City of Composers and Viennese flavors
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City of Composers
Many l7th-and 18th-century Habsburg rulers were music lovers and musicians: Leopold I was a composer. Charles VI was a violinist, and Maria Theresa played the double bass. Royal patronage drew some of the world's greatest composers to Vienna, including Beethoven and Brahms; Mozart gave his first public concert at age six in Schonbrunn's Hall of Mirrors.
The waltz is inextricably linked to Vienna thanks to Johann Strauss, the "Waltz King." and every New Year's Day The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra plays his waltzes to a billion television viewers around the world. A gilded statue of Strauss, affectionately known as "Schoni", with jaunty moustache and playing his violin, stand in City Park (Stadtpark).
In 1498 Emperor Maximilian I engaged 12 young male choristers to sing with the court orchestra. Over the following centuries some of Austria's greatest composers served their apprenticeships with the choir, including Franz Schubert and Joseph Haydn. Schubert and Haydn would have been dressed in full imperial military uniforms, like the rest of the choir. The current naval-style dress wasn't implemented until 1919.
The elaborate and gilded Musikverein was built in the 19th century as a concert venue for the city's Society of the Friends of Music. (It's here that the Vienna Philharmonic performs its New Year concert.) In 1913 the hall was the scene of a brawl between conservatives and radicals of musical taste, at a concert performed by Arnold Schonberg.
Schonberg changed the face of modern musical composition by abandoning the standard eight-tone scale familiar to the Western ear and devising a complex 12-tone system. Together with his former pupils Alban Berg and Anion von Webern, he formed the Second Viennese School of Music and continued to compose according to his new scale, despite the hostile response of the Vienna audience.
Viennese Flavors
Coffeehouses and pastry shops are two pretty good reasons for vishiiig Vienna. At the turn of the 20th century, artists, musicians and writers gathered in cafes to swap ideas, work, read or just sit, and some of their old haunts are still going strong. Slop by Braunerhof or the grand old Imperial in the former city mansion of the Duke of Wurttemberg. Customers are generally left alone lo linger in the grandiose surroundings, sipping one of the many coffee drinks.
On average, Austrians drink about 423 pints of coffee a year, and the menu usually offers dozens of varieties. Mocca is black coffee; a Kleiner or Grosser Brauner has a little milk, a Melange has more; a Fiaker is mocca with rum or brandy; and an Einspanner is a mocca with whipped cream. The cafe-Konditorei, or pastry-shop-cum-cafe, is a showcase for Vienna's pastry makers. The most famous is Demel at Kohlmarkt 14, a must for visitors.
Wine made from the most recent grape harvest is known here as Heuriger, and this is also the name for the Viennese taverns that serve it. These Heurigen stand in their own vineyards in the Vienna Woods, and serve food - usually roast meat, cheese
and salad - to soak up the wine. A small hand is likely to be playing rousing folk music, and in summer there are often long tables and benches set outside. A bunch of fir twigs is traditionally hung ouiside the tavern door to show that it's open.
Viennese cooking is plain, simple and filling. It's collectively known as Beisl - a Yiddish word introduced by traditionally Jewish tavern owners. Dishes might include boiled beef, steak with crispy onions, chopped calves' heart and lungs in sauce and - perhaps the best-known export - Wiener Schnitzel, a fried veal coated with egg and breadcrumbs. For dessert the popular choice is Strudel, fruit-filled baked dough with raisins and cinnamon (a perfect choice with a Viennese coffee).
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