Six years ago, when I first went there, I noticed how Vienna was Mozart-centric today - but for exclusively tourist-commercial purposes - and had largely forgotten all the other composers who, in one way or another, had made its musical past great.
Such was the disappointment that I promised myself I would never set foot on that soil again but, given my youngest son's desire to visit the houses and graves of the great composers - six years ago he was still very small and did not study music - I yielded, hoping at least in part to change my mind about this first judgment.
In vain these days have I searched for a "serious" concert. The only ones proposed to me, like street vendors, were always centered on Mozart and his overtures from the most famous operas and on Johann Strauss, whom I cannot stand at all. At a certain point, I said openly to those who kept offering me the same old stories: Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schoenberg ... these are the composers I want to listen to. Why has Vienna forgotten them? They looked at me perplexed and astonished ... and did not answer.
If this Mozart-centrism can find some justification in the fact that he was the greatest pure Austrian composer, it does not, however, justify the forgetting of other Austrian composers: Schubert - who is nonetheless a giant - relegated to two houses, his birthplace and his place of death, and Schoenberg - another giant - whose tomb - the only testimony dedicated to him - is forgotten by all visitors.
The reality is that Vienna is forced to endure the cumbersome presence of a Beethoven to whom it reluctantly dedicates something but, for the rest, only Mozart exists.
Mozart's statue is in a beautiful park with a flowerbed shaped like a treble clef in front of it and crowds of tourists photographing it. Beethoven's statue is there, in a remote spot, quite damaged and with only me, my son, and my wife in front of it.
Mozart's house, although originally only on the first floor, now occupies the entire palace with every possible comfort.
The Pasqualati House - the main house in which Beethoven lived among the countless ones in Vienna - is a small apartment and it is not even certain that it is the one occupied by the composer.
Brahms' house was destroyed in 1906 for reasons I do not know and now, he finds hospitality in a small room in Haydn's house.
For the rest ... nothing!
... fortunately there is "Klimt's Beethoven Frieze!"
... and fortunately I bought the 69 CDs of Schubert's complete works!
... and also that my son, for the first time, placed his hands on a harpsichord. His happiness was wonderful!
