Showing posts with label vienna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vienna. Show all posts

Tuesday 30 April 2024

Ode to Joy

 

Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ was written in 1823 - and took Beethoven 30 years to write. This year is its 200 anniversary. The last choral section was based on a Fredrich Schillers poem 1785. By then aged 55, Beethoven was deaf. 'We wanted to erase inequality.'    

 

Beethoven Ninth symphony premiered in Vienna – not only for the elites, but for all people. He cut ticket prices. The chorus rises, evoking revolution – that all people will be brothers. 

 

Amid calls for Reform in turbulent times of Revolutions. Burns A Mans a Man, or Tom Paine’s

The music has been a rallying cry for social reformers  - from Karl Marx, to Hitler to Stalin. 

 


"Ode to Joy" 

(literally "To the Joy") is an ode written in the summer of 1785 by German poet, playwright, and historian 

Fredrich Schiller and published the following year in Thalia. A slightly revised version appeared in 1808, changing two lines of the first and omitting the last stanza.

"Ode to Joy" is best known for its use by Ludwig van Beethoven in the final (fourth) movement of his Ninth symphony, completed in 1824 and premiered in Vienna. Beethoven’s text is not based entirely on Schiller's poem, and it introduces a few new sections. His tune (but not Schiller's words) was adopted as the Anthem by the council fo Europe.  of Europe in 1972 and subsequently by the EU.  



 

Sunday 17 June 2018

The 'Mack' and Mackintosh 150 years, Glasgow's most famous landmark

The "Mack" Glasgow's much loved Art School
This year Glasgow celebrates 150 years since the birth of its most famous artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh. 
150 years major Exhibition Charles Rennie Mackintosh, ‘Making th Glasgow Style’ (1890 – 1920)
at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and museum – until 14 August. 2018 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of celebrated Glasgow architect, designer and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928). 

At the core of this style is the work of The Four: Charles Rennie Mackintosh, his future wife Margaret Macdonald, her younger sister Frances Macdonald and Frances’s future husband, James Herbert McNair. Glasgow was the birthplace of the only Art Nouveau ‘movement’ in the UK and its style had an impact internationally – with Mackintosh and Macdonald exhibiting to great acclaim in Vienna. Around 250 objects are on display across the full spectrum of media, including stained glass, ceramics, mosaic, metalwork, furniture, stencilling, embroidery, graphics, books, interiors and architecture. 

Willow tea rooms

It is wonderful to hear that the Willow Tearoomshave been refurbished and restored. On 7 June, art enthusiasts gathered to celebrate the launch of Mackintosh at the Willow, a £10m restoration of his iconic tearooms. Only a block away from the Mack, there was lots of excitement about the establishment of a Mackintosh quarter and the impact it could have. Heartbreaking that it could happened in the final stages of restoration.

Beautiful Glasgow art school library
The high street needs more unique experiences today. 
Glasgow boasts many unique art treasures; not least the impressive Kelvingrove museums, its university cloisters, the marbled stair cased town hall,  the Merchant City streets and the fine, delicate style of Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald’s art nouveau buildings which were heavily influenced by the clean lines of Japanese buildings.
At any one time there are exhibitions of Mackintosh’s work on in Glasgow, from walking tours to  visiting his well loved buildings – School for an Art lover, Scotland street school, Willow tea rooms, The Lighthouse, 
LAUCHLAN GOUDIE – Mackintosh: Glasgow’s Neglected Genius

Margaret MacDonald


Sadly though not his renowned art school…
Saturday 16thJune
Devastated of the news of the fire in Mackintosh’s Art school – unbelievable. Channel Four reports that a passing policeman raised the alarm. Was no one on site for fire protection – that is someone there guarding the site day and night to deal with this kind of event, which is predictable on an insecure building site. What were they thinking and who was the site manager?  
Another report the fire was sudden and spread through flammable materials - all seems very very strange - on the day the students were graduating and almost exactly four years since the original fire.
Thinking today of all the artists who studied there and how badly they must be feeling today. My thought was four years ago – this historic building was never made to house these ridiculous structures art students make today - AND THEY MUST BE MADE SOMEWHERE ELSE. Mackintosh’s art school should be only for an art museum and library – and not put at such risk ever again. 
Firefighters battle the horrendous blaze Friday night
"The rooms may smell of smoke, the hallways piled high with debris, but it's heartening to see how much of the Mackintosh and its contents survived."
"Whole rooms and their contents are left intact. The Mackintosh Room - used for board meetings - looks as if its occupants have just stepped out for a breath of air. The fireplace, light fittings, panelled bureau and distinctive windows show no trace of the devastating fire which swept through the building last Friday

“The Art School is, at the end of the day, one of the very best buildings of the early 20th century anywhere in the world.’ Appollo magazine

Sunday 21 May 2017

Searching for the Hidden Vienna


From the moment you arrive this is a city that sings and echoes its personality – from the colourful graffiti, to Mozart’s music notes and image, perfect cakes and the stories everywhere.
Many composers lived here – Hadyn, Schubert, Strauss, Beethoven and of course Mozart. We were pleased to attend Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Opera expresses a big emotional dynamic range – plaintive pleading, soft caressing, comic timing, absurdity and questioning, heady emotions, collective joy, contemplative heartbreak….


