Where else in the world but Vienna could the musical day of Easter begin with a charming rendition of a Haydn Mass, and end with a roiling quartet featuring Peter Brötzmann and Ken Vandermark at the jazz club Porgy and Bess? Easter in Vienna, with its gem-like shop-window eggs, rabbits of chocolate or straw with the requisite carrot, and celebrated from Friday through Monday with church concerts --- some as parts of services, some not --- ruled by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Franz Schubert. This morning Yvonne and I attended High Mass at the Augustinerkirche at 11:00 AM, with Haydn’s timpani-infused Paukenmesse wafting through the arches, the buttery washes of strings and voices warming the chilly stones. Gratifying to actually comprehend the story of Christ’s resurrection as told in amplified Austrian-inflected German. My favorite moments: precisely at noon and 1:00 PM, when the church bells blasted their inharmonic tones into the air outside, colliding with Haydn’s music inside. Leading me to ponder why an Austrian (or European) Charles Ives never emerged, after centuries of similar ‘accidental’ dissonances.
Two useful bits: a Gothic church dating from the early 14th century, St. Augustine’s Loreto Chapel houses the preserved hearts of the imperial family, the Habsburgs. Anton Brückner, arriving in Vienna in 1868, composed his Third Mass on the rococo organ of this church.
Why we're living in Vienna: Yvonne as an exchange student attending the Rudolf Steiner-Schule Wien-Mauer, and I'm on sabbatical from CalArts, to write music, and play, and explore.
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