I am astonished and pleased and happy to announce that today is the 10th anniversary of my first post. It is amazing for me to have this blog to capture special moments and thoughts about living in Vienna and to be able to share them with you. I’d like my readers to know that they belong to a small but fine group (in German: “klein aber fein”). There are about 50 of you. I may not post as often as I would wish, but it means a lot to me to be able to do so.
Thanks to the amazing generosity of a friend, I was able to go to one of the great concert occasions as we slowly and cautiously move back to going out again–the Jonas Kaufmann / Helmut Deutsch Liederabend at the Konzerthaus. What follows are just some quick impressions as it has been an exhausting week and is not over yet, but I did want to get some notes down.
The photo above shows the front of the Konzerthaus this evening, adorned with a flag that brought tears to my eyes with its jaunty text: Wir spielen! (Love the exclamation mark.) Literally that would be “We’re playing!” and essentially it means we are back in business. 🙂
The ingress was orderly and friendly even as the people at the door checked IDs, tickets, and test results. (Vienna is working on the 3-G system–gestestet, geimpft, genesen or tested, vaccinated, recovered. To take advantage of things opening up you need to fit into at least one of those groups.)
Once inside there was a kind of collective amazement at being back. Concert goers are loyal people and concert halls are often their second homes. It was like being back where we belonged.
Inside the hall itself we were very spread out, an unusual feeling for such a special concert. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that many people were more dressed up than usual and many had obviously just been to the hairdresser’s. (Why waste a test? 😉 You need them for services that involve body contact, too.) Many people seemed happy to see friends again and what was really warming to see was how much pleasure the ushers expressed at seeing their regulars again.
A note in the program (below) and announced before the start of the concert laid out the rules for “the current situation”: no intermission, to only sit in your assigned seat, when leaving the hall to allow 2 meters distance (wasn’t possible even using all the exits as requested!), and the mandatory FFP2 mask at all times, even during the performance. (Friends told me that at Salzburg last summer you were allowed to take off your mask once you reached your seat but had to put it on again before starting the applause. That didn’t turn out so well. The government, however, does seem to be learning.)
This evening’s program with the rules for the “current situation”
As the doors were closed and the lights dimmed the tension tangibly rose. Then the announcement of the rules, a brief wait, and there they were! The two extremely distinguished musicians in their tailcoats (which I appreciated). The applause was relatively quiet not from a lack of enthusiasm but rather from a lack of people. For that, it went on even longer than usual, everyone was so happy to be back.
Kaufmann sang with music rather than from memory. I can’t remember if this is usual for him. Personally I would have liked at least the first (long!) ballad without the music but it’s the artist’s choice. The songs themselves were absolutely beautifully crafted and I wondered if the time spent with Deutsch during lockdown–the two almost seemed to have quarantined together–gave Kaufmann a chance to polish that. As for Deutsch, his playing, which was always exquisite, seems to have gotten even more liquid or seamless. Incredible.
The Schubert and Schumann seemed almost subdued to me; but in the Liszt, Kaufmann let his natural flair for dramatic presentation free rein and the intensity rose. At the end of the official program, in Vienna there are (almost) always a number of encores, the two artists exchanged an elbow bump and allowed the public to express its now much louder appreciation.
A very blurry photo of the two artists
Four encores and finally a standing ovation. And then we started, with a collective sigh of contentment, to leave, few thinking about distance at that moment.
There’s a bird whose song I’ve been delighting in on our morning walk. He sits on an old TV antenna atop a roof and fills the morning air with what sounds like rapture.
I thought he was a thrush but also, thinking of Romeo and Juliet, considered that he might be a lark. I even wondered if he might be a nightingale.
This morning I decided to find out so I checked out the bird songs from all those birds, and a few others, on YouTube. (Technology is good for some things. ;-)) None of the songs seemed quite right. Then YouTube suggested the song of the “Amsel” (blackbird) and that was it! 🙂 Wikipedia then informed me that a blackbird is part of the thrush family (as is, I believe, the nightingale), which made me feel I wasn’t entirely wrong.
A nice way to start the day, including having a bit of time this morning to go down this particular rabbit hole. 🙂
The man in the cartoon is on his way to a new course at the Volkshochschule (VHS). There you have the first point. Almost every district in Vienna has its own VHS, a school that offers all kinds of courses for a very reasonable fee so that “das Volk” (the people) can go on learning and developing themselves. The course is “Raunzen wie ein Wiener” or poorly translated “Complaining like a Viennese”. “Raunzen” is one of those words that is almost intranslatable. It is a particular kind of ongoing complaining about little things and the Viennese like to engage in it. The final straw for me was one of the comments on Facebook. One Wienzig follower had written “Des kannst net lernen”–Viennese dialect for “That’s not something you can learn.” 🙂
It seems the public transportation authority in Vienna is pretty happy about Dominic Thiem’s win in the U.S. Open. 😉 The 1 tram usually travels between Prater and Stefan-Fadinger-Platz. There is not (yet), as far as I know a place in Vienna called “Thiem”.
This is something that really struck me when I moved to Austria – how the relationship between management and labor was more collaborative than in the U.S.A. There was a sense that Austria as a whole could only do well if everyone was doing all right, that economic success could not happen on the backs of one group.
In this interview, it becomes clear that Georg Kapsch is of the old school. A departing president of the body representing (big) business talking about how to close the gap between rich and poor and how to make sure everyone gets the education they need to be a contributing member of society? Seems pretty radical these days. I hope his successor is on the same page!
A link to the interview is below. Unfortunately, you do have to subscribe to the digital edition to read the whole thing.
It’s that time of year again. The linden (or lime) trees are in blossom and seducing all with their powerful and sweet fragrance. In their honor, here is Schubert’s song “Der Lindenbaum” sung by my favorite Lieder singer, Olaf Bär, accompanied by the inimitable Geoffrey Parsons. Ah.
Yes, you read that correctly. As of yesterday our restaurants are open and people are allowed to eat out. There are, of course, certain restrictions, but they don’t seem that tough.
What is really interesting and, I feel, particularly Viennese is that the city of Vienna is issuing gift certificates to each household for use in a restaurant. EUR 25 for single households and EUR 50 for families. Gives new meaning to the expression “Put your money where your mouth is,” doesn’t it?
ecbinvienna 