CHAPTER XXXIV.
Vienna in 1844[26]
Improvements in Vienna.—Palladian style—Music.—Theatres.—Sir Robert Gordon.—Prince Metternich.—Armen Ball.—Dancing.—Strauss.—Austrian Policy.
Vienna has been more improved and embellished within the last few years than during the previous quarter of a century. The Graben and the Kohlmarket have been joined, and many old projecting houses have been taken down, and replaced by new tenements, with the façades put back, so as to facilitate the thoroughfare. Until very lately, almost every public building and private palace in Vienna was in the Frenchified style of the last century, when each petty prince in Germany wished to have a miniature Versailles in his village capital. All the new edifices are in the Palladian style; which is suitable, not only to the climate, but to the narrow streets, where Greek architecture would be lost for want of space, and where the great height of the houses gives mass to this (the Palladian) style, without the necessity of any considerable perspective. The circumstance of many of the architects here being Italian, may probably, in some measure, account for the general adoption of this style. It is singular, that although Vienna possesses in St. Stephen's one of the most beautiful specimens of Gothic architecture, not a single edifice in this taste of recent date is to be seen, although a revival of it is noticeable in several other parts of Germany.
Music is one of the necessaries of existence in Vienna, and the internal consumption is apparently as great as ever: there is now-a-days no Mozart or Haydn to supply imperishable fabrics for the markets of the world; but the orchestras are as good as ever. The Sinfonia-Eroica of Beethoven catching my eye in a programme, I failed not to renew my homage to this prince of sweet and glorious sounds, and was loyally indignant on hearing a fellow-countryman say, that, though rich in harmony, he was poor in melody. No; Beethoven's wealth is boundless; his riches embarrass him; he is the sultan of melody: while others dally with their beauties to satiety, he wanders from grace to grace, scarce pausing to enjoy. Is it possible to hear his symphonies without recognizing in them the germs of innumerable modern melodies, the precious metal which others beat out, wherewith to plate their baser compositions,—exhaustless materials for the use of his successors, like those noble temples which antiquity has raised in the East, to become, in the sequel, the quarries from which whole cities of lowlier dwellings are constructed?
At the Kärnthner Thor I heard the Huguenots admirably performed. Decorations excepted, I really thought it better done than at the Académie Royale. Meyerbeer's brilliant and original conceptions, in turning the chorus into an oral orchestra, are better realized. A French vaudeville company performed on the alternate nights. Carl, the rich Jew manager of the Wieden, and proprietor of the Leopold-Stadt Theatre, is adding largely to his fortune, thanks to the rich and racy drolleries of Nestroz and Schulz, who are the Matthews and Liston of Vienna. The former of these excellent actors is certainly the most successful farce-writer in Germany. Without any of Raimund's sentimental-humorous dialogue, he has a far happier eye for character, and only the untranslatable dialect of Vienna has preserved him from foreign play-wrights.
Sir Robert Gordon, her Majesty's ambassador, whose unbounded and truly sumptuous hospitalities are worthy of his high position, did me the honour to take me to one of Princess Metternich's receptions, in the apartments of the chancery of state, one side of which is devoted to business, the other to the private residence of the minister. After passing through a vestibule on the first floor, paved with marble, we entered a well-lighted saloon of palatial altitude, at the further end of which sat the youthful and fascinating princess, in conversation with M. Bailli de Tatischeff ex-ambassador of Russia.
There, almost blind and bent double with the weight of eighty years, sat the whilom profoundly sagacious diplomatist, whose accomplished manners and quick perception of character have procured him a European reputation. He quitted public business some years ago, but even in retirement Vienna had its attractions for him. There is an unaccountable fascination in a residence in this capital; those who live long in it become ipsis Vindobonensibus Vindobonensiores.
Prince Metternich, who was busy when we entered with a group, examining some views of Venice, received me with that quaker-like simplicity which forms the last polish of the perfect gentleman and man of the world; "les extrêmes se touchent," in manners as in literature: but for the riband of the Golden Fleece, which crossed his breast, there was nothing to remind me that I was conversing with the statesman, who, after the armistice of Plesswitz, held the destinies of all Europe in his hands. After some conversation, the prince asked me to call upon him on a certain forenoon.
Most of the diplomatic corps were present, one of whom was the amiable and well-known Marshal Saldanha, who, a few years ago, played so prominent a part in the affairs of Portugal. The usual resources of whist and the tea-buffet changed the conversational circle, and at midnight there was a general movement to the Kleine Redouten Saal, where the Armen Ball had attracted so crowded an assemblage, that more than one archduchess had her share of elbowing. Strauss was in all his glory; the long-drawn impassioned breathings of Lanner having ceased for ever, the dulcet hilarity of his rival now reigns supreme; and his music, when directed by himself, still abounds in those exquisite little touches, that inspire hope like the breath of a May morning. Strange to say, the intoxicating waltz is gone out of vogue with the humbler classes of Vienna,—its natal soil. Quadrilles, mazurkas, and other exotics, are now danced by every "Stubenmäd'l" in Lerchenfeld, to the exclusion of the national dance.