Falco, born Hans Hölzel in 1957, grew up in Vienna, began his career there and was eventually buried there. You could say he was Viennese through and through.

In the dim light of Room 7 at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, a life-size statue of a young man slowly turns on its axis. It is the centrepiece of the museum’s Roman antiquities collection. But the statue is not what it seems.

When I tell someone who doesn’t live in Austria that I sing in a choir, I always get a certain reaction: »That’s so Austrian!« or »That’s so