Easter in the Altstadt

The Stiftskirche is the church of St Peter’s Benedictine Abbey in Salzburg’s Altstadt. The abbey was founded in the 7th century by St Rupert. The Stiftskirche itself dates from the Romanesque period, but it was extensively rebuilt in the 17th and 18th century. I happened into it on the afternoon of Good Friday and, leaving, I noticed that the music on Easter Sunday’s 10.15 mass would include Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. That would be interesting, I thought, if we could get ourselves there at that hour.

So Sunday morning we cycled 20 minutes along the bike path that runs beside the Salzach into the city centre and found our way through the maze of streets and platzes to the old church. We got off to a late start, so the priest was just finishing his sermon when we crept from the porch into the back of the nave. Others were entering as well, including a middle-aged couple just in front of us carrying a small basket covered with a cloth embroidered ‘JHS’ – Christ’s initials.

We breathed in thick incense as we stood in the crowd at the back, awed by the Baroque magnificence of the church. Its long barrel vault is white, ornamented closely with pale green rococo filigree plasterwork. Along its length, the vault is supported by an arched colonnade, above which hang enormous paintings. Where the vault joins the colonnade, there are lunette windows, through which light on this sunny morning poured.

Along the colonnaded nave stand monumental marble altarpieces, heavy with paintings and massive silver candlesticks. Above them are brightly painted and heavily gilded life-sized statures. Over the chancel rises a large dome; this morning, light from its cupola flooded the altar below. Flowers were massed on the altar, and statues and vessels on it glinted gold. A row of priests and altar servers in red or black vestments covered by white lace surplices stood as the priest lead the mass in musically intoned German, singing in the old style of the Latin mass.

Overwhelmed by sound, light, colour, smell, we took a while to find our bearings, but gradually we moved along the side aisle to midway the length of the church. Then, from the organ loft over the back of the nave, Mozart’s Mass resumed, with orchestra and chorus, the soprano’s voice rising clear and pure, more piercing than the light pouring through the cupola, as piercing, one wants to believe, as Constanze’s soprano when the work was first performed, in 1783, with Mozart conducting in this very church.

We stood through the rest of the mass, transfixed by the music, by colour and image, light and shadow, the melodic intonation of the mass itself. Gradually we moved from the side aisle to a position behind a bank of pew where we could see the altar more clearly. Periodically, Mozart’s music soared, punctuating the mass. I was half lost in a trance, succumbing to the ecstasy one feels sure the artistry and excess of ornamentation, gold, silver, light and scent were meant to inspire.

I felt this all without an scintilla of belief, even, at times, with a kind of simmering antipathy, given the complete collapse of moral authority the church is undergoing from the pope down. Yet the experience of the mass in this context has its own fascination, especially as a unifier of community, however briefly, as during the sign of peace, which I’ve always found moving.

The mass at last ended. At the end, the priest lifted his hands and, against the background of gold, blessed the food which people had brought in their baskets, an Easter tradition here. Then the organ began a sumptuous voluntary and the bell in the Romanesque tower began to toll. Leaving, we walked beside a father who looked down at his small daughter skipping beside him, swinging a basket with the Easter food. Amid the crowd we made our way out of the church and stood in the platz in front of it watching as Salzburgers poured out, many wearing traditional elements of dress – Bavarian jackets, lederhosen, wool hats and capes.

With the bells continuing to toll overhead, the notes deep and rich, we wandered around the side and to the back of St Peter’s to explore the St Petersfriedhof cemetery, the oldest in Salzburg, with its wrought-iron painted grave markers and freshly planted bright yellow flowers. Through I’m sure there are graves more ancient, the oldest marker I’ve spotted is dated 1717. A few metres away was a grave so new the ribbons on the burial wreaths were still fresh.

From from the cemetery, we passed through two more platzes before coming to the platz in front of the enormous Italianate cathedral, the Dom. St Peter’s bells were still ringing from a couple of hundred metres away. Then, just a few minutes later, mass ended in the Dom, and people streamed out of that building as its bells, more sonorous and elaborate, began to toll. All told, as we stood and wandered and watched, the bells from the two churches must have rung virtually continuously for a half hour, deep, loud, tremendous bell tolling, the sound vibrating right through me, as if the atoms of my body merged with the vibrating air around me.

And so we explored and absorbed the sounds and sights of Easter in Salzburg until it was time to find our bicycles in the maze of streets before cycling along side the Salzach, its waters pale blue-green, on a fresh spring morning, gradually leaving the city behind us.

Munich

Monday I realised that, unusually, the Spring equinox had passed unremarked in this household, here in our comfortable hotel on the Alpenstrasse in Salzburg.

