The 54th Parallel cont.

While the tramp and trampess are prepared for bad weather (and indeed embrace it), they are not averse to fine weather and fine weather blessed Austria for several days before the trampess’s return to London. On one of those days, a hike, that was only intended to be a short 2 or 3 hours before lunch, turned into a 7 hour hike: through the village of Bezau up to the Baumgarten and along the ridge, across another valley to another ridge which was the jumping off point for hang gliders. It was a glorious day, the way was long and steep but not quite in the relentless uphill way that characterised Kanisfluh. The views across valleys were truly gorgeous and while we have cows near us in the valley, it seems that the old habit of moving the cows up to higher pastures remains. Indeed, it might explain why many farmhouses below are empty: the farmers and the cows are all high up in the mountains. As the walk had not been planned to be so long, only emergency rations (which the trampess always keeps in her rucksack – a Girl Scout’s habits die hard) were available: a banana, nuts, dates, and very dark chocolate – and of course a camel back full of water in each rucksack. After 4 hours we stopped just at the point where the road took a sharp turn and we could look almost 360 degrees around us. There was a small barn with a bench outside, slightly dirty and slightly rickety, but a perfect place to rest, eat nuts and a little chocolate, enjoy the view and gather forces for the next upward thrust. Unlike Kanisfluh, this hike did not sap the tramp’s energy and he was more than willing to go on, even with such slim pickings for lunch. Odd, very odd.

The top of Baumgarten offers exceptional views – all the way to Lake Constance in one direction and into an endless chain of mountains in the other – the atmospheric perspective always makes me think I am in a Breughel painting. Along the ridge the wild flowers were in abundance – every colour imaginable covering the ground, and floating above them butterflies of every description: not just the usual pale yellow ones, or the easily recognised Monarchs, but light bright blue ones such as I have never seen. And more cows (it is hard to imagine the cows walking up the narrow paths that lead to the top of Baumgarten, but there is much evidence along the way that that is exactly how they did get here)!

Our course changed abruptly once the tramp spotted numbers of hang gliders rising in the air: he decided we had to find where they were launching themselves. It did not take us long, and what looked like a very long walk down a steep hill and across a valley and then up the opposite hill in fact took only a quarter of an hour. Soon we were amongst mostly young people (but not all!! Please take note – perhaps for the next significant birthday, the trampess will challenge herself to hang gliding) with enormous pack backs that slowly but surely transformed into hang gliders – much of the structure of the back pack becoming the harness. Quite extraordinary to watch. But the magic was watching them lay out the sail on hillside, step into the harness, and then, literally, step off the cliff and, against all expectation (mine anyway) instead of going down, lifting off! Splendid, truly splendid! The mystery to me remains how to steer and even more importantly how to come down to earth slowly – I can quite imagine my first hang gliding lesson turning from an hour into a week because I wouldn’t know how to land. If you think I jest, let me assure you that I am probably the only person you know who crashed into a hay bale when skiing because I couldn’t figure out how to get off the t-bar (everyone said it was obvious and I couldn’t fail to do it . . . ). The good news is that the second time I took a t-bar I did get off earlier (though to be fair I often tried to go up with someone who was clearly experienced and then in my best German or French would ask if they could possibly take the bar at the as I was a novice; on the whole this worked quite well). So before I launch myself as a human butterfly, I will get very explicit instructions on how to land (even better I will find a teacher to fly in tandem with).

But I digress, the walk went on along the ridge and eventually down through forest and valley until we found our way back in time for an extremely late lunch On days like this, the tramp has barely had time to wash the lunch dishes before it is time to consider making supper – after all one cannot simply push supper later or one would never get to bed!

It would have been too strenuous to follow such a day with another day of hiking so a couple of hours in the gym constituted our physical activity. With the thought of a 10k charity run in London on the Sunday following my return, your trampess put extra effort into the tread mill – deciding both to lengthen the time and increase the speed (after all I am running with two friends both of whom have a target of breaking an hour) – given the altitude compared with London, a half an hour seemed a reasonable time before shifting to weights.

Lest you think, dear Reader, that being in Austria has turned the tramp and trampess into Arnie aspirants, let me assure you that the evenings have been filled with music: the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg has proved even more excellent than last year. The Schubertiade Schlusskoncert of Alfred Brendel was without a doubt the most extraordinarily moving piano concert either the tramp or trampess have ever heard (and that includes Barenboim’s recent, stunning recital of all the Beethoven sonatas), but it was a bad choice to have good seats: being in the third row, we could both see and hear the noises (one could not call it singing) that Brendel makes while playing. In an ordinary musician, it would be enough to cause one to leave at the interval; with Brendel one closed one’s eyes, and with Buddha like concentration tried not to hear the accompaniment. Next time (as there will be a next time – another Schlusskoncert in Verbier), we will make sure to have seats at the back of the church. But Brendel was not the only creator of musical magic: Tony Pappano’s piano accompaniment for Ian Bostridge was a revelation, and while Bostridge was not the light hearted wanderer who grew out of his innocence of Fischer-Dieskau or Hermann Prey, he was magnificent in the darker songs.

The last week of the Schubertiade, walks were sacrificed to attend Matthias Goerne’s masterclasses: 4 full hours a day with only a few minutes at noon for a break (the mental exhaustion of these classes was comparable to the physical exhaustion of mountain climbing and the tramp and trampess ran to the balcony in the 10 minute break to wolf down roast chicken, raw carrots and a few of the usual trusty nuts) – but what an amazing experience: 4 singers at quite different stages of development, all receiving very serious attention from a master lieder singer. Of the four, one, a young man who looked younger than number 4 tramp son (who is 19) but is probably a few years older, had one of the most beautiful voices the tramp and trampess have ever heard, but was very shy with almost no stage presence and seemed to resist the master’s comments. One felt he had potential but . . .; the second was young, handsome and confident and not much older, a nice voice, but perhaps too ambitious in his choice of songs; the third, a tenor with a pleasant enough voice but no understanding of the content of what he was singing (this must be the most damning comment one can make about a lieder singer); the fourth, a soprano who was already so far developed one wondered why she was not on stage already. An interesting mixture. Dear Reader when I tell you that I wept when the youngest sang Staendchen, so beautiful was his voice, you will know how thrilling it was to see that after initial resistance on that first day, he threw himself into what was clearly a difficult transition from shy, introspective, gangly non-presence into a quite commanding one for the performance on the 5th day. He worked amazingly hard and Goerne put an amazing amount of physical, emotional and intellectual effort into getting him there. With the others Goerne also made the effort, but it was not so visibly reciprocated. It was a fascinating study in musicianship and psychology. If this makes the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade (please note, it is not called festival!) sound serious, it is, but not grim. The programme is well conceived, the musicians are world class; the audience is sober and soberly dressed; they come, they listen to the music, and leave. The applause can be enthusiastic (indeed, Brendel received a standing ovation as did Jonas Kaufmann – whom I forgot to mention but who was magnificent - disproving the long held belief that opera singers do not make the transition to lied well) but never wild. It isn’t a party but it is worth the annual pilgrimage.

And so the time to depart for London came. The trampess left on the Bregenz bus for Friedrichshafen, as usual having left the tramp a very large stew to hold him over (well for a few days anyway) until the trampess could return to the WLW’s kitchen again. Oh yes, and she did leave having comfortably achieved the target weight of 54.4kg! ah, those glorious mountains!