TIME-OUT
Why Austria loves its genius
|
Mozart magic still holds Salzburg in thrall, says MAHALAKSHMI MAHADEVAN.
|
AFP
High note... come 2006 and it's time for the 250th anniversary celebrations of Mozart.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART may have been eclipsed as the most famous son of Austria by a brawny compatriot - the Graz-born Arnold Schwarzenegger. But in Salzburg, a land laved by mists and mountain air, all the star-power in the world fades away before the glory of Mozart, its most illustrious son. From cathedrals to concert halls, the Mozart magic still holds the city in thrall.
Come August, and the city is at the height of its Mozart mania. It turns host to the Salzburg festival, one of the largest carnivals of symphonic and chamber music, operas and plays, featuring some of the world's greatest artists. It is not that Salzburg requires a festival to remember Mozart, for the memories of Austria's greatest musical mind have come to shape the very character of the city. Elegant open-air cafés, big luxury hotels, sprawling mansions, salubrious parks, old bridges and sleepy streets, all proudly wear Mozart on their sleeves. Mozart is, literally, in the air. Neatly pieced in two - old city and new city - by the waters of the Salzach river, Salzburg sits pretty along a fold of three Alpine mountains - the Monchsberg, the Festungsberg and the Kapuzinerberg. Here, life has a quiet, unhurried charm about it; and the balmy feel accentuates in the ecclesiastical old city, with its symphony of steeples, domes and bell towers - timeless symbols of a bygone age of baroque renaissance.
A walk across the Salzach over Mozartsteg or Mozart's bridge, the quaint footbridge across the river, and one is right in the middle of Salzburg's old city and its visual splendours. From Mozartplatz on the fringes of the old city to Kapitelplatz at the core, every street and alley has an old world charm that is difficult to shake off. Seat of the archbishop princes who ruled over Salzburg as its temporal and spiritual heads since the Ninth Century, the city's most prominent structures are reminders of its Episcopal past.
Towering above Salzburg and dominating the architectural landscape is the Festung Hohensalzburg fortress. Built and fortified by successive archbishop princes, it the fortress stands testimony to the enormous wealth and power of the city's clergy-monarchs. The only surviving citadel of its kind in Europe, its torture chambers and the instruments of death contained within, fascinate and repel, at once.
It stands in majestic isolation from the rest of city, but tales of its ancient allure are aplenty. One of the several Mozart legends that Salzburg abounds in unfolded within its rugged ramparts. The six-year-old Mozart, the story goes, had set about playing beautifully original short compositions on his sister's piano, the notes of which drifted out of the Mozart household on to the streets of Salzburg.
Mesmerised, curious neighbours queued up in front of the house determined to uncover the source of the music. When Mozart's father, violinist, Leopold, told them that it was little Mozart who had composed the notes, they stood in utter disbelief. Soon, word spread and little Mozart was summoned to the archbishop's fortress. He was put in isolation in a room with only sheets of paper, a quill and some ink. He Little Mozart was only too happy to be left alone in a room with a view - and what a view it was. From the window, his little house and those of his friends were just toy-sized specks of colour, and on the horizon, the blue Alps, draped in mist, looked on lovingly at the offering at its feet. Little Mozart was so inspired by the fortress that he composed an enchanting piece and refused to leave the citadel until after much persuasion.
In the various stages of its existence, the fortress would have sheltered both plodding as well as derelict rulers fleeing the rage of enemies or the wrath of their own masses. The royal chambers, with their intricately carved wooden panels brightened with elaborate gold work and exquisite upholstery almost nudge you into open-mouthed astonishment.
Climb its secretive, labyrinthine pathways and at the pinnacle, the entire city of Salzburg spreads itself out before the eye. Far ahead, shrouded in snow, the majestic Alps seem to survey benevolently the land below. Cold alpine gusts sweep the skyscape, sending the scudding clouds adrift.
Descend the high fortress, and right there, nestling under the canopy of the Hohensalzburg, is the most magical corner of Salzburg - St. Peter's Abbey - one of the most ethereal last resting places in the world. The catacombs, and the lovingly tended graves within, have embalmed the lives and loves of centuries past in a deathly stillness, broken only by the babble of a passing brook. Buried here alongside Mozart's sister is his friend, and lesser-known contemporary, Michael Haydn. Mozart himself was to be buried where his creative genius led him - in Vienna.
A short walk from St. Peter's Abbey, down the town hall, takes one to the hallowed doorsteps - the three-storeyed building in which Mozart was born. Climb the stairs to the third floor to enter Mozart's Geburshaus or Mozart's birthplace, now a museum. Awash in the mid light of antiquity, the old rooms showcase letters, portraits and other personal belongings of the Mozarts. Although its collection of musical manuscripts and other artefacts is rather shoddily displayed, in a rare treat, it preserves Mozart's muse - the baby violin worked upon by the nimble hands of Mozart, the child prodigy and the concert violin that played into the hands of Mozart, the master. A veritable mecca for music lovers, people patiently line up all day to gain entry into the rooms to celebrate in silent homage the timeless genius of Mozart, who was born on January 27, 1756.
By the time Mozart's music reached poured full-throttle, the family had moved over to a new house in Makartplatz, on the opposite bank of the river, now famously called "Mozart's Residence". Not long after, stifled perhaps, by the quiet complacency of Salzburg, Mozart left for Vienna, the cultural capital of the time and a flourishing centre for the arts.
The early morning train to Vienna slipped out of the Salzburg North Station to the accompaniment of a serenade of rain and thunder. As the train sped through the Alps, alternating between tunnelled darkness and dim daylight, outside, the misty gorges swallowed the plunging cataracts even as rain swept the mountainsides and the wind moaned on the treetops. As the train slowed down on a winding mountain track, the rain was coming down in runnels, caressing the face of every shivering flower and cold stone, before joining the raging cascades in the misty valley below. Past the mountains and on to the plains, Vienna was closer than ever.
In big and confusing Vienna (Wien in German), where every second street looked the same and had similar-sounding names, finding the Inner City - the soul of ancient Wien - proved the least difficult. At the end of an hour's walk down Mariahilfer Strasse, one of the busiest streets in Vienna, I was practically at the "gates" of the old, ringed city. Here, big was indeed beautiful. From the Rathaus or the City Hall to the Hofburg winter palace, (the imperial residence of the Hapsburgs who presided over an empire with Vienna as their capital for more than six x centuries) the buildings outshone one another in their breadth and grandeur. Greek motifs define the character of the parliament building; in the forecourt, rising above the majestic colonnade, a resplendent Athena holds aloft the scales of justice. At the heart of the Inner city is Stephansdom, an architectural masterpiece from the 13th Century. The towering spires, soaring vaults and sturdy columns of this Gothic church make it the cynosure of a visitor's eye.
MAHALAKSHMI MAHADEVAN
A fledging band in the old city in Salzburg.
And far removed from all gaze, in the southeastern corner of Vienna, in a non-descript cemetery, rests Salzburg's son. In rich Wien, Mozart died poor and young at the age of 35. Ironically, the cemetery, St. Marxer Friedhof, is not part of the usual tourist itinerary. Though accessing it might not be exactly Herculean, challenging it is. On a cold, rain-drenched afternoon, the place was desolate, its placid precints disturbed occasionally by the rustle of leaves and the mournful pitter-patter of rain.
Suddenly, beyond the melee of old and young, grey and white graves, a clearing emerged. And there, covered by a flower wreath, the deeply etched epitaph dulled by the hands of time read:
W.A. Mozart, 1756-1791
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
