Salzburg Sound of Music?

In my simple way, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to follow Mozart’s journey from Salzburg to Vienna, where I am to stay for the Winter. It’s low season in Salzburg and, for some reason, I have always been prejudiced against going there because of the way that the media portray its festival as “exclusive”.

When I arrive in the Old Town, I find many tourists here. I follow a group into a graveyard next to the WW2 Gestapo headquarters and hear them say, “This is where they hid, you know!” When I walk past some rather nice parkland, I see people all grouped round a fountain and studying it very closely. I am puzzled.

Then I see a plastic bull with “The Sound of Music” written on it. And there are “Sound of Music” tours, “Sound of Music” souvenirs and “Sound of Music” everything else you can think of. It looks as though the “The Sound of Music” film has just reached Japan as there seem to be a lot of tourists from that country around. But it is significant that the ‘Sound of Music’ film was never shown in Austria and the ‘Sound of Music’ tours are ONLY run in English.

But the film came out in 1965!!! That’s a long time ago. I seem to remember watching bits of it on television until the commercial break then turning over to something else. I also remember Swiss friends telling me that they simply took the train out of the Tyrol. And I nearly forgot – I have the Trapp family recorder tutor and a selection of their music. So that’s the sum of my commitment to the film.

Salzburg is a nice city. I spend a couple of days simply wandering around the streets and enjoying the atmosphere. They simply do not have the sausages I like. Those they sell are the tasteless things Americans call frankfurters. They even come with those soft rolls. They cost almost three times the Leipzig price and they call them ‘hot dogs’. I long for a good one euro Leipzig sausage meal!! Not here! This is “Sound of Music” land.

On Sunday, I go to the church with the best music, as is my wont. I therefore go to the Dom which has what sounds like a professional opera chorus singing a Dvorak Mass. The reverberation time is about seven seconds so I station myself directly below the musicians’ gallery to get as much direct sound as possible. It sounds very good in the circumstances. There are at least four organs in the Dom. The stage right organ is being used for chancel singing and the enormous rear organ in the gallery is used for the choir contribution.

I have found it extremely touching that churches will endure the singing of enormous amounts of music during their services and particularly the Catholic services where everybody just sits down and enjoys the music. Everything stops! It doesn’t seem to be part of the liturgy at all even though they are singing a long Kyrie or a Credo for example! In Leipzig, they even stop everything just so the organist can play an extended piece. You don’t get the feeling that the music is fitting in to the service. It seems to be a separate contribution.

Much to my amazement, in the middle of the long music of this Mass, the choir begin to sing Mendelssohn’s “Hear My Prayer”; the whole lot!!! They have a good soprano along on this gig so it goes over very well. It’s good to hear this piece sung properly. And of course the second part, “O for the wings of a Dove” has always been a popular piece in England.

When the High Mass is finished, a male voice choir begins to sing at the front accompanied by one of the chancel organs. They are from Cologne and sing beautifully. We all gather round and listen to this choir. They sing another complete mass. What a luxury to have such music in these cathedrals!

I had always thought of Paracelsus((1493 – 1541) as having spent all his life in Switzerland but I find out that he lived the last year of his life in Salzburg. His famous statement, “Beer is a really divine medicine” must have pleased the locals .. as if they didn’t know that already. The brewhaus, in which I view this beer exhibition was built in 1492 so perhaps Paracelsus himself visited this building?

Paracelsus was born in Einseideln. (When we used to visit there for Benediction and the singalong to the Black Virgin with St Meinrad’s skull underneath, we would always visit the racehorses bred there – The cloisters are reserved for the horses together with their nubian goat friends. ) It’s impossible to sum up everything Paracelsus did but he was certainly responsible for a number of aspects of modern medicine involving chemicals. In fact, many people regard him as the founder of modern medicine. Certainly Paracelsus did not underestimate his own importance as his name refers to Celsus, the most eminent Roman writer on medicine.

Whilst the Brewhaus is happy that he made favourable comments about their beer, they fail to mention that Paracelsus did not live long after arriving in Salzburg. Perhaps he drank himself to death? But to celebrate his famous statement, they have been producing a “Paracelsus” beer ever since his death (they say!!!). Because it is the original recipe, it is now highly regarded as an ‘organic’ beer. But it’s just the same beer they have been brewing for years. They have a museum that, not only goes back hundreds of years but also tells us that Mozart really liked their beer. They even have a chamber group playing Mozart, presumably after having a few beers.

My “tourist” Salzburg Ticket status entitles me to three tankards of beer. I like the Paracelsus so much that I have two of them. Then I try another called “A”, a new type of brew. I’m hoping that the Paracelsus brew will cure all my ills and protect me against the awful flus that are around this year.

My next jaunt is up the local mountain by cable car. In case you’re wondering why I am doing all these stupid things, it’s because I have a ‘Salzburg ticket’ which gives me entrance to the Mozart houses. But it also gives free visits to a lot of other attractions; the first being the brewery visit with free beer and a free souvenir beer glass, which I will attempt to get to Vienna in an unbroken state.

I certainly cannot resist a trip up a mountain especially this near vertical ascent up a cliff which rises over 4,400 feet. It loops along the face of the cliff before reaching the top. The view is spectacular but the distant mountains are so far away that they are a little shrouded in mist. The huge fortress above Salzburg is visible from the mountaintop and I can see the city spread out below. The bus fares to the mountain and all around Salzburg are also included in my ‘Salzburg Ticket’.

