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Day 7 - Leopold Museum and Schoenbrunn Palace Concert
We spent most of the next day in the Leopold Museum, which was presented in chronological order, showing the development of Austrian art in the late 19th and early 20th century. One nice thing about it was that it made the Literature Museum more interesting in retrospect than I'd found it at the time, because the pieces and timelines started slotting together along with the political context and allowed me to enjoy this museum more. There was quite a lot of Klimt, including the Kiss, and representations of the unfinished faculty portraits, but also some less well known works, such as this landscape "Am Attersea", where he used to holiday with family friends:
Other pieces I liked were this heavily politicised Alice in Wonderland by Oscar Kokoschka
and this by Arnold Schoenburg, whom I hadn't realised was a painter as well as a composer
In the evening we went to a concert in the Orangerie of the Schoenbrunn Palace. Obviously I couldn't take photos during the performance, but I got a few of the rather splendid room before it started.
The concert wasn't entirely to my tastes. I described it as "Classical music for people who don't like Classical music", but that wasn't entirely fair, more that it was aimed at people who don't listen to much of it. It was about a third Mozart and a third Johann Strauss, with the rest a random mixture. But it was all bitty - operatic arias with no context, and the movements of a symphony interspersed with other pieces rather than all together. There was an orchestra, two singers and two dancers. The orchestra and the dancers were competent, although the choreography of two of the three dances left me a bit cold. Unfortunately one of the singers was much stronger than the other - had they both been the same standard as the baritone I don't think I would have noticed it as being poor, but he really suffered in comparison to the soprano.
Day 8 - Mass, then St Stephen's Cathedral
On Sunday morning I left Ramesh having a lie in, and went to Mass at the English-speaking anglican church in Vienna. And because the world is very small, I spotted a familar name in the parish notices, and turned round to spot one of the erstwhile members of St John's congregation, who had just joined them as a lay parish assistant. I mean, I wouldn't have been terribly surprised to run into him in Cambridge, but seriously? In Vienna? After catching each other up on church gossip over coffee we said our farewells and I headed back to the hotel to find Ramesh.
He was feeling a bit tired, and since he has rather less enthusiasm than I do for looking around churches and climbing tall things, he decided to let me visit St Stephen's Cathedral and tower by myself. I started with a guided tour of the catacombs, where photos weren't allowed, but were suitably spooky and disturbing. The main cathedral had a good audio guide, and more fabulous tat.
High Altar
St Sebastian
Side Altar
One thing that pleased me quite a lot was that I couldn't get to one of the highlighted points, a particularly blingy font, because it was being used for a baptism at the time - I find the tension in these big churches between being a place of worship and a tourist attraction quite uncomfortable at times, so it was nice to have the affirmation that it's true purpose was still being served. (And by the time I'd climbed all the towers it was open again, so I did get to see the font)
Speaking of the towers, the views from up there were pretty fabulous - somehow the city is more attractive from the middle of it than it was from the ferris wheel a little way outside, but the bit I liked best was the mosaic tiles on the cathedral roof.
We spent most of the next day in the Leopold Museum, which was presented in chronological order, showing the development of Austrian art in the late 19th and early 20th century. One nice thing about it was that it made the Literature Museum more interesting in retrospect than I'd found it at the time, because the pieces and timelines started slotting together along with the political context and allowed me to enjoy this museum more. There was quite a lot of Klimt, including the Kiss, and representations of the unfinished faculty portraits, but also some less well known works, such as this landscape "Am Attersea", where he used to holiday with family friends:
Other pieces I liked were this heavily politicised Alice in Wonderland by Oscar Kokoschka
and this by Arnold Schoenburg, whom I hadn't realised was a painter as well as a composer
In the evening we went to a concert in the Orangerie of the Schoenbrunn Palace. Obviously I couldn't take photos during the performance, but I got a few of the rather splendid room before it started.
The concert wasn't entirely to my tastes. I described it as "Classical music for people who don't like Classical music", but that wasn't entirely fair, more that it was aimed at people who don't listen to much of it. It was about a third Mozart and a third Johann Strauss, with the rest a random mixture. But it was all bitty - operatic arias with no context, and the movements of a symphony interspersed with other pieces rather than all together. There was an orchestra, two singers and two dancers. The orchestra and the dancers were competent, although the choreography of two of the three dances left me a bit cold. Unfortunately one of the singers was much stronger than the other - had they both been the same standard as the baritone I don't think I would have noticed it as being poor, but he really suffered in comparison to the soprano.
Day 8 - Mass, then St Stephen's Cathedral
On Sunday morning I left Ramesh having a lie in, and went to Mass at the English-speaking anglican church in Vienna. And because the world is very small, I spotted a familar name in the parish notices, and turned round to spot one of the erstwhile members of St John's congregation, who had just joined them as a lay parish assistant. I mean, I wouldn't have been terribly surprised to run into him in Cambridge, but seriously? In Vienna? After catching each other up on church gossip over coffee we said our farewells and I headed back to the hotel to find Ramesh.
He was feeling a bit tired, and since he has rather less enthusiasm than I do for looking around churches and climbing tall things, he decided to let me visit St Stephen's Cathedral and tower by myself. I started with a guided tour of the catacombs, where photos weren't allowed, but were suitably spooky and disturbing. The main cathedral had a good audio guide, and more fabulous tat.
High Altar
St Sebastian
Side Altar
One thing that pleased me quite a lot was that I couldn't get to one of the highlighted points, a particularly blingy font, because it was being used for a baptism at the time - I find the tension in these big churches between being a place of worship and a tourist attraction quite uncomfortable at times, so it was nice to have the affirmation that it's true purpose was still being served. (And by the time I'd climbed all the towers it was open again, so I did get to see the font)
Speaking of the towers, the views from up there were pretty fabulous - somehow the city is more attractive from the middle of it than it was from the ferris wheel a little way outside, but the bit I liked best was the mosaic tiles on the cathedral roof.
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Date: 2019-11-18 07:22 am (UTC)From: