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CULTURE

All churned up: Austrian oat milk ad draws farmers’ ire

Austrian farmers were left fuming after an advert for winter tourism featured oat -instead of cow's- milk, in what industry representatives sourly slammed as an "affront to Tyrolean farmers".

Published: 2 December 2022 10:57 CET
All churned up: Austrian oat milk ad draws farmers' ire
Coffee with oat milk? Not in Austria's Tyrol. (Photo by Fahmi Fakhrudin on Unsplash)

The commercial was to promote Austria’s western Tyrol region, renowned for its rolling pastures and rugged peaks that are a magnet for winter sports lovers.

In the ad, a hairy, horned mythical figure called “Percht” — known for driving out winters in Alpine folklore — is invited into a Tyrolean mountain hut for a warming drink after returning a young girl’s glove that he found in the snow.

But it is the next scene that had farmers in a froth — when the “Percht” creature orders a “latte macchiato with oat milk”.

READ ALSO: Austrian Christmas traditions: The festive dates you need to know

“It can’t be that a promotional video for Tyrol features ‘oat milk’ and not the very own, genuine Tyrolean milk,” Josef Hechenberger, president of the Tyrolean Chamber of Agriculture said in a statement.

The ad is an “affront to Tyrolean farmers”, he added. 

Another regional Chamber of Agriculture and the Tyrolean Farmers’ Union had also voiced complaints, arguing that dairy-related names such as “oat milk” were banned by the European Union in adverts because they do not contain dairy products.

The uproar led to the advert which runs just over one minute long being pulled.

Tourism marketing organisation Tirol Werbung that commissioned the promotional video said the aim was to portray local hospitality and open-mindedness.

But it acknowledged that the underlying message that every preference and lifestyle is welcome in Tyrol had been lost on some viewers.

The ad called “Come as you are — in Tyrol everybody is welcome” was originally designed to cater to “modern, urban” clientele, for whom “climate protection is important” and who might be lactose-intolerant, Tirol Werbung’s communications chief Patricio Hetfleisch told AFP Thursday.

READ ALSO: Austrian clichés: How true are these ten stereotypes?

The punchline was that “every lifestyle and each preference, ranging from gender to food” would be welcomed with hospitality in Tyrol, Hetfleisch said.

“Obviously the punchline could not be decoded by some,” he added.

The commercial only aired for around 10 days before being suspended earlier this week due to criticism, Hetfleisch said.

Hashtags and memes surrounding the row are still trending in Austria.

It was originally shot in 2019 and produced by a Berlin-based creative film production agency.

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CULTURE

Ode to joy: How Austria shaped Beethoven’s Ninth

The night Ludwig van Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony rang out in a Vienna concert hall for the first time almost exactly two centuries ago, the great German composer was anxious for all to go well.

Published: 6 May 2024 09:58 CEST
Ode to joy: How Austria shaped Beethoven's Ninth

He needn’t have worried. The audience erupted in spontaneous applause during the performance, but Beethoven was already so hard of hearing that he had to be turned around by a musician to notice it.

While he was born in Bonn in 1770, Beethoven spent most of his life in Vienna after moving to the Austrian capital as a 22-year-old.

Despite receiving repeated offers to relocate, the legendary composer never left Vienna, where he had found his home from home, surrounded by supportive fans and generous patrons.

“It was the society, the culture that characterised the city that appealed to him so much,” said Ulrike Scholda, director of the Beethoven House in nearby Baden.

The picturesque spa town just outside Vienna deeply shaped Beethoven’s life — and the last symphony he would complete, she said.

Under pressure

“In the 1820s, Baden was certainly the place to be”, with the imperial family, the aristocracy and a Who’s Who of cultural life spending their summers there, Scholda said.

Beyond his hearing loss, Beethoven suffered from various health problems ranging from abdominal pains to jaundice, and regularly went to Baden to recuperate.

Enjoying long walks in the countryside and bathing in Baden’s medicinal springs helped him recover and simultaneously inspired his compositions.

In the summers leading up to the first public performance of his Ninth Symphony in 1824, Beethoven stayed at what is now known as Baden’s Beethoven House, which now serves as a museum.

It was there that he also composed important parts of his final symphony.

A letter Beethoven sent from Baden in September 1823 details the pressure he felt to finalise the symphony to please the Philharmonic Society in London which had commissioned the work, Scholda said.

A piano used by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is seen on display at the Beethovenhaus museum, where Beethoven spent some of his summers and composed sections of his Ninth Symphony, on April 30, 2024 in Baden bei Wien, Austria. (Photo by Joe Klamar / AFP)

‘Less war, more Beethoven’

Upon completing the symphony in Vienna, weeks of intense preparations followed, including an army of copyists duplicating Beethoven’s manuscripts and last-minute rehearsals that culminated in the premiere on May 7, 1824.

The night before, Beethoven rushed from door to door by carriage to “personally invite important people to come to his concert”, said historical musicologist Birgit Lodes.

He also managed to “squeeze in a haircut”, Lodes added.

At almost double the length of comparable works, Beethoven’s Ninth broke the norms of what until then was a “solely orchestral” genre by “integrating the human voice and thus text”, musicologist Beate Angelika Kraus told AFP.

His revolutionary idea to incorporate parts of Friedrich von Schiller’s lyrical verse “Ode to Joy” paradoxically made his symphony more susceptible to misuse, including by the Nazis and the Communists.

The verses “convey a feeling of togetherness, but are relatively open in terms of ideological (interpretation),” Kraus said.

Since 1985, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from the fourth movement has served as the European Union’s official anthem.

The Beethovenhaus museum, where German composer Ludwig van Beethoven spent some of his summers and composed sections of his Ninth Symphony, is pictured on April 30, 2024 in Baden bei Wien, Austria. (Photo by Joe Klamar / AFP)

Outside the Beethoven House in Baden, which is marking the anniversary with a special exhibition, visitor Jochen Hallof said that encountering the Ninth Symphony as a child had led him down a “path of humanism”.

“We should listen to Beethoven more instead of waging war,” Hallof said.

And on Tuesday night that certainly will be the case, with Beethoven’s masterpiece reverberating throughout Europe with anniversary concerts in major venues in Paris, Milan and Vienna.

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