2 - Beginning in the Golden West: Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Switzerland

Summary

When we talk about the “Golden West” here, we must view this heading against the background of Austria's occupation by the Allied Forces (1945– 55). Austria was divided into four zones, as in Germany, but only one of these internal borders played a significant role, and that was the east–west border at the river Enns. This was Austria's equivalent to Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. During the fifties everyone was stopped there—pedestrians, trains, cars—and sometimes for lengthy periods, while individual and often very detailed passport inspections took place. This rift between Austria's east and the rest of the country manifested itself in every area of life and cast a shadow for a long period of time. It affected the supply of food and general necessities, public safety, every area of life, but most of all it induced the feeling that one lived under a shadow. Austrians followed events in Germany, which was similarly divided, with intensity and empathy. For example, could the Berlin blockade not also happen in Vienna? What would be the outcome in Austria of the 1953 revolt against the East German leadership? The 1950 uprising of the communists in Austria, in that particular form, could only have taken place in Austria's Soviet-occupied zone. During the fifties all of this was no longer quite as immediate, but it could still be felt. And the sensation that one was passing from the shadows into the sunshine when crossing the river Enns was still a noticeable undercurrent.

On December 8, 1948, Absam in Tirol celebrated its organ dedication. The organists were Karl Koch, choirmaster at the church of Saint Jakob/ Innsbruck, and the twenty-five-year-old Anton Heiller from Vienna. Apart from the official program, Heiller gave a private recital for music critics and connoisseurs in the afternoon. Those present on that occasion still speak about this experience even now. Heiller played Reger's Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme and Schmidt's Chaconne in cis on this two-manual organ of twenty three stops…. The newly renovated organ in Absam marked the beginning of a new era in organ playing and organ building in postwar Austria. Egon Krauss and Anton Heiller were—this has to be emphasized once more—the most important pillars of that time, this new era.