From afar, the windows of the Stone Hall in the center of Nymphenburg Palace shine through the night. This complete work of art by Francois Cuvilliès and Johann Baptist Zimmermann is equipped with magnificent chandeliers, a ceiling fresco that shows the Olympic heavens with a hopeful rainbow, much admired by tourists from all over the world, but rarely used for its original purpose, celebration.
This evening there are rows of chairs set up and an improvised stage, because this room with the stone floor is a classic concert hall, but then again it’s not. Nevertheless, star violinist Anne Sophie Mutter is now playing here, together with her scholarship holders. Your gift to Franz Duke of Bavaria on his 90th birthday. “Tonight is also a kind of final chord in a series of celebrations surrounding my special birthday,” the celebrant addressed the guests, “I am deeply moved.”
Yes, a lot has happened this year: for example the thanksgiving service on the said birthday (July 13th), the wedding of the nephew, Ludwig of Bavaria, the designated next head of the Wittelsbach household, and the book publication of Franz of Bavaria’s memoirs. They not only reminded us of his childhood, which he spent with his family in concentration camps and on the run; They also caused a certain stir with words about his relationship with his partner Thomas Greinwald.
Franz Duke of Bavaria with Thomas Greinwald at the wedding of Ludwig Prince of Bavaria with wife Sophie Alexandra Evekink in front of the Theatinerkirche.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
As on his 70th and 80th birthdays, the Duke once again asked for donations to the Nymphenburg Aid Association, which his parents founded in 1956, instead of gifts. In 2023, a lot of money flowed into medical equipment for Ukraine. The association also focuses on projects in Kenya, Romania and Albania. With the donations from the collection campaigns on the occasion of Ludwig’s wedding and Franz’s birthday, the association wants to expand its work to one of the Bavaria-centered segments: the growing homelessness and old-age poverty in this country.
Every guest who sits warm and in peace under the heavens that evening has therefore given a considerable sum for it. Some say five to ten thousand euros. The number for total birthday donations will be published at the end of the year.
Anne Sophie Mutter chose music by Mozart. The string quintet in E flat major in particular, in which the cheerful, relaxed existence is so closely linked to deep melancholy, does justice to the basic tone of the evening. And anyone who knows a little about Munich’s music history may smile at another aspect: in a way, the good Wolfgang Amadeus is returning home. He had tried to be employed by the Wittelsbach family as a court musician. He was a guest in Nymphenburg several times.
But Max III. Joseph waved his hand at that time. He had to save. His predecessors had accumulated too much debt through wars, jokes and construction. The guests can see how sustainably invested the castle has been at the reception after the concert. There are no celebrities with jungle camp potential in the salons, only Munich society of entrepreneurs and nobility.
The Randlkofer family alias Dallmayr is here. BMW shareholder Susanne Klatten with her friend, the artist Andreas Slominski. Verena von Mitschke-Collande, who recently transferred shares in her company “Gieseke & Devrient” to her children. Christian Neureuther, newly widowed after Rosi Mittermeier’s death, whose great-grandfather was an artist who helped shape the Wittelsbach porcelain factory. Those from Moys, those from Werzens and Sotheby man Heinrich Graf von Spreti.
He organized the evening with Andrea Gräfin Erdöny and Katrin Stoll from the Neumeister auction house. And Katrin Stoll, in turn, is close friends with Anne Sophie Mutter, who, like all good musicians, always gives people more than money: joy, hope, comfort.