Eminent authorities examine Vienna's history and politics, class structure, and social conventions. They describe private and public entertainments, including music and dance, as well as classical and popular Viennese theater, both of which achieved special greatness in the early nineteenth century. They investigate the historical layers of architecture and sculpture that preserved Vienna's past or reflected the imperatives of Schubert's time.

They analyze genres of painting that exemplified or went beyond the ideals of Biedermeier society. And they discuss literary currents reflected in (or absent from) the poetry that fired Schubert's musical imagination.