Steps Away from Beethoven: Vienna, 2023

We grew up knowing where Vienna was, and all because we had a cousin who was an immensely gifted classical musician.

He had been a NAMCYA (National Music Competitions for Young Artists) winner at age 16. The same year that I was born he moved to Graz upon the invitation of the Austrian ambassador. He earned his Magister Artium at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts, said the adults proudly. He was a protégé of the late, legendary Paul Badura-Skoda, an illustrious name I recognized from the biography of another one of our country’s great pianists, Cecile Licad. He’d been a soloist for the Hannover Kammersymphonieorchester, and a soloist with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra on their first European tour. (He would later return as their guest conductor.)

Framed concert posters and reviews took pride of place on the white walls of his sun-washed family home. It was the one we visited most summers, with the rooftop pond overlooking the sweltering city, and an iridescent glass collection that sparkled in the cool light. Each delicate piece had been lovingly hand-carried by his mother, herself a piano teacher, every time she returned.

Sensational, the papers gushed. Powerful. Brilliant. Fiery. Dazzling virtuosity. A tour de force.

And while homecomings were very ordinary — he would bring us our beloved Viennese sausages and chocolates, make cheeky conversation, and for a memorable 18th birthday he sent me midnight-blue Swarovski crystals — there would also be Concerts.

I would get dressed up in my frills and ribbons, and sit quietly in the sea of some quite famous faces as a larger-than-life talent unfurled onstage. When rapturous standing ovations and shouts of Bravo! and Encore! filled the hall, I would go onstage to wreathe flowers around my cousin’s neck.

There are many such photos of those moments, carefully preserved in childhood albums. You know the kind: self-adhesive with the sticky pull-back sheet. There are also photos of me fussing around with colored pencils, trying to look as serious as the virtuoso annotating his music; me in my Sunday best, posing rather stiffly beside our newly arrived Austrian relative. As I grew older, the images changed: smoky captures in nightclubs; a jokey foxtrot on the beach; a toast at a country-club wedding on the East Coast.

His name was Aries, but to us he was simply Kuya Choy. He lived in a distant fairytale land of winter waltzes and Mozart sonatas, and when you are young, it is all so very exotic and mysterious.

Is it any wonder that Vienna was my first proper city stop when I finally made it to that side of the world?

The Emperor’s Mess

I’ve always thought of Vienna as a timeless city that wears the imperious weight of history lightly. And in the first two visits, that is all I set out to experience.

Birthday Sachertorte behind the state opera house. Well-groomed horses clip clopping past fine Baroque townhouses. Ivory Lipizzaners in their silvery winter stable. Catching the ballet at the Volksoper. An amble round the Hofburg, a stroll down the Ringstrasse, a whirl on the Prater’s Riesenrad. An Opus Dei Mass in jewel-hued Peterskirche, and prayers in cavernous Stephansdom. Sweeping views of Schloss Schönbrunn from the Gloriette. The Klimt collection that moved me to tears at the Belvedere palace. And of course, living out my fantasies inspired by The Sound of Music in the grounds of Mirabell in Salzburg.

My cousin and I also went on a pilgrimage to Zentralfriedhof one fine afternoon because I had a romantic notion of laying flowers at Beethoven’s grave, although we later realized the florists were closed and so we showed up empty-handed.

But imperial Vienna is also home, and on my third visit, it settles comfortably like a favorite damask throw. I’ve chosen to stay at Hilton Vienna Park this time, and its hushed Executive Lounge makes a composed base from which to stage cinematic adventures.

The Österreichische Nationalbibliothek’s pillars of alabaster marble lead the eye to giant Venetian globes beneath a lushly frescoed oval ceiling. A statue of golden-helmed Athena stands watch in front of the recently renovated Parliament, built in the Greek Revival style. Radiant gems, ermine mantles and hallowed relics glow within the velvet-lined hush of the Schatzkammer. Vienna adores smothering one so with exquisite excess.

I walk by the Roman excavations at Michaelerplatz, and the Albertina, with its grand staircase dressed in Monet’s The Water Lily Pond. There is a Eurofighter Typhoon — perhaps a life-sized replica — displayed on Heldenplatz in anticipation of the upcoming National Day celebrations. It is parked directly in front of the infamous Neue Burg balcony where Hitler announced the Anschluss, and is certainly a fascinating juxtaposition. My cousin and I share a cynical snicker about the state of the world.

I find spaces to breathe too, within the solemn baroque beauty of Karlskirche and the High Gothic tranquility of Augustinerkirche and its walls of Cloud Dancer white. We peer at the pyramid-shaped cenotaph for Archduchess Maria Christina, but skip the crypt containing the hearts of 54 Habsburgs in silver urns.

My cousin leads us on a musical treasure hunt of sorts, with a walking tour that includes marble Mozart and the scarlet-and-pink floral treble clef in the Burggarten, Golden Strauss playing the violin in Stadtpark (I would be remiss if I did not mention its ornate seasonal flower clock as well), and mighty bronze Beethoven on Beethovenplatz.

Home is also where one is fed well, and in Vienna I graze happily on thick, warm slices of Leberkäse, and crisp, crackling stelze washed down with beer and Apfelspritzer. There are rustic sausages for dinner in a former monastic brewery, and cheese-stuffed Käsekrainer served on a paper tray with a dollop of sharp mustard from a roadside stand. Cream-topped cappuccinos, frothy hot chocolates, homemade cakes, apple strudel and elaborate pastries are never far away.

On my last morning, we have breakfast at Demel, where I find out that candied violets and sugared rose petals are not make-believe storybook princess food dreamed up by the brothers Grimm, but are in fact real, and that Empress Sisi used to have them delivered personally by Mr. Demel to the palace.

I am also introduced to Demel’s version of Kaiserschmarrn, literally the Emperor’s Mess. Somewhere between a soufflé and a caramelized crepe, served with a spiced plum compote, it encapsulates everything I love about this city: an imperial favorite, and yet down-to-earth, relatable, homey.

I leave with a little box of Sisi-approved sweets in my tote as my cousin and his wife hug me goodbye at the airport. Kuya Choy promises to send my Viennese postcard on to my mom; a tiny travel ritual I began a decade ago in King’s Landing.

A Return to Zentralfriedhof

Who would have thought that it would be the last time?

Barely a month and a half later, I wake up to the utter heartbreak of my cousin — my enormously kind and funny, warm-hearted Kuya Choy, suddenly passing away.

The news crashes all around me like a crumbling wall of discordant notes, harsh in their ugliness and grief, and the silence that follows is profoundly devastating.

But knowing that the postcard did reach my mother tempers the pain somewhat. It was a small, final act of kindness from my cousin for me.

So while there will be other Vienna visits, this one — our last indelible weekend together — will always be my favorite, and I know that when I return to Zentralfriedhof on another bright autumn afternoon when the florists are open this time, that the flowers will be for Brahms and Schubert and Strauss.

And steps away from Beethoven, for Kuya Choy.