One of two Mozart Museums in Salzburg, the Mozart Birthplace Museum stands at Getreidegasse 9, just down the street from the Hotel Goldener Hirsch. The house was named after the owner, Johann Lorenz Hagenauer, known as the “Hagenauerhaus”. Since its founding in 1880, opened by the International Mozart Foundation, the museum has been one of the top attractions in Salzburg. This museum is well-organized with several rooms containing concise exhibitions of paintings and memorabilia surrounding the life and legend of Mozart. The entire history of this musical genius is told, beginning with the history of his family. Mother, father, and sister all played important roles in the education and musical life of this boy genius.

•Mozart’s father, Leopold was a respected musician in Salzburg who studied philosophy and law at the university. At the age of 20, he became a musician at the Salzburg Cathedral and taught violin at the adjoining choir school. He was a prominent violin teacher, gaining international fame with the publication of his violin instruction book Versuch einer grünlichen Violoinschule in 1756, the year of Wolfgang’s birth. At the time of Mozart’s birth, his father worked for the Prince Archbishop, so it can be said that he was born into musical service. Wolfgang began to play the harpsichord at the age of three, spending a lot of time picking out small cords on the keyboard. When Mozart was only four year old, he learned his first piece of music, a scherzo by the Viennese composer Wagenseil, written by Leopold into Nannerl’s notebook for her to practice. At around 9 o’clock in the evening, the day before his fifth birthday, Wolfgang learned to play the piece in just half an hour. Before the year was out, Leopold let his son genius play the piano in public at the University of Salzburg, the school where he had studied.  By the time Mozart was seven, Leopold had risen to deputy Kapellmeister or vice chapelmaster.

•Mozart’s mother, Maria Anna married Leopold Mozart in Salzburg in 1747, moving to Getreidegasse 9, and supported her husband in all family matters. She gave birth to seven children, of whom only Nannerl #4 and Mozart #7 survived. Both children achieved fame. She traveled with her husband and children as their concert tours throughout Europe between 1762 and 1768. With her pleasing personality and charm, Maria Anna smoothed the way for everyone with whom she came in contact. She stayed at home, unwillingly, with Nannerl during the tours of Italy that Leopold took with Wolfgang 1769-1773. In 1777 she unwillingly accompanied an adult Wolfgang Mozart on a job-hunting tour to Paris where she fell ill and died on July 3, 1778. She was buried in the Parisian cemetery of Saing-Eustache.

•Maria Anna Walburgha Ignatia Mozart “Nannerl” was the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. She was the couple’s first child to survive beyond infancy When Mozart was a toddler, Nannerl was his idol, inspiring him to study music by observing his father’s instruction to Marianne. He wanted to be like her. She was considered to be a child prodigy, taught to play the harpsichord by her father. Although a talented musician in her own right, her father devoted more energy to nurturing the talents of his son than those of his daughter. The two children were very close and invented a secret language and an imaginary “Kingdom of Back” in which they were king and queen. Wolfgang wrote a number of works for Marianne to perform, including Fugue in C, K. 394 (1782). Until 1785, he sent her copies of his piano concertos. Though they corresponded during their adulthood, they grew apart after 1788.

