Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in March 1848); the Vormärz sounded the final death knell for Wiener Klassik and pro-
duced a creative lull in music. It was only once the noise of the revolutions had died
down that a new wave of composers - the likes of Franz Liszt (1811-86), Johannes
Brahms (1833-97) and Anton Bruckner (1824-96) - arrived on the scene to take the leg-
acy of Wiener Klassik and transform it into new and exciting forms.
For more on what's happening in contemporary music (rock, jazz, pop, electronic, world music, classical
and everything between and beyond) check out the Music Austria website
www.musicaustria.at/en
.
Contemporary Music
Austria has some great musicians and contemporary acts. Although none so far has
achieved the international fame of Falco (real name Hans Hölzel; 1957-98), whose
'Rock Me, Amadeus' topped the US charts in 1986, there are some great acts to check
out.
Klagenfurt, the provincial capital of Carinthia, has brought forth some good musicians.
While Penny McLean (born as Gertrude Wirschinger) gave the 1970s one of its iconic
disco songs in the form of 'Lady Bump', the indisputable king is the crooner Udo Jür-
gens. He has been long seen as a
Schlager
singer (a broad genre of soft pop or even folk
with a sentimental edge), but he composed hits for US greats such as Shirley Bassey and
Frank Sinatra, and his style is comparable with Sinatra's. In the German-speaking world
he is also as famous as Sinatra.
Naked Lunch (
www.nakedlunch.de
)
is probably the best-known Austrian band since
Falco. Going a bit deeper into the underground, the duo Attwenger (
www.attwenger.at
)
has a large following for its music with flavours of folk, hip-hop and trance. Completing
the triumvirate of relative old hands, Graz-based Rainer Binder-Krieglstein (b 1966; per-
forms as binder & krieglstein,
www.mikaella.org/bk
)
has gone from an eclectic blend of
headz, hip-hop, groove and nujazz to concentrate on folk music today.
For pure hip-hop, Linz-based Texta (
www.texta.at
)
is the most established in the art.
The bizarre Bauchklang (
www.bauchklang.com
) is remarkable for using only voices - no
instruments - for its reggae- and ethnic-influenced hip-hop and trance. This, of course, is
absolutely normal compared to the equally remarkable Fuckhead (
www.fuckhead.at
),
who, solely for a tendency to perform in plastic robes or gear that looks suspiciously like
underwear, will obviously not be everyone's cup of tea. Afterwards you might be ready
