Esterhazy Palace, Eisenstadt

The palace fills one side of Eisenstadt's main square, ochre and white, rebuilt from a medieval castle into a baroque residence and later given a neoclassical front. Its centre is the Haydn Hall, a frescoed room with a wooden floor and no fixed seating where Joseph Haydn worked as court composer to the Esterhazy family for about thirty years; it is still used for concerts, and the acoustics are the reason. Guided tours take in the state rooms and the hall, and behind the building a large park runs out with ponds, an orangery and old trees. Haydn's tomb is in a church on the hill nearby.

History

The palace began as a medieval castle built for defence, which passed in 1364 to the powerful Kanizsai family and in 1622 to the Esterházy. Paul Esterházy, who inherited it after his elder brother Ladislaus fell in 1652, rebuilt it between 1663 and 1672, giving it the facade seen today, with rich stucco by the Italian master Andrea Bertinalli; in the 18th century little more than the interiors and the two main staircases changed, and in Haydn's time it was one of the family's summer residences. Prince Nikolaus II engaged the French architect Charles Moreau to remake it in the classical style, with a theatre, a picture gallery and a garden hall that became today's Haydnsaal, but his money did not stretch to finishing the plan, and the moats were filled in early in the 19th century (Wikipedia, Schloss Esterházy).

The main sights

• The Haydn Hall - the frescoed concert room where the composer worked for the princely court.
• The state rooms - the baroque and neoclassical apartments shown on the guided route.
• The palace park - the landscaped grounds behind the building, with ponds and an orangery.
• The Bergkirche - the church on the hill nearby that holds Haydn's tomb.

When to go

Spring to autumn, when tours run frequently and the park is open. A concert evening in the Haydn Hall is the best way to experience the room, and an autumn festival fills the town for a week. Winter cuts the hours sharply. Mornings are quieter, and the park is free to walk at any time.

Practical notes

Interiors beyond the Haydn Hall are modest by Viennese standards, and some rooms are given over to changing exhibitions of uneven quality. Tours are timed and mostly in German. Eisenstadt is small and very quiet in the evening. If you come only for the hall, an hour covers it and the ticket feels steep.

Nearby

The Neusiedler See and the wine villages along its shore are twenty minutes east.

Key facts