Frederic Morton (1924–2015)
Author of A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889
About the Author
Frederic Morton was born Fritz Mandelbaum on October 5, 1924 in Vienna, Austria. He fled with his family to Britain in 1939 and immigrated to New York City the following year. The senior Mandelbaum changed the family name in order to join an anti-Semitic labor union. Morton went to a trade school show more and became a baker. He later attended City College of New York and Columbia University, where he studied literature. His best-known work was The Rothschilds, about the banking family, which became a Broadway show. His other nonfiction works included A Nervous Splendor: Vienna, 1888-1889, Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913-1914, and a memoir, Runaway Waltz. He wrote several novels during his lifetime including The Hound, The Schatten Affair, Snow Gods, An Unknown Woman, and The Forever Street. In 2002, the city of Vienna distributed 100,000 copies of The Forever Street to residents for free. He received the Cross of Honor for Arts and Sciences in 2003. He died on April 20, 2015 at the age of 90. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Frederic Morton
The Witching Ship 4 copies
Asphalt and desire 2 copies
Associated Works
Drama in the modern world: plays and essays (1964) — Contributor, some editions — 82 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Mandelbaum, Fritz (birth)
- Birthdate
- 1924-10-05
- Date of death
- 2015-04-20
- Gender
- male
- Education
- City College of New York
Columbia University - Occupations
- columnist
biographer
writer
historian - Awards and honors
- National Book Award Finalist
- Relationships
- Morton, Maria Colman (wife)
- Short biography
- Frederic Morton and his family fled Austria in 1939 after his father was arrested by the Nazis but released. In 1940 they arrived in the USA and changed their name from Mandelbaum to Morton. Frederic first worked as a baker but in 1949 began to study literature. He has written for numerous American periodicals, mainly as a columnist, and has produced works of biography, fiction, and nonfiction. His family history The Rothschilds (1961) became an international best seller and was turned into a musical. His two books on his home city of Vienna, A Nervous Splendor (1979) and Thunder at Twilight (1989) have become classics.
- Nationality
- Austria (birth)
USA - Birthplace
- Vienna, Austria
- Places of residence
- London, England, UK
New York, New York, USA - Place of death
- Vienna, Austria
- Associated Place (for map)
- Vienna, Austria
Members
Reviews
Fascinating tale of a rise from desperate poverty in an 18th Century Jewish ghetto to globe-influencing wealth in a single generation. I found most interesting how the demise of the Hessians on the fields of the American Revolutionary War enriched the patriarch's patron with trickle down of gold for the formerly humber Rothschilds family. The books goes up to the WWII era and beyond until the rise of prodigal playboys.
Perhaps a bit too much detail, but a fascinating look at a pivotal year in a pivotal place. Freud, Hitler, Stalin, Tito, Trotsky - not to mention the aging Emperor and Franz Ferdinand, all in the same place at the same time. Who knew? The world would never be the same, in Vienna or elsewhere. The end of the Belle Epoch.
Having little personal knowledge regarding the history of Austria, my first thought after finishing the book was “those poor, poor Austrians.” Their impending doom just oozed from the pages of "A Nervous Splendor."
"A Nervous Splendor" follows the lives of Brahms, Bruckner, Freud, Wolf, Klimt, Herzl, Mahler and the royal Austrian family. The book features portraits of those mentioned and illustrations of significant locations. It also includes excerpts from written correspondence and show more diary entries. Covering just ten months of Austrian history, this segment of time gives the reader a pretty clear picture of what made Austria great, and by the end of the book, it’s obvious where the country is headed.
Frederic Morton cleverly juxtaposed the drama and splendor of the arts: theater, opera, and the opulent nightly costume balls of the carnival season to the rotting decay of the archaic, inaccessible, staunchly militant government. Even the Crown Prince Rudolf could not penetrate the hierarchy to communicate effectively with his father King Franz Joseph.
It was pathetic to read about the general public - either poor starving laborers, or the small population of successful working class people. They knew their station in society and unlike other more progressive nations during that time (Great Britain and the United States), no matter how much wealth individuals accumulated, there was no middle-class. To quote Morton (Pg. 68) “Austrian nobility was ancient, exclusive, rigorously pedigreed. It treated the mushrooming burgherdom (bourgeois) like a fungus.”
