A Little Bit of Mozart!

We continued our walking tour around old town Salzburg, narrow alleys and winding streets leading us along ---the buildings are multi-hued, in various shades of pink, peach, green, blue, yellow and golden stucco ---you can just FEEL the history in this place.

As we walked, our guide, Erika informed us of various tidbits to catch and keep our interest, all the while the lights and shiny objects behind shop windows were beckoning us to come see!

Salzburg may be a draw for those interested in The Sound of Music Story, but there is ANOTHER Music story just as important, if not more ----Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart.

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty.

At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security.

During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.

He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound;  Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years.”

Trucks making their way down a Salzburg street!

Everywhere you go it’s Mozart, Mozart, Mozart!

How about a shop window full of Mozart rubber duckies?

You can’t miss the apartment where Mozart was born…it’s written in gold letters!

Notice the little ornament above the center 3rd floor window.  This marks the room where Mozart was born.

Everywhere you go there is Mozart Candy, Mozart Statues, Mozart wigs in shops, Mozart key chains and other paraphernalia.

I’ve stood in the same place as Mozart.  This is very cool!

Our group stopped to tour St Peter’s Abbey –A beautiful structure full of light --

There are five organs in the church….the one above the pews on the right is one that Mozart used to play when he was in his 20s when he was writing special masses and playing them here for the congregation.  I can imagine how amazing that would have been to hear him play ---the acoustics in the chapel were incredible!

Looking up into the dome

Extremely ancient baptismal font!

This is the baptismal font that Mozart was baptized in as an infant.  It has a solid metal lid, and a hinged door on top.  The fluted edges had me humming “four and twenty black birds baked in a pie!”  Okay – I know that is a bit irreverent, but this is the oddest baptismal font I’ve ever seen! Baby Mozart –no one knew when you were baptized just who you would become.

Ceiling over the baptistery

Statue of Mozart in the plaza

Church spires in the background as we parted ways with our guide and turned ourselves loose on the Salzburg Christmas Markets!

There are so many to share of Salzburg we will have to do more later!  I’m off to bed..it’s past 10pm as I write this and we have a 6am wake up call.  Next stop –Neuschwanstein Castle!

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