Wahnfriedstrasse 9
Tel. (0921) 516 64 88
Open: Sep- Jun: 10am- 12pm, 2- 5pm daily
Jul- Aug: 10am- 5pm daily
The Franz Liszt Museum in Bayreuth is dedicated to the life and work of the pianist, conductor and composer Franz Liszt. The museum has existed since 1993 and is housed in his death house at Wahnfriedstraße 9.
Franz Liszt lived in the house
that now houses the museum during his stays in Bayreuth. He died
there on July 31, 1886.
The house was built in 1877 by Carl
Wölfel. It is a simple, two-story Wilhelminian style house made of
red bricks and with a hipped roof. A ten-step side staircase leads
to the entrance to the mezzanine floor. In 1945 the house was
severely damaged by a bomb. At the beginning of the 1990s, the house
became the property of the city of Bayreuth. The museum was opened
on October 22, 1993, the 182nd birthday of Franz Liszt. The museum
is located on the mezzanine floor in Liszt's former apartment.
Structural changes were necessary for use as a museum, for example
wall breakthroughs.
The house is in the immediate vicinity of
the Wahnfried house, which belonged to his son-in-law Richard
Wagner.
In 1988 the city of Bayreuth bought the
approximately 300 pieces from the Liszt collection of the Munich
pianist Ernst Burger, on which today's museum collection is based.
In the meantime, the arsenal has been supplemented with items on
loan from the Richard Wagner Foundation. The exhibition is largely
designed in chronological order. Music by Franz Liszt plays in the
exhibition rooms.
The collection includes portraits and
three-dimensional images, such as a bust by Antonio Galli or a
living and a death mask, documents, manuscripts such as sheet music,
diaries or letters, and personal items of Liszt, such as Liszt's
silent piano. The Ibach grand piano from the hall of the Wahnfried
house is also on display here. An original Liszt grand piano is in
the Steingraeber house.
In 2009, the exhibits were documented
photographically and recorded in a database. Photographs of images
and three-dimensional objects are publicly available.
A
complete redesign of the museum is planned for 2020.