Dead Composers

There was a wonderful article on Slate this week (with YouTube links) entitled "Famous Classical Composers: The Last Piece They Wrote Before They Died." It's not just the usual suspects (Bach, Mozart, etc.), but also Schubert (Der Winterreise), Brahms and Schoenberg. The link (as above) is: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2011/11/famous_classical_composers_the_last_piece_they_wrote_before_they_died_.html
The Mozart is disappointing. It's the Neville Marriner Requiem (sooo sloow), and does not include the last movement Mozart wrote (I believe), which is the Lacrimosa. And if that does not send shivers up your spine, nothing ever will.

Baden bei Wien

That means the Baden by Vienna, not to be confused with Baden-Baden in Germany. "Bad" means "spa," so they are both spa towns. I have wanted to go to Baden bei Wien since the first time I went to Vienna, about fifteen years ago, but it never happened. It's so near to Vienna that you can actually take a streetcar there. So a week ago Thursday, my friend Daniela and I drove to Baden from Bratislava. It is absolutely beautiful. A huge park (the Kurpark) filled with formal flower gardens, including a rosarium (which wasn't in bloom yet), a big hill to ramble up and down, a large Kurhaus (where you can take the waters, though we did not) and monuments to Beethoven, Joseph Lanner and Johan Strauss the Younger.
There was a big fire in Baden in 1812, so much of the town was rebuilt after that. A number of the Habsburgs spent time in Baden, including Kaiser Franz II (the last Holy Roman Emperor), Kaiser Franz Josef (his longtime girlfriend, Katherina Schratt, was a Baden native) and the last Kaiser, Karl I (who, after his abdication, spent some time in Massachusetts and died in Madeira). Other famous Baden-ites include the great director Max Reinhardt, and Count Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who wrote "Venus im Pelze" ("Venus in Fur"), and inspired the term "sado-masochism." Beethoven wrote the "Missa Solemnis" in Baden, and finished his Ninth Symphony there as well.
There is a temple to Beethoven some way up the hill in the Kurpark. The ceiling has a fresco depicting the creatures of Prometheus, and part of Beethoven's death mask is emerging out of the back wall.
Near the top of the Kurpark- it turned out to be more of a hike than we'd counted on- is a really eclectic museum, the Kaiser-Franz-Josef museum. There are weapons, Austro-Hungarian Empire Army uniforms, a nice collection of old cameras I thought my sister would love, a room of Baden mementos (dance cards, photographs, ball gowns, etc.), some interesting 18th century Roman religious art on paper, and a strange collection of 16th and 17th century mouse traps. Mice must have gotten smarter- I can't imagine a New York City mouse falling for any of them.
The photos are of the Stadt Theatre, a fountain near the city hall, the Kurpark and the Beethoven Temple.