April 12

4-12
We arrived in Vienna around 2:30, and by the time we found our hostel and got all checked in and settled it was after 3. The first thing we did was go to Mozart’s house (this was my city after all, and my choice of sightseeing. Jen had Budapest). The museum was really cool; they had some original manuscripts and scores, and programs of the premieres of Mozart’s works. There were also portraits of him and his family, and some decorations of the house the way it would have been. It was exciting to see Mozart’s clavichord! They also had this really cool thing where they had the scenery of Magic Flute set up in a little glassed off stage. Then they played a movie of just the actors with no background on the ceiling, and the way it reflected off the glass it looked like the actors were holographs on the stage set up. It was really cool!
By the time we were done there it was almost 6, and most everything was getting ready to close. Wait, we didn’t spend 3 hours in there. I guess the time was taken up by traveling. Oh, and I think we explored Stephensplatz for a while, too. That’s the square where St. Stephen’s Cathedral is. We saw it from the outside but didn’t go in that first day. Anyway, since everything was closing, we decided to grab some dinner and walk around the city. I think the Viennese have some sort of fascination with colored lights, because there were lots of colored flood lights shining on the buildings, and in one building there was purple light shining out of every window. It looked pretty cool, but wasn’t anything I would have expected. We found a big fountain that changed colors, too. It was nice sitting around the edge listening to the water and feeling the spray. The only thing was that it was after dark and I was getting cold. We went back to our hostel to get an earlyish night, since Jen had to leave super early the next morning.
Jen said she would wake me when she left at 5 or 6 so that I would know she got off ok, but when I woke up she was gone. I still had this huge list of things I wanted to do in Vienna, so I had my day cut out for me. First I went to Schloss Schoenbrunn, which was the one thing I wanted to see most. It was beautiful. The outside was bright yellow, which was kind of surprising. I heard later in Salzburg that all the palaces in Austria are yellow to imitate Schoenbrunn. I got to see the state rooms where the Hapsburg emperors lived, which was cool because we just got done talking about the Spanish branch of Hapsburgs in my history class. The inside of the palace was, of course, lavishly decorated, with carpets and upholstered chairs, and paintings and the like. There was also a set of rooms that were original from the time of Empress Maria Theresa, who was responsible for expanding the palace. (Fun fact: she’s the mother of Marie Antoinette). There was one room with bright yellow and blue floral wallpaper, which looked a little like it belonged in an old-fashioned kitchen. Actually, it was faded from age, but there was a sample recreation with the original colors, and it was vibrant. One of the rooms had the most extravagantly embroidered red velvet bed I’ve ever seen. There was a tour passing through that room when I was there, and the guide was saying that no one ever actually slept in the bed. It was used for state occasions, such as after a prince or princess was born, the empress would sit on that bed with the baby to receive guests. Or if the empress was sick, she would sit there for meetings or something like that. But it was a ridiculous bed. I would have been afraid to even sit on it and ruin the embroidery.
Behind the palace were gardens, a maze, and a zoo. I didn’t go to the zoo or maze, and I only saw part of the gardens. I was on a strict schedule, after all. But there was a really cool fountain of Neptune or something like that that was just across the way that I saw.
After the palace I went to Karlskirche, which is a beautiful church with a big dome. It was really cool, because you could take an elevator all the way up to the top of the dome to get a view of the city. It was cool to be that high up inside the church. I was really close to all the frescos of the angels and cherubs; I could almost touch the walls of the dome. I was close enough to notice that what looked like red and white marble from the ground was actually just regular stone painted white and streaked with red paint. Someone was taking shortcuts and scrimping on money. J The view of the city was awesome. You could see the spires of St. Stephen’s Cathedral not too far away, and the river winding through the buildings. It was beautiful. Back down on the ground, there was a little table with pamphlets telling about the “blessed” Emperor Charles, for whom the church is named. I picked one up to read later because I thought it might have some information about the church. I finally got around to looking at it after I got home, and it was just the story of his reign and I was about to throw it away. But then I noticed on the back: “Prayer.” There is a prayer to Emperor Charles on the back of this brochure. Now I’m not one to get all high and mighty about religion, but I balked a little bit at this. This man may have been a great king, but he wasn’t a god. Not even a saint. How does anyone get away with praying to him to “intercede with God on our behalf”? That seemed beyond strange to me. Anyway, back to the task at hand.
