Majesty and music

VIENNA, Austria — This eve of the second Sunday in Advent is a typical winter day in this old and grand city: cold, foggy and cloudy, with flurries sifting snow onto roofs and parks. December sunlight is precious.

The Graben, the wide, fashionable shopping street that runs from Kaertnerstrasse to Meinl, the city’s equally fashionable gourmet store, is decorated with large chandeliers made of thousands of bulbs hanging over the main square. Meinl is particularly crowded today, and I don’t get beyond jellies and coffees.

Nearby, Kohlmarkt is a very short street but full of luxury goods. Kohlmarkt is also the home of Demel, the city’s best-known confectionery. Its windows are decorated with trees made of candy and displays of cookies for the Christmas season — from St. Nicholas to the devillike Krumpus, who will carry off the children who have been naughty.

At the end of Kohlmarkt, the sky has cleared somewhat and has a few patches of blue and great baroque clouds, rounded and edged in curving folds.

At 4 p.m., too late for sun to stream into the circular Michaelerplatz, I notice three large green domes and the statues crowning this side of the Hofburg. The sky has become a vast painted dome above the Hofburg’s Spanish Riding School and Imperial Apartments and St. Michael’s Church to the left. Indoor Viennese splendor has come outdoors.

Does Vienna get more fabulous than a moment in which the sky is a painted ceiling? Yes, Vienna is full of such moments. In a city that is famous for its cafe mit schlag — coffee with whipped cream — Vienna is life mit schlag.

This is the home of the Habsburgs, the family that ruled Austria and its imperial territories from 1278 until the republic was established in 1918 after Austria’s defeat in World War I. The Habsburgs also ruled Spain from 1516 to 1700 and the Holy Roman Empire from 1438 to 1806. For centuries, the Austrian empire was one of the real powers in Europe.

Vienna is the repository of great art, from early civilizations to Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka and into the 21st century, and it is proud of being called the city of music: Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and the Strausses.

On this particular Saturday night, American baritone Thomas Hampson, soprano Ildiko Raimondi and the Vienna Boys’ Choir sing with an orchestra at the annual “Christmas in Vienna” concert at the Konzerthaus. The program ends with tender and rousing selections from the opera “Hansel und Gretel,” but for those not at the concert, the program will be televised later this month.

Vienna is also a city of good food — if you can forgive what the Viennese do to beef, such as boiling it — and tonight the menu in the restaurant in the Konzerthaus is tempting. The cream of chestnut and celery soup is delicious; the venison is perfectly cooked; and the red cabbage could only be bettered with a second helping.

Christmas works wonders in this monumental city; festive lights are bright spots in the bleak Central European weather. They adorn the many neighborhood Christmas markets — the Christkindlmarkt — that opened Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent, the fourth Sunday before Christmas.

The large Christmas market at City Hall is a special place for children but is disdained as Disneyesque by those who do not approve of the decorations that are a bit excessive for Vienna. The Spittelberg market has many booths devoted to crafts, and the market in Am Hof has booths with antiques and other traditional market items.

The most interesting Christmas market this year is in front of Schloss Schonbrunn, the summer palace built by Empress Maria Theresa. Some of the rooms inside the palace have been undergoing gradual renovation, and those that have been finished are bright and splendid instead of tired and faded, quite unlike what the empress would have accepted.

The quality of the crafts elevates the Schonbrunn market above the others — from carved wood to seasonal ornaments made of tin poured into molds of St. Nicholas on skis or asleep in a bed, his red coat hanging on a separate coat stand. They are carefully hand-painted on each side.

The markets’ food stands sell sausages in several shapes and sizes; golden kartoffelpuffen (potato puffs, but more like fried potato cakes); baked potatoes topped with sour cream; bread topped with sliced, cured ham and a pickle; and many variations on the gluhwein theme. No longer just the mulled wine, though, the punsch this year may be mango, orange or other flavors, and nonalcoholic as well.

The Christmas market at the ornate Belvedere Palace, built for Prince Eugene of Savoy, the French-born field marshal credited with driving the invading Turks back to the Balkans and ending any threats of invasion, has a small, interesting market with several stands selling tempting Christmas ornaments. One morning, the market has just opened, so my mug of gluhwein is heated in a microwave oven.

To see how times have changed, stand outside the gate to Belvedere Palace on Prinz Eugen-Strasse and see modern Turkey’s red and white flag flying in front of its embassy several doors down and on the other side of the street. The Austrian flag above Belvedere is also red and white.

The Belvedere Christmas market has a stage where choirs and other musicians perform for visitors and the radio audience at home.

Inside Belvedere is a large exhibit for the 50th anniversary of Austria since it gained freedom in 1955 after a decade of control and occupation by the Allies — Britain, France, Russia and the United States — following World War II.

