do re mi fa SOLE: Aki Nuredini hosts 30 years of Viennese musical life in his ristorante [hardcover]

Aki Nuredini’s Italian restaurant SOLE in Annagasse in Vienna has an excellent reputation, especially among musicians – one could almost say: excellent resonance. Everything is melodic here: the harmonious architecture by Johannes Spalt, the classic dishes in harmonic tones on the menu and the padrone himself – a proven concert and opera fan, but above all: ‘padre’, a father figure for all the singers, directors, stage producers and of course the music-loving audiences of the nearby temples of the muses, the State Opera, Musikverein and Konzerthaus.

This richly illustrated volume offers, as antipasti and dolci, as it were, insights into the padrone’s biography and his influence on local history in Vienna as well as into the history of Annagasse. The main course is made up of sustaining ingredients from Vienna’s musical life: composed of role debuts and refusals, premieres, reprises, quotations from artists, which – in retrospect – are often a cause for amused amazement in today’s reader …