Vienna waits for you

I went on study abroad to Vienna at the tender age of 19, and it has been not until I was older that I realized how lucky I was on that trip.

I went to school at an institute founded sometime after the war to build friendship between Americans and Austrians. It was founded an run by an Austrian PhD who had been a celebrated teacher at the Austrian equivalent of Eton. His interest in Americans had come about because he studied at a university in Arizona just after the war as a part of an American-Austrian exchange (a find musician, he even played in the marching band). By the time I studied at the institute, his wife and son had taken over the administration and he only taught part time. I was fortunate to have him as my Austrian culture and history professor. Although a very traditional historian, he taught us a love and appreciation for Austrian and European history from prehistory to contemporary times. I remember particularly his pale blue eyes gleaming when he told us something he really enjoyed or when he would make us sing folk songs associated with a particular historical figure - Napoleon, Andreas Hofer, Prince Eugene, etc.

We were in awe of him, although some of my classmates found him a bit comical, mostly for his rather dramatic lectures. One of the most memorable was when he told us about his experiences in the war. He was only a teenager in the final days, but with the desperate times and the Russians approaching he was drafted into the army working in anti-aircraft. He was captured by the Russians three times and managed to escape all three times, although he commented that he was only able to do this because he was young and stupid.

As apart of the lecture on Austria in the war, he commented that Innsbruck, like in the Napoleonic war, had freed itself from the Nazi. But when the American army got there coming north from Italy they thought they had reached Munich. As he said this he had progressed in his lecturing to where he was standing right in front of me and was now looking at me, and I felt like he was expecting a response. So I said, "Well, the Americans have never been very good at geography." He looked at me, blinked, and then started laughing.

The institute was at the edge of downtown Vienna, just set back from the ring, and across the street from the Vienna State Opera house:



It was very handy to go to the opera after class, although we had to fight off the old ladies for a spot in the standing room. My roommate had been a ballet major until a respiratory illness forced her to quit. Consequently I went to the ballet too with someone who could tell when and why to be impressed.

We lived in an Art Nouveau style apartment just ten minutes south of the opera and the institute, just off of the Naschmarkt open air market and around the corner from the famous Otto Wagner apartment buildings:





In the other direction and just a short walk down Gumpendorferstrasse was our favorite of the Viennese cafes, Cafe Sperl, which is still my favorite:



Viennese pastries are divine, and we would enjoy a piece of Torte with a Himbeersoda or hot chocolate. I probably should do a whole post dedicated to my favorite Vienna cafes and pastries.

Also on Gumpendorferstrasse is my absolute favorite Italian ice cream parlor. It was run by two old friendly Italian men who made a mean Spaghettieis - ice cream made to look like spaghetti. I went there the day before I left and we chatted as I ate my Spaghettieis. Then an old Viennese woman came in and started talking with us too, and took a liking to me and insisted on buying me five more scoops of ice cream. I enjoyed talking with them (she was proud that her father had actually seen (or met, I can't remember) the Emperor Franz Joseph) but I was quite sick when we finished, but in a sort-of I will never have Italian ice cream this good again.

My host was the daughter of a late famous Austrian actor (who even had some success in Hollywood) and fairly prominent cellist. She had been a musician in her youth, but had married a musician so had given it up and become a nurse. She worked nights and slept days, so we didn't see too much of her, but she was quite eccentric so we got along great.

She loved that I played the violin and helped me find a teacher while I was there. My teacher happened to be an American who had married an Austrian violinist when she was quite young who was forty years older than she. When he died, she remained in Vienna and had a number of students and musical acquaintances. One of the highlights of my musical career came about because she organized an evening of chamber music at the home of one of her friends. She discovered that I played a little viola, so she got quite excited that finally she and some students could play the Brahms string sextets. She lent me her viola and I got busy learning the music.

One night we all gathered at a student's home and played the sextets through with a small audience. I love chamber music and in my imagination the highest level of heaven is reserved to play string trios, quartets, quintets, and sextets. Playing Brahms string sextets with sympathetic players and listeners with no other purpose than to play Brahms string sextets in Vienna the quintessential Hausmusik/Kammermusik setting is the closest I've come to that heaven (although a close second was a Trout play-in I will have to describe some other time).

My host heard about our musical evening and arranged to come since she dearly loved music and her friend was playing cello. She quite enjoyed it and everyone quite enjoyed having a minor celebrity and it was a lovely, lovely evening.

Since I'm on the topic of music and Vienna, I will include one last story. Partly this is because of a trend in my church to treat instrumental as inferior to vocal music, or that the value of instrumental music comes from text associations one has with the music (ie familiar hymns are acceptable to play not because the music is particularly moving, but because it will remind the audience of the lyrics). One Sunday night I came home late either from traveling somewhere or being at a performance. When I got in, my host was in the living room watching a broadcast of performances from a Bach festival in Leipzig. She insisted that I sit down and watch it with her, which wasn't difficult to do since I love Bach. Bach not only wrote for the church, but was a religious man who devoted much of even his secular music to God. The music and the performances were so good we watched them till 3 or 4 in the morning. By the end we were exhausted, but both spiritually moved. She said something to the effect that its hard to listen to Bach and not believe there is a God. If a non-practicing Catholic can feel the spirit through Bach, I guess you can understand why a certain organ professor and Bach aficionado tells the composer of Mormon pop who deliberately make money through cheap manipulations of emotion to go to hell.

But since is trying not to be a ranting blog I will stop with my complaints about music in the church. Music for me is a spiritual matter and being in Vienna and being with people who felt the same way was a lucky and rare occurrence. As time passes I realize just how fortunate I was to have those experiences, since they are becoming fewer and farther between as I age and have fewer opportunities and less ability to play. I satisfy my Vienna cravings by listening to a bit of Bach and Beethoven with my husband and cry over Mahler and Strauss (Richard, not a Johann) on my own. And eating Milka and Manner helps.