With a sense of unavoidable doom bordering on hysteria, the working man had to pin his hopes on Prince Rudolf - the common man’s Prince. He was a weak, unreliable, mentally unstable, drug addict and possibly an alcoholic... but nevertheless he was their savior. Upon Rudolf’s suicidal death, the famed music critic Eduard Hanslick spoke for the Austrian people, “I have lived through revolutions, the loss of lands, murderous devastations by flood and fire - nothing of all this is comparable to the horror of January 30th” (the day Prince Rudolf died). (Pg. 267)
Morton goes so far as to imply that Crown Prince Rudolf’s suicide may have influenced the course of history. Surely it cast a black cloud over the city of Vienna and it was an omen of bad things to come. But it is hard to imagine that even if Prince Rudolf would had lived, he could have made a substantial contribution to the empire. As the story closes, Austria is suffering from rising prices, increasing anti-semitism, diminishing control over outlying territories, and overall discontent. The final page of the book is April 20th, 1889 - the birth date of Adolf Hitler.
If you are a history buff already familiar with the historical events of Austria during 1888 - 1889, you may think the story is superfluous. But the fresh observation of Austrian society and the cultural norms in that time period combined with Morton’s personal compilation of events and how those events affected Austria’s populace is both original and thoroughly captivating. show less
"A Nervous Splendor" follows the lives of Brahms, Bruckner, Freud, Wolf, Klimt, Herzl, Mahler and the royal Austrian family. The book features portraits of those mentioned and illustrations of significant locations. It also includes excerpts from written correspondence and show more diary entries. Covering just ten months of Austrian history, this segment of time gives the reader a pretty clear picture of what made Austria great, and by the end of the book, it’s obvious where the country is headed.
Frederic Morton cleverly juxtaposed the drama and splendor of the arts: theater, opera, and the opulent nightly costume balls of the carnival season to the rotting decay of the archaic, inaccessible, staunchly militant government. Even the Crown Prince Rudolf could not penetrate the hierarchy to communicate effectively with his father King Franz Joseph.
It was pathetic to read about the general public - either poor starving laborers, or the small population of successful working class people. They knew their station in society and unlike other more progressive nations during that time (Great Britain and the United States), no matter how much wealth individuals accumulated, there was no middle-class. To quote Morton (Pg. 68) “Austrian nobility was ancient, exclusive, rigorously pedigreed. It treated the mushrooming burgherdom (bourgeois) like a fungus.”
With a sense of unavoidable doom bordering on hysteria, the working man had to pin his hopes on Prince Rudolf - the common man’s Prince. He was a weak, unreliable, mentally unstable, drug addict and possibly an alcoholic... but nevertheless he was their savior. Upon Rudolf’s suicidal death, the famed music critic Eduard Hanslick spoke for the Austrian people, “I have lived through revolutions, the loss of lands, murderous devastations by flood and fire - nothing of all this is comparable to the horror of January 30th” (the day Prince Rudolf died). (Pg. 267)
Morton goes so far as to imply that Crown Prince Rudolf’s suicide may have influenced the course of history. Surely it cast a black cloud over the city of Vienna and it was an omen of bad things to come. But it is hard to imagine that even if Prince Rudolf would had lived, he could have made a substantial contribution to the empire. As the story closes, Austria is suffering from rising prices, increasing anti-semitism, diminishing control over outlying territories, and overall discontent. The final page of the book is April 20th, 1889 - the birth date of Adolf Hitler.
If you are a history buff already familiar with the historical events of Austria during 1888 - 1889, you may think the story is superfluous. But the fresh observation of Austrian society and the cultural norms in that time period combined with Morton’s personal compilation of events and how those events affected Austria’s populace is both original and thoroughly captivating. show less
A portrait of Hapsburg Vienna about a generation before its dissolution. The monarchy is a class-driven machine producing much punctilio but apparently little in the way of strategic planning. The growth of nationalism among its polyglot population is viewed by Emperor Franz Joseph with trepidation, but ultimately the official attitude is wait and see. We as readers know these nationalist pressures will tear the Empire apart in 1914 when, in Sarajevo, Serb Gavrilo Princep blows a hole in show more Archduke Franz Ferdinand's neck. But in 1888 the monarchy seems either oblivious or in denial, perhaps a little of both. Only Crown Prince Rudolph and those of his immediate circle possess insight into the unsustainable imperial trajectory.
The Crown Prince is a fascinating paradox. He's well educated and liberal, a noble who's at heart a republican. His fondest wish is to see his kind expunged from state affairs. He knows the government is in desperate need of reform. Yet despite his lofty rank, his legions of admirers, he possesses no real power to effect change. The emperor employs his intelligence apparatus to spy on him. Agents follow him about and monitor his telegrams. The burden of protocol is overwhelming, but Rudolph seems to bear up well until the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The occasion is Emperor Franz Joseph's fifty-sixth birthday. Rudolph, who prefers the company of the so-called commoners to the moribund aristocracy, despises Wilhelm for his empty pan-German rhetoric. Yet he must toast him, must follow him about like a puppy, so the Kaiser won't grandstand at this or that reception about the virtues of the Greater Reich. He's stuck in this empty diplomatic role, smiling and toasting a man he despises. He's good at it. His manners are Old World. Understandably, he grows depressed.
