Mozart Appreciation in Salzburg

On our first day in Salzburg, we saw several sites related to Mozart including a statue erected in his honour...

A modern art pieces called the "Spirit of Mozart"...

The "Mozart residence" where he lived after his family moved out of their first apartment...

And the house where he was born, which is now a museum. We only saw it from the outside, of course, but I had booked a private tour of the inside for the day after so was glad to know where it was and that the kids already had an introduction to it.

The guide showed us room by room through the apartment where the main living quarters were, and explained what life was like during that time period. The kitchen had quite a few interesting pieces and the place that they dropped the dirty water (and anything else that was waste) was especially interesting to all of us.

  

  

Of course there were a lot of artefacts and items belonging to Mozart or from the time period in general.

  

On display there were also some of the instruments Mozart had played. The guide told us about how the petals were underneath the keys during that time to be pressed with the knees (and the piano only had 5 octaves instead of the current 8) which is shown above.

It was neat to see the teacher's instruction manual written by Mozart's father who was apparently an incredible musician and wonderful teacher himself.

  

I was also struck by the beautiful paintings of the family, and the stories associated with them.

Even though we could have spent the whole day exploring the museum, the 2 hours we spent there made a great impression.

After the tour, we went to the Marionette Theatre (made famous by its appearance in "The Sound of Music" movie) where we saw a short version (70 minutes) of Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute." There were no photos allowed during the performance but it was really impressive to see how they made the puppets move, all the beautifully detailed costumes, and luckily there were short English translations projected onto a wall (because it was in German) so we could keep up with what was happening. 

Queen of the Night

A few days later, Cora and I went up to the marionette exhibit at the Fortress Hohensalzburg and saw some examples of what the puppets probably looked like close up.

Papageno

Papageno was probably our favourite character!

  

In keeping with the theme of celebrating Mozart, we went to the shop which sells the original "Mozart Ball" which is chocolate filled with marzipan.

No one liked them but me LOL but I was glad everyone had a chance to try them, anyway!

We had to try the famous Salzburg dessert "Salzburger Nockerl" also, which is made of whipped egg whites and a sweet berry sauce. I don't think this dessert is actually associated with Mozart but it was at the Cafe Mozart which had interesting artwork celebrating the famous musician. 

  

    

Again, I really enjoyed this dish but no one else really did haha. Oh well, more for me!

I grew up watching the movie "Amadeus" and listening to "The Magic Flute" (which I've also had the kids listen to maybe a few too many times LOL) so it was really special to come visit the birthplace of Mozart. His life story reminds me that no matter how many blessings or talents we have, we are still victims of circumstance at times and should always do our best with the time given to us.