Vienna: Where the Music Is in the Streets

After the contrasts and surprises of India and Istanbul, Vienna felt different almost immediately.

If you missed Vienna, Part 1, you can find it here: [link to Part 1]

The streets were wide and orderly, the gardens formal, the buildings grand, and there were bicycles everywhere. People sat on benches simply enjoying the day. I especially loved the mornings, when the air was cool and the streets were quiet before the city fully awakened.

And for me, Vienna had another quality that made it special.

Music was everywhere.

As a classical musician, I have spent much of my life playing and listening to music written by composers whose names are almost synonymous with Vienna. Suddenly, I was walking the same streets they had walked.

That is a very pleasant feeling.

One of the places I visited was Mozart's apartment. The apartment itself was surprisingly sparse. There wasn't much furniture to help me imagine what Mozart's daily life had actually looked like. Instead, there was information about his life and career.

But I found myself much more interested in looking out the window.

From there I could see an intersection of two cobblestone streets. I wondered about Mozart looking out that same window. Did he watch the people below? Did he recognize people who regularly walked those streets? Did he know anyone who lived in the buildings across the way?

Those little questions made the history feel more personal.

And Vienna is full of reminders that these composers weren't just names in music history books.

Johann Strauss flanked by Mariachi musicians 

There are statues, plaques and museums everywhere. Johann Strauss even gets the full golden-statue treatment.

At Haus der Musik, another music museum, I noticed an alley that looked remarkably similar to the one in front of Mozart's apartment. Once again, I had that feeling that these weren't simply museum exhibits. The composers had actually lived here, walked these streets and looked out these windows.

There were reminders of Schubert and other composers everywhere.

But after a while, I realized that I didn't really need the statues to understand how important music is to Vienna.

I just needed to hear it.

We splurged on a concert in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein.

If you ever watch the Vienna Philharmonic's annual New Year's Concert, this is the room where they are playing. Seeing it on television is one thing. Sitting inside it is another.

Before the musicians arrived, we had time to take in the hall itself. It was beautiful and grand in exactly the way you would expect a famous Viennese concert hall to be.

Before the concert began, ushers paraded up and down the aisles carrying large signs reminding us NO PHOTOGRAPHS OR RECORDINGS.

It wasn't really about preventing us from taking home a photograph. The signs were a reminder that even a camera flash or an accidentally ringing phone could distract the musicians and everyone else in the hall, normal reminders for a concert,  just presented with a bit more flair.

Once the signs disappeared, we settled in.

And then the music began.

The first piece was

Mozart's Symphony No. 29 in A major, written when he was just 18 years old.

Eighteen.

What were you doing when you were 18?

I certainly wasn't writing music that people would still be performing more than 250 years later.

There was something especially powerful about hearing Mozart in Vienna, knowing that he had lived and worked in this very city.

Next came Haydn's Farewell Symphony.

The story behind this piece may be even better than the music itself. Haydn and the musicians in his orchestra were unhappy because they had been required to stay longer than expected at the prince's summer palace. So Haydn devised a rather ingenious way of getting their message across.

In the final movement, the musicians gradually stop playing, quietly pack up their music and leave the stage, one by one.

Eventually, only two musicians are left, playing quietly.

Apparently, the prince got the message.

The court and musicians were allowed to return home the following day.

I love that story. When words weren't working, Haydn let the musicians make their point through the music.

And then came the second half.

Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

We were sitting in a box overlooking the musicians, and the performance was extraordinary. Fritz Kircher led the performance on principal violin, and he and the other musicians brought remarkable precision, energy and expression to Vivaldi's music.

I know The Four Seasons well. I have heard it performed many times, and I have also played parts of it myself. But hearing it played so beautifully in Vienna was different.

There are moments in music when you stop analyzing and simply listen.

That happened to me.

I found myself completely absorbed in the performance. I wasn't thinking about the history anymore. I wasn't thinking about the beautiful hall or the famous composers.

I was just listening.

And that, ultimately, was what spoke to me most about Vienna.

The music wasn't sitting behind glass in a museum.

It was alive.

Our time in Vienna also gave us an unexpected opportunity to spend some time with our longtime family friend June. We weren't traveling together, but we happened to be in Vienna at the same time, so we took advantage of the coincidence and spent some time together exploring the city and enjoying some of what Vienna had to offer.

At the art museums, June, Bob and I found ourselves drawn to Henri Matisse's Parrot Tulips. After seeing so much formal European art, I loved the energy and almost playful quality of the painting.

And when we compared notes afterward, all three of us agreed that it was one of our favorites.

And then there was this:

A giant version of Albrecht Dürer's famous rabbit.

That was another thing I appreciated about the city. It takes its history seriously, but it doesn't seem trapped by it. You can walk past magnificent buildings, classical sculptures and reminders of centuries of music and art, then turn a corner and find bicycles, cafés, contemporary art and people simply enjoying an ordinary afternoon.

Perhaps that's why I enjoyed walking so much.

In the early mornings, when Vienna was quiet, I could walk through the streets and think about the people who had walked them before me.

Mozart.

Haydn.

Schubert.

Strauss.

Names that had been familiar to me for years suddenly became connected to actual places.

As a musician, that was a gift.

I have spent much of my life encountering this music through sheet music, rehearsals, recordings and performances. In Vienna, some of that music suddenly had a physical home.

I could stand where Mozart had stood.

I could look out a window where he had looked.

I could walk streets where Schubert had walked.

And then I could sit in the Golden Hall and hear Vivaldi's music performed with such skill and expression in the city that has been home to so much of the classical music tradition.

That made Vienna feel less like a place I had simply visited and more like a place I had briefly stepped into.

Some cities you see.

Some cities you experience.

And some cities you hear.