Majesty and music

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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.