Regular Guest Research Articles

РОЛЬ УПРАВЛІННЯ ДИСТРИБУЦІЙНИМИ КАНАЛАМИ ГОТЕЛЮ ПРИ ОВЕРБУКІНГУ

The application of the overbooking process for different segments of the hotel services market requires the study of factors and prerequisites for influencing demand. The main problem faced by hotels when using overbooking is that, despite a set of booking requests that exceeds the total number of rooms, there is a lack of room capacity in the intervals between bookings. Hotel owners and managers, including those with a limited capacity, are increasingly interested in revenue management methods, but not everyone has managed to implement a system of Revenue Management, which is an integral part of effective management. On the one hand, a revenuemanager can optimize profitability and profitability not only from room sales, but also from other hotel revenue centers; on the other hand, knowing (analyzing) the habits of regular guests, it is possible to increase their loyalty by offering a personalized approach to providing special conditions for hotel services. Determining the potential of bookings and their impact on the total revenue of a hotel is based on an arsenal of data on needs in the general economic aspect, which form the interests, expectations, and priorities of consumers in choosing a hotel service. From the perspective of market relations, it is the needs of consumers that are the basis for the formation of consumer demand for hotel services. In the practical context of distribution of hotel services, the main dispute in the formation of a room reservation guarantee system is reflected in the content of compensation processes for reasons of no-show or early departure. In accordance with this statement, the fundamental content, prerequisites and benefits of using overbooking for the guest are the flexible consumption, at the level of the hotel enterprise – it is to ensure the process of managing the occupancy as a set of separate areas of planning and maximizing revenues. However, it is worth noting that the increasing application of overbooking depends on individual decisions of the hotel company and requires differentiation of the hotel service, which, in particular, involves expanding the price plan, introducing new methods in the process of their promotion and transforming distribution. The problem is that the level of overbooking is determined primarily by the method of trial and error and can lead either to resale of rooms and forced relocation of guests or to an unreasonably large quantity of vacant rooms and a lack of revenue.

Interview With British Conductor Paul Mann

"British conductor Paul Mann is a regular guest with many major orchestras throughout Europe, the US, Australia, and the Far East. Orchestras with which he has worked include the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, St Petersburg Philharmonic, RAI Torino, Orchestra dell’Arena di Verona; the BBC Orchestras, City of Birmingham Symphony, Hallé, among many others. Mr Mann has guest-conducted extcollaborations with USA and is a regular guest with the New York City Ballet. Projects with the LSO included collaborations the legendary rock group Deep Purple in two widely acclaimed performances of Jon Lord’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, the live DVD and CD which remain international bestsellers. Paul Mann was chief conductor of the Odense Symphony Orchestra in Denmark until 2008 and has made numerous critically acclaimed recordings for labels such as Bridge, Warner Classics, Da Capo, EMI, and Toccata Classics. Keywords: musical education, interpretation, conducting, tempo"

About the Authors

Other| October 01 2022 About the Authors Music and the Moving Image (2022) 15 (3): 60. https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.15.3.04 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation About the Authors. Music and the Moving Image 1 October 2022; 15 (3): 60. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.15.3.04 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressMusic and the Moving Image Search Advanced Search heidi hart is an art and humanities fellow at SixtyEight Art Institute in Copenhagen. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a PhD in German Studies from Duke University (2016). She completed a postdoc at Utah State University and is a regular guest instructor at Linnaeus University in Sweden. She has received an ACLS-Mellon fellowship and several grants for environmental curriculum development. Heidi's publications include the monographs Hanns Eisler's Art Songs: Arguing with Beauty (Camden House, 2018) and Music and the Environment in Dystopian Narrative: Sounding the Disaster (Palgrave Studies in Music and Literature, 2018). Her curatorial book Climate Thanatology is forthcoming in 2022 (Really Simple Syndication Press).kaapo huttunen is currently a PhD student at the University of Turku, the Faculty of Humanities. He conducts research on the role of music and sound design in the aesthetics of Nordic noir, the crime fiction style from the... You do not currently have access to this content.

