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Dancing on a Volcano observed the Viennese composer Alban Berg as he watched the revellers at the Munich Karneval on the night he heard of the burning of the Berlin Reichstag. It is an observation that can be applied to the Viennese themselves, as throughout the whole period, they continued to frequent the coffee shops, to take their stroll along the Ringstrasse and to waltz to the music of Strauss, oblivious to the fact that, in the words of the great satirist Karl Kraus, Vienna was 'the laboratory for the end of the world'. Students from all schools of study at the RMCM come together in a Festival that commemorates the 50th anniversary of Schoenberg's death by placing his music, and that of his pupils, in the context of fin-de-siecle Vienna.