Vienna - George Hunka

A toast to … Arnold Schönberg

Today marks the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schönberg’s birth, and the Austrian Cultural Forum here in New York will celebrate next week on Friday, September 19, with the opening of Arnold Schönberg: 150 Years, an exhibition running through November 8 devoted to the life and work of the modernist composer, a collaboration with Vienna’s Arnold Schönberg Center. The celebration will get under way next Friday with a concert from Trio Callas, which will be performing the composer’s Verklärte Nacht and Charles Ives’s Piano Trio, following opening remarks from Dr. Ulrike Anton, the newish director of the Schönberg Center. This event is sold out, alas, but I’ll look forward to the exhibition itself.

As I raise my glass of Moric’s Haus Marke Red tonight, I’ll be listening to Hilary Hahn’s splendid rendition of Schönberg’s violin concerto, accompanied by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen. While the actual Deutsche Grammophon CD release is to be preferred, here’s the YouTube version — better than nothing — for all you cheapskates out there. And really, if you’re going to listen to this music, get yourself a real stereo system whydon’tcha.

“That’s why the rats are back”

Deborah Sengl, The Last Days of Mankind. Stuffed rats and requisites on wooden pedestals, height dimension of the scene: variable, © Deborah Sengl, 2014. Photo: Mischa Nawrata, Wien.

At the Museum Dorotheergasse of the Jüdischen Museum Wien, the exhibition of Deborah Sengl’s taxidermic interpretation of Karl Kraus’s The Last Days of Mankind will continue through September 29, and if you’re in Vienna, you certainly should stop in and see it. (And with any luck the Austrian Cultural Forum here in New York will sit up and take notice.) I’ve written before about Sengl’s revealing perspective on Kraus’s great satiric masterpiece, and the museum itself offers its rationale for exhibiting the work right now:

The year 2024 is an election year. Throughout Europe, parties dreaming of “illiberal democracies” are gaining strength and attempting to persuade us that the term is not a contradiction. Society is polarized, with the social media echo chambers serving their own clientele and stirring up animosity to others. Pandemic and war have polarized public opinion even further, and the gap between rich and poor grows daily. Antisemitism and racism are omnipresent. Many people see this as a premonition of the last days of democracy, and Kraus, who celebrates his 150th anniversary this year, is more relevant than ever. That’s why the rats are back.

One of them will be on the debate stage in Philadelphia tonight. More information about the exhibition can be found here.

Back to Wien

I’ve been absent here over the summer, but my imagination and spirit carry me to Vienna still. As I continue to listen to — and support — radio klassik Stephansdom, I remain fascinated by the city’s fin-de-siècle culture, of course. However, in my reading I’m increasingly drawn to the city’s baroque and classical spirit of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as well: Stephansdom and Melk and Josef II; Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven. For this I’m finding Ilsa Barea’s classic study of the city most appealing and can highly recommend that.

So I’m taking up my private German lessons again and searching for flights — a goal more aspirational than practical at the moment, but a boy can dream. He can also drink. I’m laying in a case of Haus Marke Red from the Moric winery in Burgenland, recently discovered thanks to Karen MacNeil’s Wine Bible, which is very good on the renaissance of Austrian wines, especially its reds. Moric makes fantastic reds. As Ms. MacNeil writes:

Roland Velich, owner and winemaker of Moric, is part crusader, part apostle. He rails against “uniform wines” made with the goal of getting high scores from critics. He denounces a wine industry geared to “fast money,” which leads to “fast wines suitable only for fast food.” He’s not the kind of guy with whom you have a casual conversation. And his wines aren’t casual either. His Blaufränkish is from old vines grown on terraced hillsides and made with the kind of artisanal care given Grand Cru Burgundy. It roars out of the glass, a juggernaut of flavor. White pepper, orange rind, cranberry, grenadine, pine forest — they all fall over themselves in a rush to get to you. There’s magnificent structure here too, and an impossibly long finish. Dramatic and unforgettable when young, the wine gets more and more beautiful as it ages.

I understand that the Haus Marke Red from Moric is a blend of Blaufränkisch, Rotburger, and Blauburgunder (Pinot Noir), but boy, that bouquet leaps out at you and though slightly fruity it’s deliciously dry. It’ll be in my wine rack soon, and I can’t wait. You can read an interview with Velich here.