WIEN INTIM

Vienna in the 1870s. Strauss the Younger and Brahms would meet up on the Tuchlauben or the Karlsplatz, each filled with enthusiasm for the other’s compositions. Brahms heard Strauss’s “Wine, Woman, and Song” and quoted from it in one of his quartets.

Vienna has been brimming with Europe’s finest composers for the last 150 years. It all began with Joseph Haydn, the “father of them all”. Haydn served as a template for all those who came after him, including Mozart and Beethoven. At points his F Minor Quintet seems to come close to a Strauss waltz.

Brahms paid homage to the old master with his 1874 composition “Variations on a Theme by Haydn”; and his 1869 Piano Quintet, which has a symphonic aspect in its arrangement, has the same tonality as Haydn’s Quartet. A whole host of connections.

Imagine eavesdropping on these three as they conversed over an intimate evening meal in the Augarten …