Inner Vienna

Jahn's restaurant stood on the Himmelpfortgasse - off which runs the Rauhensteingasse in which stood the apartment of Beethoven's brother Carl and his wife Johanna. It consisted of a restaurant downstairs and music room upstairs. It was in this upstairs room that Beethoven gave the first performance on 6 April 1797 of his newly completed Quintet for Piano and Wind op. 16.

Ferdinand Ries reports that in one of the pauses in the Allegro Beethoven suddenly began improvising on the piano, much to the annoyance of Herr Ram, the celebrated oboist from Munich, and the other players.

"It did indeed look rather comic," he writes, "to see these gentlemen expecting to begin any moment, constantly raising their instruments to their mouths, only to put them down quietly again. At last Beethoven was satisfied and returned to the Rondo. The whole company was enchanted."

A restaurant - Café Frauhenhuber - very much in the style of old Vienna and serving unremarkable food stands today on the site of Jahn's. The first floor concert room is today the offices of a financial firm.

A plaque on the wall outside commemorates the Beethoven performance, as well as an earlier performance in the same concert room by Mozart.

© John Suchet