Photo Gallery
Photos by Patty Briggs and Bryan Bland unless otherwise noted
Most orchestral concerts at the Haydn festival take place in the beautifully painted Haydnsaal, which is just as Haydn left it 200 years ago.
Recitals of chamber works are usually in the smaller Empiresaal: here the Sunbird group share the front row with Prince Anton Esterházy, current head of the family who employed Haydn for over 30 years.
A popular outdoor venue for concerts is the Leopoldine Temple in the Eisenstadt palace park - which has the extra advantage of a selection of woodpeckers and other woodland birds.
We also visit the Esterházy summer palace at Fertod (‘the Hungarian Versailles’)—
—where for the last few years the Budapest Baryton Trio have delighted us with a private concert in the very room where Haydn first conducted his Farewell Symphony.
The friendly ambience of this delightful festival, and the fact that WINGS groups have been welcomed since its inception, means that there are plenty of opportunities to discuss the music with the performers - such as this lunch session with the celebrated conductor Adam Fischer—
—or here where Bryan discusses the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of The Seasons whilst the maestro exchanges his baton for a ladle and cooks the group’s after-concert supper (an honour which we cannot guarantee every year).
The reedbeds around Lake Neusiedl beckon to us both before and after breakfast on many days - and in 2002 rewarded us with superb views of Bearded Tit, the only babbler in the Western Palearctic.
Photo: June Persson
The Hohe Wand provides higher altitude species such as Crested Tit and Nutcracker—
—as does the summit of the Schneeberg where we usually see Water Pipit and —
—Alpine Chough.
The picturesque town of Rust is famous for its roof-nesting White Storks.
In 2002 one lingered into mid-September to watch over us whilst we ate our al-fresco lunch in the town square.
Searching for Great Bustard on the Tadten plain takes us along the Road of Remembrance to the Bridge of Andau where numerous sculptures form a poignant reminder of life behind the Iron Curtain —
—and escape to freedom.