Ebook: Vienna : A Biography of a Bygone City

As he traces the sources of the Danube, the noblest and most picturesque river of Europe (though not blue), so Mr. Sedgwick traces the sources, the tributaries that created the spirit and the physical aspects of Vienna. It was Charlemagne who pushed the frontier of his empire eastward and formed the “Mark in Ostland.” After the Babenbergs, for seven centuries the Habsburg ruled. Vienna sprang from the Dark Ages into brilliance and light. Commerce gave her gold and prosperity. State and Church gave her beauty. The baroque met her taste for frolic and fancy. The Habsburgs threw her doors wide to fine music and fine art. What names of romance star this city’s story! Richard Cœur de Lion was in danger here. Here the Minnesänger, Walther von der Vogelweide, sang his light-hearted songs. Maximilian I showed himself the first true Viennese. The Thirty Years’ War, the martial exploits of Wallenstein and Prince Eugene, the great siege by the Turks, carry on the story. That great woman and great empress, Maria Theresa, was much too busy to be as genuinely Viennese as her pleasure-loving husband. Gluck and Haydn filled her reign with lovely music, and Mozart embodied the ideal dream of Vienna. When the French Revolutionists declared war on Austria, Vienna did not take it seriously. She was much more interested in the tunes from the latest opera and continued to believe a musical genius (like Beethoven or her own Schubert) greater than a victorious general.