Official review… “Haydn House” (Vienna)

LOCATION. Centre-west Vienna. A ten-minute walk from tube station Zieglergasse, you’ll be walking into these smaller streets gentrified sparsely with Japanese restaurants, cafes and organic supermarkets.

So if you decide to take a break from those Hofburg or Art History Museum or any other thing too city-centre and touristy, here’s an ethnographic excursion to get a glimpse into the multifacetedness of the contemporary “Viennese”.


“Haydn House” (Vienna)


HERITAGE. Franz Haydn moved here in 1797 and stayed until his death in 1809.

This is one of the composer houses still standing in the Viennese suburbs.

(You might still remember the Beethoven Museum, which is much further away as Beethoven had to take a rest from the hectic city centre to better his stress issue).

And now here in Haydn House the storyboard is rather simpler – it functions as a summer house for a rising wealthy musician.

The house belonged to his wife and following her death, he was to live here permanently.


Clip: “Haydn House” (Vienna)


As you imagine how he might have spent his final years, you will also get to see exhibitions depicting him as a granny (and well-established) composer, one that has finally completed his Esterhazy duties in his youthful years and now ready to serve a wider, urban audience. You’ll find yourself among narratives that compliment his solemn success (at a time nicknamed “Papa Haydn”) but at the same time writings that reveal his cooler and increasingly humorous attitude to life.

SAD NEWS. The last room of the upper floor shows us furniture that belongs to Brahms, because apparently the latter’s flat has been demolished in the 1910s.

(A display board explains how Brahms used to admire Haydn to defend this quirky choice of exhibition space.)

Time is asset: save it for better with 25-min museum tours. Or find yourself in my novel, check out the photo of the day and finish it off with a secret prize.

Tags - in_depth_tourism; museum; London_writer; London_travel; indie_writer; independent_blogger

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