There can be no question of Rudolph taking a mistress from among the nobility. His marriage to a cipher was a function of politics, not love. The noble ladies set their sights on him but he is emphatically not interested. Things look bleak indeed. Then he sees Mary Vetsera at one of the few social events where commoners and nobles can intermingle. At the new Court Theater they observe each other with opera glasses. Mary is 18 and Rudolph is 30. He's heard of her, of course. Mary's mother is a skillful social climber who's handed her gifts on to her daughter. Mary's a "lady of fashion" whose every new ensemble makes the society pages. Their liaisons are complex, arranged by a Vetsera family friend. There is much scuttling about labyrinthine corridors, much zigzagging about town to shake persistent tails.
Soon they are both dead from a suicide pact. Mary's corpse is spirited away by family members and buried without ceremony. Rudolph is given a funeral the likes of which are perhaps no longer seen in our day. His death rocks the empire. Of his final messages for others, he leaves not one word, not a syllable, addressed to his father.
The book is a portrait of a vanished era as much as it is a tale of star-crossed lovers. Along with Rudolph and Mary's story we're given a look at the cultural life of Vienna. The artist bios are beautifully compressed. We peek into the young lives of Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo Wolf, and Sigmund Freud--all in their twenties--as well as older established artists like Aaron Bruckner and Johannes Brahms. Vienna is a vast overwrought Baroque wedding cake. Morton brilliantly transforms the boulevard of braggadocio, the new Ringstrasse, into a fitting central metaphor for the posturing and decorum of a vast, fragmenting empire oblivious of the ticking clock. Wonderfully vivid and highly recommended. show less
The Crown Prince is a fascinating paradox. He's well educated and liberal, a noble who's at heart a republican. His fondest wish is to see his kind expunged from state affairs. He knows the government is in desperate need of reform. Yet despite his lofty rank, his legions of admirers, he possesses no real power to effect change. The emperor employs his intelligence apparatus to spy on him. Agents follow him about and monitor his telegrams. The burden of protocol is overwhelming, but Rudolph seems to bear up well until the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The occasion is Emperor Franz Joseph's fifty-sixth birthday. Rudolph, who prefers the company of the so-called commoners to the moribund aristocracy, despises Wilhelm for his empty pan-German rhetoric. Yet he must toast him, must follow him about like a puppy, so the Kaiser won't grandstand at this or that reception about the virtues of the Greater Reich. He's stuck in this empty diplomatic role, smiling and toasting a man he despises. He's good at it. His manners are Old World. Understandably, he grows depressed.
There can be no question of Rudolph taking a mistress from among the nobility. His marriage to a cipher was a function of politics, not love. The noble ladies set their sights on him but he is emphatically not interested. Things look bleak indeed. Then he sees Mary Vetsera at one of the few social events where commoners and nobles can intermingle. At the new Court Theater they observe each other with opera glasses. Mary is 18 and Rudolph is 30. He's heard of her, of course. Mary's mother is a skillful social climber who's handed her gifts on to her daughter. Mary's a "lady of fashion" whose every new ensemble makes the society pages. Their liaisons are complex, arranged by a Vetsera family friend. There is much scuttling about labyrinthine corridors, much zigzagging about town to shake persistent tails.
Soon they are both dead from a suicide pact. Mary's corpse is spirited away by family members and buried without ceremony. Rudolph is given a funeral the likes of which are perhaps no longer seen in our day. His death rocks the empire. Of his final messages for others, he leaves not one word, not a syllable, addressed to his father.
The book is a portrait of a vanished era as much as it is a tale of star-crossed lovers. Along with Rudolph and Mary's story we're given a look at the cultural life of Vienna. The artist bios are beautifully compressed. We peek into the young lives of Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo Wolf, and Sigmund Freud--all in their twenties--as well as older established artists like Aaron Bruckner and Johannes Brahms. Vienna is a vast overwrought Baroque wedding cake. Morton brilliantly transforms the boulevard of braggadocio, the new Ringstrasse, into a fitting central metaphor for the posturing and decorum of a vast, fragmenting empire oblivious of the ticking clock. Wonderfully vivid and highly recommended. show less
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 21
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 1,936
- Popularity
- #13,302
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 34
- ISBNs
- 58
- Languages
- 5
- Favorited
- 6