Upper Austria (Oberösterreich)

In 1812 Beethoven visited his brother Johann, trying to keep him out of the intended marriage with Johanna Lamatsch. However, there is no evidence that he stayed at this address ─ then the inn Stadt Frankfurt ─where a plaque recalls Beethoven’s visit to Linz and even mentions his work at the 8^th Symphony.It is only certain that Johann had his pharmacy at the Hauptplatz (nr. 8) and that Ludwig himself appeared at a nr. 34 (in the Herrengasse). Both houses were demolished. Therefore ‘Hauptplatz 34’?

House of the astronomer Johannes Kepler. In 1619 he published Harmonices Mundi Libri V , a tract about the mathematical connection between cosmos and music, between the cycles of celestial bodies and the musical harmonies. This idea goes back to the medieval musica mundana and even to Pythagoras. It inspiredPaul Hindemith to his Kepler opera Harmonie der Welt and his symphony of the same name.

Around the corner, at the city hall, there are plaques of Kepler and Bruckner.

In 1783 Mozart interrupted his return trip from Salzburg to Vienna in Linz, to give some concerts. He arrived at October 30^th, the first concert was planned for the 4^th of November. Because a symphony was needed, he wrote one in three days ­─ his masterly KV 425, Linzer. He stayed in the Starhembergische Freihaus, then a property of the noble Thun family, that appears more often in the musical history.

Mozart’s first visit in Linz was in the autumn of 1762, with his father and sister. They stayed in the inn Zur Dreifaltigkeit (the green building in the background of the photo).

Anton Bruckner studied at the Präparandie (teacher training school) in the years 1840-41; the plaque mentions also the poet Rilke as a former student.

In 1856 Bruckner was appointed city organist; he occupied this post until 1868. The organ from 1853 by Ludwig Moser had two manuals and 38 stops; after Bruckner’s time it was extended by an extra manual. The Meßnerhaus next to this church, then Bruckners house, was demolished.

At house nr !0 is the seat of the Anton Bruckner Institut.

In addition to the Stadtkirche, Bruckner worked from 1856 until 1868 at the 16^th century Ignatiuskirche or Alter Dom. The Chrismann organ from 1790 was rebuilt in 1865-67 by Josef Breinbauer according to Bruckner’s wishes; it covers 3 manuals and 32 stops. The plaque mentions also Bruckner’s function as choirmaster of the Liedertafel Frohsinn.

Of the houses of Bruckner in Linz only the Florianerhaus, where he shortly lived in 1856, is extant.

At Landstraße 15 was a former medieval hospital, that in 1785 was split up in apartments. Schubert was a guest there of Josef von Spaun´s sister in 1823 and 25. The house made space for an ugly building, only the Schubert plaque survived. However, in 1819 Schubert stayed in Spaun´s own house atHerrengasse 24, built in 1791 and still extant: a better choice for a plaque, isn´t it?

A former theatre and the birthplace of the singer Richard Tauber, °1892.

The Landestheater was built in 1803, following the example of the Viennese Theater an der Wien.

The Landesmuseum has the disposition of a collection of musical instruments, including a fortepiano from 1803 by Érard, having belonged to Beethoven. Mozart is present on the painting of him, playing the organ in Ybbs (> at5.55).

A modern concert hall after the design of the Finnish architect Heikko Siren was opened in the Bruckner year 1974; the organ was made by the Dutch firm Flentrop. Outside a Bruckner bust was unveiled.

Venue of festival Ars Electronica with the spectacular sound- and laser show Linzer Klangwolke throughout the streets of the city centre.

In July 1825 Schubert and his friend Vogl stayed for some days with countess Weißenwolf, an admirer of the composer. She was particularly impressed by his songs on poems by Walter Scott, among which the famous Ave Maria. Afterwards the Scott songs were dedicated to her. There is a plaque at the wall of the castle park, the Neue Schloß itself was destroyed in the last war.

Birthplace of Anton Bruckner, °1824, meanwhile altered and renovated and since 1971 the Bruckner Museum. The exhibits include many photos, his clavichord and objects from his environment.

