Did I hear a single strain of music during the three days I was here?
Only from street kids trying to pick up a Euro. Oh, and in the Opera gift shop where I was purchasing, somewhat stupidly, a magnet with a picture of a slice of Sachertorte for my fridge.
I hadn’t planned on attending formal concerts, but I expected to encounter music informally, everywhere – in cafés, out of church doors, in hotel lobbies. None of it – I don't think I heard a single note.
Vienna seems to me to be a quiet kind of city. Maybe people would think it offensive to hear classics as background stuff.
Most certainly, they treat concert performances seriously: I have watched them pour out of the great theater halls late at night after a performance and they all were dressed as if there’s no tomorrow, far more formally than most attending a concert in New York, for example.
But no, I have no post nor photo illustrating my musical encounters. There were none. Amazing, isn’t it?
My nod toward the greats? Okay, here’s Mozart himself playing in the park. Oh, and a dude fishing along the canal, which so many assume is the Danube, because, you know, Vienna and the Danube are supposed to be like pb&j. Follow the canal long enough, and you get to the jam. And to the hills, alive, though not with music. That would be in Salzburg. Next time. Today I’m flying back to the States.
P.S. My parting shots though have to be from the last great moments of food and the full moon that followed us around late at night. Weird, because quite coincidentally, in the days we were here, we depleted the supply of the young white, Weissburgunder: Der Vollmondwein at our favorite eating spot (Wiebels Wirtshaus). Translation of the label: Vienna full moon.
avocado mousse with Austrian goat cheese and baby shrimp
venison over chanterelles with potato cakes
Viennese nights with Der Vollmondwein
chasing the moon
chasing the moon, 2
chasing the Sachertorte (at the Café Sacher)
Here’s to that final slice of Sachertorte. And to the little one back home.
