Breiteneich Castle

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Breiteneich Castle
The old castle

The old castle

Conservation status: Received or received substantial parts
Place: Width calibration
Geographical location 48 ° 40 ′ 33.3 "  N , 15 ° 41 ′ 34"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 40 ′ 33.3 "  N , 15 ° 41 ′ 34"  E
Height: 264  m above sea level A.
Breiteneich Castle (Lower Austria)
Breiteneich Castle
Breiteneich Castle 1672, copper engraving after Georg Matthäus Vischer
The new lock

Breiteneich Castle is a castle in Breiteneich , place and cadastral municipality of the municipality of Horn in the Horn district in Lower Austria .

history

The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1223. At that time there was a family resident here who named themselves after the place and which probably founded the manor house (Altenburg documents). Over the centuries there have been numerous changes of ownership, including Fronhammer, Rappach, Herberstein , Kuefstein , Trautson , Hoyos .

In 1537 Erasmus von Schneckenreith was already the landowner. The Altenburg Abbey lodged a complaint against him with the emperor because he illegally demanded robots from the abbey subjects and stole their cattle. At that time the castle must have been a major construction site. The medieval castle was transformed into one of the earliest and most distinguished Renaissance castles in Lower Austria.

But already in 1542, Mrs. Margaretha von Schneckenreith sold the Breiteneich estate to Veit Salchinger, who was the caretaker at Maissau . Erasmus and his wife († 1547) are buried in the Weitersfeld parish church.

In 1822 Franz Winkler bought the castle, which at that time was probably in a poor state of construction. He divided the great hall into servants' rooms. The hall was probably once spanned by an impressive cell vault. The cell vaults are still preserved in the lintels of the large hall windows. In 1853 Marie Winkler, the widow after Franz Winkler, is the owner. In 1888 Karl and Marie Groeger are the owners. They had three daughters. One of them, Auguste, married Ernst von Roretz, who was the district captain in Scheibbs.

In 1912 the Meierhof and parts of the shingle roof of the old castle burned down. A spread to other parts could be prevented by the intervention of the surrounding fire brigades.

In 1995 the old castle was bought by Ernest von Roretz III. to Christian and Andrea Lippert. Mrs. Andrea Lippert is a born v. Roretz and the niece Ernest v. Roretz '.

description

A large gate adorned with a coat of arms and simple stone vases leads to the forecourt, where the new castle rises to the left and the old castle to the right. The new castle was built around 1672 from a farm building. The simply designed facade looks quite elegant. Due to adverse circumstances, it was separated from the old castle during the war. In the early 1960s, the Wesner family bought the castle, which still owns it today. The old castle is a three-storey square with beveled corners. On the incline to the left of the gate, a bay window is built away from the floor and is accessible from the library on the first floor. The western front is very simple. A window and an iron door lead out of the hall into the garden. There are three hall windows on the upper floor. It is believed that the middle one was once an elaborate balcony with a sandstone portal. Many hewn stones are kept in the castle, including parts of a late Gothic tracery parapet . In the middle of the northern front, the round chapel apse emerges across all floors, from which a door leads into the Meierhof.

The roof of the projecting gate tower is crowned by a morning star , a replica of a medieval weapon. The magnificent portal with the chain rollers for the former drawbridge and the elegant sgraffito jewelry impress the viewer. The portal is decorated with snails, coats of arms, portrait heads and floral elements. The inscription reads: “Erasm. von Schneckenreith, Margaretha Dierbahin, his married consort blew the gate, the Maur sampt with the grace of God, who said praise and praise 1541 ”. With the wall is meant a defensive wall, the rest of which still closes the garden of the New Palace from the village.

When Ernst von Roretz II (1884–1943) tried to save the building at almost the last moment in the 1920s, the top floor on the Meierhof side had already partially collapsed. The family had lived in the New Palace for a long time. Baroness Maria von Roretz (born June 30, 1898 in Trieste, † September 25, 1995 in Horn), née Clanner von Engelshofen, came from an old Austrian family of officers. She was the wife of Ernst von Roretz II. Together they emigrated to England with two of their children during the National Socialist era , where Ernst von Roretz died in 1943. The baroness and the children kept their residence in England after the war. Only the elderly aunt Liese Groeger, who had the right to live here, lived in the decaying castle. At the end of the war the castle was not completely looted and not devastated. At the beginning of the 1960s, the baroness returned to Breiteneich to sell the castle, which she did not have the heart to do. In the mid-1960s, she began renovating the exterior with the support of the federal and state governments. Like her husband once, she saved the castle from impending decay. A baroque wrought iron gate and two side garden grilles, which happen to have the initials MR, Maria Roretz, come from this renovation phase. The gate and grating are from Greillenstein Castle , they were set up between the forecourt and the garden. The street-side entrance gate is also a grille from this "series" with the initials MR.

