Vienna Cafe Festival

8 October 2008 to 24 October 2008

VIENNA CAFÉ 1900

Royal College of Art, 13 - 24 October 2008, 10am - 6pm

Entry Free

Around 1900 a visit to the café was a spectacular experience. The café was a luxurious haven of glittering mirrors, polished surfaces and attentive service. It is not surprising that it became a beloved part of city life.

This exhibition offers a chance to learn more about the people and city of Vienna, through the cafés that played such an important role in city life. Old photographs, drawings, paintings and film are used to bring this corner of the past to life. In addition traditional Viennese pastry and chocolate company Demel will run a café in the gallery for visitors to sample the delights of a genuine Kaffeehaus.Inside the Café Café interiors ranged from lavish nineteenth century historicism to the spare, clean lines of modernism. Despite these differences, all the cafés shared a recognisable arrangement and ambiance that ensured the visitor felt immediately at home.The café was far more than just a place to get a cup of coffee; it was the heart of the city's social and cultural life. Famous writers, musicians and artists gathered there. It was also a place for popular entertainment and performances. Games, including billiards, cards and dominos were a regular feature of café life and perhaps it was this air of frivolity and fun that inspired writers and artists to break with tradition and push new boundaries. The café continues to inspire artists and designers today. New designs by RCA designers and practicing artists will be showcased as part of the exhibition.

FESTIVAL EVENTS

A variety of events across London will explore different aspects of Viennese music and culture. Admission to all events is free, but places may need to be reserved.

MUSIC AT THE AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM map

Austrian Cultural Forum, 28 Rutland Gate, London SW7 1PQ

Free entry; booking required by email or telephone:

T 020 7225 7300, E culture@austria.org.uk

Concert: Mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck, 7 October, 7pm

On the occasion of the Vienna Café Festival the Austrian Cultural Forum's New Artist Series will feature a concert turn-of-the-century songs by Zemlinsky, Mahler and Schreker, performed by Austrian mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck and pianist Russell Ryan, with introductions by distinguished British music critic Michael White. Haselböck latest achievements included appearances at Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Teatro San Carlo Naples, and an award-winning CD of songs by Zemlinsky. Concert: A Musical Wiener Mélange, 16 October, 7pm

As part of the Vienna Café Festival this concert will feature turn of the century Viennese music, performed by the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Loré Lixenberg and pianist Carol Morgan, a leading interpreter of the music of the early 20th century Vienna. The programme will include Wiener Lieder, Heurigen Lieder, Schoenberg's Brettl Lieder and songs by Lehar, Stolz and Kreuder.

BIRKBECK CINEMA FILM SCREENING map

Birkbeck Cinema, 41 Gordon Square, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1H 0PD

Free entry; booking required by email or telephone:

T 020 7225 7300, E culture@austria.org.uk

Film Screening: Café Elektric (1927) Gustav Ucicky, 24 October, 7pm

Introduced by Adrian Garvey
Accompanied on the piano by John Sweeney

A café of dubious repute is the setting for the action Café Elektric. The main protagonists Ferdi (Willi Forst), a small-time criminal, and Erni (Marlene Dietrich), the wild daughter of a successful businessman, meet and become involved in a tumultuous relationship. The alternative title, When a Woman loses her Way, hints at the moral message of the film. The film depicts a society Café Elektric was filmed on location in Vienna in 1927. The director Gustav Ucicky was a son of the famous Viennese artist, Gustav Klimt.MUSIC AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC mapRoyal Academy of Music, Piano Gallery, York Gate Building, Marylebone Road, London NW1 5HT

No reservations. Seating on a first come, first served basis

Lecture-recital: Visual and Aural Spaces in Wolf's 'Anakreons Grab', 10 October, 2.30-4.30pm

Diane Silverthorne and Dr Simon Shaw-Miller look together with Dr Amanda Glauert at the relationships between music and design in fin-de-siecle Vienna. The session will focus on Alfred Roller's illustrations for Wolf's 'Anakreons Grab' and for other lesser-known composers in the periodical Ver Sacrum. The session will include visual example and performance.Lecture-recital: Exploring fin-de-siecle Viennese Musical Repertoire, 14 October, 12.30-2.30pm

In this session Dr Simon Shaw-Miller will explore the diversity of turn of the century music making in Vienna with Dr Sara Callis and Dr Amanda Glauert. Composer's whose works will be discussed and performed included, Hauer, Brahms and Schoenberg.FILM, MUSIC & A LITERARY EVENING AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART mapKensington Gore, London SW7 2EUT 020 7590 4482E viennacafe@rca.ac.uk

Apart from the Concert on 18th, there are no reservations. Seating on a first come, first served basis

Film screening: Klimt (2006) Raoul Ruiz, 10 October, 6.30pm

Introduced by Professor Ian Christie A lavish portrait of Vienna at the fin-de-siècle, this film is presented as the reminiscences of the artist Gustav Klimt as he recalls the most productive but most tumultuous years of his life. Decadent and sensual, the film charts the artist's relationships with the women around him and the reflection of his life in his work.

