2009 Musical Tour

On Saturday, March 28, a company of intrepid Norfolkers will be embarking on the Festival’s first ever trip to two of the world’s most musical cities — Vienna and Prague. We will visit the Lobkowitz and Esterhazy palaces and Villa Betramka, fabulous homes to the aristocratic patrons of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Every night will feature a performance in one of the historic opera houses: the Estates Theater in Prague where Mozart’s Don Giovanni received its premiere; the Prague National Theater, home to Smetana; the incomparable Vienna State Opera; and the Theater an der Wien, birthplace for the delightful operettas of Johann Strauss. We will be visiting Haydn anniversary celebrations throughout the countryside, and there will be plenty of stops for pastry and champagne! Join us here throughout the week as one of our fellow travelers reports on the day’s discoveries. We will have plenty of pictures. Unfortunately we cannot supply the whipped cream!

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A bit about our tour correspondent in his own words…

Who am I? I am a retired Yale grad — BA History, 1960-63, 1966-67 — who lives year round in Norfolk, and enjoys the Chamber Music Festival greatly, as does my wife . She is English. We lived for nearly 40 years in London, where we raised three children and where I worked in investment management. I am 66, have only some of my hair but all of my teeth. I ski in the winter and garden in the summer. Plus we are Labrador people. Our two - mother and daughter — keep me active.

I have been to Austria and to the Czech Republic a number of times before. I actually went to the Abbey of St. Florian, where Paul’s favorite, Bruckner, played the organ for the monks, with the Yale Glee Club in the summer of 1963. I think that we sang there and in Vienna but my memories are vague.

My trips to Prague were on business — I made a specialty of investing in emerging markets. I also took my Japanese boss, Nakanishi-san, there in 1999. Nakanishi wanted to revisit places where he had done business as a young salaryman in the 1960s. To put it mildly, he wasn’t an ideal companion for enjoying Prague. My expectations for this trip are infinitely higher.

My limited knowledge of German and German food comes from my two years in Augsburg, Germany in 1964-65 where my time was spent as an army enlisted man in the 24th Infantry Division. Very cold and wet it was, too, especially firing the guns out in the German woods. Still, if you like big guns, the self-propelled 155 mm howitzer is the ultimate in toys for boy.                 – Tony Thomson

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DAY 1

Prague was a delight. We arrived on an excellent Austrian Airlines flight. The business class is up to Singapore standard for food, and only some weird glitch with the entertainment system prevented me from enjoying the new James Bond with my tagliatelli and rich torte. We met Paul Hawkshaw as we walked into the Hotel Paris, a charming old art nouveau building in the heart of Prague.

Our party consists of a few other couples, Paul and a guide Ulrike, a Viennese lady of a certain age and rather traditional Germanic opinions but much knowledge of Prague and Vienna.

My wife had never been to Prague and was thrilled by it. The setting is magnificent with the great castle of the Hapsburgs dominating the Moldau River below and the town. Everyone in Prague during the Empire knew their place by their relation to the castle and the angle of their neck when looking up at the castle. Having arrived after the others, we two had Ulrike and Paul as our guides to the castle and cathedral.

That night we joined the others and had dinner at a splendid restaurant by the river, The Bellevue. A food nouveau experience. Venison carpaccio among other treats.

DAY 2

Monday we went to the Bertramka, the country house of the Duchek where Mozart stayed. Mozart thought that Prague had better orchestras than Vienna, according to Paul who gave us a fascinating informal talk in the Bertramka. Frau Duchek was a talented singer who performed at the requiem given in Prague at the Church of St. Nicholas, a baroque wonder, a few weeks after Mozart’s death.

Of course Mozart’s Prague was a city of German music. The Czech music renaissance came later. We went to see the grave of Smetana. Alas, there a member of our party had a bad fall and we learned today that she has broken her ankle. Visitors to Prague should be warned that cobblestones are everywhere. Not only are they uneven but there are stone lips.

In the afternoon my wife and I went to watch the famous old clock in the main square of Prague. This was another musically interesting experience. Some Czech children on a stage whom we hoped would perform traditional Czech dances, instead did country and western to O Susannah and O Dem Golden Slippers, while some overexcited Italian boys burst into the Italian national anthem, Fratelli d Italia, as the figure of death on the clock was striking out four o’clock.

DAY 3

The accident cast a bit of a pall on our evening trip to the marionette theater that put on a version of Don Giovanni.

