Thunder Twilight: Vienna 1913-1914, by Frederic Morton (De Capo Press, 2014)

First published in 1989, this paperback version is just under 390 pages and describes the end of an era when Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe.

I've always had a strong affection for Vienna, and visited it many times in my early teens. There is something magical about Vienna, an aura of the past. The last Habsburg Emperor, Franz-Joseph, ruled for nearly 68 years, dying in the middle of the First World War in his mid-80s. He was thankfully spared the ignominy of witnessing the destruction of the Habsburg Empire, so well-captured in the title of the book: Thunder Twilight.

The author himself expresses this well when discussing the genre known as Wiener Lieder: "Over a hundred Wiener Lieder have been composed in the last 80 years. All were songs of lyrical wistfulness. They sighed of a love not for a woman or a man but for Vienna, for that rainbow of a town, fraying away exquisitely between vineyard and Danube; for a world whose doom was it enchantment..." (p.186).

I added tags to this post: Frederic Morton, Thunder Twilight, Vienna, 1913-1914. For some reason they did not appear.

That was very cool. Thanks for the recommendation, I'm going to check it out.