a short walk through Veen (Wien)...

I KNOW! Can you believe it?! I was just walking down this street one day and looked to the right and there it was!

"On this place stood the house where Antonio Salieri, the composer and Royal Court Kapellmeister, lived and died.'

Who would've thought?! I love the movie 'Amadeus'! (I just watched it last month)...but now for the facts according to our friends at Wikipedia: Salieri was a Venetian composer, conductor and teacher born in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career in Vienna. Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the Hapsburg court, a post he held from 1774 to 1792, Salieri dominated Italian language opera in Vienna. During his career he also spent time writing works for opera houses in Venice, Rome, and Paris. His dramatic works were widely performed throughout Europe during his life time. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was responsible for music at the court chapel and attached school. Even as his works dropped from performance, and he wrote no new operas after 1804, he still remained one of the most important and sought after teachers of his generation and his influence was felt in every aspect of Vienna's musical life. Schubert, Beethoven, and Liszt were among the most famous of his pupils. In the 1780s while Mozart lived and worked in Vienna, he and his father Leopold wrote in their letters that several "cabals" of Italians led by Salieri were actively putting roadblocks in the way of Mozart's obtaining certain posts or staging his operas. The biographer Alexander Wheelock Thayer believes that Mozart's suspicions of Salieri could have originated with an incident in 1781 when Mozart applied to be the music teacher of the Princess of Württemberg, and Salieri was selected instead because of his reputation as a singing teacher. In the following year Mozart once again failed to be selected as the Princess's piano teacher. "Salieri and his tribe will move heaven and earth to put it down", Leopold Mozart wrote to his daughter Nannerl. HOWEVER, There is very little evidence of a contentious relationship between the two composers. For example, when Salieri was appointed Kapellmeister in 1788 he revived Figaro instead of bringing out a new opera of his own; and when he went to the coronation festivities for Leopold II in 1790 he had no fewer than three Mozart masses in his luggage. Salieri and Mozart even composed a cantata for voice and piano together, called Per la ricuperata salute di Ophelia which was celebrating the return to stage of the singer Nancy Storace.

And so we have it, the true 'what we know' story, kind of...haha....in other words, 'Amadeus' could've been true, but, as entertainment does, took the 'elements of the story', i.e. negativity, personal ambition, hurt feelings, and then amplified them to the 10th degree!


As listed above, one of Salieri's 'vocal' students (not sure if that means he taught them how to sing...or how to write for singers....) was Schubert, and guess who LITERALLY lived across the street from Salieri...SCHUBERT!

I would like to make a small break and just say that my FAVORITE song in an 'overall' way/category is Schubert's 'Ave Maria'....it is simply beautiful, delicate, moving and worshipful...I love it!

And now having read that, let's see something from Wikipedia:

The piece is often referred to as Schubert's Ave Maria; but it was originally composed as a setting of a song from Walter Scott's popular epic poem The Lady of the Lake,[1] in a German translation by Adam Storck (1780-1822),[2] and thus forms part of Schubert's Liederzyklus vom Fräulein vom See. In Scott's poem the character Ellen Douglas, the "Lady" of "the Lake" (Loch Katrine in the Scottish Highlands) has gone with her father to hide in the "Goblin's cave" nearby to avoid drawing the vengeance of the King on their host, Roderick Dhu, the chieftain of Clan Alpine, who has been sheltering them since the King had exiled them. She sings a prayer addressed to the Virgin Mary, calling upon her for help. Roderick Dhu, who is higher on the mountain raising the clan for war, does not hear her song.

So, well, you learn something every day, eh? :)

Franz Peter Schubert: January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828, was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous "Unfinished Symphony"), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music.

Interest in Schubert's work increased dramatically in the decades following his early death at the age of thirty-one. Composers such as Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn discovered, collected, and championed his works in the 19th century, as did musicologist Sir George Grove. Franz Schubert is now widely considered to be one of the greatest of all composers.


"Here stood in the First Century AD the main gate/tower of the Roman fortress." Funny to just find that on the side of the wall...they do that though here...you'll be walking along and on a big, white wall of a building it'll say 'this is where the Turks were held back by the...'

So yes, did you know that the Romans were here too?! Vindobona (Celtic/Gaulish windo- "fair/white/blessed", bona "base/bottom" (Blessed Bottom...or White Bottom...what a name, LOL!) was the Roman name for the settlement of Vienna. Presumably it was named from its geological/topological position (oh, so no 'Blessed' 'White' 'Bottoms'...sorry :) was originally a Celtic settlement, and later a Roman military camp on the site of the modern city of Vienna in Austria. Around 15 B.C., the kingdom of Noricum was included in the Roman Empire. Henceforth, the Danube marked the border of the empire, and the Romans built fortifications and settlements on the banks of the Danube, including Vindobona.

So, again, on a wall I saw a sign that said 'Come this way to see the Anker Kunstuhr'. I thought I saw it, a fountain, but then (and isn't this true about life? Walk by something SO many times and you never see it...) I SAW IT! A Uhr (clock) that I hadn't seen before! (I still find it amazing that I didn't see this before...PLAIN sight! oh well...)

















Here on this, the oldest plaza in Vienna where nearby the (Praetorium) of the Roman fortress, Vindobona, once stood, the Insurance Company, Anker, commissioned from 1912-1914 this 'artistic' Clock - it is dedicated to the Viennese...








So at each 'hour' during the day, we can see a particular character. At 1, we see Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius; at 2, we see Charlemagne; etc...















So...now if only I can remember what time I took this pic (thanks to the Northern Hemisphere gaining daylight and blessed weather) around 7pm...so that guy in the middle I guess would be Emperor Maximilian...which one? Apparently there were two...me no know....

PLAQUE! HISTORICAL SITE OF IMPORTANCE!! LOL!

This is St. Ruprecht's, the oldest church in Vienna...that alone makes it important, ya know?

The oldest bells in Vienna are located in the church, dating from around 1280.

The oldest glass window panes (dating from approximately 1370) can be found in the church. They depict a crucified Christ and the Madonna with baby.

A statue of Saint Rupert is located in the north part of the main tower.

The arch on the western gallery has a plaque with the label "AEIOU 1439", an undecyphered motto of Emperor Frederick III (he was just trying to say his vowels like 'Eliza' in 'My Fair Lady' ;) The plaque was designed to commemorate the entrance of the emperor to Vienna on December 6, 1439.

St. Ruprecht...just found the statue, covered in green and then with all of those old roots/vines, just...interesting...

I don't know what that 'bow' meant....it says that it's for greater 'Tolerance'...so I don't know...usually that color means AIDS victims, right? I am not sure...

With St. Ruprecht's in the background we come to the 'empty lot' of what was the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna. This is where the deportations to death camps of Vienna's Jews, etc., were organized....

On top it has the symbol of the concentration camp prisoners, the triangle (different codes and triangles meant you were there for different things like being a Jehovah's Witness; being a homosexual; etc.) and then the Star of David on the right side...

Here is a prisoner leaving the 'torture chamber' of the Gestapo headquarters....UGH!