Austria – Vienna
(Instead of me duplicating content, please see my first post about Austria, which I wrote more for my own benefit as an introduction)
This is my favourite chapter! Because I love the book, I often listen before sleep, but because the reader’s voice is so modulated and lilting, I often unintentionally fall asleep, but this chapter is so enchanting, I can do nothing but listen to the end.
First of all, there is the wonderful description of the sweet-natured and eccentric Conrad and the portrait sketching enterprise, and then the marvellous exposition of the Turkish invasion and its defeat. The very thought:
“It had been a close run thing. What if the Turks had taken Vienna, as they nearly did, and advanced westward? And suppose the Sultan, with half the east at heel, had pitched his tents outside Calais? A few years before, the Dutch had burnt a flotilla of men-of-war at Chatham. Might St Paul’s, only half re-built, have ended with minarets instead of its two bell-towers and a different emblem twinkling on the dome? The muezzin’s wail over Ludgate Hill?”
“A hint of touchy Counter-Reformation aggression accompanies some ecclesiastical Baroque. There is a dash of it here and there in Vienna, and St Stephen’s – steep and streamlined and Gothic – springs up unchallenged in the heart of it as though the balance needed redress. Bristling with finials and unloosing its gargoyles, the Cathedral lifts a solitary and warning steeple which dominates every dome and cupola and bell-tower in the city. (Styles of architecture become an obsession in this town.” A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor
Vienna is very much a city where, like Bologna with its contest in leaning towers, its wealthy citizens competed in the number of cupolas they could erect on their buildings. The interiors of the churches are incredibly ornate, so baroque, with so many elements fighting for your attention, that your attention is blurred. Fortunately, in in St. Anna’s, a wonderful recital was on had to claim your attention.
“Later, when I read about this period in Vienna, I was struck by the melancholy which seems to have impressed the writers so strongly. It owed less to the prevailing political uncertainty than to the fallen fortunes of the old imperial city. These writers knew the town better than I, and they must have been right; and I did have momentary inklings of this sadness. But my impression of infinite and glowing charm is probably the result of a total immersion in the past coupled with joyful dissipation. I felt a touch of guilt about my long halt; I had made friends, and departure would be a deracination. Bent on setting off next day, I began assembling my scattered gear.” A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor
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