Gustav Mahler’s Rueckert Lieder: If you love for beauty

Today I want to share with you one of the songs that Gustav Mahler wrote to poetry by Friedrich Rueckert. 

The poem is simple, almost childish, but the song is a masterpiece. Mahler has managed to condense in his lieder all the passion of his music, and the fact that he has not writen even one opera, being the Director of the Vienna Opera for ten years, testifies to his immense focus on lieder and song cycles.  At this point it is pertinent to note that Mahler’ smusic was not played and/or recorded much, until the 1950′s. One of the conductors who “un-earthed” Mahler was Dimitri Mitropoulos.

My mother was studying in New York in early 1950s and was a regular at Carnegie Hall, where Mitropoulos was conducting. I owe it to her that this door of humanity and civilization was opened for me at a very early stage in my life.  

 

Friedrich Rueckert : If you love for beauty (Liebst du um Schönheit)

If you love for beauty,

Oh, do not love me!

Love the sun,

She has golden hair!

If you love for youth,

Oh, do not love me!

Love the spring;

It is young every year!

If you love for treasure,

Oh, do not love me!

Love the mermaid;

She has many clear pearls!

If you love for love,

Oh yes, do love me!

Love me ever,

I’ll love you evermore!

Translation from German to English copyright © 1996 by David Kenneth Smith (dksmith (AT) geneva.edu)

The clip that follows features mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager,

and is in my opinion of the best interpretations of the song.  

Liebst Du um Schönheit Angelika Kirchschlager Gustav Mahler, Fünf Lieder nach Gedichten von Friedrich Rückert Live from the Rheinvokal Festival, Mittelrheinhalle, Andernach, 19.06.2009

Restaurant Steirereck – Vienna, Austria

Introduction

Today I continue with my second gastronomic experience in Vienna, the first being in the Restaurant Vestibuel, reported a couple of days ago.

After a rather long meeting and under very wet conditions I found myself in the comfort and warmth of the Steirereck Restaurant in the middle of Stadtpark in Vienna.I selected it after reading the Michelin Red Guide, which has awarded two stars to the restaurant and is overall very enthusiastic about he place.

I will start with the food, and finish with the wines.

Part I: The Food

The first bite came compliments of the chef. Trout with onion and yellow ginger. Succulent and full of aromas, a nice way to start the meal.

Gillardeau Oysters with buttermilk, glass pasta and pea shoots. This is the first dish in the 5-course set menu of the chef. The dish evolves around the oysters and magnifies their taste and flavors. A subtle and discrete dish.

Braised “Oxheart” Carrot with fillet, milt and marrow from Styrian beef. When I first read the menu, I thought that this was the heat of the ox! Wrong! Oxheart is a type of carrot, named so because its shape is like the heart of the ox! The braised carrot was served on top of raw Styrian beef fillet sliced paper-thin, and topped with a very light vinaigrette with marrow. The sticks you see on top are a type of rich bread with majoram.

Gilt Head Bream and Moscardini, with black radish, rocket and parsley. The fish was pan fried to perfection, its fresh firm and juicy. And -as always- the skin was the best bite of all! The bream was served on top of a angel pasta bed and was accompanied by one moscardino in vinaigrette, and paper-thin black radish, which was delicious! I must say that I somehow lost the flavors of the moscardini, this iwas rather neutralized. But if you exclude that, everything else in the dish was perfect.

Pheasant breast with chevril root, chanterelle mushrooms and yellow dates. What a wonderful dish! The breast was cooked to perfection, succulent, full of flavours, accompanied by the mushrooms and the dates. But the real taste booster was at the bottom. The skin of the bird was served with a semi sweet and savoury sauce, and this made the difference!

Cheese selected from a trolley with 60 different cheeses from Europe (mainly France and Italy). My only comment on the cheese is that next time I visit the restaurant, I will ask to have a five course cheese menu!

Part II: The Wines

I now come to the wines of the evening (wine maker, grape, year):

1. Prager, Gruener Veltliner, 2008. Very young, fresh, a superb introduction to the menu.

2. Hiedler, Riesling, 2008.

3. Emmerich Knoll, Riesling Kellerberg, 2007, Smaragd. A knock-out! ? Never had a riesling like this, and I have already had quite many!  Intense fruity aroma, pepper aftertaste, full body! It stood up to the strongest and most mature cheeses like the best brunello! Totally unbelievable!

Epilogue

Value for money: We were a party of three, and the bill for all of this, which lasted exactly 4 hours with immaculate service, was 140 EURO per person.

Style of cooking: This is the type of cooking that builds on the tradition, but is not blinded by it. Especially in the oxheart dish, I felt that all the centuries of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, were somehow encapsulated in the dish. Hegel would be very proud of this dish, as it more or less excemplifies his concept of history as eternal progress through time.

P.S. At the time of the visit, the restaurant was recommended by the Michelin Red Guide as “two stars”.

Restaurant Vestibuel – Vienna Austria

This is a hot report, I have not even digested the food yet, but there is a burning desire inside me to report immediately, as if I could this way relay to you some of the magic I have experienced tonight in Vienna.

I am here for a meeting and I arrived shortly before dinner time. I stay in the historical center, and found the “Vestibul” from the Michelin Red Guide, where it has been awarded a “Bib Gourmand” citation, meaning best value for money.

In any case, I walked the one kilometer in a very mild night and arrived at the restaurant.

It is across the boulevard from the Parliament, in a quiet corner of the Burg Theater.

The decoration inside is 19th century “fin de siecle”, as you can see from the bar photograph.

I was greeted by Veronika Doppler, who kindly showed me to a smoking table near the bar.

The friendly waiter recommended the house specialty for a starter, and I obeyed.

The dish arrived in the hands of the chef, Christian Domschitz, who explained that it is crunchy gabbage, lightly treated in salt and vinegar, served to accompany the lobster in its butter sauce. This was a first course, and it had in it almost half a lobster! Tender, juicy, divine!

This dish is a poem to the contrast of textures and the divinity of the lobster’s fragile mortal flesh.

If mortality is so beautiful, I am happy to be mortal!

The main course was my choice. black truffle with beef marrow, served on a “sponge” of crispy white bread. This is beyond description! I have never before tasted such a sweet, buttery substance, that melts in your mouth with overpowering you, while at the same time the truffle infuses the liquid with all the aromas of the woods.

This orgy of a dish was accompanied by a fiery red wine made by Triebauer.

And now the dessert! Dark chocolate praline with campari sauce in the middle, accompanied by blood orange sorbet on the left and orange grog on the right.

The grog was mildly hot, and contrasted beautifully the cold sorbet.

Mamma mia!

Veronika, Christian, thank you!

I will be back!

Mit herzlichen gruessen!

P.S. At the time of the visit, the restaurant was recommended by the Michelin Red Guide as “petit gourmand”.