THE MOZART CITY

Nowhere can you discover and experience so many traces of Mozart’s life as in the UNESCO World Heritage city Salzburg.  Mozart and Salzburg are practically synonymous.  Among music lovers, Salzburg is known simply as the Mozart City.  Mozart’s music has conquered countries across the world and brought them under its spell, no city is as bound up with this musical genius as Salzburg.

Mozart’s time in Salzburg, where he spent more than two-thirds of his life (25 years), was extraordinarily productive. Mozart wrote most of his extensive output in this period. Almost all the symphonies were written in Salzburg, as were most of his concertos and practically all of his divertimenti and serenades (including the Haffner Serenade and the Post Horn Serenade). Moreover, almost all of his sacred works including his famous masses were written during these years. Mozart wrote his first stage works (including “Bastien und Bastienne”, “Idomeneo” and “La Finta Giardiniera”) before he moved to the imperial capital, Vienna, and most of his famous chamber music originated in the same period.

In 2006, Mozart friends from around the world will join the people of Salzburg to celebrate the composer’s jubilee. Together with the rich program of cultural events, the Mozart sites, and places connected with the composer’s life and work will form the focus of the 2006 celebrations. A key role in caring for the Salzburg Mozart sites is played by the International Mozarteum Foundation.

Established in 1880, the foundation grew out of the Dommusikverein (Cathedral Music Society) and the Mozarteum. As the custodian of Mozart’s estate it is responsible for the maintenance of the most important Mozart sites. The International Mozarteum Foundation has links with Mozart friends around the world, and in particular 70 or more Mozart societies and associations which span every continent. Today, the International Mozarteum Foundation is a major cultural institution. It runs the world’s largest Mozart library, the Bibliotheca Mozartiana on the first floor of the Mozarteum, which offers researchers access to some 35,000 titles. The Foundation also runs the Mozart Archive, which is of great importance as a source of information on the cultural and musical history of Salzburg. The Archive’s collections include a chronicle of the International Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg, paintings and graphic art depicting Mozart and his contemporaries, and a theater history collection featuring stage design models, sketches and theater bills, an event and artist catalogue consisting of programs, posters and reviews, along with a picture archive that serves as a central copyright office. The International Mozarteum Foundation is also home to a large collection of Mozart manuscripts.

In addition, the Foundation manages and operates the Mozart Museums in Mozart’s Birthplace and the Mozart Residence, as well as maintaining the Mozart memorials in St. Gilgen. Since 1956 it has hosted the International Mozart Week festival, centered around Mozart’s Birthplace, which features outstanding concert and opera performances. The Foundation is an international leader in Mozart research, and publishes scholarly works on the composer along with the New Mozart Edition (Urtext edition) consisting of more than 130 volumes. This new edition of Mozart’s works is expected to be finished in time for Mozart Year.

Mozart Sites in Salzburg

Two Mozart memorials, one on Mozartplatz (unveiled in 1842 in the presence of Mozart’s two sons) and one on Kapuzinerberg, help keep the memory of Salzburg’s genius loci fresh.

The churches where the composer himself performed his masses, in some cases for the first time, are among the most important Mozart sites in Salzburg, and will play a central role in the performance of the entire series of Mozart masses during Mozart Year 2006. These are:
Salzburg Cathedral: The Cathedral is the most important sacred building in the city. Here Mozart was baptized, his parents were married, and the composer served as court organist. Most of his sacred works were written for the Cathedral, including masses, propers, offices, litanies, chorales and church sonatas.

St. Peter’s Abbey: The Dominicus Mass, written for Mozart’s friend Hagenauer, was first performed in St. Peter’s Abbey, in 1769.
Collegiate Church: This Baroque masterpiece built by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach witnessed the first performance of the Mass in D Minor in 1769.

You can also follow in Mozart’s footsteps by visiting the Archbishop’s Residence and the Great Hall of the old university. Mozart regularly appeared at both locations as a member of the Salzburg court orchestra (Cathedral Chapel), and many of his works were performed and premiered there. The Rittersaal (Knights’ Hall) at the Residence was the scene of the first performance of Mozart’s oratorio “The Obligation of the First Commandment” in 1767. At the university Mozart first appeared in a public theater performance, and it was there that his first musical work for the stage, “Apollo et Hyacinthus”, was premiered.

In St. Sebastian’s Cemetery (Linzergasse entrance) you can visit the graves of Mozart’s father Leopold and his wife Constanze. The so-called Magic Flute House, in which Mozart is said to have written parts of his opera “The Magic Flute”, is in the Bastionsgarten near Mirabell Palace.

