Lower Austria was enough Beethoven’s world

On the 250th birthday of the composer whose works are most performed worldwide, one can rightly also draw attention to Beethoven’s stays in Lower Austria, although the exact birthday is not documented, but the date of baptism, it is December 17th. 1770. It can be assumed that Ludwig van Beethoven was born the day before in Bonn (Germany).

The tracing of his tracks in Lower Austria is justified, if only because many important works were created here, such as the final movement of the Ninth Symphony (Baden), the Hammerklavier Sonata or parts of the Missa Solemnis (Mödling). If you add Vienna-Heiligenstadt, which at that time was geographically part of the “quarter under the Manhartsberg”, the number of works increases again.

Composers and unstable citizens

There is historical evidence that Ludwig van Beethoven moved 26 apartments in Vienna alone. Only Schubert moved more frequently. “That was not so unusual for the time,” explains Baden musicologist and former Ö1 music editor Johannes Leopold Mayer. “Apart from the owners and the craftsmen, who mostly lived in their workshop house, the bourgeois tenants often had to move because the leases were only concluded for one year.” At the age of 22, the young virtuoso came to Vienna to study and stayed here for 35 years until his death.

The history of music knows of Beethoven’s 17 stays in Baden, the first in 1803, the last in 1825. He visited the sulfur springs here, because the creative spirit was plagued with serious physical ailments from the beginning. At that time, Baden was a noble spa town with two faces, as you can read from the Beethoven House: the old town is characterized by the theater, cafes, game rooms and palaces of noble families and wealthy citizens. Here the famous musician was able to connect very well to earn new composition commissions and thus money.

Around the edges, the city appears rural, with magnificent avenues, paths, pavilions, and gazebos. Baden could be reached by horse-drawn carriage from Vienna in three hours. Beethoven liked to take advantage of the surroundings of the spa town by strolling along the Helenental. Once he was lost in the true sense of the word along the canal to Wiener Neustadt.

Beethoven, the uncomfortable tenant

During the summer months of 1821, 1822 and 1823, Beethoven lived in Baden at Rathausgasse 10, in the western part of today’s Old Town, on the first floor of a wealthy coppersmith’s house. This apartment has remained virtually unchanged to this day. It is divided into anteroom, bedroom and study. The rooms still retain the original design of walls, ceilings and floors. The planters have also been preserved. In the absence of paper, Beethoven was in the habit of writing his thoughts and ideas on the shutters. In 1823 he had to replace it at his expense, this was the condition of the host to continue his stay. The labeled shutters were sold board by board as Beethoven memorabilia.

Beethoven spent the summer months of 1818 and 1819 in Mödling. The so-called “Hafnerhaus” is a Renaissance building from the second half of the 16th century with beautiful pillar arches in the courtyard and two Gothic windows. He lived in the last two rooms on the first floor to disturb as little as possible. But that failed correctly. The composer, beset by increasing deafness, paced the apartment while composing, loudly stamping and roaring melodies, while pounding the keys on his Broadwood grand piano.

This is how, for example, the Missa Solemnis began, which not only gave Beethoven a headache, but also his roommates. “Beethoven had a hard time composing fugues, and at that time he was studying Handel’s music a lot. This struggle for the correct form was expressed in an incessant stamping ”, relates Johannes Leopold Mayer. “Beethoven’s landlady was already desperate: he hasn’t been seen for four days, he doesn’t eat, drink or wash. Suddenly he screams loudly, runs out into the street and yells, ‘Got it, I’ve got it, thank you Handel. Apparently he had managed to create the grand entrance meeting as he had envisioned it. “

Gneixendorf as a farewell to life

While he lived in Mödling and Baden directly in the city and could enjoy socializing galore in aristocratic and middle-class circles, Gneixendorf (Krems district) was probably something like the end of the world. He wrote about Gneixendorf – according to local tradition – that the name reminds him of a broken shaft, that the air is healthy, but that you have to do the “Memento mori” (“Remember that you are mortal”) from the rest.

Even the Gneixendorfer were not impressed by the composer’s character. He is the “foolish and terrible brother of the Gnä’herr”, the “terrified musician”, who with his unusual behavior could “make the young draft oxen shy”. Beethoven came to the wine town of Gneixendorf in 1826 because his brother Johann, a wealthy pharmacist, had bought a small castle here. Beethoven’s chronic abdominal problems had reached dire proportions in which he awaited his brother’s help. He left in late November in an argument. On the return trip to Vienna he suffered pneumonia, from which he did not recover until his death in March 1827.