View from the Durstein Ruin (6:30am. All by myself back to 1192)
Music is dear to my heart; yet similar to some instances in economics, there are many things about music I yearned yearned yearned to understand and improve my knowledge on but only met with frustration. It is music improvisation, which is the cornerstone of playing jazz and woogie-boogie.
Another thorn in my music journey is that I have been trying forever to understand the contemporary appreciation of Mozart’s music. What had they found genius about it? There had been so many now obscure classical music composers whose music did not receive the kind of recognition that Mozart’s received, yet their music is more melodious to the ear.
You won’t find many Mozart in my library of classical music.
My spring break in Austria, which included extended stops at Vienna and Salzburg, forced me to confront Mozart’s music. Vienna was the city that Mozart tried to make his career in. Salzburg was the city where he was born and ran away from. Both cities opportunistically showcased his music whenever it has the chance.
His music was played in the Sunday mass at the chapel of the Hofburg palace, at a much publicized “Mozart and Strauss” concert in the Beethovenhaus in Vienna, in a chamber music concert at the white castle in Salzburg, a piano recital at the St. Peters Church at Salzburg. So much so that on the fourth day of my trip, I found myself humming a rather obscure Mozart tune (which I could not name…it wasn’t a famous one) on my way walking to the train station, with the whole orchestra playing in my head.
There are a few signature Mozart pieces that were played in more than one of these occasions. Though I have heard them many times, each performance I really tried to listen to something new: listen to what made Mozart to be recognized as a genius. I listened to the cello’s part. I listened to the horn’s part. I listened to the bass’ part.
I repeated this excercise everytime. Listened to each instrument’s part in isolation.
Today, as I was driving to Lincoln Park, my car CD player was playing a Hong Kong pop song. It was the quintessential cantopop. Suddenly I found myself humming a second part to it. A harmony. Not only that, but a harmony a la Mozart style. As if I have a cello in my mouth.
I know now that it was Mozart’s influence.
Mozart, please continue to help me on jazz.
There was a man sitting by the window when I came into Cafe Hummel. The old-butler-like host, wearing a bow-tie with a tux (even though this is only a regular cafe with budget prices) enthusiastically took me to a table across from this man. Only an almost empty glass of beer on his table. It was one in the afternoon. He sat there, a cigarette in between his fingers, smoking, and staring out the window.
The interior of Cafe Hummel was now filled with smoke. In Austria, it is legal to smoke indoors, and many people do so. But it was exactly the smoke-filled quality that lent the place an ancient, immutable feel. On the wall hung a large drawing of the cafe at the turn of the 20th century. Sitting in this cafe of red-square table clothes, one could be tricked into thinking that the time was still 1909. As the tram passed by outside, the whole place vibrated a little.
My melange has arrived, but he was still gazing out of the window.
His gaze was fixated at something outside the casement. Meanwhile I gazed at him, wondering what he was gazing at.
Next to this middle-age man was an old man whose glasses was set way below his eyes. When I entered the cafe, I wanted to sit at his table but could not because a sign “reserved” already sat on it.
It was his reserved table. He entered the cafe, shortly after me. The host eagerly took him to his table. And the moment he sat down, the red hair and friendly young waitress (who clearly was in awe of the butler-like host) quickly produced three different German magazines/newspapers to him, along with a silver tray on which sat a bottle of mineral water. The host continued to chat with him, all the while placing his hand on his shoulder in a familiar fashion. (He also did this to several old ladies who entered subsequently). Unlike the man next to his table, this old man was not distracted by the scenes outside the window and only concentrated on his food, which was a place of sausages and fries.
Sitting next to me was an old lady in green, a string of pearls around her neck, smoking, after the host warmly welcomed her.
What did she order? Some ham. And a beer! In the middle of the day!
Note that the first man also had a beer.
They drink beer in the middle of the day?
Even the most tenacious drinker in my class does not drink beer in the middle of the day.
I sipped my melange.
My first taste of this highly recommended caffine product of Austria was that it tasted like a latte.
The host indeed was jovial. When a table of people rose from the table, the host appeared promptly and grabbed the jackets for the ladies.
It was clear to me that Cafe Hummel is a local’s cafe, as the host seemed to know everybody and the customers all were old men and ladies. (By the way, the ladies seemed to all wear pearls). I disagree with the Lonely Planet’s assessment that the waitresses here are “aloof”. Least of that.
But what was stranger — or rather, foreign–to me was the customers. There were several old customers, taking lunch with beer. You see young people with their laptops ordering only drinks. You also have slightly older man drinking beer. Most of them smoke.
Facts
Cafe Hummel (Josefstadt)
Kleines Gulasch 4.8 euro
Melange (which was served promisingly with a glass of water — for rinsing your mouth) 2.7 euro
Salzburg is white. It is not colored with the Vienna pastel or the Czech orange. It reminds me of Gondor from the Lord of the Ring.
The focal point of the city is a white castle, a fortress that spans from one side of the city to the other. You can imagine that in the old days, the archbiship atop the fortress could see his enemy approaching from miles and miles away.
But the castle is just hauntingly white. Especially at night.
White like a pale face.
It is easy to see the religious character of the city. The place is surrounded by churches.
