Ilse’s Reviews > Schubert's Vienna > Status Update

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)

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.

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(?).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Why Viennese culture,and especially music, could flourish in a city that had hardly recovered from the Napoleonic wars?In a multicultural city, where so many languages were spoken - German,French,Spanish,Italian, as well as Hungarian,Czech,Slovak,Ukrainian,Serbian,Croatian,slovene, and Greek - music might have seemed to some inhabitants the easiest form to communicate.

The state’s suspicion of intellectuals was such that many citizens who desired careers in government avoided higher education in the belief that it would work against their obtaining a position. In the Vienna of Francis I, the police did not employ systematic brutality and terror in surpressing ideas, the possibility of arrest, the loss of one’s job, and other deterrents made that unneccesary.

In 1794, a resident of Vienna reported:"Several important persons have been arrested here.It is said that a revolution was to break out - but I believe that as long as the Austrian has some dark beer and little sausages he will not revolt.The gates to the suburbs must be closed at ten. One doesn't dare raise his voice here, otherwise the police find lodging for you." The writer was Beethoven.