On Sunday, January 22nd, we traveled to Vienna. As I mentioned in my last entry, I was not feeling my best. I thought I was better after Kate and the Devil, but I had a low-grade fever when I woke up in the middle of the night, which was not great. My fever had broken when I woke up for the day, so that was better. Despite not feeling my best, I successfully arrived at the hostel and then went to a group dinner at Mayer am Pfarrplatz, a winery down the street from the apartment Beethoven lived in when he wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament. We enjoyed good food and live music (some of us enjoyed that music quite a bit), and then, somehow, all made it back to the hostel in one piece.
The next morning, we went on a tour of Vienna. Before we met up with our guide, we had some time to kill. What better way to spend it than wandering around Stephansdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral)? The inside of the cathedral was stunning, with an organ overhead when you walk in and over a dozen different altars. The exterior, too, was incredible to behold; I can definitely understand how Stephansdom was the landmark to find Vienna from miles away. The tour itself was great, I just wish I was feeling better so that I could have taken in more. At around the halfway point, I was considering heading back to the hostel, but I managed to rally. After the tour, I went to Cafe Frauenhuber for a delicious lunch which tided me over for the rest of the day. That evening, we saw the Orchestra dell'Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Prokofiev's First Symphony, Ravel's G Major Piano Concerto, and Sibelius's Fifth Symphony. To quote a text I sent to a friend of mine after the concert: "the Ravel was amazing. The second movement was heart-achingly beautiful [...] Also, we got an orchestral encore at the end of Sibelius No. 5. It was Elgar's Nimrod–I've never been moved to tears so quickly in my entire life. God I love music."
The next morning, we went on a tour of Vienna. Before we met up with our guide, we had some time to kill. What better way to spend it than wandering around Stephansdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral)? The inside of the cathedral was stunning, with an organ overhead when you walk in and over a dozen different altars. The exterior, too, was incredible to behold; I can definitely understand how Stephansdom was the landmark to find Vienna from miles away. The tour itself was great, I just wish I was feeling better so that I could have taken in more. At around the halfway point, I was considering heading back to the hostel, but I managed to rally. After the tour, I went to Cafe Frauenhuber for a delicious lunch which tided me over for the rest of the day. That evening, we saw the Orchestra dell'Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Prokofiev's First Symphony, Ravel's G Major Piano Concerto, and Sibelius's Fifth Symphony. To quote a text I sent to a friend of mine after the concert: "the Ravel was amazing. The second movement was heart-achingly beautiful [...] Also, we got an orchestral encore at the end of Sibelius No. 5. It was Elgar's Nimrod–I've never been moved to tears so quickly in my entire life. God I love music."
On the 24th, I took the free day entirely as a rest day. I got up for breakfast, and went immediately back to sleep. Part of me regrets that I "wasted" a day in Vienna, but I really needed the rest to get through whatever virus I had. Without taking that day off, I certainly wouldn't have been able to enjoy the rest of our time in Vienna as much as I did.
Wednesday was our tour of Schönbrunn Palace. What can I say, it was just a quaint little summer palace, nothing too special. In all seriousness, I couldn't fit the building in one photo, the grounds had a zoo, and one of the rooms had gold leaf all over the wall–it was something to behold. Our guided tour was great; seeing the rooms decorated in the time periods of either Sisi or Maria Theresa and hearing about how they were used was fascinating, and we found our long-lost 22nd student: Colin! That evening, we saw the Vienna Symphony play the Beethoven D Major Violin Concerto with Maria Dueñas as the soloist and Franz Schmidt's 4th Symphony. Seeing Dueñas in concert has been a bucket-list item since she won the 2021 Menuhin competition, so I was incredibly excited and she did not disappoint. I had a similar reaction to this concert as I did Monday nights'–it wholly reminded me why I have chosen to be a musician.
For our final full day in Vienna, we went to the Kunsthistorisches. I'm the first to admit that I know next to nothing about visual art, so I'm very glad that our time at the museum started with a guided tour. After the tour, I went through basically every exhibit and tried to figure out why certain works stood out to me from across the rooms, just like I would with pieces of music. I'm glad that I'm at a point in my life where I can try to appreciate visual art. Three years ago I might have just rolled my eyes and said that the museum wasn't for me (scratch might, that is exactly what I did with museums I went to with my dad in late 2019). Even if I don't understand the minutia of the medium, I can appreciate the work that went into creating it, and I know that it makes me feel something when I look at it. I guess that's the point of art. At 19:00, we went to see Mozart's Don Giovanni at Wienerstaatsoper. I didn't realize until I was getting dressed for the performance that I was going to be seeing one of my favorite mezzos, Kate Lindsay. I'd been seeing snapshots of the production for a couple weeks on her Instagram, but it took me physically having the ticket in my hand to put it together. I think that's a testament to how tired I was at this point, despite taking a full day of sleep earlier in the week. The performance sounded spectacular, I only wish that our seats would have allowed me to see more of it!
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