We drove to Munich on Sunday afternoon – that was the 21st, the day after the equinox – a nice one-and-a-half hour drive on a good motorway. In Salzburg, we’re so much in the Alps that we didn’t really see the Alps. So it wasn’t until we were driving back from Munich Sunday evening that they came into perspective. There they were, truly magnificent, rising stark and austere in front of us. One massive loaf-shaped mountain in particular seemed to block our path as we raced toward it, about 20 km outside of Salzburg. We could see a pass to one side of it and wondered if we’d go around it there. As it turned out, the road curved in the opposite direction, and we found ourselves skirting its up-thrusting mass on its other side. That’s when we realised that here, in Salzburg, we look at the other side of that specific mountain daily.

This was, of course, late in the afternoon after the day spent in Munich, to which we had been guided by Mavis, our ever-so-patient Mistress of the GPS. It had been about 35 years since I had been there, and my husband had never visited the city, despite having lived in Germany for a year and a half. So while I was foostering around the hotel room that morning, getting myself ready, he did a quick Google search for a specific destination to give Mavis. He picked Marienplatz, in the city centre, and Nymphenburg, a grand schloss with formal gardens not far from there, a former royal summer palace.

Just as Mavis brought us through the final web of narrow, confusing streets and left us in a car park, I heard bells chiming. It was noon, exactly, so that made sense. Then I realised we heard not ordinary bells but those of a glockenspiel, and some ghost of a memory about mechanical figures on a clock teased the back of my brain. We hurried in the direction of the music and came out in a large platz dominated by the enormous, late gothic Neues Rathaus with its towers, flying buttresses, statues and gargoyles. In front of it, Marienplatz was filled with people with heads bent back looking in the same direction. Looking up, we saw in the central tower a three-tiered recessed stage filled a tableau of life-sized figures. Brightly painted, they revolved in a slow dance as the entire group circled and the glockenspiel played, a festive beginning to our afternoon, possible through sheer dumb luck.

It was a cloudy, windy day, but not uncomfortable, an appropriately spring day with the sun breaking through and the shop fronts glittering with colour. Across from a museum of toys, two Cossacks busked, both of them singing as one played the accordion. One in particular, short and stout with a sweet round face like a boy's, had a beautiful tenor voice, and we stopped to listen. They wore black trousers with a broad red stripe down each leg, which disappeared into knee-high black boots. Their jackets were bright red. The flat crown on the accordion player’s hat was as wide as a large platter, and it rose up at a dramatic angle, like a steep roof. When I dropped a euro into their basket, we noticed they were selling CDs. Some of the CDs we’ve bought from buskers over the years have turned out to be perfect for putting on at parties – flamingo guitar bought in Barcelona, bright and sweet Guatemalan pan pipes, guitars and drums bought in downtown LA, perfect to play as guests have their first drinks – so we bought one. It turns out to be choral performances of traditional Russian and Cossack songs, with Schubert’s Ave Maria and a few Christmas carols mixed in. I don’t know how well it will do as a mood setter at parties, but it’s a souvenir.

Returing to the Marienplatz for some lunch, we noticed preparations for something. A knot of older women clustered around a large red-and-white display of artificial flowers with a Marian motto in its centre. An solemn, white-haired man supervised the setting up of wooden benches facing a small wooden podium set in front of the statue of Mary that gives the platz its name. Five men in traditional Bavarian costume edged together in a protected corner of two shop fronts, practicing tunes on brass instruments. I wandered over to a handbill taped to the makeshift stage. A procession in honour of Mary, Mother of Our Lord, Patroness of Bavaria (I think that’s what it said) was to begin at 14:00 and continue until about 16:00.

We were in luck for the second time that day.

Ironically, truly, for I couldn’t keep it from mind, was that this was the day the pope’s letter, in which he did not exactly apologise for the sexual predation of children by his priests, monks and nuns, or take responsibility on behalf of the church, was being read from pulpits across Ireland. Further, this was Munich, the seat of the archdiocese over which he had been bishop, during which time he failed to protect the children from abuse by a priest under his direct authority. It was only that morning I had read Andrew Sullivan’s blog about the history of forced resignations of popes – could it be possible that Benedict could be forced to resign?

The prayers began as we sat at an outdoor cafe finishing lunch. A small group of mostly elderly people sat on benches as an older man droned. A priest wearing a lacy surplice and purple stole hovered just behind the platform. The brass band played hymns and the congregates sang, well in fact. We could make out the air of Salve Regina among the songs. After a time, Himself finished his beer and I my wine, and we moved on, in search of the twin-towered church known as the Frauenkirche. I had never seen a procession, so I noted its route. It would not get underway for a while and when it did, I reasoned, we would find it along the way.