Below the castle, there is the St. Peter’s Church, Franciscan Church, the Collegiate Church. And of course there is the center piece at the Residenplatz, the grand Dom Cathedral. Across the bank, there is the oldest St. Sebastian Church (Mozart’s wife was buried in its mausoleum; I stayed two nights in the hostel part of this church, which also hosts music students). Next to the Mirabell garden is St. Michael (I think).
The six churches to the four directions of the white castle mark the boundary of the city.
When the clock strikes the hour, the bells of these six churches would go off all at the same time. They ring and ring, answering one another, feeding on the answer of one another, supplementing the sound of one another, taking turns inserting its note in the symphony (some thinks cacophony) of bells.
The result is that the whole of Salzburg shakes at the hour.
My analogy of the bells in Salzburg is the barking of dogs. At first one barks, then eventually every dog barks and soon the city was filled with the howling of dogs.
Oh but the bells in Salzburg! (I wish I can still hear it now that I am back in Chicago)
The whole town shakes with the bells.
In fact, my room is next to the bell tower of St. Sebastian church. It used to the monastary / abbey associated with the church.
My roommate during my stay at St. Sebastian is from Northern Germany.
When I walked into the room the first day, she was out. Her things were efficiently placed in her section of the room. Three kleenex tidily stacked on the window pane; her large red backpacker’s backpag lied casually on the floor next to her bed. Her electronics occupying every socket in the room. On the center table of the cramped room lied a single bag of opened Mozart chocolate, a couple of which had rolled outside of the bag onto the table.
The first time we met was at night after I came back from a concert at the white castle. She handed me a Mozart chocolate.
The next morning when I woke up, she was already out. But on my Salzburg map on the center table, was another Mozart chocolate ball.
She has a low voice, a tatoo of a lizard on her left wrist, and short cropped bleached blond hair, which sticks out under her beanie. And her hands are always in the pockets of her jeans, which accentuated her long legs.
She is pale, but has a fresh sun-burned blush on her face.
Whenever she is in the room, she’d climb up onto the top of the bunk bed and read.
The last day, it turned out that we both went to Hellbrunn, 6 km South of the Old Town Salzburg. The difference is that she walked there and back, and obtained further sun burn on her already sun-burned face. She read for hours in the park, she said.
Meanwhile, I took a bus there (like Maria) and walked back, all the time staying in my own imaginary Sound of Music World (she has not heard of Sound of Music — ever!)
As she detachingly listened to my going on and on about the beautiful medieval town of Dustein (I felt like a kid in front of her), a small smile crept up to her mouth.
It barely registered an upward curl on her lip.
At that moment, she appeared nice.
She occupied the upperdeck of the bunk bed on the left side of the room. I occupied the uppdeck of the bunk bed on the right side of the room. Before I fell asleep, I turned my head to look at her. For some reasons it calmed me that she was sleeping there.
I was drifting in the clouds of the twilight zone when someone gently nudged me. A warm hand.
I opened my eyes. Bleached blonde hair. White face with sun-burned cheeks.
That same slight curl of the lip which was a smile.
I had asked her the night before to wake me up at 6am to catch an early train to Vienna, since she was to wake early too to catch her flight back to Germany.
And as I was sleepwalkingly brushing my teeth and wondering whether she had left without saying goodbye, there was a gentle knock on the door, so gentle the sound was almost covered by the sound of my brushing teethes.
She was in her full travelling equipments.
“I just want to say goodbye. Have a good trip.”
I didn’t even know her name. And she never asked for mine. It is strange how human beings could regard each other from short interactions. In such a short time, I’ve developed this quiet respect and sisterly regard toward this German girl who has a smile with that slightly curled lips.
She stayed in Salzburg for four days. Her whole soccer team was supposed to come but they cancelled at the last minute. She decided to continue as planned.
Her flight lasted only an hour. So this is really just a short solitary get away for her.
Imagine this — no running around the city with a camera to take snapshots of tourist sights. Just spend four days staying in a quiet church hostel, which is almost an abbey itself with its bare interior and juxtaposition to the church bell tower and mausoleum. Every morning the St. Sebastian bell would ring at each quarter of an hour. When you read on the upper deck of the bunk bed, you could hear the clicking of the heels of pedestians on the cobblestone Linzergasse below the window of your room. You could even see them.
You woke up by the St. Sebastian bells. You brushed your teeth and changed into your comfort clothes. Then you went downstairs for breakfasts, simply prepared by the nuns. Afterwards you walked out to Linzergasse, following the twists and turns of the cobblestone path until you hit the bridge over the Salzburg river. But you didn’t cross the bridge. You turned left, and continued along the Salzburg river with your book. Walked toward where the sun shined into your eyes.
Knowing that your backpack and belongings are safely ensconced next to your bunk bed in that small room at St. Sebastian.
You need not move anymore.
And then strolled 12 km to the Hofburg’s hunting palace.
Then took the book out from your light backpack.
You found a bench along the Hellbrunn Alee.
The Unterberg Mountain before you, and tree shades above your head, with birds lining up on its branches.
And you just read. Crossed your leg, leaned back on the bench.
The bells of the six churches in Salzburg so far away.
COFFEE & BISCUITS 