Purchase Single Tickets to Vienna Roast | If you missed the first concerts in the series and would like to purchase the remaining concerts as a pro-rated subscription call the Philharmonic Box Office at (407) 770-0071.

Vienna Roast Insights from Christopher Wilkins

Vienna in the 19^th century was the New York City of its day.

Having been the seat of a dominant empire for so long, the city of Vienna was a hub of creative activity for writers, artists, performers, and intellectuals from throughout the Western world.  Viennese music represented a dizzying blend of national heritages and ethnic styles, including the Hungarian violin school; Austrian country dances; German folk song; Turkish drumming; Gypsy dances; Jewish folk poetry; French marches and Italian opera.

The violin took center stage, and in violin playing the Hungarian school was king.  How fortunate we are to have concertmaster Tamas Kocsis as our soloist!  This is one of our last opportunities to feature Tamas while he is still living in Orlando.  He leaves us in August to become leader (concertmaster) of the great Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, Ireland.  In doing so, he assumes the top job in one of the great orchestras of Europe.  He also leaves behind, here in Central Florida, countless admiring and grateful fans.  Tamas brings extraordinary virtuosity, panache and musicianship to everything he does, but of course in the case of Hungarian music, he is speaking his native tongue.

Back to Vienna.  When it came to musical heroes, the Viennese celebrated their own: Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert, but also Johann Strauss, Jr., Joseph Lanner, and the Schrammel brothers.  We are familiar with the Strauss family, and their music is strongly featured in our program.  But few are as familiar with Johann and Josef Schrammel.  These two brothers eventually became so popular as performers that their music became its own genre, known simply as “Schrammelmusik.”

The music of the Viennese cafes and taverns expressed best what the Viennese insistently professed: that life was good no matter the desperate state of their political, economic, and social systems.   Viennese nightlife came to be synonymous with Gemütlichkeit – the art of feeling good – greatly aided by the stimulants and inebriants widely available in the coffeehouses and Heurige (wine taverns) scattered throughout the city.

This rich and decadent social phenomenon became more than a symbol of the “glorious decline” of Old Europe.  Many historians credit the Viennese café society with creating the Petri dish necessary for the cultivation of many of the most important ideas of the modern age: abstract art; expressionist painting; psychoanalysis; modern architecture; modern urban design; Zionism.  All can trace their roots to the cafes and wine bars of Vienna in the mid to late 19^th century.

Prosit!

Watch Joshua Bell perform Kreisler's Liebesleid and Liebesfreud (Love's Sorrow & Love's Joy)

Watch as The Bijou Orchestra performs Johann Strauss, Jr. – The Emperor Waltz

Purchase Single Tickets to Vienna Roast | If you missed the first concerts in the series and would like to purchase the remaining concerts as a pro-rated subscription call the Philharmonic Box Office at (407) 770-0071.