A Week of Mozart and Beethoven

Prague Castle at night

 Today sort of marks the half-way point in my semester abroad, and it has gotten me to thinking about my time here so far.  I had a philosophy teacher who told us that it is good to always be looking not only at what you're did and what you are going to do, but what you are doing right now.  Today, I had a leisurely morning, made breakfast and had tea with my roommate Annarita, and now I am looking out my window at a clear, blue sky.  It is a crisp fall day, which I really love.  After this, I'll do some homework, go and practice, have a trumpet lesson, then go back and finish homework and groceries.  I know it sounds boring, but it balances out the other times that I've had, like two weekends ago when I went to Prague for the weekend.  Yi-Yi and I hopped around Prague and saw a trumpet and organ concert at the baroque church at the foot of Charles Bridge our first night, then spent the day Saturday touring the area around Prague Castle, including this wonderful museum of the Lebkowitz family's collection.  The museum gave me such a comprehensive look at the history of Bohemian kings and the rich history of the Czech Republic.  I personally couldn't imagine being related to the prince that gave Beethoven his monthly wages, or one of the military leaders of the Thirty Years War, but it reminded me that these people actually existed and can be traced through history.  It is a romantic story too--the family lost their treasures twice--once when escaping from the Nazis, and then again in 1948 when the Czech Republic became communist and their property was claimed by the government. It wasn't until 1989 when people were climbing into West Germany (interestingly enough, they were crudely climbing over one of the Lebkowitz's former properties). There was a part of the audio tour where they played an excerpt from Dvořák's Czech Suite, and you could look out the window and see all of Prague below you, and I was struck by what a romantic city it is.  The rooftops and domed churches below make it look like Florence.  I later learned in my Habsburg class that the capital of the Holy Roman Empire was in Prague until Henry II moved it to Vienna.  On our last day, Yi-Yi and I touched the statues on Charles Bridge that you touch for good luck and a safe return to Prague one day.

Yi-Yi and me!

Yi-Yi in front of where the awesomely brutal yet hilarious Third Defenestration of Prague (1618) occurred!!!

St. Vitus Cathedral, constructed by *consulting Habsburg class notes* Charles IV of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia (1316-1378).  He also built Charles Bridge and made Prague the center of the Holy Roman Empire.

Not Charles Bridge, but another bridge to the left of Charles Bridge

On our way to the castle...funnily enough we found this place as a picture in our guidebook, and then found it again once we were actually there in front of it...felt like deja vu...

The city view of Prague from the castle

The next week I played catch-up on work, but I still got to go out on Friday to Heiligenstadt with one of my friends here.  We took the U-4 all the way to the end of the line, and we sort of just started wandering aimlessly, hoping to find one of the houses Beethoven lived in.  Yes, 19th district is Beethoven Country--Beethoven would come out here to get away from the city center.  He is known to have lived in at least 60 different places around Vienna. Speculations suggest this is because he didn't have to pay rent as long as he didn't stay too long.  This is where the Heiligenstadt Testament was written:  The Heiligenstadt Testament

Walking around the 19th district is one of the most enjoyable things I've done here so far.  It was almost deserted and felt much further away from the center of Vienna than 7 minutes on the U-Bahn.  Anyone going to Vienna who wants to "walk in Beethoven's footsteps" would enjoy just walking around the area of Heiligenstadt and stumbling upon Beethoven's houses.  We went to a Heurigen afterwards and enjoyed what is probably the last of the vineyard's wine for this season.

When you have no idea where you're going, always go towards the pretty, white church...it will put you exactly where you're supposed to be, funnily enough

A bear for Mom :)

One of Beethoven's former houses is to the left of this wall, an old church is to the right.

Looking out at the street from Beethoven's former house and the church...could that be the church that he talks about in the Heiligenstadt Testament?

Bert and Beethoven

After writing the Heiligenstadt Testament, Beethoven began work on the 3rd Symphony, "Eroica."  We're going to be studying that symphony in my class next week.

Bert and I ate some wine grapes down this path that were given to us by a worker.  He just handed them to us from his truck, saying he had 800 more tons of them.

Christian cemetery in 19th district...we were looking for one of Bert's ancestors but had a beautiful view along the way.

Saturday I went on a field trip to Klosterneuberg for my Habsburgs class, a monastery during the 11th-12th century built by the Babenburgs as well as a residency for the Habsburgs later.  Bert and I joked about "Babenburgers" for the rest of the day after we learned that Leopold III was cooked up after he died.  I really like my classes here because we go on field trips a lot.  For Classical Symphony class last Thursday we walked to the house where Mozart wrote "Marriage of Figaro" and then that same day I walked to class at the Imperial Treasury for Habsburgs.

Baroque church at Klosterneuberg

Verdun alter

Medival garden, with a pumpkin :)

DUMBLEDORE!!!!!

