Day 3: In and Around Vienna


The manuscript to Bruckner's Symphony No. 3

The day began with a trip to Vienna's Central Cemetary. The cemetary is located in the outskirts of the city and is the main cemetary for the city. There is a special section for composers and we visited this section to see the graves of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Suppe, Gluck, Schoenberg and Bruckner's friend, Herbeck. There is a monument for Mozart as well, but his remains have been lost due to the burial traditions of his time.

Upon re-entering the city we stopped off at the Belvedere Palace and visited the custodial cottage where Bruckner spent his last years and where he died in October of 1896.

After a few hours on own own, we assembled at the offices of the Music Collection of the Austrian National Library. There we were greeted by the Library's Director, Thomas Leibnitz who graciously invited us in and showed us some of Bruckner's manuscripts. Given that the library is planning an exhibition on Bruckner & Wagner, Mr. Leibnitz followed that theme by presenting the score to the Symphony Nr. 3 - the "Wagner Symphony," the Adagio to the Symphony No. 7 (with the famous "Gilt nicht" section regarding the cymbals in the climax), a calendar showing some notes that Bruckner wrote about Wagner, one of Bruckner's prayer notations, a Wagner embossed match box and a leaf that Bruckner took from Wagner's grave.

Later in the evening, my wife and I went to the amusement park in Northern Vienna and took a ride on an historical ferris wheel that was built in the 1890s. Dinner was at the historic Central Cafe on Herrngasse.