Outside a Bruckner bust at the central square.In the church the baptismal font and the small Breinbauer organ that the young Anton sometimes played. His father was buried here (his mother’s grave is in Linz-Ebelsberg, to which she moved with the other children after the death of her husband in 1837).

Here Bruckner went to school and stayed with a distant relative, Joh. Baptist Weiß, whose musical improvisations had a lasting influence on the young boy.

After Bruckner’s first disappointing job as assistant teacher in distant Windhaag (> 14), he was better off in Kronstorf, where he worked from January 1843 until summer 1845 as assistant teacher and organist in the neighboring church. His organ was replaced by a better one in 1879: the instrument - 1 manual, 11 stops - by Bruckner’s favorite organ maker Matthias Mauracher survives in its original state. Bruckner’s small room next to the classroom is accessible to the public.

During his Kronstorf years, 1843-45, Bruckner walked three times a week to the house of Leopold Edler von Zenetti, a conservative but competent organist and choirmaster, who taught him musical theory.

After his father’s death in 1837 the young Bruckner lived here as the foster child of the Bogner family and as chorister of the monastery church. In 1840 he left St. Florian for Linz (> 1.5), but returned in 1845 after his appointment as teacher at his former school and as organist of the monastery. Bruckner’s apartment was behind the window over the plaque.Atthe right side of the house, now the post office, were the classrooms.

In this impressing monastery Anton Bruckner worked as chorister (1837-40) and organist (1845-55). Afterwards he paid several visits here and finally was buried in the crypt of the church. Just between the zinc coffin and the organ bank his gravestone was placed. His brother Ignaz and two of his sisters are also buried on the premises.

The great organ was made in 1774 by Franz Xaver Chrismann (3 manuals, 74 stops) and altered in later times, but in 1945-51 partially restored by Zika. Present disposition: 4 manuals, 103 stops. There is a second organ, by Mauracher, in the Marienkapelle, a gift from Ignaz Bruckner out of Anton’s legacy.

In the Brucknerzimmer some furniture from Bruckners last house is exposed, including his grand piano and the pedal harmonium from his classroom in the Vienna conservatorium; his own studio in the monastery however was the Musikzimmer Nr. 4, which is not open to the public.

From 1602 the German composer and organist Paul Peuerl worked in this church, also known as Dominikanerkirche. In 1625 he left the town for parts unknown because of his protestant belief.

In 1823 and ’25 Schubert stayed here with Silvester Paumgartner, who assigned him the Trout Quintet. Also in 1819 he had visited the town and stayed at the nrs. 11 and 34 of this beautiful place (no plaques).

Birthplace of Schubert’s melancholy friend Johann Mayrhofer, °5.XI.1787 (and not 22.X, as the plaque mentions). He provided him with 47 song texts and two opera libretti. In 1836 he committed suicide.

Anton Bruckner stayed here during the summers of 1886-94 with his former pupil Franz Bayer, then the choirmaster of the Stadtpfarrkirche. One of his predecessors was Silvester Paumgartner, the admirer of Schubert and frequent performer of his church music, which became an important ingredient of the church’s repertoire.

The outside staircase of the Pfarrhof, Bayer’s house, is called Brucknerstiege. On the place the first Bruckner monument was erected, with a bust by Victor Tilgner (1898).

This theatre was built in 1792 within the walls of a stripped monastery church.

Museum devoted to the history of the town, including its musical life.

Schubert stayed in 1819 with the Schellman family in its little palace from 1586, today against the background of the Steyer-Daimler-Puch factory.

Birthplace of Schubert’s friend, the Hofopernsänger Joh. Michael Vogl, °1768. Afterwards he lived at Stadtplatz 34 (> 10.2).

Bruckner stayed in this spa during the early summer of 1867 in order to overcome a life crisis, caused by overtiredness, lack of recognition and vain attempts to get a post and a wife. A part of the f-minor Mass was composed here.

A favorite trip of his to a source in the Pfarrwaldis recommended today as Bruckner-Wanderweg (3½ km.).