Today we flew to Vienna and went to Schönbrunn, the summer palace of Maria Theresa, famous for her splendid bust on the old silver thaler, hence dollar in the USA, and her 16 children. Most paintings of Maria show her pregnant.

Now off to a wine garden.

DAY 4

We saw two members of our party off this morning at breakfast here in the Hotel Bristol — excellent and central for everything.

Then we went off in the mini-bus to Upper Austria — the Wachau or narrows of the Danube an hour west of Vienna. The weather was mild and pleasant, trees have a green haze about them though we are a week or so early for the fruit blossom except on one or two apricot trees. A lovely drive. Ulrike told us more about the unfortunate Elisabeth, wife of Franz Joseph. Elisabeth was more or less a child bride and Franz Joseph had been smitten at first sight. Elisabeth, alas, found that monarchy did not agree with her. Simply being in Vienna made her feel sick. Plus she was anorexic and adored horses. Accordingly she spent as much time as she could out of Austria. Fox hunting in England and Ireland was her particular joy.

Possibly part of Elisabeth’s problem was that she was the sister of the totally mad Ludwig II of Bavaria. In any case, she was eventually stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist who had the demise of some other royal in mind when Elisabeth turned up to board a lake steamer in, I think, Switzerland and the anarchist decided that she would do. A sad tale worthy of Hollywood.

We visited a gorgeous baroque abbey, Melk, and went through its royal quarters — the abbey functioned as an occasional watering spot for the Emperor on his travels - and gasped at the incredible stucco work and painted ceilings.

Afterwards we visited Dürnstein, in whose ruined castle Richard the Lionhearted was imprisoned when Blondel serenaded him. A wonderful lunch at Weingut Jamek and back to Vienna for the Messiah tonight. For which I am late!

DAY 5

Last night we went to the Theater an der Wien. This was the theater Emanuel Schikaneder went to after giving up the one more or less across the street where he put on the Magic Flute. Fidelio premiered in this theater. We saw a stunning performance of the Messiah. This was a brilliantly imaginative production with a sort of play within the oratorio. During the opening music a beautiful deaf actress and dancer signed out the religious theme, then the singers presented the story of a sinful but much loved man, enacted within the familiar musical framework. Sounds odd but we all thought it worked terrifically, even if all was not clear.

The costumes were contemporary and the sets, on a very large revolving stage, were of modern office rooms with gray walls and an office style carpet. The singing was splendid and even the chorus acted grippingly. The instruments were baroque and Paul said that the musician playing the natural trumpet - no valves - was one of the best he had ever heard and alone worth coming to hear. We were simply thrilled. I thought that the young bass was unforgettable. But now have forgotten his name.

Today we made a great walkabout of Vienna, guided by Paul who clearly has the knowledge of the city of someone who loves it, complete with a wiener schnitzel lunch at a traditional restaurant where Schubert used to meet his friends. In the morning we went to the Karl’s Church, a baroque masterpiece so recently restored that the works elevator was left in place. My wife and I went to the top of the elevator then walked up to right under the top of the dome, just under the dove signifying the Holy Ghost in the newly repainted stucco. Much new gilding everywhere.

Must rush off to be ready for the Musikverein, a shrine to Brahms and the other greats.

Later that night…

We are back from the Musikverein. Apart from the obligatory modern-ish first piece, it was a sensational combination of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and the Schumann Rhenische Symphony. I thought the energy of the playing and the tone were perfect — also very precise. The acoustics of the hall are amazing, especially obvious to me since I spent too much time in the artillery when young not to be aware of the odd times I can hear perfectly.

And, the young bass whose name should not be lost due to my senior moment is Florian Boesch. He has real dramatic power on top of a fine voice.

Day 6

This day began as Haydn day. We went first to Haydn’s birthplace in Rohrau, a simple white washed, thatched building in a small village. Haydn’s father was a cart wright and Haydn made his way via becoming one of the Emperors choirboys and thus receiving a good musical education. He was not a prodigy and his early life was hard.

One charming Austrian feature in the Haydn house was the chalked symbol 20-C-M-B-09. This is put up after the local children visit the house on January 6th to commemorate the wise men — Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar.

