Inner Vienna

Beethoven moved more than 30 times in 30 years in Vienna - a combination of his own restlessness and expulsion by landlords after residents' complaints about his piano playing in the middle of the night.

Including his summer sojourns, he moved more than 70 times. He joked about it. "You can address your letters to 'Ludwig van Beethoven, Vienna'," he told one of his publishers.

Of all his lodgings, the one he was most loyal to, and liked the most, was a top floor apartment in a four storey building owned by Baron Johann Pasqualati - art collector, music lover and patron of the arts - on the Mölkerbastei by the Bastion.

It was found for him by his young friend and secretary, the musician Ferdinand Ries.

It consisted of two rooms with fine views over the Glacis to the Vienna Woods. To afford views to the Prater gardens in the east, Beethoven - without seeking Baron Pasqualati's permission, and much to the annoyance of the building's other tenants - had a window put in the east wall. When Pasqualati offered a mild complaint, Beethoven retorted that the Baron should be grateful to him for improving the apartment!

Beethoven rented the apartment from autumn 1804 to spring 1815, with two breaks from autumn 1808 to the end of 1810, and from February to June 1814.

He asked Pasqualati to keep the apartment available for him even when he was not there, which the Baron gladly did.

Beethoven delighted mischievously in the discomfort the four flights of stairs gave to certain of his visitors, especially the hugely overweight violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh. The visitor today can sympathise with Schuppanzigh!

Beethoven composed many of his most important works while living in the Pasqualati haus, including the Fourth, Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, Fidelio, Fourth Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and String Quartets op. 59 (Razumovsky) and op. 95 'Serioso'.

The apartment has been preserved and is today a Beethoven museum. It contains many artefacts and personal belongings of Beethoven, including ear trumpets, a salt and pepper shaker, and a lock of his hair.

The green door that was the door to Beethoven's apartment in his final illness in the Schwarzspanierhaus is there; on the wall alongside it hangs a copy of the painting of Beethoven's grandfather that he so treasured. (The original is in the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien.)

© John Suchet