If you are a music lover, you will definitely need more than a day to explore the House of Music in Sailerstatte. The first of its kind in Austria, the museum is composed of six floors of interactive exhibition on sound and music. The House of Music was built in 2000 in the former palace of the Archduke Karl and where the founder of the Vienna Philharmonic, Otto Nicolai also lived at one point in time.
It covers an area of about 54,000 square feet with displays and presentations on anything and everything about music and sound – from the earliest forms, instruments used and developed by man, the science of sound and hearing right to the innovations in the present time. Here visitors do not only get to hear sound and music, they get to experience using all the senses especially with the interactive displays. There is a lot of things to explore at the House of Music. The first floor of the museum is exclusively dedicated to the Vienna Philharmonic spanning its entire history and its outstanding performances worldwide.
There is even a concert hall where visitors can hear excerpts for the Viennese New Year’s Concert and the Schonbrunn Summer Night Concert. On the second floor is a “sonosphere” where visitors get to hear the sounds from a mother’s womb. The third floor is a tribute to the musical giants like Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler and Schubert to name a few. There is even an interactive computer programme, the “Namadeus” which lets visitors play with the musical game KV516f created by Mozart. Another interesting display on the third floor is the Virtual Conductor where you can have the chance to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. Beware though – if the tempo is wrong the virtual orchestra shows their disapproval.
