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.

All in the family

Better than a Grammy, and not just because it’s French: L’Origine du Monde, an album of the music of Hugues Dufourt performed by my lovely wife Marilyn Nonken, has been awarded the 2025 “Coup de cœur” from the Académie Charles Cros Contemporary Music Committee (les Coups de coeur 2025 musique contemporaine de l’Académie Charles-Cros). As this press release from Métier has it:

Founded in the aftermath of World War II in 1947, the Charles Cros Academy defends musical diversity, ensures the preservation of sound memory, supports the creation, career development of artists, the entrepreneurial spirit and courage of graphic and phonographic publishers. …

“Métier is excited to celebrate this award with pianist Marilyn Nonken. L’Origine du Monde marked her third album exploring the spectral music movement, of which she is a leading interpreter. An award from this distinguished French Academy is all the more appropriate for this album of music by Hugues Dufourt, a foundational figure of the French spectral school. Métier and First Inversion thank the Académie for this recognition.” — David Weuste, First Inversion Executive Director

L’Origine du Monde has also received excellent reviews from the likes of Gramophone magazine, which called it “an exceptionally assured and spellbinding demonstration of Dufourt’s uncompromising creative ambitions.” You can purchase a CD or stream the entire album at Presto Music. It’s available on Apple Classical too.

Opernabend: Don Giovanni, Vienna, 1955

A rehearsal session for Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” Conductor Karl Böhm is on the right; next to him Erich Kunz; behind him George London; Sena Jurinac; and at far left Anton Dermota. Vienna, 1955.

An “alpha-plus” according to the eminent Sir Denis Forman, Mozart’s 1787 Don Giovanni, in a landmark 1955 Wiener Staatsoper recording conducted by Karl Böhm, will be broadcast by radio klassik Stephansdom tomorrow, Saturday, January 31, at 2:00 pm Eastern time. The fine cast includes George London as the lecherous Giovanni, Erich Kunz as his hapless servant Leporello, Sena Jurinac as Donna Elvira, and Ludwig Weber as Giovanni’s nemesis, The Commendatore.

Eva Reinold hosts this broadcast, a fitting end to Mozart’s Birthday Week. You can stream it here.

“An elegy to … music’s departing landscape”

Circle Thursday, March 26, in your calendar now, and plan to Uber it to Steinway Hall in New York at 1133 Sixth Avenue for Morton Feldman at 100: “Triadic Memories,” Marilyn Nonken‘s performance of Feldman’s epic 90-minute piano solo, which she originally recorded for Mode Records in 2005. According to the web page for the event:

Feldman’s Triadic Memories is a 90-minute elegy to what the composer saw as music’s departing landscape, where the sound exists in our hearing — leaving us rather than coming towards us. Part ritual, part meditation, Triadic Memories offers the opportunity to explore issues of perception, memory, and imagination.  “Any pianist wanting to play Feldman needs the most exquisite touch, and also great stamina,” writes the London Times,  “and Marilyn Nonken clearly has both in abundance.”

A reception and pre-concert talk will precede the performance. RSVP and prepare to perceive.

Opernabend: “A Freudian bubble bath of the psycho-erotic”

A little opera tip for the weekend: On Saturday at 1:00 pm Eastern time you can hear that old warhorse Carmen from the Metropolitan Opera, but if you wait an hour, until 2:00 pm, tune in to radio klassik Stephansdom’s Opernabend for a true curiosity: Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae, in a 1999 performance from the Garsington Opera.

Completed in 1940 but denied a public premiere until 1952 at the Salzburg Festival, the opera is vaguely based on the story of Danae, Midas, and Jupiter. In her review of the Garsington Opera production in The Guardian, Fiona Maddocks said, “Despite its dark undertones, [Strauss] dubbed the work a ‘light mythology,’ made Midas his benign hero and entangled him with the delicious story of Danae, whom Jupiter seduced in a shower of gold, making it all a Freudian bubble bath of the psycho-erotic.” She went on to provide this brief synopsis of the plot:

Joseph Gregor’s libretto, based on an outline by Strauss’s great collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal, lacks the latter’s wit or elegance, making Strauss’s transformation of the leaden plot through music all the more remarkable. The bankrupt Pollux’s daughter Danae has gone off men but remains partial to gold, about which she fantasises freely. Fortunately, Midas falls for her and she for him. Unfortunately, Jupiter does likewise, in a jealous rage turning Danae into gold and depriving Midas of his gift.

In the powerful third act, Jupiter returns as a humble old man (looking remarkably like the ageing Strauss in this production), with a reflective monologue depicting the impotence of age. Still she rejects him. With her final word, ‘Midas’, the opera ends.

Rarely performed (most recently here in America at the Bard SummerScape festival in 2011), Strauss’s score nonetheless is said to feature some of his finest music. His biographer Michael Kennedy says, “The treatment of the many themes and motifs is amazingly inventive, the orchestral colours glow and shine – with Greek gold and mediterranean sunlight … Die Liebe der Danae does not deserve its neglect. Its third act alone lifts it into the category of first-rank Strauss.” And Leon Botstein, who conducted the  SummerScape production, told The New York Times that the opera was newly relevant in an interview with Peter G. Davis: “Not only is the score a marvel of technical ingenuity and lyrical generosity, but the subject is also completely up to date. What could be more modern in these days of financial crises and deficit spending than a morality tale about Midas’s fabulous golden touch and Danae’s obsession with his riches? There’s a valuable lesson in Danae’s eventual rejection of Jupiter’s tempting offer of divinity and her willing embrace of poverty with Midas, when he loses everything and is reduced to the life of a humble donkey driver.”

The Garsington Opera recording, conducted by Elgar Howarth, features Peter Coleman-Wright as Jupiter, Adrian Thompson as Midas, and Orla Boylan as Danae. Opernabend is hosted by Eva Reinold. So drag down the Kobbé to brush up on the plot details, then tune in tomorrow, Saturday, January 17, at 2:00 pm Eastern time for that Freudian erotic bubble-bath.

Towels, anyone?