In September 1842 the just graduated Anton Bruckner became assistant teacher here; after 16 months of conflicts with his unsympathetic patron Franz Fuchs, he left the village ─ now a peaceful spot close to the Czech border. His next and more satisfying post was in Kronstorf (> 5).

Museum of mechanical musical instruments, including barrel organs, orchestrions and music boxes from the 18^th until 20^th centuries.

The oldest organ of Oberösterreich was made in 1634 in Renaissance style. Georg Obermayer made the ornamented case, Andreas Putz the 22 stops on 2 manuals and pedal. The keyboard is at the rear side. After a long history of disasters and alterations, Th. Kuhn restored it to its original state in 1960.

Bruckner’s favorite organ was the side organ in the monastery church of Wilhering, the pendant of the pulpit. It was made by Nikolaus Rumel d.Ä. in 1746 and has 11 stops. The rococo interior of the church is magnificent, including the front of the great organ, which was provided with a new instrument in 1884.

Birthplace of Johann Nepomuk David, °1895. In the beginning his career resembles Bruckner’s: chorister at St. Florian, schoolteacher, organist, composer. In 1934 he left Austria for Germany…

The table at which Mozart composed the Zauberflöte is exhibited here. Mozart himself spent the night in Eferding on 23/24 September 1790 on his way to the coronation of emperor Leopold II in Frankfurt.

The birthplace of Wilhelm Kienzl, °1857, is accessible to the public. His opera Der Evangelimann (1894), a Humperdinckian mixture of naïve folk elements and a Wagner sound, was very successful; the anthem of the Austrian republic, composed in 1918 on a text by chancellor Renner, did not meet approval and was replaced in 1945.

In 1873 a wooden summer theatre was built in the spa Bad Hall, here in 1880 the 20 year old Gustav Mahler was appointed Kurkapellmeister, i.e. conductor, administrator and caretaker. The meager remuneration, the bad orchestra and the unsuitable theatre with 188 seats made him already leave at the end of the season. The theatre was closed in 1883 and finally demolished.

No plaque for Mahler (in the Trinkhalle there is one for Robert Stolz, who never was here) and a Mahler jubilee concert in 1980 attracted only twenty listeners, but the composer is well remembered in a permanent exhibition in the Heimathaus.

Prompted by the author of this website, the staff of the Heimathaus in Bad Hall discovered the house that Mahler occupied in 1880 during his months in Bad Hall.

This museum has at its disposal a collection of brass instruments and exhibits concerning piano making, Schubert, J.N. David (> 20.1) and the pianist and composer Friedrich Gulda. The pianist Paul Badura-Skoda donated the last piano (Broadwood) of Beethoven.

In this monastery three composers were guests. Michael Haydn provided it with several church compositions.Vogl and Schubert appeared in a song recital in May 1825; Vogl had studied here. Bruckner was a frequent visitor; in 1849 his Requiem was performed, in 1877 he improvised on four themes on occasion of the millennium celebration of the monastery and from 1883 he returned every year. In the archives there are Haydn- and Bruckner autographs.

Organ lovers will be disappointed. The great Mooser organ (1858) has undergone too many alterations, the choir organ by Jörg Hacker (1787), with interesting stops including army trumpet, bagpipe and cuckoo, is kept in clausura, i.e. not accessible to outsiders.

The rococo church of Kirchberg and the panorama over the monastery and the mountains are worth seeing. Its organ was built in 1682 by Leopold Freundt for the monastery but moved hither and fit to the church by Ludwig Mooser in 1855. The restauration by Kögler in 1989 resulted in a fine instrument, in spite of all the alterations.

The Lambach monastery with parts from the 11^th century is of great artistic importance. Mozart visited it four times: 1767, ’69 and ’73 with his father, 1783 alone.During the second visit both father and son wrote a symphony; the Alte Lambacheris supposed to be written by Wolfgang (KV Anh. 221), the Neue Lambacher by Leopold, but it may be the other way around. Of the organ Mozart played (Egedacher, 1657) only the magnificent front survived.

The Klostertheater from 1770 is the oldest extant theatre of Austria.