Contagious convergent cumulative cooperation: the dynamic development of the G20, BRICS and SCO

The institutional development and performance of the Group of 20 (G20), the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) have shaped twenty-first-century global governance. Each of these plurilateral summit institutions (PSIs) has different founding visions, missions, memberships, participants, institutionalisation patterns and priorities. However, the potential for competition soon gave way to contagious, convergent, cumulative cooperation. By 2021, each was countering COVID-19–created crises in a mutually reinforcing way. Each extended outreach to new members or regular guest leaders, expanded their institutions and civil society engagement, and embraced economic finance, social sustainability and political-security issues. They increased their performance on the major dimensions of global governance in mutually supportive, if highly implicit, ways. The three big non-western Asian powers—China, Russia and India—at the core of these PSIs drove this dynamic, contagious, cumulative convergence and applied lessons learnt across all three PSIs. This was reinforced by their increasing, shared need to guide globalisation and counter its shocks, from the Asian financial crisis in 1997–1999 to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2021.

Social Justice in Spanish Golden Age Theatre

Social Justice in Spanish Golden Age Theatre

Making and Remaking Coloured Identities in the Music of Stereo Zen

Some scholars have argued that ideas of coloured identities are in flux: being constantly made and re-made. This presentation explores how race can be used as an interpretive lens through which to understand and read the music of Stereo Zen, a funk-rock band based in Cape Town in the mid-2000s. In discussing how Stereo Zen construct and reconstruct their relationship with their coloured identity, this presentation aligns itself with scholars who argue that academic engagement with the construction of race is productive when race is seen as a “medium,” or a “method of interpretation.” As a regular guest artist appearing with the band, my position as scholar-musician has allowed me to gain unique perspectives on this music, and this presentation explores how the band repositions funk to a South African context through lyrical and musical imagery, as well as their critiques of colonial constructions of black musicality.

고려 현종~정종 대 팔관회(八關會)의 정비와 그 의미

In relation to the establishment process of the ‘Jungdongpalguanhoe (仲冬八關会儀)’ in the Goryeo Dynasty, this study attempted to examine the reorganization of the ritual from before and after King Hyeonjong to the reign of King Jeongjong and to find its meaning.<BR> In the pursuit of Confucianism-based rule, various contents of the ritual were simplified in Palguanhoe in the reign of King Seongjong, and only the visit to Beopwangsa was left. Contrary to this, King Hyeonjong was of Silla ancestry but had to overcome difficulties during his accession process by emphasizing that he was of Taejo descent. In addition, he needed to restore the status of the royal family and unite the public mind in response to the invasion of the Khitan. The Palguanhoe redemption performed by King Taejo was meaningful in this regard. In the reigning period of King Jeongjong, the ritual of Palguanhoe in Mangil-Yeongbongmun-Heungguksa Temple was held in Seo-Gyeong in October, and the ritual of Palguanhoe in Mangil-Sinbongru-Popwangsa Temple was held in both Gyeongs in November. The ceremonial procedures of Palguanhoe reflected the incense of Beopwangsa Temple at its small meeting, the written cele brations of public officials for the king from both Gyeongs to eight Moks and the presentation of fancy goods to the king by regular guests from Chinese Song Dynasty at its large meeting. A great feast[酺] and amnesty were also held for the two days.<BR> This shows that from the reigning periods of King Hyeonjong to King Jeongjong, the Palgwanhoe had participation from all over the world, from the Goryeo royal family to both Gyeongs and eight Moks, regular guests from Chinese Song Dynasty and Dong/Seobeon and Tamna, and as far away as Daesikguk. In particular, the Palgwanhoe in the reigning period of King Jeongjong, which included the incensing ritual of Beobwangsa Temple, all kinds of entertainment activities, feasts, amnesty, the presentation of writings to the king, a toast to the king’s longevity and the like, began to become a symbol of order and unity with the sacred royal family at the center.