Next I went and saw the Staatsoper, which is the opera house, and I have probably destroyed the spelling of it. It is a beautiful building, with pillars and arches all along the sides and fountains out front on either side of the main entrance. I couldn’t go in, but seeing the outside was good enough. I just love all this European architecture! Not to mention imagining how many of the composers I know and love had performed there over the centuries! (Just wait . . . the nerdulation has just begun! J)
The Hofburg palace was next on the list. It’s a complex of buildings, most of which are museums. The museum I went to was that of historical musical instruments! (See, I told you.) It went from simple drums and bells from I don’t know how many thousands of years ago up to modern instruments, including a brief explanation of12-tone theory. It was really cool to see some of the predecessors to modern day instruments. There were tons of strings—violins, cellos, gambas—and also dulcimers, guitars and lutes. There were even a couple double guitars. There were also lots of reed instruments, including the precursor to the bassoon (which I though was interesting for obvious reasons) and several of these instruments that look kind of like snaky, spiraly bassoons or something. I really want to know what they sound like. There were lots of harps of different shapes and sizes, often with cool carvings or decorations on the pillars and soundboards. And, of course, there were harpsichords, clavichords and pianos of every shape and size. There was even this one that was an experiment of a portable piano. It was shaped vaguely like a harp, with an accordion-like keyboard along the side at the bottom, and a shoulder strap. I think it was a failure, because it looked to me like it would neither be very portable nor sound anything like a piano. There was even a bagpipe in one of the cases! It was very cool and extremely interesting.
After that, I went to St. Stephen’s Cathedral to actually go inside this time. One of the towers was burned during the bombings of World War II, and it’s still under construction or refurbishment or something, so there was a big thing covering that one tower. I don’t think I’ve seen a cathedral yet that hasn’t been under construction in some way or another! But about the inside: what can I say? Another beautiful cathedral with stained glass, tall columns, lots of paintings, and cold as the stone it’s made from. I have noticed something, though. In Spain, all the cathedrals are set up the same, with the chapels all the way around the outsides, the sanctuary area in the middle, and the choir area behind the pews, walled off in its own little section. In other countries, however, they’re set up differently. Most of the ones I’ve seen have had the altar in the front, chapels on the sides, and the organ up on a balcony above the door. There are some variances to this, too. Some don’t even have chapels at all, just paintings or statues lining the sides. I wonder if all the Spanish ones are the same because of the strict unified Catholic history starting with Ferdinand and Isabella. I don’t know when the cathedrals were made in relation to their reign. That would be something interesting to find out.
Next I went to Stadtpark, which is the city park where there are statues of a bunch of composers. The most famous one is the Johann Strauss statue, but there were also Schubert, Bruckner, and Zelinka (I think that’s a composer, right?). There were several other statues of people I had never heard of and I don’t know if they were composers or not. Around the city are several other statues and monuments to composers: Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart. I also went to see the houses of Strauss, Schubert, Beethoven, and Haydn, but since it was a Monday and everything’s closed on Mondays, I couldn’t go in. I went to the Arnold Schoenberg Center, too, but it looked like an office building. I went in and in the main area there were photos of Schoenburg, and it said “Arnold Schoenburg Center 4th Floor,” but when I went up there it looked like somewhere I shouldn’t be, so I left. That’s all right. I wasn’t sure I wanted to give my patronage to the man who invented 12-tone anyway! J Just kidding. But seriously, some of that stuff just barely qualifies as music. I know there are those of you who are shaking your heads right now and disagreeing with me, but I don’t care. You can listen to your Schoenberg and Webern and Berg, and leave me to my Brahms!
I went back to my hostel exhausted that night. I had fit in what was supposed to be two days of sightseeing into one. I was up and about for over 10 hours! And my feet were killing me. So I went back before it was even dark and read until bedtime. In the morning I got up early and hopped on the train to Salzburg.
To be continued . . . .