The yard

North side of the courtyard

The special thing about the castle is the square inner courtyard. In the upper third there is a deep well with a massive round stone frame. The wrought-iron fountain hood is likely from the 1920s as it is not mentioned in PF Endl's description from 1896. In the corners of the south and north wing, the curves of two spiral staircases emerge from the façades. The entrance on the south wing has a particularly beautiful stone wall and is crowned by the elaborate double coat of arms of Schneckenreith and his wife. The gate framing on the courtyard side is also beautiful stonemasonry with inscriptions and coats of arms. But it is pretty much covered by the portico that was built later. This arcade rests on a walled parapet that is decorated with sgraffiti. Four pillars support the arches. The cross vaults end with remarkable keystone-like hanging tenons, which can still be assigned to the late Gothic. There are two deep arched niches in the east wing, in the right there is a wall fountain, the water flows from a lion's head into a small sandstone basin. The north wing rests on an arcade supported by a pillar, above which the painted coat of arms of the Roretz can be seen. The arcade above is supported by three pillars, the beautiful tracery parapet is particularly attractive. Above is the coat of arms of the Clanners of Engelshofen, which was also painted. The ornate stone walls of the windows are framed by wide sgraffito bands. A wide band of sgraffito runs around the courtyard under the small windows on the top floor. It shows lavishly rampant floral ornaments, but also animals and mythical animals, exotic faces and angel heads. These motifs can also be found in the sgraffiti around the windows. All arches in the courtyard are covered with pseudo-rustics. The west wing has a cellar and the imprints of the formwork boards can be seen on the vault. A two-flight sandstone staircase leads to the hall above. The coat of arms above the entrance door shows elements of that of the Schneckenreithers, but the heraldic bull of Roretz, a creation from the 1920s, is carved out in the ribbed arch field.

The inner

The hall itself is vaulted by a mighty spear cap barrel. On the right a door leads into a narrow corridor where the "Graselkerker" is located, in which the notorious robber chief Johann Georg Grasel is said to have been held. The knight's hall is located above these rooms. Ernst von Roretz freed it from the subdivisions and had it covered with a solid beam ceiling. There is a large, richly decorated open fireplace on the northern front. Opposite a green Biedermeier tiled stove. (Several rooms have beautiful tiled stoves, some of which were auctioned at Dorotheum in the 1920s, including a valuable Renaissance stove.) There are family portraits on the walls, and a masterly youthful portrait of Baroness Maria stands out. From the 1970s, the knight's hall was the venue for various concerts for more than two decades. The so-called "chapel rooms" next to the knight's hall can be reached from the snail's staircase. These are three rooms that were once the palace chapel. The middle one is shaped by the chapel apse. The rooms were only divided up at a later time. All three are spanned by unique cell vaults. This type of vault is a rarity in Austria (perhaps in Europe), there is a comparable one in Greinburg . The "chapel rooms" belonged to Aunt Liese Groeger's apartment. Via the spiral staircase it goes up to the portico of the north wing. From there a door leads into the master's room in the east wing; a coffered wooden ceiling from the renovation period in the 1920s rests on a strong longitudinal beam. An open fireplace and a tiled stove provide warmth. Numerous family portraits hang on the walls, including a portrait of a Duchess of Oldenburg with a dog in an openwork gold frame. In the back of the room a short wooden staircase leads up to the old dining room in the north wing, which still has its original beamed ceiling. When entering, the first thing you see is the round apse. The rooms in the east wing are mostly kept simple, painted beam ceilings have been preserved in two rooms on the first floor. The door frames and doors in the castle are all massive carpentry from the 1920s. The library is on the first floor of the south wing. After the “chapel rooms”, it is the most remarkable room in the castle. “Grotesque paintings” were discovered, exposed and restored under the whitewashed needle cap barrel. They are from the time around 1550, when colorful tendrils and flowers grow in which music-making monkeys, foxes, mythical animals and putti frolic. Landscape details can be seen in mirror fields. A sedate tiled stove stands on four legs and the cozy bay window invites you to read. The large tower room is located above the library. It has a new wooden ceiling, the tower niche is adorned with a vaulted cap vault decorated with struts.

