Beethoven-Gedenkstätte im Hafnerhaus

About the museum

The so-called Hafnerhaus on Mödling's Hauptstraße is a Renaissance building from the second half of the 16th century with pillared arcades in the courtyard and two Gothic oriel windows. Ludwig van Beethoven spent the summer months of 1819 here, and probably 1818 as well, although the 1818 stay is not clearly documented for this house. The landscape around Mödling and the healing spring of the iron mineral baths opened in 1815 attracted him. In the Hafnerhaus he worked on, among other things, the Hammerklavier Sonata op. 106, the Diabelli Variations, the Mödling Dances and the Missa solemnis.

A memorial was set up in the three rooms on the first floor that the composer occupied in 1970, for his 200th birthday. For decades, plain period furniture and the vaulted ceilings conveyed the atmosphere of those summers. Around 1996 the stage designer Leo Tichat arranged one of the rooms as a living and working room, as if Beethoven had left it only for a few minutes.

Pictures, photographs and reproductions tell of Beethoven and his time in Mödling; also on display are facsimiles of three letters, including one in which he enquired about the terms of purchase of a house in Mödling. A fortepiano from the Viennese workshop of Carl Stein from the late 1830s shows what instruments for the hard-of-hearing composer might have looked like; Beethoven himself never played it, as he died in 1827. The memorial is run by the Bezirks-Museums-Verein Mödling as one of three sites of the Museum Mödling.

Highlights

• Recreated living and working room of the composer
• Fortepiano from the Viennese workshop of Carl Stein (late 1830s)
• Facsimiles of three Beethoven letters
• Renaissance house with arcaded courtyard and two Gothic oriel windows
• Place where parts of the Missa solemnis were written

Permanent exhibition

• Beethoven-Gedenkstätte – Reconstructed living and working room of Beethoven with pictures, letters and a fortepiano in the rooms he once occupied.

Founded

1970

Operated by

Bezirks-Museums-Verein Mödling

Admission & discounts

Cash only. Members of the Bezirks-Museums-Verein have free admission at all three sites.

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