A NERVOUS SPLENDOR: Vienna 1888/1889

by Frederic Morton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 6, 1979

Frederic Morton, author of The Rothschilds, here weaves a spirited tale of Viennese life between July 1888 and April 1889, a story that finds its natural focus in the suicide of Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf at Mayerling on January 30, 1889. To Morton, Rudolf's life and his melodramatic last act are symbols not only of Austria's decline but of much that has come after--the Crown Prince's powerless position as heir to the Austrian throne parallels the impotence of Austria's middle class, an anomie mirrored in Vienna's exceptionally high suicide rate in the 1880's. And Morton goes on tendentiously: ""Each time we hear of another strange young death in a 'good' house, we hear of another Mayerling."" But if the attempt to use fin-de-si≤cle Austria and the unfortunate Rudolf as paradigms of western alienation seems overly familiar and over-stylized, Morton more than compensates by his skillful use of rich but forgotten daily details to construct a fascinating account of ten months in the lives of Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo Wolff, and others. Who remembers, for example, that in 1888 Empress Elisabeth of Austria had an anchor tattooed on her shoulder? Is it common knowledge that when, in June and September 1888 respectively the bodies of Beethoven and Schubert were exhumed to be given new resting places, Anton Bruckner was on hand to worshipfully embrace the skulls of his great predecessors? Such revelations abound, from Arthur Schnitzler's diary accounts of his love-making to Johannes Brahms' dull bourgeois propensities (including Theodor Herzl's first encounter with anti-Semitism), all tied together with skill. Despite his concentration on Rudolf, Morton has a good sense of the other side of Viennese life, too, the creative vitality that made the city forever memorable.

Pub Date: Nov. 6, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atlantic/Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION