Austria Books

While not as in-depth as most serious biographies, this book combines a solid overview of Haydn's life with a wonderful selection of photos, paintings, and illustrations of the people and places he knew. In addition, the text features plenty of excerpts from letters and articles written by, to, and about Haydn that really bring his story alive.

There is no musical detail about his works (in other words, don't expect any discussions of theory or examples in notation); it's purely the story of the man. Look elsewhere if your goal is to study the music itself. However, Haydn led a long and interesting enough life to make for good reading on its own.

Note that I cannot comment on this book's scholarship -- it was written around 1980 and may have been superceded by more recent work. It's aimed more at casual readers than at those doing serious research, though, so any minor inaccuracies shouldn't be a problem for the target audience.

"Karen Brown's Austria --Charming Inns and Itineraries"
Karen Brown
ISBN 1-928901-14-X

I enjoyed reading this book since I have visited Austria on vacation several times in the last few years. The coverage of the various Austrian states in the section of the book titled "Itineraries" is somewhat opinionated but informative. In general the coverage of Austria in Mrs. Brown's book is much more comprehensive than some. I found the parts about the southern state of Kaernten and eastern state of Burgenland helpful since I knew less about those areas than most of the others.

Regarding areas more familiar to me, this book was generally consistent with my own impressions. For example, the Salzkammergut region near Salzburg is a beautiful region of lakes, mountains, and picturesque towns, such as Sankt Wolfgang. A short distance south is the tiny town of Hallstatt, which, it is true, has one of the most beautiful natural settings anywhere.

There are some misconceptions in this book that I would point out to anyone who might use it for planning purposes. The author's statement that in Austria "You can eat anywhere, anytime" is not generally accurate. The restaurants, as well as many other businesses in the small towns which make up Austria, have limited hours. One has to plan around them.

I would also disagree that in Austria "it is rare to be behind a line of cars or a stream of slow-moving trucks." Last year, my wife and were stuck in very heavy traffic about twenty miles south of Salzburg on Autobahn 10. It was completely stopped for five minutes at a time and moving only very slowly the rest. We lost over an hour. We have had similar experiences elsewhere in Austria. The reason for these delays is ongoing road repair.

This book also gives the impression that accommodations in Austria are relatively expensive. Although the title refers to charming "Inns", in the text the accommodations are found in the "Hotels" section. Hotels in Austria are often expensive, but there are other very nice, less-costly options available.

The fact of the matter is that Austria is rich in charming and inexpensive accommodations. In this country, they would be called "Bed and Breakfasts". The best way to find and book them is on the Internet. Austria has some excellent web sites. Look for vacation apartments, rooms, and farmhouses. Information is available in English. Many places have photos, descriptions, and prices. Most often, they have e-mail and accept reservations for the asking without a deposit.

Last year, my wife and I spent two nights in a beautiful 900 year-old farmhouse at Sankt Wolfgang in a double room with kitchen and private bath for about twenty dollars a night less than the least expensive place on Karen Brown's list. The room was in perfect condition, as well as tastefully furnished and decorated. In short, despite some good descriptions of interesting aspects of Austria, I believe Karen Brown's book really does not do justice to affordable vacationing in Austria.

Unlike some other recent Osprey Campaign series titles, Kolin 1757 follows the standard Osprey format faithfully and even attempts some analysis of why the battle turned out as it did. The Battle of Kolin was Frederick the Great's first defeat but it has not been covered well in recent historical writing and thus, this volume is something of a godsend to Prussian enthusiasts.

The book begins with a short section on the road to war and chronology of the campaign, then moves rapidly into sections on opposing commanders, opposing armies and a detailed order of battle. The section on commanders is quite good, and also discusses command and control in 18th Century warfare. The Spring 1757 Campaign and Battle of Prague in May 1757 are covered in eight pages. Unfortunately, the lack of a map for the Battle of Prague is a serious omission, since Frederick attempted similar maneuvers that should be compared at both Prague and Kolin. Frederick's invasion of Bohemia in the Spring of 1757 also demonstrated his tendency to disperse his army in unsupporting columns, lacking centralized coordination and a weighted main effort. The Spring Campaign also demonstrated the Austrian preference for unimaginative cordon defense tactics. While Frederick won the Battle of Prague, it was a costly victory due to the lack of effective Prussian terrain reconnaissance.

The Battle of Kolin itself, which resulted from an Austrian counteroffensive to relieve the besieged city of Prague, is well covered in forty pages of text. There are three 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps which depict the battle in phases covering 1600-1730 hours, 1730-1830 hours and 1900-2100 hours. Also included are five 2-D maps which depict the approach march to battle, the initial dispositions and the retreat into Saxony. Three excellent battle scenes depict Field Marshal Daun atop Przerovsky Hill, the repulse of the Prussian Norman dragoons by IR Botta and Frederick leaving the field. Overall, the battle narrative is clear and well-supported by maps and illustrations, although the tangled nature of the charges and counter-charges atop Krzeczor Hill are difficult to follow. One minor criticism is that the author's reference to the "smell of cordite" over the battlefield is erroneous since cordite was not yet invented.

A welcome but unusual section in the aftermath of the battle attempts to analyze the action using the principles of war. Unfortunately, the author does not seem to fully grasp what the principle of war consist of, since he includes morale and flexibility - which are not principles - but excludes maneuver and unity of command. The author properly points out that the principle of objective was compromised by poor Prussian reconnaissance. The principles of surprise and security were also squandered, which contributed greatly to defeat. While the author properly pounds Frederick for lacking mass and wasting resources on secondary objectives, the criticisms only partly explain that the Prussians were attempting to attack at roughly 1:2 odds, instead of the recommended 3:1. Overall, Frederick attempted to use maneuver and the offensive by means of a turning movement to place his enemies in a position of peril, which in itself was a good idea. However, Frederick's turning movement was very clumsy and like his later famous "oblique order," represented little more than a cleverly executed frontal attack. Tactically, Frederick relied on the brawn of his infantry and cavalry to bash their way through a weak point in the enemy cordon, but Frederick was not very adept at finding those weak points. Poor reconnaissance and the lack of effective combined arms tactics that made integrated use of artillery, cavalry and infantry were the weak points of Frederick's method of warfare.

While the author addresses Frederick throughout the text, the portrait that emerges of Frederick in this campaign is far from "great." In particular, Frederick's contempt for the enemy severely degraded the quality of his operational planning; the author notes, "Frederick anticipated the Austrians accommodating his plan by doing nothing to interfere with the movement of his army." Frederick also had an unfortunate tendency to leave his army when things were going badly, which he did at Mollwitz, Lobositz and Kolin. Instead of rallying his defeated troops, Frederick hastened to the rear to sulk. Contrast Frederick's departure with Robert E. Lee's meeting the returning survivors of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg in 1863 and the disparity of styles in defeat are striking. When the Austrians pursued the defeated Prussians, Frederick turned over command to his brother while Frederick took to bed to mourn the death of his mother (apparently the death of thousands of his troops bothered him less). Yet when Frederick's brother was bested by the Austrians in a minor action, Frederick humiliatingly removed him from command. If anything is taught by the campaign of Kolin, it is that "greatness" is battlefield command is determined by exemplary leadership qualities, not the execution of fancy tactical maneuvers.

The Austrian artist Koloman Moser (1868-1918) was one of the three prime movers of early Viennese Art Nouveau along with Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) and Otto Wagner (1841-1918). Later on the former pair would found the Vienna Secession and in 1903 the seminal decorative arts co-operative: The Vienna Werkstatte. Koloman Moser (or Kolo Moser to his friends) was an artistic and creative genius of the highest order, a true renaissance man after a fashion whose formidable talents spanned most of the arts, especially decorative art, design and graphic art. He was also later on in his life a "fine artist" of quite some ability who created a unique painterly style of bright primary colours, symbolic figural content and vividly lit landscapes. Although today he is primarily famous and appreciated for his fine craftsmanship and design abilities. In his lifetime these abilities won him considerable renown and made him a very wealthy man indeed. Koloman Moser designed illustration and graphics, furniture and interiors, glassware and ceramics, jewellery and silverware along with some enchanting children's toys that stand as an enduring testament to his precocious and multi-faceted talents. He was even commissioned to design some stamps for one of the Austro-Hungarian empires far flung Balkans states... incredible!

Koloman Moser along with his colleague Josef Hoffmann was one of the most important teachers in the Vienna Werkstatte workshops, inspiring his students to let their creative juices flow. Some of them would go on to create the Viennese variant of Art Deco and later still pure Modernist design. He taught his devoted students up to the highest calibre and they're later sucessess stands as a testament to his intuition and humanity as a mentor. Mr. Moser was a versatile artist of a singular vision who worked tirelessly to create works of stunning beauty, elegance and sophistication. As an interior decorator he designed decorative fittings and schemes for the Purkersdorf sanatorium and the Kirche aum Steinhof and his abilities even reached as far as designing stage sets for plays and the cabaret. Sometime after founding the Vienna Werkstatte he left after disagreements and financial mismanagement, and he fell under the spell of the Swiss Symbolist painter Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918). He spent the last years of his life focused on his painting and his canvases are imbued with a highly mystical and personal symbolism. This volume has a chapter on this stage of his career, and is a view into to the artists painterly vision of the world within and around him.

This reasonably priced hardback volume published by Thames & Hudson is a fantastic introduction to devotees of this accomplished designers creative oeuvre, but recently Prestel have published the definitive monograph on Koloman Moser based on an exhibition at the Leopald Museum in Vienna; Austria. Mr. Moser truly was the virtuoso master of Viennese modernism and a shining example of his creative generations artistic originality of vision. Along with many of his contemporaries he bought a breath of fresh air into the stale and conservative bourgeois environment of "Fin de Siecle" Europe. As an example of an Art nouveau artist and craftsperson his output exemplified rather well the creative tenant of a "Gesamtkunstwerk" or "total work of art". His approach to design and the applied arts was one of aesthetic harmony, for Kolo Moser created homogenous decorative schemes and stunning "objets d'art" that can still take ones breath away. Koloman Moser was one of the bright stars of early modernism in art and design, and his prodigious body of work has insured that his legacy will live on forever in the hearts and minds of fine art and design lovers everywhere.

Pawel attempts and largely succeeds at placing Herzl and the Zionist movement in its historical and cultural setting. He thoroughly and without sentiment unveils the conflicts and crises that drove Herzl to become the international leader of Zionism. The rise of Jewish nationalist sentiment and the personalities involved in its emergence are well presented. I especially enjoyed the depiction of the Vienna of Herzl's era. I recommend it for readers with an interest in the origins of the Zionist movement and its uniquely gifted leader, Theodor Herzl.

This is a tremendously intelligent and well-written book. The depth and breadth of Gellner's knowledge are truly impressive. That said, I think the book is wrong-headed in at least two major ways.

Most importantly Gellner assumes that the historical-cultural situation of a society is perfectly reflected in the intellectual and psychological make-up of its citizens. He maintains this belief in spite of evidence to the contrary (e.g., that Wittgenstein never talked about culture or politics, that he was amazingly poorly read in the relevant texts, or that the Tractatus is a seamless extension of the Cartesian empirical tradition). Gellner seems to believe in an osmosis theory of learning, given the lack of evidence that people actually knew or believed things, and so he constantly falls back on ideas "being in the air" or things that "surely everyone knew."

This is some sort of Historical Distance Fallacy. Surely no one (no academic) would think it possible to reduce the social, cultural, political issues of present day America to a definitive description only a few pages long and then assume that this description was also a description of the mind of some randomly-chosen individual. (And if this is not applicable to randomly-chosen individuals, then Gellner needs to make some additional arguments as to why it applies to any specific person.)

The second weakness is that I believe Gellner completely misinterprets Wittgenstein's later work (i.e., the position he takes in Philosophical Investigations). Gellner claims that Wittgenstein replaced the logical atomism of the Tractatus with a cultural determinist/relativist position based in a romantic view of the peasantry. He believes in spite of his admission that Wittgenstein never talked about such things.

It seems to me that the view in the Tractatus was, as Gellner describes, one in which words limited what the world was. In the empiricist tradition, basically you can't get beyond the words to the world "itself." My view of the transition is that Wittgenstein shifted from this view (that words both created and limited reality) to the idea that language was something that people used as they interacted with the world. This is a shift from "given that we know we have language, what can we say about the world?" to "given that we live in the world, what can we say about language?" This is why Wittgenstein seems so obsessed with tools and workmen and it ties in to the story told about the conversation he overheard on the train in which a "meaningless" remark was understood and used in conversation.

Gellner seems to think that the Philosophical Investigations doesn't allow for error or critique, but I think that all it excludes is philosophical critique of the sort that philosophers love to engage in which allows them to claim that engineers or botanists or carpenters "don't know anything."

This well-written, incisive, and even-handed telling of the author's Klaar family in Austria, 1842-1942, is a fine way to find out about how many Jews entered into the middle classes out of the shetl and worked their way up into the military and civilian ranks. The end of the narrative, when the author becomes a protagonist as he does in the opening pages, really captured my interest much more.

I wish Clare had taken more time with his own gripping story rather than so much focus on his predecessors, but this undoubtably is out of humility and respect for his forebears. I cannot tell if the book was written in German and then translated by the same author or if Clare only wrote the German original and the original publisher (Macmillan in London) anonymously translated it into fluid, forceful, and thoughtful English. Perhaps a minor point given the impact of the climax of the tale he tells of his kindred, but I commend him for the effort he put into his work, in the telling and the style both.

Also recommended: Charles Fenyvesi's account of how he excavated the roots and found the branches still flourishing of his Hungarian Jewish ancestors over the past 300 years, "When the World Was Whole."

This book apparently has been reprinted by Pan Books in Britain more recently, but is available in many libraries in the US, although it remains here out of print. I copy my review from the Pan edition hereafter; this Holt copy carries the whole subtitle.

This well-written, incisive, and even-handed telling of the author's Klaar family in Austria, 1842-1942, is a fine way to find out about how many Jews entered into the middle classes out of the shetl and worked their way up into the military and civilian ranks. The end of the narrative, when the author becomes a protagonist as he does in the opening pages, really captured my interest much more.

I wish Clare had taken more time with his own gripping story rather than so much focus on his predecessors, but this undoubtably is out of humility and respect for his forebears. I cannot tell if the book was written in German and then translated by the same author or if Clare only wrote the German original and the original publisher (Macmillan in London) anonymously translated it into fluid, forceful, and thoughtful English. Perhaps a minor point given the impact of the climax of the tale he tells of his kindred, but I commend him for the effort he put into his work, in the telling and the style both.

Also recommended: Charles Fenyvesi's account of how he excavated the roots and found the branches still flourishing of his Hungarian Jewish ancestors over the past 300 years, "When the World Was Whole."

After hearing Hotschnig perform a reading of his novel at my campus, I rushed out to buy his book. It turned out to be a wonderful, dramatic story of a young man who joins an ambulance service to become closely involved with an accident victim. Hotschnig's description of the "suicides" which the ambulance service has to continuously rescue at a bridge is shocking. Overall, the ending promises a twist to reality which delivers an excelent read.

very helpful to read Mozart's own words, & correspondence w/his father & others. would be helpful to have more footnotes, & more of the texts. what is there is tantalizing.