Wiener Konzerthaus

Richard Strauss wrote his Festliches Präludium for the opening of the Konzerthaus in October 1913, and the scale of that piece — organ, and an orchestra of enormous size — indicates what the building was meant to be. Designed by Fellner and Helmer with Ludwig Baumann, it was conceived from the outset as a house for every kind of music, with halls of contrasting size under one roof: the Großer Saal for orchestras, the Mozart-Saal and Schubert-Saal for chamber music and song, and a further studio space added in the renovation of the 1990s. The Wiener Symphoniker are resident. Across more than a century the house has held the standard repertory and the music of its own time in deliberate balance, and its programme runs from early autumn into the summer with a density few European halls attempt.