Haydn’s luck turned when he was hired by the Esterhazys. We went on to the Esterhazy Palace in the Eisenstadt in the Burgenland. Eisenstadt is a charming baroque town, the weather was fine and high spring, and the Palace wonderful to visit since they have a newly installed commemoration exhibition of the life of Haydn to commemorate his death in 1809. I spent a good time as did others listening to recordings of Haydn in the grand roccoco concert room, imagining the composer in his Esterhazy livery conducting his musicians in some new piece for the Prince. For most of Haydn’s time in Eisenstadt the Prince was a skillful musician himself who joined in chamber music performances, playing, among other instruments, an odd thing called a baryton. Paul indicated that this instrument was supplanted by the cello. The baryton has two sets of strings, one set above the other, and a body like a small cello. Must have been a $%#!&%! to tune and to play.

When the old Prince died, Haydn was kicked out fairly abruptly by his successor but went on to great triumphs in London and Vienna. Now of course it is the Esterhazys who are known only to historians and Haydn who brings the crowds to Eisenstadt and Austria and concert halls everywhere. We went to Haydn’s grave in a church nearby. Noted on his grave is Haydn’s own favorite - the tune he wrote as the Austrian national anthem but better known as that hit of the early 1940’s — Deutschland uber Alles.

That night we had two pleasant surprises. One was my wife’s and my reunion with our favorite ever au pair — Brigitte, now in Vienna but actually from the Burgenland. Brigitte was unchanged!

Then we saw Erich Korngold’s Die tote Stadt at the Vienna State Opera. The opera house is sumptuous and worth visiting just to see the interior but Korngold’s opera was a revelation for me. I had known of Korngold as one of the most talented composers of Hollywood film music. But he was a true Austrian musical wunderkind, praised by Mahler at something like the age of six and a tremendous musical success in Austria until the German anschluss in 1938.

Die tote Stadt is a psychological drama of a man grieving for his dead wife until convinced that he has met her duplicate. A dream sequence follows, supported by some alarming sets and freaky costumes, that ends with his killing his wife’s Doppelganger. But, unusually for an opera, a happy ending follows. He awakes, and realizes that he can leave Bruges, the dead city, and leave his obsession with the dead behind. Korngeld began the opera in 1917 while in the Austrian army. It was first performed in 1921 and must have addressed emotions that many were feeling in Vienna — after 1918 the head without the body of the lost Austro-Hungarian Empire and after WW I a place of many widows, grieving mothers and war memorials. Who was it who said that the only thing worse than winning a war was losing one?

Must go — we are going with Brigitte to Mozart’s Requiem at the Karlskirche. More soon about our wonderful concert and lunch at Antoinette’s — a Yale Music grad and piano star.

DAY 7

Alas, this will be the end of my blogging but there are several most important loose ends to tie up.

One was the star meal of our trip - at Taubenkobel at Eisenstadt in the middle of our Haydn day. (Taubenkobel means pigeon coop.) This is one of Austria’s best, not just in reputation but in delivery. The courses were a mix of international and local; for example, a kind of crisp palate cleanser after the main course that was made with pumpkin oil and garnished with crushed pumpkin seeds. A really unusual and memorable taste treat.

Another was our sensational recital and lunch with Antoinette Van Zabner, a Yale School of Music star who is now a professor of piano at Vienna U. She lives in a delightful flat full of paintings by young Austrian painters and many interesting/unexpected objects like a life sized cardboard cutout of John Kerry - and three grand pianos. Antoinette and her music partner, Waltraud, first played four handed Mozart on a period piano with a wooden sounding board to let us hear the delicacy of the upper register (if that is the correct term.)

Then they played Ravel’s La Valse at an heroic pace on a modern Steinway. Plus we had Othmar Müller play Beethoven on his Amati cello accompanied by his sister on the piano, then a modern Austrian solo piece that used themes from the Beethoven. Spine tingling, even though I generally don’t like modern music.

The lunch which followed was second only to the Taubenkobel extravaganza. A mango and avocado first course for Paul, baby asparagus, duck and a spectacular triple layered dessert. (The cook turned out to be Australian. Truly the world is flat.)

On our last night we went to Mozart’s Requiem in the Karlskirche. The baroque setting was visually perfect, exactly in period, but all the shiny surfaces blurred the sound somewhat. The Requiem was played on almost all period instruments, apart of course from the usual awkward lack of castrati. It is hard these days to find a good castrato when you need one.

The flight back on Austrian Airlines was even better than the one out. My hope is that the recent takeover by Lufthansa doesn’t reduce Austrian to the usual mediocrity of flying today.

But above all, my wife and I are so grateful to have been included in this aurally and mouthwateringly good trip. Thanks to all.