Liszt-Haus

Description

The Liszt House was built shortly before the turn of the 19th century as a court gardener´s house. In 1819, the master builder Clemens Wenzeslaus Coudray redesigned the house and adapted it architecturally to the building opposite. Before Franz Liszt moved in in 1869, the house served as a studio for Friedrich Preller the Elder and Hermann Wislicenius from the 1850s onwards. For Liszt, this marked the beginning of his second stay in Weimar. From 1848 to 1861, he had already lived as court conductor in the Villa Altenburg on Jenaer Straße together with Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein. When he returned to Weimar at the invitation of Grand Duke Carl Alexander, he used the comfortably equipped apartment provided by Grand Duchess Sophie until his death in 1886. Liszt spent only the summer months here; in winter and spring, he resided in Rome and Budapest. The Weimar summers of the genius, admired throughout Europe, were primarily characterized by his role as a teacher. Liszt taught many young and talented pianists from home and abroad free of charge at his residence. Shortly after his death, a part of the rooms was opened as a memorial site on the initiative of Carl Alexander. The living and working room, as the central salon, remained in its original furnishings, while the bedroom and dining room were later reconstructed.