The kids have been learning about Beethoven and I found this really cool website with different “musician walks” you can go on in Vienna. I took Elora and Oliver on a Beethoven walking tour on a beautiful snowy morning this week.
We started off at the Theater an der Wien, a theater where many of Beethoven’s works premiered, including his only opera. He also lived her from 1803-1804 while writing many important works. There is a beautiful old entrance around the side that we stopped to look at. The theater is still used today and is even playing Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio pretty soon! The kids were excited when they saw the poster for Fidelio on the outside of the theater.
The old entrance of the Theater an der Wien has a gate called the “Papageno Gate” which has a sculpture of Papageno from Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute”. The builder and first director of the theater was Emanuel Schikenader, who was Mozart’s friend and the original Papageno. He built the monument of himself and the kids thought that was hilarious.
We walked passed Succession, which has the Beethoven Frieze which Gustav Klimt created. It is a pictorial interpretation of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. We went to see it last month although I don’t have any photos to post of it.
It was such a beautiful day and we had a great snowball fighter here in front of the Karlskirche.
Across from the Wiener Konzerthalle is the Beethoven Monument. We will have to take another walking tour when the snow has melted so we can see all the monuments better!
The nicest part of the tour was just walking around the most beautiful parts of the city. We walked down several streets I have not been down before, and also passed by some more familiar sights. The kids were so excited every time they realized where we were. They were surprised how often we walked by places familiar to them and I was happy to see how much they know their way around this wonderful city we call home.
Next we went to the Theater Museum. It is not a very big museum, but we get in free with our Kunsthistorische Museum passes. It is in a palace that was once the home of the Lobkowitz family who were patrons to many great musicians in Vienna. Franz Joseph Maximillian Prince Lobkowitz was a patron of Beethoven and paid an allowance that helped Beethoven stay in Vienna for most of his life. Beethoven performed a private concert of his 3rd symphony in a beautiful room in the palace. I sat in the room with the kids and enjoyed looking at the beautiful ceiling while playing the 3rd symphony for them. Then we quickly went through the exhibition on the main floor which showed elaborate paper sets for paper theater. It was really interesting and the kids liked the exhibit. I think we may have to learn about paper theaters next and make our own!
Our last stop that we had time for was Beethoven’s apartment. It is super hard to find. I had read it was super hard to find and read multiple directions on how to get there, looked at pictures of the entrance, mapped it, and still thought it was hard to find. Thank goodness for the red and white flags posted in front of historical sights! The apartment is on the fourth floor up a windy staircase. We thought it was pretty awesome to walk up stairs Beethoven once walked up. He lived in this apartment for many years which is pretty amazing because he moved 70 times while living in Vienna. It is a small apartment with not too much on display, but we enjoyed seeing it. There is his death mask, several portraits of people he knew, a cool piano that is like the one he had, and a few of his personal items.
We enjoyed the view from the window, listened to several of Beethoven’s works at the listening stations (Oliver’s favorite part, he spent most of his time listening to music), saw his salt and pepper box (Elora said that was her favorite part), and seeing several handwritten pieces of music. I thought that part was awesome.
As we looked at this particular piece, Elora wondered why there are scribbles on it. I explained that while writing the music maybe Beethoven wanted to change some parts and since back then they couldn’t use a pencil, he would just have to use ink and then scribble out any parts he wanted to change. We talked about how nice it is that we have pencils now and can erase and how much harder it would be to do all that with a quill, and what a shame that he had to scribble on his music. Oliver wasn’t really listening and said, “Well that was foolish of him! He should have used a pencil!” Elora and I laughed and had to explain those didn’t exist then, which amazed Oliver. I am still laughing.
I am so glad we could do this tour! We learned so much and it was wonderful to see the history come alive as we walked where Beethoven walked. It makes learning about his music more real and personal. We have enjoyed books from the library and CDs of his music. I am so grateful to live in the city of music and can’t wait to learn about more composers!
