In tempore belli

THE fervour and excesses of the French Revolution were real enough, as were the territorial ambitions of Napoleon but, ultimately, the period of war from 1792 to 1814 was less about repelling an ideology and a new social order than maintaining a familiar principle, the balance of power in Europe. Although Vienna was twice occupied by Napoleon's forces, the city retained its status as the capital of an empire and when the wars eventually came to an end, it was in that city that the international powers gathered to settle the peace, the Congress of Vienna.

During this period of turmoil and real hardship, Vienna both lost an old empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and gained a new one, the Austrian Empire. The lexicon of identity changed too, with increasing use of Austria rather than Germany, imperial state (Kaiserstaat) rather than empire (Reich) and, a newly emphasized image, the fatherland (Vaterland). It was a period of severe adjustment and much the same could be said about the role of music. Music in the Habsburg capital had lost its place at the centre of imperial identity and a second shift was already perceptible, from the aristocracy to the increasing involvement of the cultured bourgeoisie. The financial hardships of the period certainly accelerated the weakening of the influence of the aristocracy but there was never a revolution, just a gradual process of democratization, with no political or philosophical baggage.

One of the complexities, often forgotten, of this era of survival from 1792 to 1814 was that it was not consistently marked by warfare. There were substantial periods when Austria was nominally at peace with France, roughly eleven years in total, and for a few months in the Russian campaign of 1812 it actually fought alongside France. While Britain was a frequent ally during times of war, Russia was a more intermittent one. These patterns of war followed by peace, together with associated shifting sympathies towards Britain, France and Russia, left their mark on musical life in Vienna and helped to forge a sense of musical identity, real and manufactured, that went with the new fatherland.

1792–1799

The First Coalition to the Peace of Campo Formio

LEOPOLD II's skills as an international diplomat had been adeptly deployed in 1790, the first year of his reign, settling disputes with the Austrian Netherlands, Hungary and Turkey within months.