Piano Variations: A Musical Odyssey of Self Discovery by Fred Kronacher

Author:Fred Kronacher
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781481192446
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2014-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

Near the end of my second visit to this city, six or seven of us attended a concert at the Musikverein, the famed concert hall which serves as the home to the Vienna Philharmonic. It was a concert designed to please tourists; not a so-called “serious program.” Nonetheless, the group of musicians that comprised the ensemble that evening was first-rate. I went because I wanted to see the hall itself, and in the end was deeply impressed by the quality of the performance. A lesser known Mozart symphony was played with real love and care, and something more. That thought came back to me, “This really is the city of Mozart.” When the symphony was finished, I looked at my friend and tour member Kimiko, sitting to my left. We exchanged knowing glances of approval. Then she said, “They have Mozart in the blood here.” I had never heard a Mozart symphony phrased with such a natural feeling, inflection, and beauty in a live orchestral performance. At evening’s end, the Blue Danube Waltz was played. It is one of the anthems of Vienna and it simply thrilled me. I have heard some belittle the music of Johann Strauss. And I have heard some describe Vienna as a city of artifice. I don’t know the city well enough to analyze this opinion. Naturally most Viennese would rather speak with pride about Beethoven having made his home there than Hitler having done so. Many are surely uncomfortable recalling the hero’s welcome the Führer received when he entered Vienna, after having annexed Austria in 1938; the act that sealed my grandparents’ fate, and sent my mother and aunt to America, a fate which has led to my very existence. I am sure that Vienna has its share of haughty hypocrites, who point with vanity to the gracious cultivation of their city, with its unique artistic legacy, while willfully shielding their eyes from the sordid collapse of human decency that once befell their community. But does not hypocrisy exist in all societies? Hypocrisy is found everywhere and is always easy to point out.

In my own country there is an impressive Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. This is a good and fine thing. No one should forget, or be able to deny. But where is the expensive, shiny, gleaming museum dedicated to the genocidal decimation of Native Americans? I mean a museum analogous to the holocaust museum, focused exclusively on the tragedy that was visited on native peoples. Not an uplifting celebration of their now vanished world. Why is it not standing proudly and conspicuously among the great monuments and museums of our nation’s capitol? After all, the holocaust was not perpetuated by America. But the destruction brought down upon the ancient tribes and nations of this land was: right here on American soil. Where are the exhibits that shine the spotlight on the cruel and rapacious policies of our government? Or the compassionate illumination of the terrible sufferings that millions of proud people were

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