Alexander Rehding is Professor of Music Theory at Harvard Univeresity. His research is located at the intersection of history and theory, concentrating on German music and music theory between the 18th and 21st centuries. Rehding spent 2005/2006 as a Humboldt Fellow in Berlin, completing a study of monumentality in 19th-century German music.

Does it ever seem strange to you to be teaching German music theory in the US rather than in Germany?

Very rarely. In Germany it's far too easy to think of German music as all there is. Think of the big Bs: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms--they are sometimes used to stand in for Music, period. or, as one of my teachers likes to call it, 'Music-with-a-k." In the US German music is just one tradition among many others, though admittedly a very prominent one. In talking about German music in the US, there is much less I can take for granted. I have to explain the political, philosophical and ideological background a lot more. Often it's quite beneficial--for the students as well as for me--to have to explain and justify every step of the story.

Do you follow the popular music scene in Berlin?

Well, the main attraction for me was the amazing concert and opera scene in Berlin. I tried to take in as much as possible. There is so much going on at all levels--I was quite taken by the sound installations that were going on everywhere, and a lot of it was really interesting, innovative work.

Where can you find great jazz in the city?

This is probably the point to blow the trumpet for Michael Schiefel, an incredibly talented jazz singer, who does amazingly virtuosic things with his voice. He performs with a quintet, and a tentet, but his solo albums are some of the most stunning things you're likely to hear. He performs at lots of venues in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany, but I heard him at a great jazz club in Mitte called B-flat.

Can you make any suggestions on getting tickets for concerts in Berlin

Sure. If you're a student you should definitely find out about student rates--you can get them for virtually all big concerts and opera performances, but eaach venue has its own pricing system. Some will let students in half an hour before the show starts and will sell all their remaining tickets for next to nothing; that's the case for instance at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Others will have a regular 50% discount that starts a week before the concert, such as the Deutsche Oper and the Philharmonie (that's the home of the Berlin Philharmonic, and one of the great concert halls of the world-- don't miss it).

Why do so many Germans belong to choruses

Do they? You know, I went to university in Britain, and I've always thought of the choral scene there as much more active than in Germany, but I suppose you're right. Well, my guess would be that Germans like to be organized in amateur societies. Such "Vereine" (all with their proper registration) have always been a very important part of Germany's social fabric, and many of the big composers--Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and let's not forget Schoenberg-- have written choral works specifically for amateurs.

Why are you interested in "monumentality" in 19th-century German music, or is that too big a question?

It definitely is a big question. German post-war culture has had its problems with monumentality: if you look around yourself in Berlin - talking about architecture and sculpture for a minute rather than music - you can see what I mean. On the one hand there are clear aspirations of grandeur, trying to make the new capital of the reunified Germany as impressive as possible. Paris and London are always at the points of comparison here. On the other hand, the idea of bombastic showiness has fallen into complete disrepute, not least because of what the Nazis did in the name of monumentality.

Speer's plans for Berlin were probably the pinnacle of what might be possible in terms of monumental architecture. Berlin in the 21st century is trying very hard, and I think quite successfully, to come up with an alternative. Think of all the stunning projects of the recent years: Christo covering up the Reichstag - making a nineteenth-century monument quite literally disappear before our eyes; the central holocaust memorial that occupies a huge space in the middle of the city and carefully tries to avoid any obvious and stable signification; the fragmented architecture of Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Kreuzberg.

Or take my favorite commemorative space, the holocaust memorial in Schoeneberg. It's nothing but a number of signs put up along the streets at irregular intervals in a purely residential area. Each sign shows one law that the Nazis dreamt up to terrorize the Jews and make their lives impossible on a day-to-day level; some are so stunning in their specificity that you really wonder how anyone would spend their time just to come up with things like "Jews are only allowed to buy bread between the hours of 4 and 5." Hannah Arendt was right on the money with her idea of the banality of evil. The whole of the "Bayerisches Viertel" is covered with these signs in the most innocuous places. It couldn't be any less impressive or monumental in style, it's totally unobtrusive and yet, it really gives you pause to reflect on that chapter in German history like few other lieux de memoire.

But I digress. You asked me about music. My interest in music is not a million miles away: what fascinates me about monuments is, well, how they are so fascinating: what are the psychological mechanisms that overwhelm us, sometimes manipulate us, certainly are meant to impress us, make us think and often bestow a sense of identity on us? It's easiest to think about monuments in the sculptural or architectural sense, but the same mechanisms are possible in music, too.

Do you like to lie on the grass?

Hmmm. It's a change, I suppose, from the usual hand-on-your-cheek pose that are favored on the dustcovers of books. But there's of course a way to link this question back to Berlin: during the warm months I always liked to get out to the Tiergarten. My library of choice, a small specialized music library, housed right next door to the Philharmonie, bordered on the Tiergarten, so getting out during my lunchbreak was easy. If you're located further West or South-East don't forget to visit the amazing lakes that are all over the city. The Wannsee may be the best known but there are plenty more, and they all make for a great getaway.