CELEBRATEWITHAKISS It’s the 150th anniversary of the smoochiest artist ever – and Vienna’s having a ball
FLORIAN, a friend who runs a wine bar in the Austrian capital, says: ‘Remember, old Vienna was once new.’ He is quoting Karl Kraus, one of the men who haunted the city’s coffee houses at the turn of the 20th century — when the Imperial City, capital of the Austro-hungarian Empire, was at the heart of the civilised world.
This year Vienna is honouring Gustav Klimt, creator of The Kiss, who was born 150 years ago. You could say that every year in Vienna is Klimt year, since it is difficult to avoid the paintings that have become such vivid emblems of the city.
But 2012 offers a good excuse to look afresh at the artist and designer. Every major gallery is joining in the festival. To see the great works, head for the Leopold Museum and Upper Belvedere Palace, with its enchanting gardens and view back to the city.
‘The Mask of Gold,’ Michael Frayn, the writer, called Vienna in his televised portrait of the city. Ostentatious yet secretive, Vienna is a mass of contradictions: a conservative city which gave birth to modernism; a stronghold of anti- semitism whose name was carried round the world by Jews; the home of the waltz . . . but also of psycho-analysis.
There is light but there is darkness, too. In Vienna, ‘city of my dreams,’ you can’t have one without the other.
When people talk about ‘ Mitteleuropa’, Vienna is what they have in mind. Kultur has a slightly different meaning in the Germanspeaking world but, however it is defined, it finds a natural home in the city that was once capital of the double-headed empire and still serves as a home from home for the people of central Europe.
At weekends they roll in, from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary, Bosnia and Serbia, in search of a shared inheritance that not even a century of war and dislocation can wash into the Danube. Metternich, architect of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which brought order to post-napoleonic Europe, said: ‘The Balkans began at the gates of Vienna.’ They still do.
At Easter, this being one of the most Catholic cities north of the Alps, you can’t move for Italians.
They come, like everyone else, for the music. Schubert is the only great composer born in Vienna, but Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler and Richard Strauss all lived there, happily and unhappily. Then there are all those waltzing Strausses, whose tunes delighted a thousand ballrooms.
If you catch a tram to the southern cemetery, where Carol Reed shot his famous closing scene for The Third Man, you can see the musicians’ graves, visited each year by thousands of well-wishers.
Vienna is also the home of great art. Slap bang in the centre of town is the Kunsthistorisches (History of Art) Museum, which is worth a week by itself. You can hardly wander down a street without coming across a gallery or exhibition worthy of attention.
If you aren’t interested in music or paintings, there are those celebrated coffee houses, where you can watch the world go by; the charming parks cut into the Ring, which separates the inner city from the outer; the imperial palaces, notably Schonbrunn, with its superb tree-lined walks; and dozens of glorious churches.
I first saw Vienna through a teenager’s eyes in 1972, and was captivated by the elegance of its streets and squares. In the past decade, when I have greedily spent a month of each year walking those streets, I have come to know another city, which William Boyd recreates in his latest novel, Waiting For Sunrise. On the surface Vienna is beautiful but underneath, it can be gripping, and sometimes eerie.
A first-time visitor could read The World Of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, the Jewish novelist. Published after his suicide in 1942, it is a compelling mn panorama of Vienna in the dying days of the Habsburg g Empire and early years of the e Austrian republic. Knowing what we do now w about Austrian complicity in the rise of National Socialism, - the book has a tragic dimension, men but it should be read to understand just how much has been lost. Vienna represents the golden selfimage of a city that has not always come to terms with that past.
This is the city famous for Mahler, Klimt and, of course, Dr Freud. These pioneers, and others, forged new paths in music, literature, design, architecture, political thought and philosophy. And they were, almost to a man, Jewish.
The perfect morning in modern Vienna? Just walk. Start at the KHM and gawp at the treasureladen galleries with masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Durer, van Dyck and Rubens. Then stroll across the Ring towards Heldenplatz and keep walking till you reach Graben, an open space in the centre of the city.
Take a right into Dorotheergasse, where you’ll find Hawelka, the most authentic coffee house in the city. Cut across Stephansplatz, with its magnificent cathedral, and visit the Jesuit and Dominican churches before lunching at Cafe Pruckel, opposite Stadtpark, with its statue of waltz king Johann Strauss Junior.
That walk will give you a flavour of the city. To savour the feast, bring your imagination. Be warned, though. I have been coming to this bewitching place for 40 years, and I have merely scratched the surface.
Which, of course, provides another reason for going back. TRAVEL FACTS:
easyjet.com, 25hours-hotels.com.
vienna.info.