Music of Vienna

If the guides who diligently led us through Durnstein and Melk Abbey read my blog, they would probably wonder why I started by writing about Robin Hood, a mythical hero of England whose legend evolved over centuries and who may never have been a real person.

They would tell you that certainly wasn't their focus.

We all interpret our realities in our own unique ways based on our past experiences.

That's why we come away from travel with such diverse interpretations that effect how we will comprehend and respond to events throughout our lives.

In the case of our morning tour of Vienna, however, I found myself re-considering Johann Strauss II based primarily on some early commentary by our long-haired guide Wolfgang.

The fact that I love music and was also looking forward to our optional evening excursion in Vienna for a chamber music concert in a palace certainly made fallow ground for this seed.

Perhaps like me your first encounter with the Waltz King's most famous work, "The Blue Danube," was in Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic, "2001: A Space Odyssey," a movie I still remember discussing with my high school friends Chris, Kevin and Pat after seeing it.

Suffice it to say that as teenagers we hadn't been inspired to any groundbreaking revelations, although in looking at that "Blue Danube" scene today I see how visionary Kubrick proved to be regarding the space shuttle and airline seating designs.

Years later at Golden West College, I took classes in History and Appreciation of Music, which of course included Strauss, so I certainly was familiar with his music, but our guide revealed a whole new perspective on the great musician.

Wolfgang said Johann Strauss II was essentially a 19th Century rock star, composing and performing waltzes instead of rock and roll.

He painted a picture of a long-haired matinee idol who had the girls swooning and throwing their undergarments on stage.  While the waltz existed before Strauss --- in fact, his father played waltzes --- Johann II popularized it among the masses.

Wolfgang said Johann Strauss Junior performed music that simultaneously appealed to the masses who previously listened only to folk music and the aristocracy raised on orchestral music.

I pictured sort of a reverse Elvis Presley, who popularized rhythm and blues styles that had previously only been known among poor folks.

The only snag in re-telling Wolfgang's wonderful story to you now is that I couldn't find confirmation of his most interesting conjecture anywhere among the online biographies I read.

I did confirm other aspects, like the fact that his father was also a composer and musician, as were his two brothers.

Did Johann Strauss II become the most popular because of his good looks and charisma, prompting him to say about himself that he actually was the least talented among the family --- which is not to say that he didn't recognize that he too was still abundantly talented --- but his fame came as a result of being better looking?

I don't know.

However, it is true that his father didn't want him to be a musician, and several sources confirmed the story that when his father found his namesake son practicing the violin one day, Johann Senior beat Junior with his violin as he berated him for pursuing music.

Vienna State Opera House

And when Junior was 37 years old, he did put aside the single life to marry a woman 7 years his senior, Henrietta "Jetty" Treffz.

Jetty had also studied music before going on to become an outstanding mezzo-soprano who, performing with Johann Strauss Senior's orchestra in England, zoomed to international fame.

The period when Junior met Jetty became his most productive period, possibly because of her educated ear rather than because he had given up his pre-jet jet-setting lifestyle of casual liaisons and settled into a serious relationship, as Wolfgang implied.

Oh, and I should mention that Jetty was the mother of several illegitimate children with other men before she married Johann.

As Wolfgang told the story, it came as quite a shock that the most eligible bachelor in Vienna had married a  considerably older woman, but it obviously proved to be a wise decision as she was also very smart about the business of music.

And even Johann's brother Josef, who definitely had been surprised by his brother's choice in a wife, came around to respecting his choice.

Unlike most musicians, Johann Strauss II lived quite comfortably, and that despite having angered the royals by his affiliation with revolutionary causes along the way.

It wasn't all perfect.  Strauss had some hard times that led to a nervous breakdown a few years before he married Jetty, and that could have been along the lines of a rock star burnout like Pete Townshend's breakdown.

In any case, I began to hear the Waltz as this revolutionary music that made Vienna and the world dance, like a lilting "Footloose."

This being a Danube River cruise, we heard the music of Strauss intermittently throughout our trip, and I never tired of hearing "The Blue Danube."

It made me smile every time as I thought of it being this revolutionary music, even if it was based on an exaggeration.

I should add that I didn't read anything that outright contradicted Wolfgang's narrative, and I found one short article that at least implied it might actually be true.

By the way, the Danube is not blue.  It's more green or even brownish sometimes.

There are several stories of why Strauss gave his monumental song such a misleading name, including one about French soldiers retreating across the Danube in such vast numbers that their blue jackets made the water appear blue.

Others gave it the traditional meaning of sadness, a la American blues music.

The most likely explanation, according to Wolfgang and several other guides, is that in Germanic countries, the term blue refers to being a bit drunk.

My German friend Norbert confirmed this use of the word when I returned home.

It does sort of musically sway in what could be considered a woozy way, and it does sort of embody a relaxed feel on the river.

"The Blue Danube" also sounds great in concert.  

In the evening after dinner, we boarded tour buses with guides (for commentary) to ride through Venice to a downtown palace with a grand staircase entrance.

We then sat in a chamber similar to those where royals listened to music in the past, though I assume our room had a lot more chairs but still definitely not approaching the audience size of a small town community play much less an average city concert.

Other than the chairs being less than comfortable, it proved to be a wonderful event.

The chamber orchestra played pieces by Strauss and Mozart in something of a greatest hits concert, joined occasionally by costumed operetta singers and ballet dancers.

By the way, while Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born and raised in Salzburg, Vienna was the big city for the arts and fame.

He also wanted to move away from his controlling father.

St. Stephen's Cathedral Interior

While this evening concert had an additional charge, we thought it well worth the excursion price of $70.

By the way, our morning tour was not all about Strauss.

It took us past many of the most famous sites in Vienna, and we received brief descriptions as we went.

We rode the bus around for about an hour for a quick overview before walking to places like Hofburg Palace, the Spanish Riding School and many other famous spots.

Wolfgang told us that the architectural styles of Vienna are unquestionably beautiful but generally recreations of originals, so everything is neo-classic, neo-gothic or some other homage to past masters rather than groundbreaking styles.

He pointed out some newer designs from the early 20th century which he said the people of Vienna did not like at the time they were introduced.

That's quite a contrast to the dramatic inroads made by Vienna's musical giants.

And yes, they call Mozart their own and take great pride in others who adopted the city to live and work, including Beethoven, Haydn, Vivaldi, Brahms and Mahler.

To the left is the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial by British artist Rachel Whiteread honoring 65,000 Austrian Jews killed by Nazis between 1938 and 1945.

It represents a library of 65,000 shelved books that can never be opened, with spines that cannot even be read for identification, because, after all, how could any words possibly explain what happened?

At the end of the tour, we were free to stay in town for lunch and then catch a shuttle bus back to the ship, but I had a bicycle trip --- another free excursion available for anyone interested --- booked for that afternoon, so we headed back to AmaCerto for another delicious lunch.

The video above is more idealized than accurate, while the one below is more accurate but unfortunately is narrated in Chinese.