The Role of Progressive Resistance Training in the Management of Multiple Sclerosis

Jeff Young, B.S., EIM-I, CSCS, is a kinesiologist living in New York, NY. He is a reviewer and contributor for the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s (NSCA) Strength and Conditioning Journal; the founding chair of a Special Population Special Interest Group for the NSCA; a dual committee member for the ACSM’s Greater New York Regional Chapter; a special council on exercise for the American Osteopathic College of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; and a regular guest lecturer for several colleges and universities. Additionally, his wife, who was diagnosed with relapsing–remitting MS in 2004, has reversed the course of her disease and associated symptoms through lifestyle medicine and progressive resistance training.

Effectiveness of customer loyalty

This article examines the issues of consumer loyalty, taking into account Kazakhstan's experience in hospitality, examines the loyal programs of well-known hotels in the country, analyzes the research of several authors in the framework of the previous loyal topics. For the hospitality industry, which is currently developing in large volumes, it is important to study customer loyalty and think through the right program. When writing the article, the methods of theoretical analysis and generalization were used. The content, criteria of loyalty are examined theoretically. Sustainable consumer incentive programs are common in Kazakhstan hotels. A well-thought-out marketing policy aimed at retaining and attracting new guests significantly increases the load on the hotel and makes it more attractive for corporate clients. With the introduction of so-called loyalty programs, domestic hotels of the same use foreign experience and their know-how. Currently, the hotel can use the following tools to establish close contact with the customer and meet their needs. To encourage regular guests, it isrecommended that the hotel keep a record of repeated customer requests. To do this, the hotel must develop a special program that constantly stores all information about customers who have rooms. After receiving all the necessary information about the participants of such a program, you can send them to the hotel with special offers for hotels and congratulate them on holidays and anniversaries. Address mail, interactive communication, and personalization of guests must continue from the moment of planning a trip to the hotel and after the client arrives at the hotel. The implementation of research results in practice is the main result of the study. The use of the research results discussed in this article to increase the loyalty of guests in the hotel business of the country is the scientific result of the study.

ПОТЕНЦІАЛ ЗАКЛАДІВ РЕСТОРАННОГО ГОСПОДАРСТВА У ФОРМУВАННІ СПОЖИВЧОЇ ЛОЯЛЬНОСТІ

Consumer (buyer) behavior in the market economy is based on the theory of demand (theory of consumer behavior), which is based on how and in what way our needs are transformed into a certain amount of demand; how from variety of goods we choose that which satisfies us. The main factor influencing the decision to buy, of course, is still economic status of the consumer. It is established that people’s welfare has the greatest influence on it. Hospitality industry may not make the expected profit, because the economic effect in the restaurant business directly depends on people’s welfare. But in the event of a crisis, people prefer to skimp to save money, and try to invest the available savings in goods that will not lose their value. Visiting restaurants is not a priority, thus spending money on it is usually excluded from the list of expenses. The limited number of customers of restaurant services and the availability of plenty of similar products, services at almost the same prices and with approximately the same quality on the market exacerbate competition for the consumer. The presence of innovative loyalty programs is one of the main arguments in the competition. The difficult economic situation only exacerbates the need of companies to build profitable business strategies for the formation and maintenance of customer loyalty. The loyalty program, along with other important components of marketing, is a separate area of activity to promote sales and marketing. The essence of any loyalty program is to create a relationship between seller and buyer that would best meet the expectations of the latter and were thus cost-effective for the company. The task of the loyalty system is to keep the restaurant offer at the current demand level in accordance with the trends and motives of the target audience, which will ensure a regular flow of regular guests. The results of assessing the level of customer orientation of the restaurant business are the basis for further business model development of the customer – oriented service and the mechanism of its implementation. Loyalty of consumers strategically plays the role of the competitive advantage of the enterprise, and it becomes an indicator of the opportunity to make innovative transformations not only in the field of production, but also in the service sector.

