Inspired by Jane's post, I thought I write a bit about my life as a researcher in Vienna, for those of you that are curious. I guess I'll follow suit and mainly just talk about what I did today, as most days are pretty much the same.
In the morning I headed to the Austrian National Library, and more specifically the music collection (musiksammlung). The bulk of the National Library, like many state building in Vienna, is in an old palace, in this case the Hofburg. It is a sprawling complex, and daunting to a new researcher. Because it is in a palace, and because it is Vienna, there are tourists everywhere. The powers that be obviously feel that the researchers know their way around, so all the signs and maps are geared for the tourists. It took me a very long time in a freezing rain to figure out where I was supposed to go on my first visit last week, during which time I passed multiple tour groups. I did eventually find where to get a library card, and thankfully the music room is a couple blocks away in a much less impressive building, and therefore far away from the tourists. The picture above of the main library is from the net - I didn't take it (picture a lot of rain and snow to envision my experience).
Today I spent a few hours transcribing a manuscript from, I think, 1595. I found out that I can't actually take pictures at this library for now, so I'll post a picture of a manuscript I took in DC at the Library of congress if you are curious about the notation. Basically, I just sit there and write down everything on the paper, transcribing it into modern notation. Most of the pieces I'm looking at have never been published, and likely never looked at for around 380 years. I'm hoping to include many of them in my dissertation.
I then headed to the University library to look at a recently published collection of poetry from my time period. The University has over 70,000 students, making even Ohio State seem small. It is, of course, mostly in old palaces. I was at that library for a couple hours reading poetry, where I found a very nice poem written in 1602 about one of my main composers, Philippe de Monte. I also found out he tried to help get an alchemist accused of murder out of jail. Yeah, that is pretty freaking big for my dissertation.
Afterwords I headed home on the U-bahn and took Mason to the Hundzone (dog park). This is a daily occurrence, and one of the best parts is that I often get to talk to people in German for a long time. People at the dog park are very friendly and will talk to me nice and slow, with lots of repetition. In general people are very friendly in Vienna, it just seems like dog people are the nicest of the bunch.
Finally, home for white sausage and potatoes, a bit of german tv (today was malcolm in the middle dubbed), some work and talking to Jane. Tomorrow will be more of the same, except for a trip to the climbing gym added in instead of the University library.
Sounds like you guys are finally settling down and getting some good research in. That's awesome you're actually finding stuff relevant to your research so quickly.
ReplyDeleteIt's cool you're also able to do things you did back home like take Mason to the dog park and go climbing to keep some sense of normalcy.
Eve and I went to Kinetic the bouldering gym here last week and will probably keep going.
What a beautiful location. Those old palaces really put our libraries to shame! At least all the ones I've been in. Congrats on early success in the archives!
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