Birthplace (1766) of the composer Franz Xaver Süßmayer, best known for the completion of Mozart’s Requiem. During a renovation in the 1990s the Süßmayer plaque was removed; let’s hope it has been returned.

Former malt-house, where Wilhelm Kienzl (> 21) lived in 1893.

Bruckner frequently visited Vöcklabruck. In the Eisenhof (1) he worked at his 8^th Symphony in 1884. In other years he stayed with his sister Rosalie, whose house (2) is still occupied by descendants of her.In the Brucknerstube of the local museum (3) some souvenirs are exhibited, including a hat and a sedan chair from the composer’s last years.

Salzkammergut

The Gmunden townhall has an earthenware carillon from which folk- and classical music daily can be heard, for example Schubert’s Forelle, Brahms’ Guten Abend, Gut’ Nacht and a fragment from Bruckner’s 4^th Symphony.Next to the building is a Schubert monument.

In the former Schulhaus the Czech composer Adalbert Gyrowetz (= Vojtěch MatyášJirovec) visited his brother Wenzel (Václav), who worked as teacher. A later teacher was Johann Nepomuk Wolf, with whom Schubert played piano 4-hands during his stay in 1825.

Schubert stayed here in 1825 (the plaque mentions by mistake also later visits).

Béla Bartók worked at his Lisztian symphonic poem Kossuth here in 1905.

For the Hungarian composer Karl Goldmark, Gmunden was his zweite Heimat. During the summers of 1891-1914 he lived in this house.

In the Kammerhof, the residence of the Salzoberamtmann Hofrat von Schiller several Schubertiaden took place. Now it is the local museum. The ‘Brahms room’ exhibits furniture from his last house in Bad Ischl, bought after his death by his friend Viktor Müller von Aichholz. There are also souvenirs of Karl Goldmark.

Brahms’ furniture, as mentioned in 31.6, was in 1900 placed in the Brahmsstöckl ; outside a medallion welcomed interested visitors. In 1939 a new owner removed the medallion, the furniture went to the Kammerhof.

This was the villa of Brahms’ admirer Viktor Müller von Aicholz, cf. 31.6 and 7. Many visits by Brahms, when he was staying in Bad Ischl.

Two local composers were buried here: the church musician Johannes Evangelista Habert (1833-96)and the operetta composer August Pepöck (1887-1967). Habert lived at Habertstraße 2 (#T); for Pepöck a monument was erected at the Franz-Joseph-Platz.

In 1933 Erich Wolfgang Korngold moved in ‘Schloß’ Höselberg, more a luxurious farm. Five years later he had to leave Nazi Austria for the USA, to become one of the best soundtrack composers of Hollywood. In 1949 he visited his native country, but found the Höselberg requisitioned for refugees and in a poor state. The house remained his propriety until1955.

In 1825 Schubert stayed with Florian Clodi in this castle, now a boarding school and well restored. In the garden at the right side a monument was erected in 1978 ( Schubert’s 150^th birthday).

In Altmünster-Hochholz there are two villas with musical links: Traunblick of the Wagner admirers Wesendonck and Hollereck of Wolf’s friends Köchert, probably visited by the composer. The present state of the villas could not be verified.

Schubert’s friend Josef von Spaun lived here from 1848 until his death in 1865 and was buried on the local cemetery. On a plaque behind the church he is thanked by the people as their swimming instructor…

In the same house, then temporarily called Roner-Villa, Arnold Schönberg spent the summer holidays of 1922 and ’23.

Here Schönberg wrote in 1921 the Prelude to the Piano Suite op. 25, his first strictly dodecaphonic composition. He loved spending the summers at the Traunsee shore, although the holidays of 1908 had been overshadowed by the tragic affair with Gerstl ( >at3.60).

In this house, princess Pantchulidze received several Russian artists, among which Anton Rubinstein became a frequent visitor. The house from 1854 was designed by Theophil Hansen, the architect of the Musikverein building in Vienna.

In the presbyteryof the Traunkirchen parish, originally a medieval monastic building, Hugo Wolf spent the late summer of 1891. A temporary dip in his creativity he tried to avert by playing Beethoven Sonatas, as a healing antidote against the ‘narcotic’ music of Wagner to which he was addicted. He returned here in the next two years.

