George Hunka

Notes and comment

Category: Vienna

  • Auf wiedersehen, Wien

    Bernardo Bellotto: View of Vienna from the Belvedere, 1759–1760.

    I’ve just returned from a meaningful week-long journey to Vienna, and especially memorable was the generous hospitality I enjoyed from the utterly charming Arabella Fenyves and the most gracious Christoph Wellner at radio klassik Stephansdom, then a few days later from the gentlemanly John Haynes over a few glasses of wine at the Cafe Schopenhauer. This, along with a fine and meditative St. John’s Passion at the Stephansdom itself; visits to the Belvedere, the city museum (excellent, I must say), the Leopold Museum and the Peterskirche; and Sunday mass at the Hofmusikkapelle on my birthday made for a very special week. When I first visited Vienna many years ago, I was most intrigued by the city’s fin de siècle culture; now, it seems, I’ve gone fully Baroque. I make no apologies for this, though of course I’ll never abandon Schnitzler, Klimt and Schiele (not to mention Thomas Bernhard). One day I’ll write all this up.

    One exhibit that I will miss, however, will be the Canaletto & Bellotto exhibition opening at the Kunsthistorisches Museum later this month. The painting at the top of this post will undoubtedly be front and center of the exhibition; the Museum web site notes:

    The panoramic view looks north from the Upper Belvedere, the summer palace built for Prince Eugene of Savoy but purchased in 1752 by Empress Maria Theresia. The city unfolds as a sequence of monumental landmarks. Bellotto seems to render Vienna with near-cartographic precision, but subtly compresses distances and steepens towers to guide the viewer’s eye inward and upward. The result is a carefully constructed image of Imperial order, presenting Vienna as flourishing under the rule of Maria Theresa and Francis I Stephen.

    Having just enjoyed that view myself from the Upper Belvedere, I can report that the charm of the landscape is undimmed after 250 years. Thank you especially to my lovely wife for the opportunity. Arabella, Christoph and John: I’ll be back.

  • Radio love

    Valentine’s Day isn’t until Saturday, but tomorrow you can show a little love for Vienna, music, and the spiritual life with a donation to radio klassik Stephansdom. Thursday, February 12, marks this month’s donation day, and rkS is celebrating with a love-themed appeal. Those of my readers who live in Europe will be interested to hear that their prizes this month include a night at an Austrian spa, free tickets to the Theater an der Wien, and candy from the elegant Xocolat Chocolates Kontor. Special guests will  be joining rkS hosts all day long, so tune in and donate to support this very special radio station.

    For those of my readers who live elsewhere, as unofficial chairperson of the unofficial American Friends of radio klassik Stephansdom, I’d be happy with your donation.

    More here.

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  • Way, way back

    Like many people I was originally drawn to Vienna and Galicia by the fame and notoriety of its fin-de-siècle period — Freud, Klimt, and all that — but as with anything you love, you want to learn more about its past. So the bookshelves begin to groan with histories of the Habsburgs and the Congress of Vienna. (Ilsa Barea’s Vienna: Legend and Reality remains the best that I’ve read, and I’ve read a few.) On my upcoming visit to the Austrian capital, though, I’ve got two ancient items I’m keen on seeing, and fortunately they’re mere steps apart.

    “The Venus of Willendorf is the most important object in the entire NHM Vienna collection and one of the most famous archaeological finds in the world,” boasts the web site of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien on the outer edge of the Ringstrasse, notwithstanding the suspiciously ironic name of the artifact. Almost 30,000 years old and unearthed in 1908 in Slovenia, the 11-centimeter (four-inch) high object may be the first artistic rendition of the female body in history. The NHM web site continues:

    Stylistically, the Venus of Willendorf is most similar to the Venus figures of Eastern Europe.  … There was obviously a very specific idea behind such Venus figures – an idea which for the people of the Palaeolithic was expressed by the image of a woman. The creator of the Venus of Willendorf did not represent an obese woman for her own sake. Instead, he or she shaped what they wanted to represent as an obese woman. Which thoughts, wishes and ideas were once associated with the Venus statues? We do not know.

    And just across the way, past the Maria Theresa statue, sits the Kunsthistorische Museum Wien. Those of us who are trying to learn the German language can take a look at where it all began, with the “Negauer helmet” on display. Discovered in Slovenia (again) in 1811, the bronze helmet has been dated to the fifth century BC, and most interestingly it features an inscription — likely added to the helmet two hundred years later — which may be the first written evidence of a Germanic language. Ruth Sanders in her German: Biography of a Language writes:

    All the experts agree that at least parts of the inscription represent a Germanic language, though they are scratched in the right-to-left alphabet of the Etruscans, non-Roman inhabitants of the western Italian peninsula. … The meaning of the inscription is not settled: “for Harigast of God,” “to Harigast the god,” and “Harigast made this,” among others, have been proposed. … Linguists agree that Harigast (its -i ending possibly indicating the dative case) is Germanic, but is it the name of the helmet maker, the warrior for whom it was made, or an alternative name for Odin or Wotan, the chief Germanic god? … The helmet’s inscription suggests that, in approximately the third century BC, a specifically Germanic language existed.

    They were struggling with that dative case even back then. As I am now.

    I perfectly understand if others find my enthusiasm for visiting these artifacts is a little peculiar, and perhaps it’s a little too far back into Central European history for most. (I know my kids will be happy not to be dragged along to these.) But not to worry; I’ll be getting to more recent artifacts, museums, and music as well. And I hope to get a bit more of a grasp on the dative case soon.