What to do after Bolzano? (also, any Wiener Philharmoniker ticket secrets?)

Re tix for the Philharmoniker - is the demand really so high? If you look at the calendar for November, most events still have plenty of tickets, i.e. the Schubert program on Nov. 7.

Oh, I don't know! Perhaps I am projecting my keenness to get tickets onto others. But there are other threads in this forum that I found via search making it seem like it takes some planning. Here in Philly, you would not be able to get last-second tickets to a program directed by Yannick, and we don't even have many music tourists!

Forgot to mention: I know the RS guides suggest Stehplätze but I think that's for folks a bit jünger than myself. ;) I'd be looking for an assigned seats to any of these events.

My experience with tickets for the Musikverein was that anything in the Golden Hall is going to be very hard to come by. I was there in December, likely November won't be as bad.

I'd do the beeline to Vienna, personally.

Thanks for the vote for the beeline!

And, just to be clear, I think marckcw was using November as an example of tickets being available shortly before the event date... I'd actually be going in March.

Should I get up at 3am EST to snag a ticket to one of those, ...

Absolutely. Start a few minutes earlier, select the right page for ordering, refresh the page every 30 seconds, and book your tickets the very moment when booking commences.

You should have created an account for Musikverein as a prerequiste and been logged in already when starting the procedure outlined above.

It has been 50(!) years since I visited the Alte Pinakothek and the Rijksmuseum, so I can't compare time spent in those museums to my July 2024 experience at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but it may help you to know the Kunsthistorisches is basically divided into three parts: traditional fine art (painting and sculpture), decorative arts and antiquities. It will help if you're not nuts about all three. [Edited to insert key missing word, "not".]

Alas for those who don't have unlimited time available, Vienna has many good art museums. I went to nearly all of them, but I had to extend my stay twice, ending up with 17 days in the city (not all the time in art museums, of course).

Re: Kunsthistorisches Museum compared to Alte Pinakothek.

There is overlap, but IMO the Alte Pinakothek is the superior collection. The AP rolls up and smokes every other museum on the planet for its given focus (northern European Baroque-era painting). This is not to say the Kunsthistorisches museum is not a great day out in a quite impressive building.

But to me, If I could go to just one art museum in Vienna, it would be the Belvedere. There is no other collection in the world like it, the art famous, important, tremendously beautiful, and closely associated with Vienna.

Re tix for the Philharmoniker - is the demand really so high? If you look at the calendar for November, most events still have plenty of tickets, i.e. the Schubert program on Nov. 7

Wiener Philharmoniker on Nov. 7th will be in Kawasaki, Japan, where their performance is sold out. The Schubert program at Musikverein is a trio concert, top performers (I am a Buchbinder fan) but not the appeal of the Philharmoniker.

I think there is a misunderstanding. Musikverein and Wiener Philharmoniker are different things. Musikverein is a concert hall (actually, several concert halls including a small rehearsal hall deep underground), Philharmoniker are an orchestra, having their main residence at Musikverein. Musikverein rent their spaces to a lot of performers, the Philharmoniker concerts being only a small fraction. Actually, there are usually two or even three concerts per day, but the Philarmoniker will play in Vienna maybe twenty times per year ; the way Philharmoniker are organized prevents them to play too frequently, as they are members of the Opera orchestra playing on their own on their off-duty time, and some of that time has to be reserved to concert tours out of Vienna as well.

Playing at the Musikverein is not a sign of excellence as I have seen that they will rent to anybody willing to pay the fee; you can find top performers as well as student orchestras, some understanding needed.

Thanks for the new comments!

wmt1, especially smart idea to create the account in advance (even if I'm a little disappointed to learn that getting up in the middle of the night may actually be necessary--Zzzzzzzzz).

Re: the Kunsthistorisches M., I am indeed a big Northern Renaissance fan and will devote a good amount of time to the Breughel room, but I wouldn't need to see all the decorative arts and antiquities. I'll make sure to see the Belvedere, considering how much I like the Neue Galerie in NYC.

lachera, your comment about the hall vs. the group makes sense, since the arts complex in my city also hosts outside groups. I would really like to see the Philharmoniker but considering that the main activity of this trip is unrelated and already set, I understand that the dates and availability may not work out perfectly. Still, I enjoy music so much that it would be nice to add that to the trip even if it's somewhere between mind-blowingly world-class and 4 Seasons in a church.

My head is still spinning a little bit with regard to the strategy, though, of which tickets to try to get in advance and whether I want to stay an extra day or two and miss more work to try to see some music. I'll have to think a bit more, but luckily I do have time.

There are many music venues in Vienna, Musikverein and Opera being the main ones. But in classical music first tier there are also the Konzerthaus, a concert hall whose resident orchestra are the Wiener Symphoniker, and the Volksoper that has lighter operas and operettas; as well as the Theater an der Wien, that is the third (!) opera house in the city, often more imaginative than the first two and with top level musicians. Have a look to all of these venues in your preferred dates.