Mozart’s Birthplace
Leopold Mozart and his family lived in the so-called Hagenauer House from 1747–1773, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born there on January 27, 1756. Mozart spent his childhood there, and it was in this house that he emerged as a musical child prodigy, spellbinding contemporaries with his virtuoso piano and violin playing, and impressing all with his skills as a composer (he was only five when he wrote his first compositions). Today, Mozart’s Birthplace is a museum housing numerous famous exhibits including Mozart’s junior violin, his concert violin and his clavichord, as well as the family fortepiano, portraits and letters. In addition to autographs, the historic rooms are home to an exhibition of documents and memorabilia, and original portraits of family members. Mozart Year will see a series of special exhibitions at Mozart’s Birthplace, focusing on various aspects of Mozart’s life.

Mozart Residence
In 1773 the Mozarts moved into this residence on the then Hannibalplatz (now Makartplatz 8) as the apartment on the third floor of Getreidegasse 9 (Mozart’s birthplace) had become too small for the growing family. The new home is also known as the Tanzmeisterhaus (Dancing Master’s House). The roomy apartment offered sufficient space for gatherings of friends and musicians. The librettist of the “Magic Flute”, Emanuel Schikaneder (1751–1812) was a frequent guest. In this house, Wolfgang wrote numerous symphonies, divertimenti, serenades, piano and violin concertos, a bassoon concerto, arias, masses and other sacred works between 1773–1780. It was here that he composed “Il Re Pastore”, K 208, and began “La Finta Giardiniera”, K 196 and “Idomeneo”, K 366.    In Mozart Year 2006 there will be series of special events at the Mozart Residence.

“Mozart village” St. Gilgen
Few are aware of the connection between Mozart and the village of St. Gilgen on the Wolfgangsee (Lake Wolfgang), 15 miles east of Salzburg. None of his many works was written there, and he never visited the village. Leopold Mozart’s plan on his return journey with his son from Vienna in September 1773 to, “detour via St: Wolfgang on the way home so as to bless Wolfgang with a visit to the lake named after his patron saint, and where he had never been, while showing him St Gilgen, the famous birthplace of his mother“, remained unrealized. Nor did Mozart ever keep his promise to his sister to, “one spring embrace Frau von Sonnenburg and your husband, certainly in Salzburg as well as in St. Gilgen“. And yet the history of this village is inseparably bound up with Mozart’s life. St. Gilgen was home to three important people in his life: his grandfather worked in St. Gilgen, his mother was born there and his sister moved there after she married.

Salzburg - Highlights of Mozart Year 2006

The organizers of Mozart 2006 in Salzburg are contemplating 500 events to celebrate Mozart’s 250th birthday.  The number of performances during the year will exceed 3,000.

Viva! MOZART! all-year exhibition / January 27, 2006 to January 7, 2007

The main exhibition in Salzburg to mark the anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth will run throughout the year at the new Salzburg Carolino Augusteum Museum (SMCA) building. It will open at the SMCA on Salzburg’s Mozartplatz on January 27 — the composer’s birthday. With top-class exhibits on loan from around the world, there will be plenty to interest both young and old. The exhibition centers on the idea of throwing a birthday party for Mozart. The “guests” will include Mozart’s family, supporters and patrons — and visitors to the exhibition. The multimedia treatment, focusing on ten topics, will provide an insight into the Salzburg of Mozart’s time, viewed from today’s perspective. One of the highlights of the exhibition will be the first public showing of the original of Mozart’s first composition, KV 1.

International Mozart Week and Opening Festival / January 20 to February 5, 2006            

Each year around the time of Mozart’s birthday on January 27 the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (International Mozarteum Foundation) puts on Mozart Week, Salzburg's winter music festival and a major feature of Europe's concert life. In 2006 Mozart Week will be extended to two full weeks. Visitors from around the world can look forward to an outstanding program of opera performances, orchestral concerts, chamber music and solo recitals in the Grosse Saal (Main Hall) of the Mozarteum, the Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg (Large Festival Hall) and the Salzburg Landestheater. Famous conductors taking the stage will include Ricardo Muti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Ivor Bolton, Daniel Harding, Roger Norrington, Daniel Barenboim and Valery Gergiev. Various concert events will feature great soloists such as Thomas Hampson, Angelika Kirchschlager, Heinrich Schiff and Beni Schmid, to name just a few. The climax will be the festivities marking Mozart’s 250th birthday. The official opening in presence of the president of the republic of Austria in the Mozarteum will take place at 11.00 a.m. on January 27, 2006. It will be followed by a gala concert that evening at the exact hour of Mozart’s birth in the Grosses Festspielhaus. Between January 27–29, the Opening Festival will take place at a variety of locations under the motto, “The whole city is a stage”.