This is a small country of 8m who have fought for their survival at the heart of Europe. A crossroads place with Russia on one side, Hungary and Germany on the other. Austria at one time was the centre for the Habsburg empire. One senses today the European Project is alive and well here

There is the well-known tourist Vienna –the tour buses, the horse drawn carriages, the coffee houses, the imperial palaces. There are glittering rooftops, ordered cycle ways, the walks in the old quarter and of course luscious and light cakes! Of The Sisi museum stories and the moving images of Empress Elizabeth and of her tragedy, the reluctant princess. 
This is a city for music lovers, bookshops and art. People are very polite, well mannered, positive and hardworking with a good attitude to life. You find answers here – perhaps.


Then there is underneath the real Vienna – of a warm, proud and friendly people – proud of the heritage of their city and it’s history.  We took the first class underground system to the Schonbrunn Palace on the sunny Saturday, but found it packed out with bus loads of tourists. So instead we headed back to the Vienna old quarters.  

At the St Stephendom at the heart of old Vienna, inside the light seems to play tricks as it dances on the very tall dark columns and lays soft shiny highlights on the gold statures. We search for the quieter cobbled by ways behind the dramatic light and shade of the cathedral and find a small coffee shop near Mozarthaus to stop and enjoy the moment. We discovered the Vienna Peace museum and the Austrian Journalists Club (OJC) – The Vienna International Press centre.  

St Stephans
Mozarthaus
**ART
In Vienna’s 1900s Liberalism battled absolute power.-
The Succession Movement. ARTISTS – Klimt, Kolo Muer, Otto Wagner – all died 1918.
There was also the artists Max Licberman, Eduard Munch, A Rodin.

There were many posters of Austrian painter Schiele’s work.
Egon Schiele (1890 – 1918) – Symbolism to Expressionism “There are only a few, very new new artists. Chosen ones. The new artist must absolutely be himself; he must be a create; he needs to have the base on which he builds inside him immediately and by himself, without using that which has been handed down from the past. Only then is he a new artist.”
Vienna Museum Windows for Peace
Places to visit -
*Hofburg Palace and Imperial Palace
MozartHaus
St Stephansdom,
Scots Quarter
Schonbrunn
Vienna State Opera


VIENNA PEACE MUSEUM

Vienna Peace Museum
On my trip to Vienna the Danube flowed with the stirring of violins strings and the operatic mounting songs of drama and hope. There were grand palaces, the sound of horse and carriage on cobbled byways and the red images of Mozart! And there was the symbolism of words and art.

One message stood out too among the many colours and sounds and images – a message of unity and of peace – from the Picasso’s Dove of peace image, the artists Sciele’s experience of WW1 - and the Vienna Peace museum we stumbled upon when we stopped for coffee and cake in the lane near Mozarthaus.

Picasso's Dove of Peace
What did you do for peace today?

In Vienna old town , near MozartHaus, we sat for a coffee and cake. Oddly we were talking about peace in Ireland and how no-one wants a hard border there with Brexit, but will the south want a united Ireland and all the problems? 
After we noticed a small cobbled alleyway and posters of Lennon, Mandela, Mahatma Gandi, and Vienna's Bertha von Suttner. discovered this was the Vienna Peace Museum Windows, the first in the world. Beside this there was a narrow stairway to the Austrian Journalist Club (OJC) – the Vienna International Press Centre.  Oddly we were talking about peace in Ireland and that no one wants a hard border again after this foolish Brexit. 

Austrian painter Egon Schiele,Russians wanted war to end as much as we did.’

Looking for peace when night fell….

Windows for Peace lies in the very center of Vienna, beside Stephansdom and Mozarthaus Vienna - and includes the streets: Schulergasse, Grünangergasse, Blutgasse, Franziskanerplatz, Domgasse, Stroblgasse and Singerstrasse, situated in the center of the Vienna.

Austria was once at the heart of imperial struggles and empires. Today the grand palaces are showcases of a past that is remembered and respected – but not about today's world. The European project is alive and well here and has brought 70 years of peace in our life times – why should we throw this away on a foolish UK Brexit?

We stand on the brink of turbulent times today.
VOTE for peace!

As I flew home, I thought of the ease of travel today and how, I hope, ‘otherness’ is not as it once was…./

We must never forget the horrors of war and the needless sacrifice…

Egon Schiele