Join us for a visit to one of the most interesting museums in Vienna, the House of Music where you can see the history of the greatest Viennese composers and also learn what sound is, play instruments, conduct an orchestra and much more!
The interactive sound museum provides a great presentation both at a playful and a scientific levels, with Maestro Zubin Mehta as the honorary chairman. Formerly a Palace of Archduke Charles (1771 - 1847) and the residence of Otto Nicolai (1810-1849), composer of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the palace houses today a fantastic insight into musical life in Vienna over the years.
Otto Nicolai lived in the first floor and today, the historically preserved rooms present original documents of the Vienna Philharmonic largely know for the New Year’s Concerts broadcast all over the word and the Schönbrunn Summer Night Concert. Try and compose your own waltz there!
The second floor tells you what sound is. Where does sound come from? How do sounds turn into music? How does a foetus perceive music? You will learn everything about the physics of sound and the four different methods of producing musical sounds: stringed instruments, skin-sounding instruments, self-sounding instruments and wind instruments.
The third floor presents the greatest Viennese composers: Beethoven, Haydn, Mahler, Mozart, Schubert, Strauss as well as the Viennese School of Bert, Schönberg and Webern. Poor Brahms and Bruckner only get little displays. The highlights of this floor include batons of Richard Strauss, von Karajan and others, Brahm’s, Schubert’s and Straus’s glasses and more importantly perhaps, a copy of the title page of Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, Eroica, where he vehemently crossed out the original dedication to Napoleon. The original conductors score for the Marriage of Figaro has Mahler’s handwritten annotations from 1897!
Finally, when you come up to the fourth floor, you can conduct the most famous orchestra in the World, standing in front of the Vienna Philmharmonic. Mind you, if your conducting is not good enough, the band will react accordingly! ;>
The museum is fully wheelchair accessible. The toilets for persons with disabilities are on the ground floor but you need to notify the cash desk if you need to use them, a bit of a minus for otherwise such a lovely museum!
There is a large shop in the fourth floor, definitely worth a visit at the end of your tour!
Eating is not permitted in the museum but you can take a break in the glass-roofed courtyard and a bit sadly, take a drink from the automats of Café Nicolai. Instead rather, enjoy any of the fancy restaurants and cafés in and around the Stadtpark a few steps away.
Haus der Musik
Seilerstätte 30, 1010 Vienna