Musical Europe · Salzburg · Eisenstadt · Vienna
The keyboard in the age of Vienna
Court, concert room and teaching studio from Haydn to Brahms
Austria's keyboard story joins places that served very different musical lives: Salzburg's court and cathedral, the Esterházy world around Eisenstadt, and Vienna's theatres, salons, publishers and teaching studios. The route is international by design; many of the musicians who made Vienna central were born elsewhere.
6 linked composers · 463 playable or downloadable scores
Composers through time
Half-century groups use the midpoint of each composer's recorded lifespan as an orientation, not a composition date. Within each group: earliest birth first.
1750–1799
1800–1849
1850–1899
Stories, places & programmes
Open a chapter to follow the story or play a short programme.
Salzburg and the Esterházy world · Salzburg · Eisenstadt · eighteenth century
Salzburg · Eisenstadt · eighteenth century
Salzburg and the Esterházy world
Mozart's Salzburg childhood joined court service, cathedral music and public display at the keyboard. Haydn's long service to the Esterházy family placed him in another courtly system, yet his keyboard sonatas travelled far beyond it. Together they show the instrument moving between private study, aristocratic chamber music and the public concert.
Play this room3 scores chosen as a miniature recitalVienna becomes a musical capital · Vienna · c. 1790–1830
Vienna · c. 1790–1830
Vienna becomes a musical capital
Beethoven arrived from Bonn and made Vienna the testing ground for a new scale of pianistic thought. Schubert, born in the city, wrote for domestic music-making as well as the concert imagination. Their keyboard works turn the sonata, variation and character piece into sharply different kinds of musical narrative.
Play this room3 scores chosen as a miniature recitalThe studio and the concert tradition · Vienna · nineteenth century
Vienna · nineteenth century
The studio and the concert tradition
Czerny's teaching links Beethoven's Vienna to Liszt and to generations of technical study. Brahms, born in Hamburg but settled in Vienna, made the city a home for historically conscious Romantic keyboard writing. The route ends where pedagogy, publishing and concert culture became inseparable.
Play this room3 scores chosen as a miniature recital