FOOD AND BEVERAGE DEPARTMENT CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Hospitality is the largest and fastest growing industry in the world. The hospitality industry offers the best service and the best foods which provide in the restaurant. Many ways are done to increase the quality of service and food in the restaurant industry to get customer satisfaction. Food and beverage department has important responsibility to maintain the quality of the food and beverage sercice and product as well. Consumer behavior is the decision making process by customers in selecting, buying, using and taking an advantage of product service or either experience in order to satisfy the needs and desire for customers. In this research the writer will discuss about customer behavior in opal coffee medan that aims to know more about customer’s characteristic and how to deal with them in order to give customer satisfaction. Based on the research the writer will discuss about the regular guest who visited Opal coffee and get the interview about how the customer perception about staff’s services and the solution that might be used as an input to the company.. Method for this research is qualitative. Sampling technique using the snowball technique. The result is expected to able to give a boost for the company to resolve the problem and improve the quality service that aims to get customer satisfaction. Keywords – service quality, customer behavior, customer satisfaction, food and beverage

Was It for This the Clay Grew Tall?

Irresolute Clay: Shaping the Foundations of Modern Environmental Law. By RICHARD MACRORY [Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2020, ISBN 9781509928118, hardback, 189 pp, £25] When I was a law student at Cambridge in the 1970s, I developed the habit of browsing second-hand bookshops, of which there was then no shortage in Cambridge, for legal biographies, autobiographies and memoirs. This pastime continued through to my early years as a Cambridge lecturer. I amassed quite a collection, almost all of which have over the years found their way back into the charity shops which had become the successors to the second-hand book shops. In truth, their value was pretty limited. They were often rather sycophantic portraits of legal luminaries or judicial monsters such as Norman Birkett, Marshall Hall, Lord Goddard, etc, depicting a legal landscape that had already largely passed into history by the time I acquired them. The least valuable by far tended to be the autobiographies or memoirs, which were generally of much less interest to the reader than to the author. I recall one rather dire read entitled Jottings of an Old Solicitor, which was essentially a catalogue of less than interesting cases and anecdotes.1 A much more engaging biography was that of Sir George Lewis, the Victorian and Edwardian celebrity solicitor who practiced from Ely Place in Holborn and numbered royalty among his clients.2 There, however, more of the interest lay in his extra-legal life. At Ely Place, Sir George and Lady Lewis met ‘tout le monde’ as described by his biographer, his house thronged with painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, writers, lawyers, politicians, where the establishment and Bohemia were thrown together. Lewis was depicted in a fine portrait of 1892 by John Singer Sargent, one of his regular guests.

Empowerment of Homestay Owners for Business Standards Fulfilment

Increasing the number of tourists to Harapan Island in the Kepulauan Seribu triggers an increase in the number of homestays. But there are still many homestays that do not meet operational standards. The purpose of empowerment is to increase the capability of homestay owners in meeting business standards. The analytical method used is a method of self reflection. The participants are guided by the facilitators for self-reflection on the homestay and its management. Most homestays have two rooms. Most homestays are separate from where the owner lives, only a few offer homestays with the owner. Most homestays do not have signage, do not provide kitchen facilities for guests, and have no complaint records. The majority of homestay owners have not yet attended homestay and ‘sapta pesona’ training. The interaction between homestay owners and guests is relatively low because most guests book rooms through travel agents. Therefore, most homestay owners do not record guest identity. Most homestay owners also do not have a special room for administrative activities, and do not do regular guest and financial administration activities. The capabilities of homestay owners in meeting business standards vary so that empowerment activities are strongly recommended.

