music blog | Secret Vienna Tours

The Highs and Lows of the Historical Sophiensäle

January 12, 2020

Large-scale fires are always shocking when they happen, though unfortunately every major city has an entire history of buildings and cultural artifacts lost to fire – and Vienna is no exception. Although fires were more common in the past when building codes were less sophisticated than today, large-scale fires still occasionally occur, sometimes destroying historical…

Theater

A summer night, a famous orchestra, and a beautiful palace

June 21, 2019

The Vienna Philharmonic is considered to be one of the finest orchestras in the world, made up of world-class musicians who have proved their mettle by playing in the Vienna State Opera orchestra for at least 3 years. They normally are based in the Musikverein and tickets can be hard to come by, but once…

Augarten, or the joys of Floodplain Park

May 21, 2019

There are many great parks in Vienna, but surely one of the most loved and most visited is the Augarten. Located in the heart of the 2nd district, this green oasis of manicured lawns and wild, untamed underbrush has long provided the residents of Vienna a place to relax and enjoy in the middle of…

Moving Mozart

April 10, 2019

One of the most famous statues in the Burggarten is the Mozart Monument, located right by the entrance of the park and invariably surrounded by tourists with cameras. It seems such a natural part of the Burggarten these days that it is difficult to imagine it elsewhere – but indeed, this was not its original…

Of Green Hunters and Drunken Cherubs

March 25, 2019

Walking along Praterstrasse, you might come along a rather ordinary building by Viennese standards, if not for the cherubs engaged in various amusements and activities across several panels of the façade. The house in question is located at Praterstrasse 27, and cherubim reliefs lead you to believe the building surely has some stories to tell,…

Buildings and architecture

The streets are alive with the sound of music

March 2, 2019

Vienna, the capital of music. When walking through the city, one quickly gets the impression that people like Mozart or Beethoven lived on almost every street corner. The busts of Haydn, Brahms or Maher, to name just a few, greet you in any souvenir shop in their hundreds. Just think of the Staatsoper, the Konzerthaus…

The Organ of the Franziskanerkirche

August 26, 2018

Franziskanerkirche (or Franciscan Church of Vienna) is one of the several hidden gems of Vienna’s first district. Located in a small, beautiful Italianesque square in the medieval core of the old city the building is, as Lonely Planet calls it, ‘a glorious architectural deception’. The ‘deception’ comes from the difference between its simple, well-proportioned Renaissance…

Buildings and architecture

The Skandalkonzert of 1913, or the most Viennese fight of all time

March 13, 2018

Like all places, Austria has seen its fair share of scandals – but some of them are quintessentially Viennese. This includes a particular scandal in the early 20th century, which has gone down in history as the Skandalkonzert of 1913, and truly could have only happened in Vienna. The concert in question took place at…

Philharmonia Hungarica

March 11, 2018

The time it takes to reach Vienna from Budapest depends not only on the means of transportation but also on geopolitics. An easy three-hour drive can turn into four or more if you put some border control in between. Put an Iron Curtain and the time may become infinite. In November 1956 Zoltán Rozsnyai was…

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