Travel tips for classic lovers – Pörtschach and Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms in Pörtschach

The series about historical places of opera art & culture. Get to know exciting excursion and travel ideas for opera lovers. This time: Johannes Brahms in Pörtschach.

All Destinations on google maps with links to detailed Blogposts:

Johannes Brahms in Pörtschach

Listening to the beginning of the Adagio of Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto, one knows how Brahms must have felt in Pörtschach. The theme is so beautiful and romantic that the famous violist Pablo de Sarate refused to play the violin concerto because the melody is performed by the oboe. When Brahms got off the train in Pörtschach for the first time in 1877, he wrote: “The first day was so beautiful that I definitely wanted to stay the second, the second so beautiful that I will stay on for now!”.

The summer months in Pörtschach were very productive and many works were written, besides the mentioned violin concerto, the sunny 2nd symphony was the most important work from these stays. 

TO THE COMPLETE BIOGRAPHY OF BRAHMS

Destination Hotel Leonstain

Brahms first lived in the janitor’s apartment in Leonstain Castle (which is now a castle hotel), and from the next summer he lived in a boarding house, taking his lunch in the Weissen Rössl. The latter two buildings no longer stand. As always, Brahms rose early, took his walk, swam in the lake early in the morning (Brahms was a skinny-dipper), and after breakfast sat at his desk as early as 7 a.m., using the morning to compose.

Castle / Hotel Leonstain:

Musical Background: Adagio of Brahms’ 2. Violin concert:

Adagio Violin concert – Giulini / Perlmann