(Un)Conventional Voyages?—Star Trek: The Cruise and the Themed Cruise Experience

(Un)Conventional Voyages?—<i>Star Trek: The Cruise</i> and the Themed Cruise Experience

Politainment in the transmedia construction of the image of politicians

This article explores the application of the concept of transmedia narrative to the construction of the public image of political figures, in a media context characterised by the prevalence of infotainment and the dissolution of the boundaries of political content. To attain this objective, a case-study on a specific leader is carried out; he is a regional leader recognised at a national level thanks to his discursive strategy: president of Cantabria, Miguel Ángel Revilla, chosen for his role as a regular guest on T.V shows of all kinds, as well as for having become the third most followed Spanish politician on social networks. Through content analysis, we examine the character’s own performance on different media (television, social networks and an autobiographical book) along with the reactions provoked among the cybernauts. The results show a multiplatform narrative adapted to the specific formal language of each of those media and formats, constantly maintaining the application of politainment features (personalisation, entertainment, emotiveness and trivialisation of the issues). Regarding the effects, there is a high level of involvement and a love-hate dichotomy among the public, as proved in social networks. Consequently, in the transmedia political narrative (TPN) the users co-create the resulting image of the politician who is finally perceived by the audience. In addition, the success of Revilla’s communication strategy is verified via ensuring that the self-assigned values in his speech, such as leadership and closeness to the people, match those that the audience identify with his figure.

Double Bass Home Recordings

Name: João Pedro Almeida Lucas Main Subject: Classical Double Bass Research Supervisor: Margaret Urquhart Title of Research: Double bass homemade recordings Research Question: How to get the pure sound of the double bass in a homemade recording? Summary of Results: Often, musicians are required to send out a recording for a competition, an audition or simply for self-promotion. Unfortunately, not everybody can afford a studio and qualified technicians to have a good final result. However, nowadays, there is low budget equipment (microphones, sound cards, hand recorders, among others) that, when used in a proper way, can provide good results. Being fascinated by the recording and studio worlds, I began to take interest in this particular matter. During the past year and a half, I have focused on recording bass players, with different approaches to the instrument and repertoire. There are some factors to take into consideration regarding my experiences: each player was using their own instrument; the recordings were made in different environments (except the ones used for comparison); the same mic settings were used, in order to make a more precise comparison between two different instruments; and all the recordings were made in solo context, with no other instruments involved. The focus was only on capturing the sound (without editing). In conclusion, I believe that a double bass recording can improve significantly even with low cost equipment, when used in a proper way. My main goal with this research was to gather my experiences and recommendations into an accessible guide for double bass home recordings. Biography: João Pedro Almeida Lucas began his double bass studies in 2006 with Romeu Santos at EPABI (Professional Music School of Beira Interior), Covilhã, Portugal. In 2011, João was invited by his current teacher, Quirijn van Regteren Altena to become his student at the Koninklijk Conservatorium. On 2013, João Participated in “KarrKamp”, a summer camp with the world leading soloist Gary Karr in Victoria, Canada. He is a member of Ciconia Consort Orkest, a string orchestra in The Hague; Salad Ensemble, improvised music project, in Portugal; João is a regular guest in The Residentie BachOrkest and in the Rietveld Ensemble.