The years during and since the war are documented with films, posters, photographs and letters — even a guillotine. Otherwise, visitors may still see Klimt’s most famous painting, “The Kiss.”

An excellent gift shop in the palace has a tempting selection, especially a teddy bear cleverly covered in a scaled-down version of the cloth that envelopes the couple in “The Kiss.”

A guide points out that after Klimt died in 1918, it was discovered that some of his models had posed nude for him and that he later had painted on the clothes — a major scandal for Vienna at that time. Later, Schiele painted nudes and left them undressed. Another scandal.

A major Schiele exhibition at the Albertina runs through March 19. The Albertina is Vienna’s major treasury of drawings, and for this exhibition, more than 170 of Schiele’s works from the Albertina collection are being shown with about 80 items loaned from all over the world.

Another popular show in Vienna has been the special Goya exhibition — through Jan. 29 — at the Kunsthistorisches Museum — literally the Museum of Art History and often shortened to “the KHM,” but by whatever name, it is a world treasury of the fine arts amassed by the Habsburgs.

The KHM is also the setting for Thursday-night buffets during which diners may pause during their meal and go throughout the museum. After sampling the sumptuous appetizers, how about a walk to the Breugel room? Or the room devoted to Rubens or perhaps the Rembrandts? I head for the Breugels, where “Hunters in the Snow” still impresses many years after we first met.

The main courses often are a choice from roast veal, lamb chops and fish. The dessert selection? Well, this is Vienna, and there is everything from a chocolate fountain with fruits for dipping to cheesecake with blue and red berries.

The museum has added a Sunday brunch that also has become popular — as brunches themselves are getting attention in the city. The caterer, Gerstner, knows how to serve good food to a crowd and does so at many weddings and balls here in waltz city.

A special treat for residents and visitors at the moment is to see Mozart’s very own writing of his “Requiem,” which has been brought from the National Library’s vaults for a special exhibit in the library’s State Hall, just through Jan. 29.

Mozart died in Vienna on Dec. 5, 1791, at age 36, before completing the magnificent “Requiem” he was commissioned to compose, but the sections he completed during his illness were written without a correction.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, to the west, but Vienna is putting on the major observance in 2006 for the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Special observances also are planned in Salzburg and Prague, which Mozart visited on several occasions.

The house at Domgasse 5, near St. Stephen’s Cathedral, is where Mozart lived from September 1784 until April 1787 and where he wrote “Le nozze di Figaro.” It is the only Mozart apartment that has survived in Vienna — and he was a man on the move.

A publication of Mozarthaus Vienna says it was “the largest and also the most expensive of all his Viennese residences, and nowhere else the Mozart family lived for such a long period.” The apartment on the second floor — called the first floor in Vienna — included four large rooms, two small rooms and a kitchen; the layout has remained unchanged since the late 18th century.

In a letter to his father, Leopold, Mozart described the apartment: “I assure you that it is a magnificent place here — and the best place in the world for my profession.”

Mozarthaus Vienna opens on the composer’s 250th birthday, Jan. 27, at 2 p.m. and will remain open until 8 p.m. Jan. 29. The museum holds just 200 visitors at a time, so tickets, although free, will be required for the round-the-clock opening festivities. During normal operating hours, the admission will be about $10.

Elevators will take visitors to the fourth floor — the only way down is by stairs — to begin the museum tour with a presentation on Mozart and his time in Vienna.

The third floor is devoted to Mozart, the musical genius, with an emphasis on the three major operas with librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte: “Le nozze di Figaro,” “Cosi fan tutte” and “Don Giovanni.”

The second floor, the tour’s end, is where Mozart lived with his wife, Constanze, three children, three servants, a bird (Starl) and a dog (Gaukerl). One son was 9 days old when the family moved into the quarters, which became a lively scene of rehearsals, chamber music, billiards and conversations.

Much of the documentation of what the apartment was like during the Mozart residency comes from a detailed inventory of the composer’s estate, which listed furniture and contents. The Camesina room contains stucco ornaments from Mozart’s day and a rare 18th-century flute clock that plays a Mozart tune.

The Mozarthaus will have a coffeehouse and a gift shop. One of the two levels below ground contains a vaulted room that can hold 100 people for conferences. The museum will be operated by Wien (Vienna) Museum.

Domgasse is a narrow street not far from St. Stephen’s and is close to St. Peter’s Church. Little exterior change has been made to the buildings visible from Mozarthaus since the composer lived there.

Mozart died in a house on Rauhensteingasse, a building that no longer exists. On that site is a shopping mall called Steffl — but that matters little, for it is the birthday that approaches.