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Business English: Coffee, Habsburgs and song
From Franz Josef to Franz Lehár, Bad Ischl is steeped in imperial and musical history. Nowhere - not even in Vienna itself - is as evocative of the Habsburg Empire in its 19th-century pomp.Of all the pin-neat little resort towns in the Austrian Salzkammergut, Bad Ischl is the odd one out. Instead of standing on a splendid lake, the former imperial summer capital sits at the confluence of two rivers, enclosed by high green hills that seem to have kept the march of time at bay. Nowhere - not even in Vienna itself - is as evocative of the Habsburg Empire in its 19th-century pomp. The mountainous setting is imposing but vaguely claustrophobic, the town itself pleasingly Lilliputian. The Kurpark - where in those far-off imperial summers Johann Strauss the younger would conduct Die Fledermaus - is exquisitely groomed but small; the hotels are modest and alpine, not at all like the wedding-cake palaces of Karlovy Vary or Marianske Lazne. Each time I return I can't help but think of Pontevedro, the diminutive kingdom from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow.
The association is not unreasonable, for Bad Ischl was the Hungarian composer's home from 1910 until his death here in 1948. Touring his handsome villa on the banks of the river Traun you see not only his objets d'art and the piano given to him by his long-time collaborator and neighbour, Richard Tauber, but also the slippers he wore, his last pencil jottings on the nightstand next to his deathbed and the yellowed calendar open at the date of his death, October 24.1948. A certain air of genteel sickness is entirely appropriate to a central European spa but this is the one place in Bad Ischl I find too cloying. Lehár is buried in the little cemetery on the hill behind the house, his grave as severely elegant as his operettas were prettily ornamental. The town's annual operetta festival is an altogether livelier and more enjoyable memorial.
If, on a summer's afternoon, you stroll upriver from the Lehár Villa towards Tauber's house, you might hear the strains of a Lehár composition drifting across the clear, rushing waters of the River Traun. It might be a selection from The Merry Widow, for that operetta is never out of favour here. Or it might be "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz" ("You Are My Heart's Desire"), the most famous of all Lehárs' melodies. It was composed for Tauber and no one has ever quite managed to sing it as he did, nor to make it sound as impossibly romantic in English as it does in the original German.
The source of the music is Zauner's, an elegant white pavilion on the riverside where each afternoon thirty- and fortysomething couples take their sprightly aged parents for Kaffee, Kuchen and a side helping of nostalgia.
Dapper waiters deliver trays of coffee, each cup accompanied by its regulation glass of water. A foppishly attired Künstler plays melodies as sweet as the dainty Dobos Schnitten and Heidelbeerkuchen arranged in the glass display cabinet beneath the marble counter. Outside, the crunchy gravel esplanade leading away from the café is named after the Archduchess Sophie, Franz Josef's mother; the former bandstand is now a display case for the traditional Lodenfrey tailoring that many people here still favour, and the former Hotel Austria facing the esplanade is where Franz Josef and the future empress Elisabeth were engaged on the emperor's 23rd birthday, August 18.1853. To this day Bad Ischl celebrates the old emperor's birthday each year, as though the 90 years that have elapsed since his death meant nothing and he might return at any time to join the ensemble in a rousing, final chorus of "Lippen Schweigen". The annual birthday mass is held in the former court church where Bruckner was the Kapellmeister. But on August 18 the composer of choice is neither Bruckner nor Lehár but Haydn, for on that day the old Kaiserhymne is sung.
Franz Josef was indeed saved to a ripe old age but he wasn't spared the disastrous consequences of his actions. If Bad Ischl has any lesson for our age it is that the great and powerful would be wise to react to outrage and provocation with a cool, clear head. One hot, humid afternoon I visited the imperial family's summer residence, the Kaiservilla. As the tour reached the emperor's study, a klaxon sounded across the river and a member of staff scurried anxiously behind us, closing the shutters. A storm was brewing.
On June 28.1914 this room became the focus of international diplomatic activity after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo; in the weeks that followed, Franz Josef signed the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia at his desk in this office. It was delivered on July 23. Unsatisfied with the Serbian response, Austria-Hungary broke diplomatic relations on July 25. Three days later, informed that hostilities had begun, Franz Josef signed the formal declaration of war and the manifesto "An meine Völker", which tried to explain to his peoples why he felt compelled to declare war. A copy of it stands on the desk where he signed it.
Two days later he cut short his summer sojourn to return to Vienna. He never saw Bad Ischl again; the long imperial summer was over.
The guide at the Kaiservilla was wise to heed the klaxon's warning. By the time we reached the café at the end of the tour a thunderstorm of biblical proportions had broken over the town. Another of the guides offered to drive me back to town but such was the violence of the downpour I hesitated to dash the few metres to her car. At that moment a pleasant-faced man with white hair appeared at my shoulder, proffering umbrellas and insisting I borrow one.
As we drove into town, the young guide asked me if I knew who it was that had given me the umbrella. I didn't but I might have guessed. The man with the white hair was the Archduke Markus, the current head of the branch of the family that still lives in the Kaiservilla. Empires crumble, yet some things endure; Bad Ischl's intimate attachment to the old ruling family is one. And even for a convinced republican like me, it's nice to have a Habsburg around when you need one.
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FTD.de, 01.01.2007
© 2007 Financial Times Deutschland,
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Börsen- und Finanzmarktdaten:
Bereitstellung der Kurs- und Marktinformationen erfolgt durch die Interactive Data Managed Solutions AG. Es wird keine Haftung für die Richtigkeit der Angaben übernommen!
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