Focus IBBY: 54.4/2016

Focus IBBY54.4/2016 Liz Page (bio) Introducing the 2016–2018 IBBY Executive Committee Click for larger view View full resolution From left to right, back row: Ferelith Hordon, Carole Bloch, Zohreh Ghaeni, Cristina Vargas, Anastasia Arkhipova, and Ellis Vance; front row: Hasmig Chahinian, Wally De Doncker, Evelyn Freeman, Serpil Ural, and Mingzhou Zhang. Not in the picture: Patricia Aldana, Sunji Jamba, Björn Sundmark, and Liz Page. [End Page 62] The 2016–2018 IBBY Executive Committee was elected by the members at the 2016 General Assembly in Auckland, New Zealand on Sunday, 21 August 2016. From nominations submitted by the IBBY National Sections, the following people were elected to serve for the 2016 to 2018 term of office. Wally De Doncker, from Belgium, was elected to serve for his second term as IBBY President. He trained as a teacher and served as a special teacher of children’s literature. He began writing full-time in 2001, and since then, his books have reached readers in more than thirteen countries in Europe and beyond. For many years, Wally was an active board member of the Flemish Branch of IBBY-Belgium. In 2008 he was elected to serve as a member of the IBBY Executive Committee for the period 2008–2010. He was re-elected in 2010 and served as Vice-President from 2010 to 2012. He is a frequent contributor to publications that deal with the international dimension of children’s literature and is a regular guest in libraries, schools, and other settings where children and adults come to enjoy his readings. Patricia Aldana, from Canada, was elected President of the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury. She was born and brought up in Guatemala and moved to Canada in 1971. In 1978 she founded Groundwood Books with a mandate to publish high-quality Canadian and international children’s books for all ages; she remained the publisher until 2012. She was honoured with the Order of Canada in 2010 and has won prizes in Canada for her work in advocating children’s and adults’ freedom to read. She was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee in 1996 and served for four years. She was later re-elected in 2004 and served for one term as Vice-President before she was elected IBBY President in China in 2006, serving for two terms until 2010. In 2014 she was elected President of the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury. Patricia is currently President of the IBBY Foundation. Anastasia Arkhipova, from Russia, is a well-known illustrator who has been a member of the Moscow Union of Artists since 1986 and a member of Russian IBBY since 2005. She has served on several international juries, including the BIB Jury in 2007, 2009, and 2015; the Nami Island International Concours 2012 and 2015; and the Hans Christian Andersen Jury for the 2012 and 2014 Awards. In 2006 she was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee and served until 2010. Carole Bloch, from South Africa, is currently the Executive Director of the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA), an independent research and development unit affiliated to the University of Cape Town. In 2015 she was a founding member and a trustee of the Nal’ibali Trust and in 2014 a member of the South African Ministry of Education reading advisory committee. Under her leadership, PRAESA received the 2014 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award, and in 2015 PRAESA won the Astrid Lind-gren Memorial Award (ALMA). Hasmig Chahinian, from France, was born and grew up in Lebanon. She is currently in charge of children’s literature from the Arab World at the international division of the French National Centre for Children’s Literature (Centre national de la literature pour la jeunesse—La Joie par les livres) a service of the French National Library. She served as a member of the IBBY Executive Committee for two terms from 2010 to 2014, from 2012 as Vice President. Evelyn B. Freeman, from the USA, retired as Dean and Director of The Ohio State University-Mansfield where she served from 2003 until December 2010. She is currently Professor Emerita in the Department of Teaching...

Customer Feedback Helps in Driving An Improved Service Culture: The Case of Five Star Hotels in Pune District

In the present scenario of the Indian Hospitality Industry, service culture is a vital competitive policy which keeps both the customers happy and helps build a great base for Customer Loyalty. My paper is a modest attempt to examine the different feedback systems being followed by star category hotel and compare them from the view point of both the customers as well as the Hoteliers. The sample size used for the Customers was 150 out of which 110 actually responded which include both business and leisure travelers. The results show that the direct marketing tools used by hotels are very good to maintain contacts with the regular guest, but when it comes to relationship building, services provided at the hotels are the ones that help the most to build relationship and helps in driving an improved service culture.

Customers' experiences of co‐creation during service innovation

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to present the outcome of a co‐creation service innovation project, both to understand the possible outcome when using a process model and to achieve a better understanding of how customers experience participation in co‐creation in an open service innovation project. The article also discusses the outcome of co‐creation in terms of new knowledge concerning customers' needs, both expressed and latent needs compared to the knowledge gained through a regular guest survey.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on 29 in‐depth interviews that were conducted subsequent to participation as visitors in a service innovation project which involved testing a model for user involved service innovation. In the process model users were asked to be attentive and produce real time documentations. The co‐creation in this case thus occurred when obtaining input for service innovation ideation.FindingsParticipants (visitors to a Swedish zoo), had mixed opinions about their participation in the project. Favourable experiences, such as benevolence and deepened relationships, were balanced by unfavourable experiences such as incapability and intrusion. Also a user involved service innovation approach as the one studied provides valuable knowledge about customers suggested to be useful for service innovation. Users presented a wide range of real time documentations; from brief comments about certain aspects of their experience to more detailed suggestions for future services.Originality/valueThe study provides empirical evidence regarding the importance of adopting a user's perspective towards service innovation. This is unlike previous research, which has been limited to the study of how companies perceive and can manage co‐creation in a manner that is beneficial for them. The study also connects to this perspective by suggesting that co‐creation both enhances opportunities for successful service innovation and provides a deeper understanding of customers' needs.

