Ilse’s Reviews > Schubert's Vienna > Status Update
Ilse
is on page 249 of 304
The song composer Schubert excited the Viennese public with his ‘new sounds’, especially harmonies, with often unconventional,difficult accompaniments. The elite Schuppanzigh Quartet introduced Beethoven but also Schubert into its programs. Still,the public knew virtually nothing about Schubert’s chamber music–as little as of the symphonies, none of which was publicly performed or published in Schubert’s lifetime.
— Jan 15, 2026 09:14AM
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Ilse’s Previous Updates
Ilse
is on page 248 of 304
The easygoing flair for living practised by the Viennese manifested itself in Schubert’s days also in an easygoing attitude toward art. For in Vienna there developed a tendency aptly characterized with the phrase Musik and Menu, to treat music as merely music, not artistic manifestation so serious that one could not also loudly converse and eat heartily during a musical performance.
— Jan 14, 2026 02:11AM
Ilse
is on page 181 of 304
The preference of the Viennese public for the representation of more or less lavishly assembled bouquets of flowers, the disproportionally large number of flower painters, the mass of pictures – all these were directly connected with the existence of the Imperial-Royal Viennese Porcelain Factory. In 1812, the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts established a professorship in flower painting.
— Jan 05, 2026 06:21AM
Ilse
is on page 122 of 304
Vienna is windy and unhealthy’ goes the saying, for weak lungs cannot withstand the commonly-present dust of the gravel floor. Among the ten to eleven thousand people who die annually, a quarter of them die from lung diseases, the result of too much waltzing.”
(A visitor to Vienna during Schubert’s lifetime on the ballroom dust on the dance floor surfaces)
— Jan 01, 2026 08:14AM
(A visitor to Vienna during Schubert’s lifetime on the ballroom dust on the dance floor surfaces)
Ilse
is on page 120 of 304
It is frequently overlooked that Schubert was one of the most prolific composers of exquisite music composed specifically for social dancing. Vienna could claim to be a City of Dance as much as the City of music. Perhaps because so many activities were circumscribed in the reign of Francis I, dance provided a sese of liberation while affording opportunity to display one's social graces and sophistication.
— Jan 18, 2025 03:10AM
Ilse
is on page 114 of 304
Edward Holmes recalled his visit to Vienna around 1828:"No place of refreshment, from the highest to the lowest, is without music: bassoonists and clarionets are are as plentiful as blackberries and in the suburbs at every turn one alights upon fresh carousing, fresh fiddling, fresh illuminations".
No wonder my mother had hoped to find a violinist on every corner when she visited Vienna in 1998(?).
— Dec 28, 2024 04:09AM
No wonder my mother had hoped to find a violinist on every corner when she visited Vienna in 1998(?).
Ilse
is on page 109 of 304
For the middle class, a piano in the parlor was a symbol of bon ton. Many eyewitnesses suggest that the ability to perform music improved one's chances of finding a wealthy mate or of securing new business clients. For the well-educated bureaucrats, whose work was often tedious and whose public conduct was scrutinized by the secret police, salon concerts were an important outlet and for some an avocation.
— Dec 27, 2024 01:36PM
Ilse
is on page 84 of 304
As late as 1822 a group of English players performed several plays of Shakespeare to a Parisian audience largely ignorant of his works and - with the exception of the young Berlioz and a few like-minded companions, not at all inclined to accept them. At the performance of Othello, Desdemona was wounded while curtsying, by a projectile thrown from the audience.
— Dec 13, 2024 08:55AM
Ilse
is on page 75 of 304
The 19th century, while enjoying the blessings of peace in righteous innocence, was merciless in condemnation of the Congres (of Vienna). Yet who today, in surveying the savage record of unrestrained national passions in the 20th century, would be ashamed to shed a nostalgic tear for the peacemakers of 1815 and their lilting Congress? It danced, yes, but not on the backs of the corpses.
— Dec 12, 2024 03:26AM
Ilse
is on page 74 of 304
On the outcome of the Congress of Vienna: Austria's gains were less impressive, but considering a chronic state of near bankruptcy, a polyglot population, and general exhaustion, its domination of central Europe seems almost a miracle.
— Dec 12, 2024 03:22AM
Ilse
is on page 53 of 304
The censorship controlling cultural production may have unwittingly promoted music because revolutionary motifs in music are less easy to discern than in literature. 'Does the censor know what you think while you are composing?' asked Grillparzer in Beethoven's guestbook.
— Dec 08, 2024 08:15AM
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Schubert wasn't fully appreciated until Mendelssohn and Schumann initiated a Schubert revival in the 1840's. However, Schubert gained some important recognition in his lifetime. He visited the dying Beethoven and was a torch bearer at the master's state funeral.
I'm currently reading Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time and would you believe there's not a single criticism of Schubert's work!
Peter Schickele (aka P.D.Q. Bach) says, in the foreword:
"It's curious that Schubert is not represented here - why is that?
Is it because nobody doesn't like Schubert? (Can't be: everybody is dislike by somebody.) Is it because most of Schubert's major works, outside of the songs, took such an inordinately long time to become widely performed? Or is it simply that the critics [...] had few qualms about the composer whose friends had nicknamed him "Little Mushroom"?
While I'd like to believe that last possibility, I'm very much inclined to believe it was this delay in publication/widespread performance. In a way, Schubert had the unusual experience of having composed for the audience (and the critics) of the future! :)