It was erected as the new concert hall run by the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna, on a piece of land provided by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in 1863.

[4] A major donor was Nikolaus Dumba, an industrialist and liberal politician of Aromanian Greek - Albanian (Voskopoja) descent, whose name was given by the Austrian government to a small street (Dumbastraße [de]) near the Musikverein.

The Great Hall originally included a historic pipe organ built by Friedrich Ladegast.

The present-day instrument was originally installed in 1907 by the Austrian firm of Rieger Orgelbau, highly esteemed by musicians such as Franz Schmidt or Marcel Dupré, and rebuilt in 2011.

The names of the six halls refer to gold, Johannes Brahms, glass, metal, stone and wood respectively.