Austria is at the fore when it comes to western civilization. With a population around eight and a half million people one could say nothing much is really going on there. They speak German and sit in central Europe with a lovely alpine back drop that visitors could fall in love with. What else do we know? The capital is Vienna other major cities include Graz, Linz and Salzburg, so you won't just be stuck in Vienna. They have a strong economy and as it stands for the moment their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has them coming as the number 12 on the world's wealth chart. So they don't do too bad for themselves.
So they are in Europe, they are rich, cities don't look half bad and the Alps make it even more pretty but there is more to Austria.
For whatever reason, this alpine nation has produced a slew of great music composers the world has ever seen. So much so that Vienna is forever tied to classical music or anything to do with it. Austria is not some upstart nation it has been around for centuries and was apart of a powerful empire known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire that included surrounding nations like present day Hungary, Czech Republic parts of Italy and the Ukraine, Poland and Slavic lands like Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Slovakia. The House of the Habsburgs which preceded the aforementioned empire was once the most dominant in Europe.
We can see why Austria had such a rich musical tradition.The culture was so powerful that even after the fall of the empire Austria was still the envy of Europe. From the 16 century to the turn of the 19 century. Austria had given the world Johann Strauss Sr, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn.
Not bad for a country with less people than the city of Chicago.
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