic facilities in Calgary I thought that might have happened, but perhaps we are too stuck on hockey (which is not a big sport in Norway unlike its neighbour Sweden). The Ski Jump facility in Oslo could hold crowds of over 50,000 spectators, it is a big deal in Norway.

In Kongsberg we settled into our Hostel Room - and were pleased to discover that it was a nice facility, but unfortunately it had no air conditioning (and our room faced south, so it got a little warm to say the least). Of all the hostels I have been in I think this may have been the nicest, but then again it was also the most expensive to stay in by far (but cheaper than staying in one of the local hotels which were twice as much money or more!) Speaking of money, Kongsberg was originally a town built around the silver mines, and silver is the theme of the city. From what I understood the coins for Norwegian currency have been minted in Kongsberg as long as there have been Norwegian coins - we saw the building where the Royal Norwegian Mint is currently housed.

Beth and I wandered around in the afternoon (with the purpose of finding the venues for the evening concerts at the Jazz Festival). The Tubaloon (a special structure designed for the Jazz Festival as their main stage), was actually quite close to our Hostel - right next to the famous Kongsberg Church. This structure, partially framework, and partially inflated fabric, is supposed to represent the inner ear in a stylized manner… certainly is interesting to look at.
We didn’t think the Kongsberg Church was much to look at from the outside, but we had some time and so we went in (had to pay admission however). The inside took us completely by surprise - baroque and big (seated 2400). Apparently the church was designed by two architects, the first was a pietist who didn’t have much use for excessive adornment, he was responsible for the exterior of the building. After he died another architect took over, and he was a flamboyant man - which accounted for the drastically different approach to the interior. Some interesting features of this church:
- the pulpit was built into the altar piece (right above the altar and below the pipe organ - see the picture, that‘s the pulpit and altar - note the large silver candlestick holders).
- there was a box for royalty (just like a theatre box) still used today only for royal visits.
- the main chandeliers were made with multi-coloured glass (very unique and very expensive).
- the altar faces west (rather than east) because this was the direction of the mountain with the silver in it, something the Kongsberg folks felt was a blessing from God (though to me it almost seemed like it was a subtle statement about the worship of money rather than God).

During our time looking about the church we heard the Danish Big Band warming up outside, this whet my appetite for the first concert of the evening (especially this nice synth keyboard playing… which I later found out was something else). Following our time in the church we walked into the city centre, where many booths were set up selling a variety of goods: hand crafted jewellery, clothes, art items, and so forth. We found the Kino (or Cinema) where the Tord Gustavsen concert would be later in the evening and then we headed back to our room where we rested and did a little internet work (the hostel had free internet!)

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