The temperature table here is from my Fodor’s Vienna 1988. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently as drought and heat persist in Austria. I’m off to the Vienna Woods today for a walk in what (the forecast tells me), about 40 years ago, would have been the average maximum afternoon temperature in July.
While my brother sends me photos of trees in Northern New England sporting their reds, oranges, and yellows, many trees here are showing a lot of brown.
Sometimes it breaks my heart what we are doing to this beautiful planet we have the privilege of living on.
Vienna used to have the classic end-of-summer and end-of-winter sales, the kind of event my grandmothers would have recognized. No fast fashion. No really cheap shops. People bought a few well-made things and wore them for years or made such clothes themselves — or had them made.
Those who could afford to do it bought these well-made and not-cheap items before the sales. The rest of us waited and then competed with each other to snag the items of our dreams. (I remember one time when I ran up the down escalator to get in ahead of the very long line at a well-known establishment on Mariahilfer Straße. I was younger, more agile, and less principled in those days.)
This weekend I am re-reading Madeleine St. John’s “The Women in Black” about the saleswomen in Ladies’ Cocktail and Model Gowns respectively and the Christmas season at Goode’s, a fictional department store in Sydney in the late 1950s. (The film, which I saw on Netflix, strays a bit but is still enjoyable. I devoured Julia Ormond’s portrayal of Magda, the Slovene “reffo” or refugee.)
I have just gotten to the chapter on the post-holiday sales and was flooded with memories, like the one above, of how it used to be in Vienna.
“The great doors opened and the phalanx of grim-faced viragos cantered through the breach and down the marble steps; it took a good five minutes for the whole formation to pass him as the Ruritanian lieutenant-colonel [doorman], standing well clear, reviewed it … the scene at Goode’s for the next ten days would be, not to put too fine a point on it, a battlefield; honors would be won, and, indeed, merited; trophies would be displayed; lives might not be lost but wounds of one kind or another would most certainly be sustained; the sale was now in progress.”
(Actually, that bit about wounds being sustained makes me think even more of Filene’s Basement in the good old days of bargain-hunting in Boston, also no longer as it was. Nonetheless. )
Suddenly, from a different era and an entirely different context a line came to me. A former student of mine, now a colleague, published a book called “Friction” a few months ago. It’s about how convenience removes friction in our lives, which is, of course, the whole idea, and what it costs us, individually and societally, in terms of health and personal development to have that friction removed. My biggest takeaway from “Friction” so far is “Needs met by default [never hungry, never too hot or too cold] blunt the gratitude that came with meeting them.”
Apparently, those good old sales were good for gratitude — and character building.
Just a quick note to go back to “The Women in Black”. Hilary Mantel’s comment about it was, “The book I most often give as a gift to cheer people up.” And it’s easy to see why.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to try to cover all of them. That would be the work of a lifetime! I’d just like to mention three I love who epitomize a kind of gentleness — and strength — as well as clarity in their playing.
There is my mother’s favorite: Alfred Brendel, probably one of the greatest pianists of all time.
Then there is my favorite Viennese pianist, whom I’ve written about here before, Helmut Deutsch, who usually works with singers, most often Jonas Kaufmann. (Friends in the meantime know that I go to lieder recitals mainly to hear Deutsch play and suggest recitals accordingly.) I’ve put links to the previous posts about Deutsch below.
Recently, I rediscovered one of my first (pianist) loves: Walter Klien. I have, still on cassette, a recording that includes this Brahms waltz, one of the most soothing and uplifting pieces of music I know, as well as Schumann’s “Kinderszenen”, which I can’t hear without thinking of Judy Davis, Sam Neill, and “My Brilliant Career”. I didn’t know until today that Klien also worked with some of the great singers of his age. Here is a recording of Richard Strauss’s “Die Nacht” he made with the renowned German bass-baritone, Hans Hotter.
And so a bit of music and a homage to three great Austrian pianists.
*Links to previous posts about Helmut Deutsch here*
The city of Vienna offers very interesting and well-organized public lectures, held in the very beautiful ceremonial hall of City Hall, and I noticed at some point, with some surprise, that I have become not a lady who lunches but a lady who goes to lectures.
The topic this evening is artificial light and its impact on us and the natural world. Of course there are benefits like increased security, but the cost is quite high. Not only can it be literally fatal for animals — birds, for example, that at night usually navigate by the light of the moon, lose their way and fly into buildings — but it’s not very healthy for us either. Street lights can upset our circadian rhythms, measurably disturb the length and quality of our sleep, and are correlated to depression, among other health problems.
Luckily, there are things we can do. As the speaker, Florian Stuker, put it, this is literally an environmental challenge with an off switch. 😉 Much of what he said wasn’t new to me (Vienna has been changing the streetlamps so that they still provide enough light for safety but don’t shine quite so brightly and diffusely). What was new was the idea that there are dark zones, one in a national park in Austria, so that we can all rediscover what a natural night looks like. My next holiday, I think.
In need of a bit of fresh air, I went off to walk along the Donaukanal this evening. My first summer in Vienna, when I was preparing for my audition at the conservatory, I went every evening. I was living in a student residence (katholische Hochschülerinnenheim) on Servitengasse in the 9th and would walk over as a part of my fitness regime.
High time I came again. It is beautiful with the trees and green, swiftly flowing water. I didn’t used to come up to Spittelau, where the famous Hundertwasser trash incinerator is, but I’m glad I did this evening.
And the linden trees are getting started. There was promise in the air yesterday evening. After a temperature of 31°C (high 80s Fahrenheit) today, they are flooding the air with their perfume.
All in all, a nice evening constitutional on this “Pfingstmontag” (Whitmonday) holiday.