One of the houses in which Hugo Wolf stayed as a guest of the Köchert couple.

More houses which Wolf could occupy thanks to the Köcherts. In Rindbach (1) he lived in 1883, ’84, ’89 and ’90. In 1891 he stayed in Roith (2), but the noise of a quarry and of the ‘Unentwegten Gegackers und Gekrächtes‘ by the cattle drove him up the wall and after some weeks he moved to Traunkirchen (> 35.4).

In the roomy Elendschusterhaus Wolf stayed in 1888 and ‘90 and wrote the six Alte Weisen on poems by Gottfried Keller. The house was demolished, only a plaque commomorates the composer.

Johannes Brahms stayed in September 1884 with the pianist and composer Ignaz Brüll, also a good friend. The Berghof was a meeting point of musicians.

In 1893 Gustav Mahler rented for himself and his family five rooms of this inn, then called Gasthof zum Höllengebirge. In the three following years he returned, after a special cabin was built in the garden to protect him, while composing, from the noise of other tourists. In this Komponierhäuschen the 2^nd Symphony was composed. After his last visit in 1896, the cabin served as slaughterhouse, washing hut and sanitary unit of a campsite, until it was restored into a small but interesting Mahler museum. The cabin stood model for later ones in Maiernigg and Toblach (Dobbiaco).

In 1890 Hoforganist Anton Bruckner added lustre to the church wedding of a daughter of emperor Franz Josef, a frequent guest of this spa. The organ by Mauracher (1888) was the first pneumatic organ in Austria.

When in Ischl, Bruckner used to stay with his old school friend Johann Nepomuk Attwenger.

Franz Lehár lived here from 1910 until his death in 1948 and bequested the villa, with all the furniture, works of art, letters etc., to the Ischl municipality. The chock-full museum gives an insight in Lehár’s mania for collecting things and his eclectic taste, but his music gets scarcely attention.

Monuments of Lehár and Kálmán were erected in the Kurpark, operettas are performed in the Kurhaus and concerts given in the Musikpavillon.

The old Kurtheater, built in 1827 and renamed K.u.K. Hoftheater in 1863, offered first-rank performances until the end of the Empire. From 1921 it gradually became a cinema and since 1940 it is called Lehár-Kino.

Johann Strauß jr. lived in his Ischl summer house from 1883 until the year of his death, 1899; his house at Kaltenbachstraße 36 was demolished in the 1980s. But his favorite café is still extant, with a plaque for him and another one in honour of Robert Stolz, probably a faithful guest too.

The singer Richard Tauber, friend and cooperator of Lehár, lived here from 1924 until 1938.

The Polish pianist Theodor Leschetizky, a pupil of Czerny and the teacher of Paderewski, Schnabel and Elly Ney, had his summer house here from 1879 until his death. The house is still occupied by his descendants.

Last house of Oscar Straus (with one s), the composer of Ein Walzertraum.

Graves of Franz Lehár, +1948, and Oscar Straus, +1954.

The Haenel-Pancera Museum, with a collection of composer autographs, is currently not accessible; its future plans could not be verified.

The composers Giacomo Meyerbeer and Franz Lehár have stayed in this nice garden house, the latter from 1909 to 1911.  It was built in 1840; the antique portico is from a later date. It can be seen from the Kurpark.

The first house of Johannes Brahms in Ischl was at Mastaliergasse 5, in the quarter Kaltenbach. Here he met Johann Strauß, who lived nearby. The house was demolished; a weather-beaten bust in the garden could be seen in the 1990s (> photo) but moved afterwards to the Museumsgarten, let’s hope in an improved condition.

Near the road to Salzburg is the house in which Brahms spent some later holidays, including his last one in 1896. This house is extant.

Grave of Ralph Benatzky, +1957. His Nuns’ choir from Casanova became very popular,his operettaIm weißen Rößlfrom 1930 even more. The inn Weißes Rößl still stands in St. Wolfgang.