radio klassik Stephansdom - George Hunka

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.

Guten morgen, Wien!

I’m not much for social media but I still maintain a Facebook account, primarily to announce new posts from this journal, and this morning I was glad to do so. Marion Eigl, the morning host on radio klassik Stephansdom, walked us through her arrival at the station in the wee small hours of the day — just as the sun is rising above the Stephansdom, in the shadow of which the station broadcasts — and it reminded me of just how beautiful the city is in those very early daylight hours, when the streets are nearly deserted and the sky brightens through a series of glorious blues. One of the great pleasures of listening to the radio is the knowledge that, at the other end of the connection, there’s another human being sharing in the music with you from the broadcast booth, something that isn’t the case with streaming music services. So guten morgen, Marion. The city looks lovely at that time of day.

The programming at rkS also caters to my increasingly eccentric taste in music (though I should also mention here that rkS broadcasts high mass at the Stephansdom a few times a week, which also caters to my increasing eccentricity). When I was younger I used to enjoy orchestral music much more, but now, at 62, I’m drawn more to vocal and chamber music, especially medieval and renaissance composers like Hildegard von Bingen and Heinrich Schütz, then skipping over a few centuries to the Second Viennese School, with a brief but significant sidetrack to the classical era of Mozart and Beethoven. There is a spiritual aspect to this as well, which may also be tied to aging. As we get older, it is said, we grow more into our more mature selves. My mature self finds more affinity in this music than it used to. Don’t get me wrong — I’m as prone to slip on an album by Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley as the next Joe, when the time seems right. Still, it seems to be that the music of hundreds of years ago pleases my ear and my meditations more than most.

The geographical basis of these meditations is more centered in Vienna and environs than anywhere else. There is something about the Danube, I suppose, and Central Europe as I’ve mentioned here before was after all the original home of my ancestors. My recent listening is paralleled by my recent reading, too — the contemporaneous Nibelungenlied and Hildegard again, and the literature of Musil, Doderer, and Kraus, all writers contemporaneous with Schönberg, Webern, and Berg. The spiritual center of all this work seems to be the Austrian capital, itself an architectural museum with exhibits spanning from Fischer von Erlach to Adolf Loos. I don’t believe that I’ll ever be able to spend an extended amount of time there to probe these meditations in situ, as it were. But I will make do with what I have, even as I continue my studies in the German language; as Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” and fortunately I can still broaden those limits and maybe broaden my meditations through an assiduous attention to my language lessons.

At the moment, I’m turning my attention to radio klassik Stephansdom, though — right now host Eva Reinold is treating me to a few Beethoven bagatelles, and I think I’ll have a listen to those. I do want to note that rkS is continuing its fundraising drive, and if rkS suits your streaming fancy you should make a donation here. And turn up the volume.

Streaming Easter from the Stephansdom

Easter is the most important holiday of the Christian year, and those with a taste for Viennese culture may wish to take advantage of the program offerings from radio klassik Stephansdom this weekend, even if German is not their first language. The station will be presenting a variety of events, including a Pontifical Mass on Easter Sunday with Cardinal Christoph Schönborn and a Vespers Service later that day, both live from the Stephansdom in Vienna, as well as a Good Friday service and other holiday related programming and music through the weekend. You can read about all of the special programming and stream everything through the web site here.

Radio klassik Stephansdom continues its fundraising drive; I encourage you to donate. I recorded a message of support that was broadcast on the Austrian station on March 11; you can listen to that message below.