The garden

At the castle there are two sandstone putti on a pedestal holding an inscription plaque. They used to be under one of the arches of the east wing in the courtyard. Baroness Maria had a memorial plaque placed on the plinth for her deceased husband about the first renovation of the castle. The rule Breiteneich had high jurisdiction. Delinquents were sometimes subjected to a divine judgment. A linden tree with the crown was planted in the ground for them in the garden; if it took root, it was freed. In this way, a whole, somewhat bizarre-looking avenue of lime trees was created over time. This story was always passed on through oral tradition, but also that replanting dead linden trees in this way always failed.

The old castle and the music

In 1970 the association “International Music Days Schloss Breiteneich - Altenburg Abbey” was founded. The initiators were Heinrich Reinhart from Eggenburg, Baroness Maria von Roretz, who was looking for an edifying purpose for her renovated castle, and the abbot of Altenburg Monastery, Ambros Griebling, who was also not averse to bringing some life into his silent monastery. After internal quarrels, the association's right to use the castle and monastery was withdrawn in 1978. A new association was founded under the name "Verein der Musikfreunde Schloss Breiteneich - Altenburg Abbey". At the same time, there was a new beginning of public concert activities in the palace and monastery, for which Heinrich Reinhart and the new abbot of the Altenburg monastery, Bernahard Naber, campaigned. With the support of the federal and state governments, these associations were supposed to culturally enliven the somewhat remote area. Walter Hermann Sallagar , musician from Vienna, was won over as the founder and organizer of the "Breiteneich Courses". Further education courses for musicians, singers, dancers etc., but also for instrument making, mainly for woodwind instruments, were offered. For this purpose, workshops were set up in some of the castle's ground floor rooms, a stable and flour chamber, but also in the grass dungeon. While there were just a handful of participants in the first year of the course, the number grew steadily from year to year. In 1979 there were already 130 from 15 nations in several successive courses. Some of them lived in the Old Castle and in quarters in and around the village. In 1986, after 17 years, Walter Hermann Sallagar's work for the association was ended by the board of directors. In October 1978, the young violinist, concertmaster of the Lower Austrian Tonkünstler Orchestra, Bijan Khadem-Missagh, spoke to the culture department of the Lower Austrian state government and announced that he was planning a chamber music festival, with Atzenbrugg Castle in mind as the venue. But that was still ruinous at the time. He was referred to the Waldviertel by the cultural advisor Alfred Willander in order to realize his plans. In December he drove to Breiteneich and Altenburg with Bijan Khadem-Missagh, Mrs. Margaret Ley and Heinrich Reinhart. “Everything viewed and enthusiastic” was the entry in the diary of Ms. Ley, the tireless organizer of the “International Chamber Music Festival Austria”, which was soon to be founded. The festival was held from 1979 following the Sallagar courses. Within a few years it grew into the most important event of its kind. The Waldviertel had now become a music district. Major orchestras and soloists performed and the number of venues grew steadily. Soon there were around 300 master course participants from around 20 nations, many of them from communist states, even from China, so that additional quarters had to be rented. In 1990 the festival added “Allegro Vivo” to its name, which became the unmistakable logo and stands for the highest quality. After the baroness's death in 1995, the association's right to use the castle was withdrawn. “Allegro Vivo” found a new home in the Kunsthaus Horn, only 2 km from Breiteneich. Fortunately, what was built in the castle over decades remained in the region. The association of "Musikfreunde" dissolved itself in 2008.

swell

  • P. Friedrich Endl: Studies on ruins, castles, churches, monasteries of the Horner Boden . St. Norbertus publishing house in Vienna, 1896
  • Official journal of BH Horn, born in 1968
  • Franz Eppel: The Waldviertel , 2nd edition 1963
  • Dehio Lower Austria
  • WHS Der Breiteneich Bote , various years
  • Allegro Vivo 2003, 25 years of fortissimo for chamber music , publisher: Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra. ISBN 3-85252-553-5

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1912 in the excerpts from the communications of the Lower Austrian Fire Brigade Association 1886 - 1914, accessed on March 26, 2017

Web links