If I’d realized at age 11 or so that Vienna is actually spelled Wien, and therefore anything “of Vienna” would be Wiener…well, things might’ve turned out a bit differently. You might be listening to Leipzig Teng. Or maybe Moscow.
Apparently I have a talent for missing airport pickups in Europe. On the trip to Berlin last winter, I didn’t see a sign with my name on it when I walked out of customs in Tegel, and after failing to figure out the pay phone I gave up and took a cab. The car-service driver, a very nice Russian fellow who drove me to everything else that week, swore he was right there in the arrivals hall. In Amsterdam this time, same story; the nice people of Universal Music Netherlands called each other in a panic as I shrugged my shoulders and bought a train ticket into town. By the time Amy and I were scanning Vienna International Airport in vain, and starting to inquire about subway fares, I was convinced there was some twilight-zone thing going on. In Milan, we vowed, we would plant ourselves outside customs and wait for a sign (literally), come hell or high water.
Despite the momentous occasion, I didn’t actually figure out ahead of time what I wanted to see in my namesake city, much less look into the available concerts on our night off. I consoled myself on the loss by heading to Cafe Landtmann—if I couldn’t hear Mozart or Beethoven performed in their home town, I’d at least hang out where Goethe and Freud were regulars. What I was sure would be a tourist trap turned out to be an elegant spot, all the muted late-1800s décor intact, with an endless menu of coffee drinks and delicious handmade pastries. A tuxedoed waiter humored me as I ordered dinner and dessert in mangled German, and let me linger for hours while I soaked in the warm light from the chandeliers. The return trip took me past the ice rink set up in front of the Rathaus (city hall), lit up in bursts of brilliant color.
Next morning I traipsed around looking for Beethoven’s apartments (he moved a lot; there are about sixty places that claim his residence), but my inner GPS failed me and I ended up just wandering in circles in Heiligenstadt, a suburban area north of the city center. Finally I took the subway back into the city center and got lost there instead, in the cobblestone descendants of medieval alleys, blinking in awe when I stumbled upon the great cathedral in Stephansplatz. A little ways off lay the Mozarthaus museum, in the apartment where he composed Le Nozze di Figaro, and earned enough money to feed a serious gambling habit. I strolled through the rooms, listening to the battery-powered tour guide, reading translations of breathless letters from Wolfgang to his father Leopold: “I assure you that this is a magnificent place—and the best place in the world for my profession…”
There was, I have to admit, something unsettling about Vienna as I saw it for the first time. All signs, architecturally and culturally, pointed to its role as the seat of imperial power in centuries past. The buildings are imposing, the music refined, the traditions elaborate; these are developments that only come out of a significant aristocratic class. To an American-born girl, history seemed to weigh heavily in the air, ghosts of the oppression that by definition had to exist for Vienna to become what it was.
Interestingly, the Ringstrasse, where most of the intimidating structures sit, is actually the former site of the ancient city wall. In 1857 Emperor Franz Josef ordered it demolished and the area redeveloped in modern fashion. This was mostly designed as a testament to the empire’s grandeur, but it was also partly as a gesture of reconciliation to the middle and lower classes, after the revolutions of 1848. Things are never simple, or what they seem.