Living History

One the way over to Europe I read a book about the late Hapsburg Empire, "A Nervous Splendor" by Frederic Morton. It is one of the best known works of popular history concerning the period. (I didn't particularly care for the author's writing style, but that's another story.) The book covered the years 1888-89, culminating with the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf at the end of January in 1889. That was a tragic and traumatic event in Hapsburg history only to be overshadowed by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, an event which precipitated the beginning of the Great War and the subsequent dissolution of the Empire altogether. The author portrayed the cultural and artistic life of the time in Vienna, weaving the activities of such people as Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Johann Strauss, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler and Theodor Herzl into his story. All of these individuals were active in Vienna at that time. I knew of Rudolf's tragic suicide but I didn't know anything about him. The book filled in the blanks for me. Rudolf, handsome, dashing and beloved by his people, felt he was trapped in an unreal Viennese operetta scenario, with endless court duties to perform and no meaningful tasks. He was at heart a liberal, a reformer, but he had little opportunity to exert any influence. He felt that the Empire was doomed. He was, in effect, waiting for his father, the Emperor Franz Josef, to die. (That didn't happen, ironically, for another 27 years.) Rudolf saw no way out of his predicament. He made a death pact with a Baroness he was having an affair with and they blew their brains out in the royal hunting retreat at Mayerling.
The other day I was waiting in the foyer of the Odilien Institut, the school for the deaf and blind around the corner. We make use of their concert hall for auditions and concerts. On the wall of the foyer there was mounted a plaque that, in grandiose language, commemorated the visit of His Royal Highness the Grand Duke Crown Prince Rudolf and his wife the Grand Duchess Crown Princess Stephanie (who was a daughter of the King of Belgium, by the way) on the opening of the Institute in the year 1887. So, Rudolf had stood in the very same foyer, some 122 years before, in which I was standing. He probably hated being there, having to be pleasant and official at yet another meaningless event. "One of these days", he may have mused, "I'm going to take a gun and...."
I will probably continue to post during the summer, but perhaps once a week. Everyone has arrived (except the orchestra which gets in tomorrow). Classes begin tomorrow. This afternoon I took the tram out to the pilgrimage church of Maria Trost and walked back through the woods. Life in Graz is just peachy.