Vienna First Impressions and Vienna Chamber Orchestra

St Stephen's Cathedral

Today was our first full day in beautiful Vienna, capitol of Austria and former center of the Habsburg Empire. We started the day with a walking tour of the city. Our guide led us through the winding narrow passageways people used to use to go from courtyard to courtyard whilst avoiding the streets and had interesting facts and stories. Like many major European cities, we learned Vienna used to be Roman and was named after the Roman fortress Vindobona. In the 10^th century it grew as a crossroads for trade routs across Europe and in the 12^th century it became a more prominent city with a large cathedral, St Stephens. Our guide made a point of saying that the Viennese are good problem solvers, and by looking at the construction of the city it’s easy to see why. Besides the open courtyards, people also dug extensive tunnels under the city since it was difficult and more expensive to build upwards to add more floors. Also, during the gothic era rather than build a new cathedral the Viennese simply added two side aisles to their Romanesque church and a tower and a half, the second cut short due to lack of funding. Although our guide gave several other local explanations including a story about the mason’s assistant embellished with romance and a contract with the devil.  Predominantly St Stephen’s Cathedral has a late gothic style with angular arches and intricately decorated spires. Another interesting thing we learned about the cathedral was that during the Second World War the Nazis ordered Captain Gerhard Klinkicht to destroy the cathedral, but he refused. Unfortunately shortly after the Russians took Vienna from the Germans after the war the cathedral was severely damaged in a fire. Still it makes for an interesting story.

I particularly liked hearing about music history in Vienna and how many famous composers like Mozart, Hayden, and Beethoven lived and worked here. After the tour some of us went back to a traditional Viennese Kaffehaus (coffee house) where Mozart and other composers came for coffee and to premiere some of their pieces. The cafe had large velvet booths with a very turn of the century feel in its overall style. There were many different types of coffee and espresso to choose from and I also tried a piece of traditional Viennese chocolate cake, Sachertorte. It was delicious! Its amazing to think we have been walking in the footsteps of all of these famous composers and having coffee in the same cafes as Bach in Leipzig, Mozart in Salzburg, and many more here in Vienna.  

Kaffeehaus

On the subject of music, the concert we saw last night was my favorite thus far. In the Konzerthaus we saw the Vienna Chamber Orchestra play a piano concerto by Mendelssohn and a serenade by Brahms. First of all the concert hall is beautifully decorated in marble and gold leaf. The Brahms piece was beautiful, but the piano concerto was spectacular. The piece is played with two pianos and an orchestra. In addition to a guest pianist, Magda Amara, the conductor, Stefan Vladar, played the second piano and conducted at the same time. At first he would stand and conduct then sit to play his parts, but at one point he was playing the piano with his right hand while conducting the orchestra with his left. Since we were sitting in the front row we had a good view of the conductor and his talent and ability to multitask amazed me. I loved the two pianos together. Sometimes they coordinated playing at the same time and other times they echoed one another, one playing right after the other. It was wonderful. I can’t wait to return to that beautiful auditorium again tonight for the Kurt Rosenwinkel jazz concert.