Inner Vienna

The Hofburg Palace on the Michaelerplatz was the official residence of the Emperor. Franz I, who was Emperor for the whole of Beethoven's residency in Vienna, was a renowned music lover but there is no evidence of his ever having taken much interest in Beethoven, although Beethoven portrayed him in his composition for the Congress of Vienna, 'Der glorreiche Augenblick'.

The same cannot be said of the Emperor's youngest brother Archduke Rudolph, a fine musician - both as pianist and composer - who was Beethoven's greatest patron.

Rudolph also lived in the Hofburg Palace, in a wing named the Amalienhof, after the wife of an earlier Emperor. Through Rudolph's patronage, Beethoven was given unlimited access to the Hofburg Palace, according him a status not enjoyed by either of his two great predecessors, Mozart and Haydn.

Today the Hofburg is the official residence of the President of Austria. The Amalienhof still stands as a wing of the palace.

In the late nineteenth century it was the residence of Empress Elisabeth - Sissy - the tragically unhappy wife of Emperor Franz, who was assassinated by an Italian anarchist in Geneva and whose life - stifled by the demands of royalty - so poignantly pre-echoes that of Princess Diana.

In the Empress's centenary year, 1998, an exhibition commemorating her life was laid out in the Amalienhof.

© John Suchet