Gustav Mahler once wrote:”In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience”. Since that time classical music has grown and developed dramatically. The role of Austria in this development is so big, that sometimes you can even come across claims that classical music and Austria, in particular, Vienna, are synonymous. (Well, it is tempting to agree, but what to do then with fairy-tale landscapes, mouth-watering cuisine, skiing, outstanding spas, Freud and Red Bull, to mention just a few of other would-be-synonyms for Austria?)
Whether you consider Vienna to be its birthplace or not, classical music in Austria in all its imaginable forms, has an undeniably rich history and an exceptionally strong modern tradition, from the Vienna State Opera to the Arnold Schönberg Centre and beyond.
Chamber music, albeit only a small part of classical music landscape in Austria, remains one of the most intimate, deepest and most joyful experiences in today’s world of music. The list of Austrian composers is endless. It is humanly not possible for a few people to cover the entire depth and breadth of classical chamber music in Austria today.
We at Classical Music Austria would like to do what we could do best:
- share with you the chamber music gems we found and fell in love with;
- show you the jewels beyond the beaten track of tourist traps and commercialised performances;
- take you to the places in Austria connected to the history of classical music in a most unique manner, but still not well known – for example, the Birthplace of the String Quartet;
- tell you more about our favourite composer, Joseph Haydn, and about the event we help to organise – Music Festival MUSIKFEST SCHLOSS WEINZIERL