It turns out that the Frauenkirche is Munich’s cathedral, so inside were wooden choir stalls with the names of former bishops noted. There was also a brass relief sculpture of Benedict, honoured in the cathedral over which he formerly presided. These representations did nothing to incline me to consider him with more respect. In the circumstances, it reinforced the disconnect between what one might expect of spiritual compassion and the world of the church.

We continued exploring the street around the Rathaus and the cathedral, looking in shop windows and gaping at architecture, trying to identify impressive classical and baroque buildings with of our tourist map. There was a crowd gathered in front of one shop window, adults as well as children all but pressing noses against the pane. Inside glittered a row of jewel-like confections, egg-shaped and sparkling, studded with ripe raspberries, enameled with vivid clear colours – ruby, amesyth, emerald – or thickly coated chocolate so thick and glossy it was nearly black. A child inside, fortunate beyond my dreams, watched as a waitress slipped a deep pink-and-cream delight onto a plate.

Himself and I agreed, in the end, that the delight must lay in regarding, rather than tasting, their beauty. As were the many Easter delights that glittered in other shop windows everywhere we turned.

As we walked down one street, we began to hear a droning amplified male voice, followed by a deep muttered response. We walked toward it and soon the Marian procession came into sight. It was stopped in front a building with a small shrine set high in the wall above the door. A statue of Mary in her blue-and-white gown rose from the center of the red-and-white floral arrangement. The priest was leading the group in the rosary, which we recognised through its rhythm and the odd word here and there. Banners flapped in the wind. The brass band, stood to the side. As I watched, one of them nudged another, and the five musicians straightened up and stood close together, instruments in hand, for the benefit of a photographer. I studied them carefully, taking in their thick felt hats, loden jackets, knee-length lederhosen, thick socks and low, side-fastened shoes. Their instruments were a tuba, a euphonium, a French horn and two cornets, I think.

At last, the priest finished speaking and six men struggled to lift to their shoulders the statue mounted on its heavy bier. The brass band fell into place behind priest and statute, and the procession moved on. Many of the followers were old and hunched forward, drab in woollens, hands folded, penitent-like, in front. One man, nearly doubled over in a brown cloak, had a small dog on a lead with him. Not a few were pushed in wheelchairs. As they passed, a woman stopped in front of me and thrust a small silver-coloured medal at me. She said something, in a voice somewhere between insistent and wheedling, which of course I didn’t understand. I shook my head, ‘Nein, nein.’ She didn’t move, pressing me, holding the medal, cradled in both hands, close to my face. Irritated, I continued to shake my head. I don’t know about her offended me. Was it was my fear that she wanted something in return for the medal or my general irritation that she should try to draw me into her superstition? Which amounts to the same thing, in the end. She gave up at last, we walked on, and she followed the procession, the brass-borne hymns drifting in their wake.

We continued up the street the procession had come down, and they doubled back up the street we had come down, and not long after we crossed paths again, the red and white flowers bright in the sun, the brass band, the purple-clad priest and his dogged followers, numbering about 50. We entered the Marienplatz from one side of side of the Rathaus, they from another, and the procession was over.

Where the pilgrims went from there, I don’t know. After their afternoon, I hope they went to cheerful homes and had kaffee und kuchen at tables graced by bright yellow tulips.

We, however, drove on to the schloss at Nymphenburg and walked its gardens, admiring grey geese and swans in ponds. At last, we drove back along the good motorway, while Porches, BMWs and Audis swooshed by at amazing speeds, the Alps in front of us framing the lowering grey clouds as the sun set, daylight just slightly more abundant than night.

Snow in the Altstadt

It’s been snowing in Salzburg for a couple of weeks now. The Sunday he was here on his own, while I was still in Tipperary, my husband explored the large park across from the hotel, sending pictures of an acres-wide expanse of unblemished white ringed by dark-green trees. I’d hoped I’d be able to see it myself, and, sure enough, the mountain just beyond our window is spread white between grey-green trees. It looks as if one could ski down its face. It snowed all afternoon Saturday, and we sat watching from the expanse of windows in the wide, empty common area outside our room as it fell on the street and passing cars and car park and window ledge. But it’s warm enough that the flakes dissolved, building leaving only a few inches of white covering roofs and ground.

