Day 132: Music and art
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day 132
— Music and art
12-December-1971
(Sun.)
TRANSCRIPT
Went to the 20th Century museum. Walked around. Some
interesting works. I hadn’t heard of most of them.
Still enjoyable.
Saw a fantastic concert. Vienna Symphony with Josef
Krips. I like his conducting, and the orchestra was
excellent. I had my subscription seat and so when I
stood, I had a good view of Krips from the front.
[They] did Beethoven’s 3rd. Fantastic. Acoustics were
also unbelievable.
REFLECTIONS
20th
Century museum. I am
assuming that this museum was an art museum, though I
could be wrong. I always enjoy a great deal of modern
art, although I sometimes wonder if those artists can
do equally well in traditional art. Then, I would be
truly impressed. However, contemporary art, as with
music, often explores textures, layers, form, objects
and elements, and other items in new and interesting
ways. That is why I can often find interest in many
new things. On the flip side, you can also find
“sameness” in many new things. When new music and art
sounds or looks the same, then it becomes less
interesting.
Josef
Krips does Beethoven. Although I
was not familiar with
Josef
Krips as a
conductor, I enjoyed his conducting and I enjoyed
the
Vienna Symphony
(not
the Philharmonic) performing Ludwig van
Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major.
This is
one of Beethoven’s most famous works. You’ve heard
it. Known as the “Eroica,”
Beethoven
composed
the symphony in 1803-04 and dedicated it to
Napoleon.
As the
Wikipedia article notes,
afterwards, when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor,
Beethoven was so angered that he scratched out
Napoleon’s name on the title page. Way to go,
Beethoven.
Subscription
seats. I had a
subscription tickets to some of the concerts in the
beautiful Musikverein concert hall. I remember the
seats being on the 2nd level and slightly facing the
conductor, almost aligned with the orchestra. This
meant that I was “up close” and could watch both the
conductor and the orchestra from the front/side, as
they performed. It was incredible to watch and to
hear. Too bad I couldn’t secretly videotape the
concerts back then and play it back today. (There
were no consumer video cameras in those days.)
John
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