Haydn birthplace
The thatched-roof Haydn birth house is located in the Lower Austrian market town of Rohrau at Oberen Hauptstrasse 25. It is now used as a museum.
history
The world-famous composer Joseph Haydn was born on March 31, 1732 in the thatched farmhouse in Rohrau. His father, Matthias Haydn, master wagoner and later market judge from Rohrau, had built the house around 1728. Joseph Haydn only lived in his parents' house until he was 6 years old.
Although his parents could not read music, they recognized the boy's musical talent early on. At the age of six they sent him to Hainburg an der Donau , where he received music lessons from a relative - the school principal Johann Matthias Frankh. In 1740 the Viennese cathedral music director Georg von Reutter, who was passing through Hainburg, heard the talented boy sing and immediately took him to Vienna , where he was able to enjoy a solid musical education as the choirboy of St. Stephen , which established his further career.
Although Joseph Haydn left the house where he was born at the age of 6, he had a lifelong bond with the house and is said to have kneeled down and kissed the doorstep in 1795 when he returned from his triumphant trip to England and came to his hometown.
Museum use
The house where Haydn was born was acquired by the State of Lower Austria in 1958, restored to its original state and opened as a museum in 1959 on the 150th anniversary of Joseph Haydn's death. On the occasion of the 250th birthday, it was extensively renovated in 1982 and the permanent collection was repositioned, with particular emphasis on the cozy character of the house.
As a memorial site, the house is dedicated to both the composer Joseph Haydn and his younger brother, Michael Haydn , who also saw the light of day in it, but Joseph Haydn is clearly in the foreground in the museum presentation. Among other things, memorabilia from the life of Joseph Haydn, such as his snuffbox or various composition sheets, are on display. The biographies of the Haydn brothers are presented in today's documentation and concert hall.
At the time of Joseph Haydn, the house only comprised the birth room, the kitchen, the living room and the baroque room. Today's documentation room was the father's Wagner workshop back then. The large living room is that part of the house that was largely spared from later changes. The ceiling beams in this room are still original, but the wooden ceilings in the other rooms fell victim to a fire in 1899. The furnishings in the parlor and the birth room come partly from an old farmhouse in the nearby village of Schönabrunn and partly from the collections of the Lower Austrian State Museum . With the addition of this furniture, visitors should be more attuned to the time of Joseph Haydn. In the baroque room is the original grand piano, restored in 2003, on which Joseph Haydn is said to have played. Concerts take place every year in the inner courtyard, which offers an atmospheric character with its arcade.
literature
- The childhood days of a brilliant musician . Article by Johann Werfring in the “Wiener Zeitung” on August 5, 2010, supplement “ProgrammPunkte”, p. 7. Accessed on March 19, 2012
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 3 '53.7 " N , 16 ° 51' 20.2" E