Last but not least, yesterday I went to the opera to see Mozart's Magic Flute.  I didn't like it as much as I liked Don Giovanni just because the story is a bit too weird for me, but the singing was wonderful, especially Pamina. Plus, I like that it has the Masonic rituals and beliefs that truth and knowledge bring divinity, although watching the rituals of holding up the triangles got old really fast.  Mozart was a Free Mason and it is interesting that he shared the era and beliefs of our founding fathers, who were also Free Masons (this I actually only mostly know from the movie National Treasure, so I'll get off my high horse now).  The music is great, and the production seemed like a bizarre, abstractly staged and colorful marionette show, which I think was their goal because I think the Magic Flute story was first a marionette show...

Looking back on these last few weeks, I guess the theme has really been Mozart and Beethoven.  Last weekend I was in Prague, where Mozart's Marriage of Figaro was an instant success--so much so that he came to Prague to conduct it himself and was of celebrity status there. Don Giovanni was also premiered there I think. In class we studied Mozart's Symphony No. 40 last week and this week we are studying Beethoven Symphony No. 5, which I cannot wait for.  I went to Mozart's house and walked around the area that Beethoven lived, then yesterday I saw a Mozart opera.  I feel very lucky to be able to do all these things and it makes me love the music even more that they created.

Thanks for reading!
Jenny

Pictures from Slovenia and Italy

 Hey! So these are pictures that I took while traveling through Slovenia and Italy.  We spent a day in Ljubljana, two days in Bled, a day in Piran, and then three days in Venice and a day in Padova.  I traveled with Kelli, Abby, Peter, Bert, and Danny, all of whom are in the IES program and are incidentally string players of some sort (except Bert plays Accordion, but has not been caught by the Austrian police yet.  It's only a matter of time).  I hope you enjoy seeing the countryside and natural beauty of Slovenia, as well as the romantic city of Venice and lastly the magnificent Medieval cathedral of St. Anthony in Padova.

Squeezin' the Juice! From left to right: Kelli, Abby, Bert, Danny, and Peter

Ljubljana

Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana

Kelli, Abby and me on Dragon Bridge before grabbing lunch at the Saturday morning market

The steep pathway up to the fortress that is in the middle of the city.  The fortress was built in the 1500s to fortify against the Turks.

We climbed the tower of the fortress and could see all of Ljubljana

My new Roman 'do in the Slovenian History Museum, with Danny silently judging my fashion sense in the background.

 This is Lake Bled! We took a bus here the next day after we had spent a full day in Ljubljana.  We found our hostel and then walked around the lake in search of a place to swim.  After we swam in the water, we walked some more, and then decided to take rowboats to the small island in the middle of the lake.

Bert was a natural at rowing.  I rowed on the way back and it was HARD!!  Bert had made it look so easy!!

On the island of Lake Bled

There is a small chapel on the island.  I accidentally evaded paying to enter the chapel, somehow...I just didn't see the kiosk to pay and went right in.  There's a long rope in the middle of the room that is connected to a bell that you can ring.  When I was first in there, I was the only person, so I rang the bell :)

 After spending the day and evening on Lake Bled, the next day we walked about an hour away from the lake to a gorge.  We saw pastoral scenes like this along the way, and then the gorge was like being in the mountains--crisp, cool, leaves changing color--it was beautiful.

 And then this was I think my favorite part of Slovenia: Piran.  It is on the coast of the Adriatic and is a stone's throw from Italy.  In fact, I think it might have been Italy at some point in history before 1848 when the nation borders were redrawn following war.  We swam here too, and after dinner we skipped rocks on the beach.  We also discovered that the violinist Tortelli was born here, which was a nice surprise for the string players among us.

And then VENICE! I was in heaven here.  I would occasionally slap myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.  I was very, very happy in Venice!

our apartment in Venice

We cooked dinner at our apartment!

Only downside: there were lots and lots of people there like us touring.  San Marco was a nuthouse.

Rockin' my 12 euro Italian sunglasses, lol.

My mom took a picture in front of this bridge when she came to Venice as a young woman, so I thought I should do the same out of tradition.  However, you may notice that the Bridge of Sighs looks a little strange behind me...that's because it is!  They put this blue skyline wallpaper up on either side of it, I think because they are doing construction around it, but it looks super weird!

Our apartment was down this street, near what used to be the Jewish ghetto of Venice.

 Last but not least, Padova and the incredible basilica of St. Anthony! We just happened to go into the basilica--we were just going to get food, but then we saw that this was still open so we decided to run in.  It is a huge cathedral, possibly as big as the cathedral in Cologne, if not bigger.  St. Anthony's tomb is also there.  There was a mass going on when I went in, but people were allowed to walk through the cathedral during.  Honestly, the space was so big that it wouldn't really disrupt anything.  People were praying at the tomb of St. Anthony, one mother was lifting up her son so he could put his hands on the green marble, his feet dangling on the small ledge of the tomb. Even though I'm not Catholic, it was moving to witness people's faith.