Inner Vienna

The zum Weissen Schwan Inn ( White Swan Inn) was Beethoven's favourite drinking establishment in central Vienna. It stood in the Neuer Markt, which then as today features an ornate fountain depicting the Danube with figures representing its tributaries.

Beethoven regularly used to meet his friends at the Schwan to drink.

Nikolaus Zmeskall, official at the Hungarian Chancellery and amateur cellist, was one of his most frequent drinking companions.

Most often Beethoven would drink red wine, made from grapes grown locally on the foothills of the Kahlenberg at the eastern end of the Vienna Woods. It was rough and intoxicating, if Beethoven is to be believed. In one note to Zmeskall he writes, "Let us meet at seven this evening at the Schwan and drink more of their disgusting red wine."

At the bar there was a rack of pipes already filled with tobacco. Beethoven used to avail himself of these, although there is no evidence he was a regular smoker otherwise.

The small expatriate community from Germany - the Beethoven brothers, Stephan von Breuning, Ferdinand Ries, Ignaz Gleichenstein - joined by their close Viennese friends like the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, would meet at a table in the corner of the Schwan Inn to exchange news from home and commiserate with each other as Napoleon Bonaparte swallowed their homeland.

Where the Schwan Inn once stood there is now a bookshop. No sign commemorates the establishment in which Beethoven spent so much time.

Next to the Schwan in Beethoven's day stood the Mehlgrube, a small concert hall that in the Middle Ages had been - as it name translates - a flour store.

Beethoven performed there with the Italian double bass virtuoso Domenico Dragonetti. Today in its place is an exclusive four star hotel, the Ambassador.

© John Suchet