Sunday, October 3rd

Beethoven to his published, Hoffmeister:

' I am out in the country and live a little lazily, just so that I can live much more actively later on. '

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Today has worked out very well. After a not very successful day on Friday I spent yesterday working out exactly where I should go, what to see, and crucially how to get there. This morning therefore I was off at 9.15 am with a clear agenda.  Sunday is a good day for looking around because there is less traffic and the parking tends to be free.

My first stop was Heiligenstadt which is 7km from here.  Beethoven used to spend the summers out of the city and came mainly to Heiligenstadt or Modling both of which are now suburbs of Vienna but used to be a good day’s journey from the city.  The man had just turned the key in the lock of the first house at 10.00am so I had it all to myself.  This was the house where Beethoven wrote a letter (the Heiligenstadt Testament, http://home.swipnet.se/zabonk/cultur/ludwig/beeheil.htm) to his brother in which he made clear that his hearing was becoming worse and was driving him crazy.  The house has an inner courtyard which cannot have changed much at all in the last 180 years. The other house is in the square next to the church and is now a ‘Heurige’ which is a sort of restaurant with the focus on drinking rather than eating. The square would have been better without all the cars parked by people in the church  but it was Sunday after all. And there were other bits of interest in Heiligenstadt............

After that it was back in the car across Vienna to Modling. Modling is a fine little town with old world Austrian charm and but for the fact that it was really cold would have merited more time.  It has the house where Beethoven stayed for several summers  – the Haffner house and where he did some really significant work.

My final place for the day was the town of Eisenstadt. This is where Haydn was employed in the palace of the Esterhazy princes as ‘Kapelmeister’ ie. In charge of music in the court.  I was expecting something on a much more lavish scale from the Esterhazy palace.  I think the family must have fallen on hard times and sold everything except the family silver which was on display. The purpose of the tour is really to see the theatre in the palace which is very fine and in which the court orchestra played and operas were performed and indeed it is still used for concerts.  The lady doing the tour was Hungarian and apologised to the group for her accent not that I’d have noticed but the Austrians and Germans presumably would have. She did her best with a fairly mixed bunch of individuals. The foreigners in the group had a written explanation of the main points. But there were unfortunately a number of individuals – 3 couples to be precise – who kept talking while she was explaining things. I got fed up with it in the end, huffed, puffed, tutted and blurted out in by best German ‘this is impossible.’ It quietened down a bit after that.  These foreigners have no idea how to behave! I said to her afterwards that she needs to tell the likes of these to button it until she has finished. She agreed.

One interesting bit was that I’ve always thought of Atilla, the Hun as not a very nice chap, not one you’d want to come across on a dark night. However he was well up in the social rankings with the Esterhazy’s and she talked about him as might a guide in England talk about Nelson or Wellington. Shows how wrong you can be.

So, I’ve now accomplished a lot of what I wanted to in Vienna. Tomorrow will be a quiet day. There are other bits and pieces to do in Vienna itself but otherwise I can say that I have seen what I wanted to see. From now on everything else will almost be a bonus.

I'll sort out some pictures tomorrow when there is a bit more time.