Portraits of members of the family exhibited along with displays of, letters, diaries, and music written in the hand of both Leopold Mozart and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The small violin Mozart played as a child is displayed here, as well as his clavichord. As an adult, Mozart lived at the Tanzmeisterhaus (“Dance Master’s House”) on Hannibalplatz, now known as Makartplatz, near Trinity Church, beginning in 1773. Two houses had been merged in 1685 to form this larger house, owned by Louis Speckner who later received a license for a dancing school. The second tanzmeister, Franz Gottlieb Speckner, was a friend of the Mozart family.  In the 18th century, dance lessons targeted to young nobles and the children of the wealthy, taught social skills, protocol, and a behavior codex of the court. It was in this Tanzmeisterhaus that Mozart found the space suitable for rehearsals, social gatherings and living. He wrote obsessively, not only many of his musical compositions, but also many letters, at least 232 that are known. The museum also focuses on Mozart’s life in Vienna, where he lived from 1782 until his death in 1791. His “Golden Years” in Vienna, were the height of Mozart’s fame as a pianist. Well paid, and not needing to take a job with a wealthy patron, he spent his time as a freelance composer. He fell in love Constanze Weber, a cousin of the composer, Carl Maria von Weber. The courtship was fraught with crisis, as the couple broke up, then Constanze moved in with Mozart. His father, Leopold, did not approve, nor did Mrs. Weber. When Constanze’s mother threatened to send the police, Mozart married Constanze immediately, on August 4, 1782. Amidst all this emotional turmoil, Mozart produced his first opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) one month before his marriage. At this time, he befriended the older composer, Joseph Haydn, who recognized Mozart’s immense musical talent and reciprocated the friendship. With the occasional opera commission, Mozart lived well. He composed many concertos, published piano and violin sonatas and solos for the piano, and between 1782 and 1786, wrote fifteen piano concertos, including some of his finest works. Mozart also found time to write string quartets, string quintets and concertos for various instruments, giving new meaning to the Classical symphonic style. Exhibiting his serious side and the mastery of the genre, he wrote the set of six string quartets that he dedicated to Haydn, written more for his own satisfaction than for earnings. The last five years of Mozart’s life were spent writing operas including: Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786) Cosi fan Tutte (1790) and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791) taking the traditional Italian opera and the German singspiel to soaring new heights. Though his operas were well received, especially in Prague, Mozart was plagued by financial difficulties, perhaps gambling debts. In 1787 he was appointed as part-time composer to the court, but did not ease his money worries, relying on commissions to maintain his lifestyle. After several years of overwork and ill-health, Mozart received a commission to write a requiem mass The Requiem remained unfinished at his death and was completed by a pupil, Franz Süssmayr. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who gave the world his musical genius, died at the age of 35. His wife, Constanze Weber, had been a loving wife and helpmate. During their marriage, as a trained musician herself, she inspired his music. Mozart’s extraordinary writing of the soprano solo in the Great Mass in C Minor was sung by Constanze in 1783 at the premier of this work in Salzburg. During their courtship, Constanze fell in love with the baroque counterpoint in musical composition, and inspired his Fantasy and Fugue, K. 394, admonishing him to put the notes on paper. In his later music, the Baroque style played an important role, particularly in the 41st Symphony and the opera, The Magic Flute. Constanze gave birth to six children, four of whom did not survive infancy. During Mozart’s last years, she helped sell subscriptions to his concerts. After his death,  Mozart’s debts placed Contanze in a difficult position. Her business skills helped her obtain a pension from the Emperor. She also organized profitable memorial concerts and embarked on a campaign to publish her husband’s works.  Eventually, these efforts made her not only financially secure, but even well-off. Her two sons were sent to Prague to be educated by Xavier Niemtschek, with whom she collaborated on the first full-length biography of Mozart. In 1797, she met Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, a Danish diplomat and writer, initially her tenant. They were married in 1809, and between 1810 and 1820 lived in Copenhagen and traveled throughout Europe, especially to Germany and Italy. The couple worked on a biography while living in Salzburg, beginning in 1824. Constanze published this work in 1828, two years after the death of her second husband. During her last years, she had the company of her two sisters, Aloysia and Sophia, also widows, who moved to Salzburg to live out their lives.

PHOTOS: Left Column: 1. Sculpture of Mozart stands in a square in Salzburg. 2. Urban scene along the River Salzach in Salzburg. The Hotel Sacher is on the right. 3. Scenes from the bridge in Salzburg. Snowfall outlines the mountains nearby. Center, Top: Portrait of Mozart in the entry of the Mozart Museum. Center, Bottom:  A poster of Mozart, a trompe l’oeil collage in the 18th century style. Right Column: 1. Sculpture of Mozart. 2. Exterior detail: Mozart’s  Birthplace Museum, Getreidegasse 9, Salzburg.