The hotel into which we’re settled, for the short term, is a pleasant one on the Alpenstrasse with a bright, colourful interior. It’s not far from my husband’s office, to which he commutes in a rented car. Buses toward the city centre pass every five minutes, stopping at the corner next to the hotel, more convenient, I’d say, than driving. Yesterday after writing in the morning, I did some errands for my husband, including taking the bus to a shoe shop I’d discovered, just a few stops along, to pick him up new shoes, his attention these days being focussed on coming up to speed at work. Then, on a whim, thinking to see the snow fall on the Dom and surrounding churches and the Festung and narrow streets, I continued north to the Altstadt.

The bus set me down on the far side of the Salzach near the pedestrian bridge, the Mozartsteg. Swirling snow gave the afternoon a dusk-like feeling. People walked heads down or under umbrellas. I dawdled crossing the bridge, stopping to look down into the shallow blue-green waves. It seemed as though I could see stones on the river bottom. A thin layer of slush covered the bridge so I trod carefully, stepping on the raised metal cleats to keep my footing. On the opposite shore, a man stopped his bicycle as we waited for the light to cross. He wore a plastic or nylon cape that covered his shoulders and body as well as the handlebars and most of his bike. It made sense; I had been wondering how people used bikes as transport in wet weather.

The Festung on its mountain and the domes and steeples of the churches below were shrouded in the dim grey light and thickly falling snow. The narrow streets and shop windows, although still festooned with shining colours, were dimmer through the mist. One shop window was filled – entirely filled – with painted Easter eggs. I’d seen it before, the first night of my first visit to the Altstadt, but it had been closed. Inside, painted eggs, real blown hens’ eggs, were displayed by the dozens, resting in 48-count egg flats and 12-egg cartons, hung by ribbons from small bare branches, painted in scores of different patterns and colours. It’s a minor industry here, where Easter is taken very seriously. Under the low stone-ribbed groin vaults of the ancient building, fully the first half of the large shop was filled with eggs and other Easter decorations. (The back half of the shop, fronting on another street, was filled with Christmas decorations.) A few of the eggs were goose eggs, painted and cut in filigreed patterns; there were a few candles and other twee tchotchkes, as well, but the variety of eggs was overwhelming. A mother and her serious-faced daughter, about 8 years old, moved among them, carefully examining eggs and putting them into an egg carton.

Outside again, I wandered, aimless, growing colder. My feet especially were feeling the cold rising from the slushy pavement. And – curse of middle age – I needed to pee. Stopping at the entrance of the stately Hotel Altstadt, I considered going in. Perhaps I could find the toilet; maybe I would stop for a coffee – ein grosser brauner, as I’ve learned to say. It would be nice to get in from the cold.

As I hesitated, the door opened and out came a woman, a bustling woman in black. From a leather bag hung over her arm peered a toffee-coloured dog the size of a handkerchief. She was a woman of a certain age, of woman of substance, with the heft of wealth, wearing a black coat of Persian lamb with fur collar. A dome-shaped black fur hat nested over a full silver bob; wide black earrings set with diamantes hung from her ears. Fumbling with a small camera with hands encased in soft black leather, she addressed me in musical French-accented English, a charming voice. A friendly voice.

‘I had to come out to take a picture of my dog. She’s never seen the snow.’

The dog, a solemn-looking miniature terrier with a red ribbon tied in the fur that flopped over her face, looked at me, incurious.

‘How old is she?’ I asked, which seemed relevant in the circumstance.

She was precise. ‘Seventeen months.’

‘And what’s her name?’

‘Her name is Louise.’

I felt entitled by this familiarity to reach out and scratch the dog’s tiny head. Neither the woman in black nor Louise objected. The woman still fumbled with her camera.

‘Would you like me to take your picture with Louise?’

She was pleased with the suggestion, and we looked up to see, just across from us, a low dark doorway with a shallow pointed arch, the perfect frame, capturing the atmosphere of the street and setting off the falling snow before it. As they posed in front of it, dull light illuminated woman and dog, while soft fluffy flakes drifted in front of them. I took one picture, exclaiming at how lovely they looked, then another, capturing the woman’s bright smile. They were good pictures.

We stood a minute after admiring them as people hurried past us. ‘Are you staying here?’, she asked.

I hesitated. How nice to be able to claim the stately hotel as mine, to pretend to be at home and warm in its rich comforts. A frisson of regret flashed through me as I groped for a suitable explanation.

‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ve just moved here from Ireland. To live.’

Do I speak German? No? I’ll have to learn, I said.

What language do I speak?

‘Only English. And you?’, I asked. ‘You’re French?’

She nodded.

‘Where are you live?’

‘Monaco.’ Which seemed somehow perfect.

Then we said ‘Au revoir’, and she disappeared into the door of the Hotel Altstadt, and I walked on, still aimless, wandering in the cold, feeling it was now impossible to slip unnoticed inside the grand hotel just to use the toilet.