Bach House Belvedere

Address
Schloss Belvedere
99425 Weimar
City map with adress Belvedere (PDF, German)
Opening hours
Monday to Friday 7.00 am – 10.00 pm
Saturday 8.00 am – 6.00 pm (access with chip card)
Sunday 8.00 am – 6.00 pm (acces with chip card)
You will find the following rooms at the Bach House
Teaching rooms for the Department of Guitar
History of the Bach House
The four Kavalierhäuser (Cavalier Houses), situated in pairs to the side of Belvedere Palace, are part of the original baroque palace ensemble built between 1724 and 1732. They accentuate the palace courtyard. In keeping with their name, they served a variety of functions for the respective court of the summer palace and its guests. Particularly worthy of mention is their use between 1797 and 1806 as the residence of the ‘Academy for the Education of Future Statesmen’ of the French émigré Jean Josèphe Mounier and, from 1801, of the Swiss colonel Albrecht David Daniel Gross.
After the abdication of the Grand Duke in 1918, the buildings were transferred to state use, initially in connection with the Thuringian police, then from 1937 by departments of the Weimar Music university. From 1937, the Kavalierhäuser were the venue for the multi-month training courses for music leaders of the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls and the shorter courses for the Reich Labour Service. From May 1941, the Kavalierhäuser were also the home of the ‘Orchesterschule mit Schülerheim’ (orchestra school with boarding school), grouped around the ‘Reichsmusikzug der HJ’ (until March 1945).
Between 1947 and 1953, the Deutsches Theaterinstitut (Maxim Valentin), which had left the university, worked here to train actors. From 1958, the Kavalierhäuser were finally used by the Musikgrundschule and Spezialschule für Musik as a preparatory school for university studies based on the Soviet model.
Since their renovation in the 1990s, three of the Kavalierhäuser have been used as teaching buildings by the University of Music. In 1997, the vocal department moved into the Beethoven House, where it initially took up half of the house. The other half still belonged to the Music High School until the completion of the Mozart House opposite in 2004. The guitar department also moved into its new home at Belvedere in September 1997, taking over the Bach House. The accordion department followed suit a little later, moving into the Haydn House.