All Mozart Operas at the Salzburg Festival / July 24 to August 31, 2006

Mozart’s stage works will be a major focus of the Salzburg Festival in Mozart Year 2006. For the first time, all the composer’s 22 operas and other works for the stage will be performed within a period of only six weeks, posing a major artistic and organizational challenge. Audiences will be able to explore all of Mozart’s dramatic works from “Apollo et Hyacinthus”, his debut opera written at the age of 11, through to mature works including “The Magic Flute” and “Titus”. Apart from the festival halls, the venues will be the Landestheater and the Residence courtyard, as well as the University Great Hall (a venue where Mozart himself performed and which reopened in January 2005 after renovation) and the marionette theater. On July 26, the Kleines Festspielhaus (Small Festival Hall) will reopen as the “House for Mozart”. The premiere will be a production of “The Marriage of Figaro” under the baton of von Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

"Best of Mozart"

Thirty special concerts in Salzburg with Mozart’s most beautiful music in Mozart Year 2006

On 30 weekends between February and November 2006, Salzburg will host a concert series to warm the hearts of Mozart fans from around the globe. The Mozart Year series consists of gala evening concerts featuring the most beautiful melodies from the best loved divertimenti and symphonies, along with overtures and arias from Mozart’s favorite operas. The concerts will be held in one of the world’s most beautiful concert halls: the Main Hall of the Mozarteum. The performers will be the celebrated Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg along with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists and selected soloists.

Bookings: Salzburg Ticket Service

Mozartplatz 5, A-5020 Salzburg, tel. +43 (0)662 84-03-10; fax +43 (0)662 84-24-76

www.salzburgticket.com; e-mail: office@SalzburgTicket.com

Special Exhibitions

In Mozart’s Birthplace and the Dommuseum (Cathedral Museum) – all year

An exhibition at Mozart’s Birthplace will be devoted to the various stages in the composer’s life while the Dommuseum (Cathedral Museum) will focus on Mozart’s religious music in an exhibition titled “Zwischen Himmel und Erde“ (“Between Heaven and Earth”).

Religious Music in Mozart Year

Mozart’s entire masses, most of which were written in Salzburg, will be performed in Salzburg during Mozart Year. Performances will be held at a number of churches in the city, including some which saw the premieres of these works (e.g. the Cathedral, St. Peter’s Abbey and the Franciscan Church). Entry will be free of charge. The concert series of religious music “Musikalischer Herbst – in die Seele geprägt” (“Musical Autumn – Engraved on the Soul“) will also be free. It will feature a number of concerts at the end of October and early November.

“Amadeus” by Peter Shaffer, Seeham Lake Stage

The production of Peter Shaffer’s play “Amadeus” on the lake stage in Seeham, near Salzburg, promises to be a very memorable event. This famous work has enjoyed success on stages around the world and became an unforgettable film by Milos Forman. It is sure to be a dazzling highlight of Mozart Year. The play retells the legend of the rivalry between the court music director Salieri and Mozart. The battle is between genius and mediocrity, and sees Salieri, so the story goes, resort to some underhand tactics. Premiere: June 30 followed by performances every Wed., Fri. and Sun. in July 2006.

And....

Famous chamber music series such as the Festungskonzerte (Salzburg Fortress Concerts), Schlosskonzerte (Salzburg Palace Concerts) and Residenzkonzerte (Salzburg Residence Concerts) will focus their repertoire on Mozart’s works during the Mozart Year. At Mozart’s residence his entire string quartets will be played in ten concerts, the Residence will be the scene of Mozart galas and there will be Mozartiades in the Baroque Museum. The Festspiele Pfingsten Barock (Whitsun Baroque Festival) is dedicating its program to “Approaching Mozart“ and an avant-garde festival entitled Kontra.com will appeal to young people. All year round there will be daily Mozart films in the Salzburg Museum free of charge, and towards the end of Mozart Year there will be performances of Mozart’s Requiem, and a Mozart Year closing event under the title “Eine Stadt ist Bühne” (“The City is a Stage”).

 More information is available on-line at  www.salzburg.info and www.mozart2006.net

Follow this link to the Mozart preview of events in Salzburg and Vienna

We are grateful to Salzburg Tourism for providing this information

01/09/06