Vienna Viennese composers- visiting Schoenberg, Beethoven, Strauss, Schubert and Hadyn

When we told people we were planning to go to Vienna, they said to us that they presumed we would be planning to go to some concerts since of course, Vienna is famous for its music and composers.  The Vienna Philharmonic is considered by many to be the best orchestra in the world.

My Dad told us we would see many Mozarts wandering around the street on their mobile phones. He was not wrong.

When we arrived in Vienna, we did look up concerts, particularly with the Vienna Phil, however, they were out of town on tour.  There are various other orchestras in the city and there are concerts every night BUT, to be honest, they were all offering Strauss and Mozart, standard fare at very expensive prices and we weren't all that bothered about going to watch that,

Anyway, we did decide to try and make some musical pilgrimages to visit some places or monuments linked to famous composers.

Our first stop was the Vienna Philharmonie- the concert hall which is home to the Vienna Philharmonic.  It is an impressive building and has stars built into the pavement like those in Hollywood with the names of some illustrious composers.

On our first full day in Vienna, we ended our day by heading to the Arnold Schoenberg centre.  CBC really wanted to visit here. I confess that I wasn't that bothered, but actually, I loved it!

It is located in a confusing building, you have to go up in a lift to floor 1.5!

Inside, you walk in and pay a small amount and are given a short English talk/tour first before looking around.

They have recreated Schoneberg's study which was incredibly interesting. There was lots to nosy.

One of the many things I didn't know was that Schoenberg was an inventor as well as a composer.  He invented the sellotape dispenser!   Can you see it?

Also, see those 5 pencils joined to a piece of wood? This was so he could draw his own musical staves to write his music on.

 Inside the main museum, which is small but has LOTS of interactive elements and things to look at (I could have stayed for hours!) there was lots of information on his composing technique, 12 tone serialism.  His idea was:


It's a bit more complicated than that, but you make yourself a tone row and you compose from that point.

I also discovered that he was an artist too- there were several of his paintings on show.

 Part of his inventions included the game, Coalition chess.

 Here you can see the main gallery space.  There are i-pads with in-depth videos, artistes who knew him, musicians who play his music, interviews and many other elements and opportunities to listen to his music.  I found myself having a sudden appreciation for his music and a keeness to play some of it. I was given the opportunity to play in his HUGE work Gurrelieder this Summer which I declined but I found myself wishing I had.

It is a great place for researchers to come and study.

The centre can be found at:

Arnold Schönberg Center 
Schwarzenbergplatz 6
Zaunergasse 1-3 (Entrance)
A-1030 Wien 

Later on, we decided to go and visit the monuments to famous composers.

Although Beethoven was German, he spent lots of time in Vienna so he is honoured.

Who can fail to think of The Blue Danube waltz and many others when they think of New Year's day concert live from Vienna.  Johann Strauss was the father of the waltz and he had a suitably camp golden statue!

When studying A'level music, we all felt sorry for Franz Schubert who was incredibly shy (and died from Syphillis aged 35) and used to sit in a cafe where Beethoven went but was too shy to actually go and talk to him. He was a great composer!  He was in the same park as Strauss.

Near where we were staying outside town, we kept seeing the Schubert Parkplatz- a carpark was built below where Schubert was originally buried. We went for a look and discovered it was indeed his first resting place but the bodies had been moved.

Beethoven was also buried here originally.

Sadly, we didn't manage to find their eventual resting places in the time we were there.

Our final composer to visit was Josef Hadyn.
Hadyn is called The Father of the Symphony. 
In case you don't know, a symphony is a large scale work for full orchestra (depending on the period it was composed in, the number and type of instruments varies).  It is usually split up in 3-4 movements (what we call little pieces) with contrasting tempos/speeds.    Most of what we call the Great Composers composed symphonies but Hadyn was the most prolific.  He wrote 104 of them.  (By comparison, Mozart wrote 41, Shostakovitch wrote 15, Mahler wrote 9 (one unfinished), Beethoven wrote 9, Brahms wrote 4).  He was considered theFather of the Symphony as he set the form of a symphony. For instance, the first movement is in what we call Sonata form which means it is in a sort of Sandwich structure:

Anyway, we went to visit Hadyn's House.  This was the house he lived in for the last 15 years or so of his life.

It was a lovely building and Hadyn himself had it extended from when he first built it.

There were lots of information displays and many examples of his original manuscripts.

We enjoyed looking at the correspondence as we negociated the incredibly creaky floorboards.

Here was Hadyn's own instrument.  

On the wall above here were lots of fun musical rounds that Hadyn wrote.

One stairwell named many of the illustrious visitors who came to visit Hadyn including Mozart's son.  He was incredibly famous in Europe at the time, unbelievably popular and his belongings fetched incredibly prices after he died.  When he was younger, he worked for Prince Esterhazy and was considered a servant by his family. After he died, he was not kept on and this is when he moved.  But in his dotage, the Esterhazy family visited him as friends, not as employers.

Hadyn bought a grey parrot which sold for an extraordinary amount when he died. In fact, 15 years after he bought it, it fetched more money than he paid for his house!!

There was also a section in the house on Johannes Brahms, another famous composer although this wasn't as interesting as the exhibits on Hadyn.

The outside grounds of his house were very pleasant.

So, although CBC and I didn't hear a concert, we did think we managed to make a lot of the musical connections whilst we were there.

Hope you enjoyed my composer tour.

xx