Starring: John Malkovich, Saffron Burrows, Stephen Dillane, Veronica Ferres

Film screening: Letter from an Unknown Woman (1949) Max Ophuls, 14 October, 6.30pm

Introduced by Al Rees

Letter from an Unknown Woman only has two brief café scenes, and was entirely made in Hollywood, but in all other respects it is the archetypal film of 'Vienna 1900', with a soundtrack soaked in Liszt, Mozart, Strauss and Schubert, and based on a story by Stefan Zweig. Lisa's doomed love for dissolute pianist Stefan is told in complex narrative spirals, echoed in the circular, sweeping camerawork of German emigré director Max Ophuls. A classic melodrama, its key themes are memory, loss, repetition and desire, aptly enough for a film set at the turn of the century in Freud's city.Concert by the Kreutzer String Quartet: 18 October, 6pm

Places are limited.

Please call 020 7590 4482 to reserve a seat.

KREUTZER QUARTET

Peter Sheppard Skærved, Violin
Mihailo Trandafilovski, Violin
Morgan Goff , Viola
Neil Heyde, Cello

The Kreutzer Quartet have worked with many of the world's greatest composers, including George Rochberg, Poul Ruders, Michael Tippett, David Matthews, Hans Werner Henze, Jorg Widmann, Michael Finnissy, Luca Francesconi, Judith Weir, Robert Saxton, and Gloria Coates. They are the dedicatees of well over two hundred works for string quartet. They have recorded cycles of quartets by Roberto Gerhard, David Matthews, Michael Tippett, Antonin Reicha, Michael Finnissy, Thomas Simaku, and Jeremy Dale Roberts, among others. They have a long term working relationship with the Tate Gallery St Ives, which has resulted in four residencies, and new works by David Gorton and Jim Aitchison, developed in concert with the space and the exhibitions. They are filming a series of DVDs of Quartets by Berg, Stravinsky, Lutosławski and others, in collaboration with the British Academy.

Programme

Fritz Kreisler, Recitativo & Scherzo for solo violin

Anton Webern, Six Bagatelles for string quartet, Op. 9

Ludwig van Beethoven, Fugue for string quartet in B flat major ("Grosse Fuge"), Op. 133

Interval

Josef Matthias Hauer, Zwolftonspiel (January 1957) for two violins, viola and cello

Alban Berg, Lyric Suite for String Quartet.

 

Film screening: The Illusionist (2006) Niel Burger, 20 October, 6.30pm

Introduced by Dr Frank GrayIn turn-of-the-century Vienna, Eisenheim, the son of a cabinet-maker, falls in love with woman far beyond his social status. Frustrated by the rigid class hierarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire he plots to become a magician and seize power for himself. Visually rich, this film plays with the ideas of magic, reality and illusion.

Starring: Eddie Marsan, Edward Norton and Jessica BielFilm screening: The Third Man (1949) Carol Reed, 22 October, 6.30pm

Introduced by Sir Christopher FraylingThis classic British film noir broke new ground in 1949 with its expressionist cinematography and haunting use of light and shadows. It is set in the city of Vienna; a city scarred both physically and psychologically by the experiences of the Second World War and its aftermath. The big wheel at the funfair is still standing, but only just.

In a tense and thrilling plot, Holly Martins, an American pulp-fiction writer, attempts to uncover the truth behind the lies and veiled allusions surrounding the death of his old school friend, Harry Lime. His straightforward nature is challenged as he discovers how difficult it is for a man to keep his hands clean in this dark city, run by the Four Powers.

Scripted by Graham Greene and starring: Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles and Alida Valli.Literary Evening: 23 October, 6.30pm

Fiction in Freud's Vienna: a translator's viewpoint, by Anthea Bell and new fiction from Deborah Levy

The Psychopathology of Everyday Café Life: an imagined encounter with objects and subjects in Freud's Vienna.

CONFERENCE: The Viennese Café as a Centre for Cultural Exchange

17 October, 10am-6pm - V & A Museum, The Lecture Theatre.18 October, 10.30am-6pm - Royal College of Art, Lecture Theatre 1.