Fin-de-siècle Vienna and the Challenge of Family Biography

Fin-de-siècle Vienna and the Challenge of Family Biography Paul Reitter (bio) I In 1851, a middle-aged German wool trader named Hermann Christian Wittgenstein entered into a partnership of sorts with his Austrian in-laws, who also dealt in raw materials, only on a greater scale. Hermann moved to Austria, where he began giving, in today’s parlance, extreme makeovers to estates local aristocrats had neglected, with the understanding that his in-laws would help him sell the wool, coal, wood, and corn the estates produced. The arrangement worked brilliantly. Frugal and hard driving—and eager to use industrial methods in a country that had been slow to industrialize—Hermann transformed poorly tended lands into robust enterprises. Meanwhile, his in-laws not only did their part, but they thought, as well, to direct the money that came streaming in toward lucrative holdings in Viennese property. Within a few years, Hermann was able to install himself, his wife, and several of their eleven children in a palace outside Vienna. They soon left it, despite Hermann’s parsimony, for an even grander residence, a castle in which one of Empress Maria-Theresa’s prime ministers had lived. Never mind that Hermann leased the place: he had built a House of Wittgenstein. It would be hard to think of a family more deserving of a group biography. After all, Hermann Christian was far outpaced by the son from whom he expected the least—namely, Karl, who failed out of high school and ran away to America as a teenager. Not long after his return, Karl, the third of Hermann Christian’s sons, followed his father in marrying well; then, thanks to good instincts, an appetite for risk, booming [End Page 665] markets, and probably some manipulation of them, he made a fortune in the steel and banking businesses. It was a fortune of Carnegie-like dimensions that dwarfed most others in his country. After retiring at fifty-one, Karl spent the majority of his remaining days in his marble palais, which spanned more than fifty yards along Vienna’s Alleegasse. When he took his last breath, in 1913, he may have been the richest man in Austria. Imperious and hot-tempered, Karl wasn’t known for behaving gently, and neither did he die that way. He suffered much the same fate as Freud: they were both prolific cigar smokers whose health was ravaged by cancer of the jaw, though in Karl’s case the proximate cause of death was an operation that was likely to have lethal effects. That he chose to spend the evening before the surgery making music with his wife, Leopoldine, would have surprised no one. For to say that Karl and Leopoldine were deeply devoted to the arts would be as much an understatement as calling them very rich. As worshippers of culture, they were zealots. Karl’s house was so full of Kunst that he began referring to his eldest daughter (Hermine), who never married and became a kind of secretary to him, as his “art director.” The house also had seven pianos, as well as one of the world’s greatest collections of musical manuscripts. Schoenberg and Mahler were regular guests. Brahms was a family friend. Then, of course, there are the dramas and soaring accomplishments of the next generation. Three of Karl and Leopoldine’s five sons committed suicide. Precocious in music and possibly autistic, Hans, the eldest, vanished during a trip to America in 1903, and is thought to have drowned himself, though where exactly this happened remains unclear. Rudi, who was gay, poisoned himself in a Berlin bar a year later, perhaps because he believed his sexual orientation was about to be made public. Like quite a few Austrian officers, Kurt shot himself during the final days of World War One. At the time, Paul was busy resurrecting his career as a concert pianist—this despite the fact that he had lost his right arm on the Eastern Front. His younger brother Ludwig had already written his epochal Tractatus, which would appear in the early interwar period. But even as Ludwig was winning new and, as it would turn out, enduring...