Salzburg's Favourite Son

Written by Him
Salzburg, Austria. 17th - 21st December 2016

Mozart

While "The Sound of Music" is perhaps what Salzburg is best known for outside of Austria, Salzburgians appear most proud of their city's claim to classical music fame. Salzburg is the birth pace of Mozart. Born in 1756 in a small upstairs room in the old town, on the banks of the river. Mozart is Salzburg's most famous son and his Geburtshaus (birthhouse), now a museum is one of the city's major tourist attractions.

Despite the city's small size it in fact boasts two Mozart museums and just across the river visitors can wander through Mozart's later residence which contains some of the composer's actual instruments. Salzburg is also home to the worlds only Mozart Foundation who's remit is to promote his work and heritage and to carry out research about the artist.  

We visited both museums during our visit. They are chock-full of information, a lot of it unrelated stories about family members etc. In all it is a little overwhelming and we found it difficult to take in The volume of information as presented. However, we were struck by how early he showed his genius. Mozart began leaning the piano at 3 and composing by 5. He had completed his first symphony at age 8. Feeling in adequate yet?​

Mozart's work is still regularly performed in Salzburg theatres and his name and image appears on far more of the city's souvenirs than anything else. However, while the Salzburgians are anxious to play up this sophisticated heritage we couldn't help but notice that Monty Python's "Spamalot" was playing in the theatre less than a stone's throw from Mozart's residence.  ​

 Mozart moved from Salzburg to Vienna 1781 in search of more accolade and a wider audience. He died age 35, almost the same age as ourselves and it is incredible to think of what he had achieved and the legacy he had managed to leave in such a short number of years. Mozart is buried in Vienna and we may take the opportunity to seek him out again next week.