Baden bei Wien - The Capital of Music

Where music is concerned, you might call Baden "a watercolour miniature Vienna". The predilection of some emperors, above all Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I, for this spot was responsible for the reputation of Baden as a town of music.

The Early Days
There is proof of a permanent theatrical ensemble in Baden in the mid-18th century. Music started to develop in 1767, when the town administration decided to establish a hall for theatrical performances.
You could go on forever recalling all the musicians and singers, critics and patrons who have lived, worked and left their traces in Baden since then.

Ignaz Vizthumb, whom Mozart called Monsieur Vicedom, musicien, was one of very few natives of Baden who actually enjoyed an international career in music. In 1735, he came to Brussels as a court choirboy and doggedly worked his way up to become director of the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels and later director of a theatre in Ghent.

The Viennese Classics in Baden
The turn of the 19th century marked the beginning of the great era of Baden's musical life. Christoph Willibald Gluck and Antonio Salieri were taking cures there and gradually it became fashionable to "take the waters" in Baden.

In particular, Antonio Salieri, Master of Music to the Imperial Court and notorious opponent of Mozart, went to Baden for several summers to cure his rheumatism and one of his compositions even bears the remark "questa fuga é fatta in Baden".

Joseph Haydn's wife took cures here and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart went to Baden several times with his wife Konstanze between 1773 and 1791. The "Ave Verum Corpus" for Baden's schoolmaster Anton Stoll was composed in 1791 in what is now called the Mozarthof in Renngasse street and was performed in the municipal church for the first time. In the same year, Mozart himself conducted his Mass in B, Köchel listing 275.

Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, the meritorious researcher and collector of Mozart's works, spent 14 summers at Weilburg Castle in Baden as tutor to the children of Archduke Charles who was later to triumph over Napoleon at Aspern.

In the early 19th century, Baden became a much sought-after, elegant health resort of the nobility and famous people of the world, because it was the summer residence of the emperor's court. In the circle of the music-loving mayor Ernst Trost, Emperor Francis was also permitted to play in the amateur string quartet which met at the house in Hauptplatz 2. Legend has it that he was always playing the second violin.

And then Beethoven came to Baden. Since 1804, he spent the summer months of fully 15 years in our town, and, as in Vienna, repeatedly moved from one accommodation to another and composed immortal works:

a large part of his Ninth Symphony, the Battle Symphony, Zur Weihe des Hauses, parts of the Eroica. His ties to our town were close and in 1812, the year of the great fire in Baden, he decided to organise a charity concert in Karlsbad, today's Karlovy Vary, for the "the victims of the fire in Baden".

"Life is serious, art is cheerful" was the motto of the new theatre in Baden, which was built by Josef Kornhäusel, a very popular architect of the Biedermeier era, in the early 19th century. This was a turning point in Baden's musical life, which started to focus on light entertainment.
The last of the great Viennese classics, Franz Schubert, spent only one night in Baden in June 1828 to compose the organ fugue for four hands D 952.

The Great Era of Operetta
Johann Strauss Father and Josef Lanner often performed in Baden: at the Schwarzer Adler and in the Redoutensaal hall, sometimes also on the meadow Hauswiese at the entrance to the valley Helenental. One of his waltzes was called "My most beautiful day in Baden".

Fin de Siècle
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Baden was literally an "international" health resort: Carl Zeller, Karl Komzak, Karl Millöcker, Carl Michael Ziehrer, Eduard Strauss, Oscar Straus, all the great representatives of the era of operetta lived or worked in Baden. Komzak composed his "Badener Madl'n", Ziehrer his "Badener Parkpolka" and Eduard Strauss his "Souvenir de Baden".

In 1906, a new attraction was built: the Summer Arena with its movable glass roof, which is still the home of Viennese operettas.

Between the World Wars, unforgettable operetta performances were staged at the Baden theatre. Alfred Piccaver, Maria Jeritza and Richard Tauber performed here, but Fritz Imhof, Johannes Heesters and Herta Feiler also appeared as guest stars in Baden.

In 1925, Pietro Mascagni himself conducted his "Cavalleria Rusticana" at the Baden theatre. Marika Rökk, a famous theatre, movie and revue star, became an enthusiastic adopted citizen of Baden.