BAROQUE!!! Everything here is Baroque!
I can't post a picture yet because they haven't set up the wireless internet access which is supposed to come next week and I haven't found a computer where I can put my USB drive and transfer any photos. But go to google and look for St. Peter's church in Vienna. That's where we went yesterday (among other places) and that is the building that best represents my totally overwhelming Baroque experience of Vienna so far.
Mozart's dad, Leopold, took him to Vienna for the first time when he was about six so that everyone could see what an amazing genius he was. "Everyone who comes to Vienna is charmed into staying here," wrote Leopold in 1762. Great keyboard players would often try to avoid the Mozart family because they didn't want to admit how great little Wolfgang was. As long as they didn't see him in person they could pretend everyone was just making up stories about this little kid who could sit down and sight read some amazing piece of music, or improvise like a grownup, or whatever.
Later in his life Mozart was always trying to sneak away from Saltzburg. He called Vienna "The best place in the world."
All I can say so far is I am overwhelmed. I went into St. Peter's church, built on the site of what many claim is the oldest Christian church in the city (certainly Charlemagne built a church on the site at some point). This version was built in 1702 and designed by Lukas von Hildebrandt, the fabulous Baroque architect. Today it is the center of Opus Dei activity. NO, you silly Da Vinci Code fans, they are NOT creepy people who whip themselves and commit heinous crimes. They are devoted to making everyday acts (like wiping your kid's nose or playing in a frisbee tounament) into acts of holiness. That is the whole central theme of Opus Dei.
The Baroque movement was right at the time of the counter-reformation, as you folks who just finished ninth grade know. It was a time when the Catholic church was trying to get everyone to come back to the fold. New religious movements like the Jesuits and the Carmelites were started, books were banned (you know, books by Martin Luther and people like that), and lots and lots of new art was commissioned. This Baroque art is really some of my favorite: extravagant, limitless, depicting great kings and saints, great mystical emotions, miracles, flames, disguises, soap bubbles, and so forth. Lots of gold, chiaroscuro, ornamentation, and so forth. The effect is supposed to be something that makes you fall to your knees in awe and run back to the Pope. That is certainly the effect it had on me.
Of course, the entire city of Vienna and my entire experience here so far has been Baroque in the sense of being completely overwhelming: practicing my schlock German, learning the names of my fellow participants, figuring out if I can get into the opera to see Don Carlos, Rigoletto, the Magic Flute, etc., finding a person in the middle of the street playing Chopin on a grand piano...
I can't post a picture yet because they haven't set up the wireless internet access which is supposed to come next week and I haven't found a computer where I can put my USB drive and transfer any photos. But go to google and look for St. Peter's church in Vienna. That's where we went yesterday (among other places) and that is the building that best represents my totally overwhelming Baroque experience of Vienna so far.
Mozart's dad, Leopold, took him to Vienna for the first time when he was about six so that everyone could see what an amazing genius he was. "Everyone who comes to Vienna is charmed into staying here," wrote Leopold in 1762. Great keyboard players would often try to avoid the Mozart family because they didn't want to admit how great little Wolfgang was. As long as they didn't see him in person they could pretend everyone was just making up stories about this little kid who could sit down and sight read some amazing piece of music, or improvise like a grownup, or whatever.
Later in his life Mozart was always trying to sneak away from Saltzburg. He called Vienna "The best place in the world."
All I can say so far is I am overwhelmed. I went into St. Peter's church, built on the site of what many claim is the oldest Christian church in the city (certainly Charlemagne built a church on the site at some point). This version was built in 1702 and designed by Lukas von Hildebrandt, the fabulous Baroque architect. Today it is the center of Opus Dei activity. NO, you silly Da Vinci Code fans, they are NOT creepy people who whip themselves and commit heinous crimes. They are devoted to making everyday acts (like wiping your kid's nose or playing in a frisbee tounament) into acts of holiness. That is the whole central theme of Opus Dei.
The Baroque movement was right at the time of the counter-reformation, as you folks who just finished ninth grade know. It was a time when the Catholic church was trying to get everyone to come back to the fold. New religious movements like the Jesuits and the Carmelites were started, books were banned (you know, books by Martin Luther and people like that), and lots and lots of new art was commissioned. This Baroque art is really some of my favorite: extravagant, limitless, depicting great kings and saints, great mystical emotions, miracles, flames, disguises, soap bubbles, and so forth. Lots of gold, chiaroscuro, ornamentation, and so forth. The effect is supposed to be something that makes you fall to your knees in awe and run back to the Pope. That is certainly the effect it had on me.
Of course, the entire city of Vienna and my entire experience here so far has been Baroque in the sense of being completely overwhelming: practicing my schlock German, learning the names of my fellow participants, figuring out if I can get into the opera to see Don Carlos, Rigoletto, the Magic Flute, etc., finding a person in the middle of the street playing Chopin on a grand piano...
posted by Adina Meyer @ 11:24 PM
1 Comments:
At 11:32 PM,
Mahlon Meyer said…
It's interesting that Mozart had such a wild side to him. It's also interesting, as you elaborate, that these people did not think reason would lead them to transcendence. Wildness is a funny thing. I suppose some would say that steady perserverance, guided by some goal is ultimate passion, whereas the fleeting jump-in-the-lake kind of passion we assume is wild is really rather just flippant or shallow, even. I notice that Rousseau has a high forehead. It is about as high as mine, perhaps a little higher, perhaps not. I think the reason why I didn't become as famous as Rousseau was not because I didn't have the grey matter there but because I was fucked up socially and emotionally and so spent most of my life dealing with introversion and unhappiness rather than being a libertine, in every sense, as Rousseau was. Perhaps another reason is simply that the college I went to did not value intellectual traits but athletic ones, being a western school where the cult of the warrior is still deeply ingrained, rather than the soft, civilized arts of discussion and writing. I don't blame my early education because I suppose I was coddled and superannuated with creativity even before I could talk. But oh for some early discipline, such as being compelled, albeit for Mozart, I gather, it was through emulation of his father. Oh, for an early trade, music, poetry, dance whatever to turn into a Mozart at age 9. Instead, we had Bible plays, which I don't fault. In fact, I reached my apogee of Biblical play when I was in my early twenties and I attempted to act one out on the streets of Seattle's Madison Park, even feigning, fawning on some idealized image of a messiah. Thus, the early education paid off in psychotic religious meandering. Although, I gather that Mozart had his brush with insanity, in that unknown opera.
Here is what you should do, as you tour all these monuments to math and science and religion. Go into the middle of each one and start saying "Coronado, coronado, coronado," trying to resurrect whatever. As you can see, I'm troubled at the moment.
As for Vienna, don't they have good pastries? Anyway, it's interesting about Rousseau and Mozart.
Love,
Mayilong
On rereading the beginning of my response, I recall in Rousseau's autobiography that he hooks up with a woman much, much older than he was, and even calls her "mamma" and then goes to the countryside with her.
He must have had a lot of libidinous, gratifying sex! (I mean that sarcastically. Or maybe he did. Think about what happens in Light in August, when Joe Christmas gets together with that spinster from the Northeast and sleeps with her and then because she's a lot older than he is she tries to kill both of them and then he kills her. Maybe that is the secret to literary success. Hook up with a woman much older than you are, and then hang around with her while you write. Perhaps it was in this context that Freud wrote all his stuff.
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