On my way back, I stop in at another ‘free’ attraction; the Hellbrunn Late Renaissance Pleasure Palace. This is a crazy Disneyland for the Renaissance nobility who were prepared to get wet for their pleasure. The ‘trick’ fountains are designed to soak everybody except the Archbishop running the show in this summer residence. But there were also some very weird working models. The ‘piece de resistance’ for me was a huge assembly of models working together. This must put the Tiki House in the shade for its brilliant use of water power instead of computers.

But I’m really here to see the Mozart houses. Mozart was born in a tiny three-room third floor apartment in the narrow lane called Getreidegasse. You can read as many books as you like but none of them will give the exact idea of the living conditions of a family like the Mozarts. Nine children were born to the Mozart family but only two survived into childhood. Mozart’s sister had to be married off to a old man because the family had no dowry for her. Wolfgang was great at producing masterpieces quickly but useless when it came to managing money. But during his childhood, he was a sensation wherever he appeared to perform; often with his sister nicknamed Nannerl.

Walking around the small apartment, you’re suddenly in the very room where Wolfgang was born. I’m not usually very good at responding to the feeling of place but I definitely feel it here. When I have done any music research, I have always been aware of the place of artists and musicians in the society of the eighteenth century and before. In one of the letters on show, Leopold calls their sleeping arrangements “sleeping like soldiers in the same room” and mentions that they must find better quarters now that Wolfgang is growing up. (Nanerl was older than Wolfgang.)

So my next port of call is the house into which the family moved after some of their more profitable tours. The contrast is amazing. It is the ‘dancing master’s house’ where young noblemen would come for dancing lessons. The Mozarts even gave concerts in the room where the dancing lessons used to take place. It is this room which looks most attractive on my visit. It turns out that it is also the only room which was able to be restored after the WW2 bombing. The rest of the house had to be rebuilt from scratch but to the exact specification of the original.

I get a good idea of the relative luxury of the new dwelling in comparison to the small apartment in Getreidegasse. There is a fine exhibition of instruments in the dancing room and the Mozarteum foundation has organised recordings of the various instruments which I listen to with an English commentary using one of those things you hold to your ear. Amazingly, this is also free with my ‘Salzburg ticket’.

Salzburg claims that it is the true inheritor of the Mozart tradition. That claim originated, I assume, before the ‘Sound of Music’ film was made. The exhibition does not hide the fact that Mozart hated the place, the people who lived there and of course his employer.

The ‘Old City’ is infested with students but it is still a very pleasant place in which to wander. There are a number of museums and Art galleries which I look around. The most curious is a ‘Panorama’ exhibit which travelled around Europe in a tent which looked rather like one of those Mongolian structures. The painting is remarkable.

Next I have to go up to the fortress which overlooks Salazburg and apparently is very evident in the “Sound of Music” cinematography. I show my ‘Salzburg ticket’ and I’m immediately shot up there in the funicular. It’s as boring as most castles but it is curious that the Archbishop would literally control the city from up here, particularly when the city was under threat. For example he would wake them up when he considered it time for them to go to work!!!

Salzburgers were known as ‘bullwashers’ because of a trick played on an army besieging the fortress. When the fortress was down to its last source of food – one large bull – instead of slaughtering it, they paraded it up and down the fortress walls. Then they painted the bull a different colour and paraded it again. Then they washed it down and paraded it yet again. The besieging commander, thinking that they had food enough for a very long time, packed up and went home. Anyway, that’s the story I was told!!

The view from the fortress is wonderful. The main entrance to the town was through a tunnel underneath the fortress. The spectacular ‘horse wash’ is just to the left as you enter the town through the tunnel. All this can be viewed from the top of the fortress. I visit the ‘torture chamber’ which we are assured was never used for that purpose. (People just said, “Tell me where to put my cross!” we are told) All in all, the view from the top of the fortress gave the defenders plenty of time to prepare for the arrival of the enemy.

I am leaving the town just as a Jazz Festival is beginning. Although it will include some modern jazz, it will begin with a concert by “The Blind Boys of Alabama” in the conference theatre. I go along ticketless, leaving it to fate as to whether I will hear the concert or not. I talk to one man holding out a pair of tickets and say, “Surely you don’t want to sell just one of a ;pair?” He is definitely sure that he wants to sell so I beat him down to a low price and end up with the best seat in the house – in the middle of the third row of raked seats. (Those in front are on the flat floor of the theatre!) I HATE beating the price down in this way but I understand the seller’s desperation when I note that my adjacent seat remains empty throughout the performance.

The ‘Blind Boys …” is a group started in 1939 by some kids in a blind black school. They became very famous as gospel singers and it was always touching to see them following each other on to the performance area in a church or hall. One or two of the present remaining group were there in 1939. But I was simply witnessing history. They did a few of their traditional pieces but we also had the “latest CD” and a more ‘pop’ attitude to the concert. These kids set out to ‘make a living out of singing’ and they managed it!!! It’s now history and I felt priviledged to see the remnants of a tradition.

I don’t think I want to return to Salzburg. Maybe I feel Mozart’s vibes? Maybe I have been influenced by Mozart’s feelings and writing about the place? I have no idea. But I was very happy to board my luxurious Railjet highspeed train and head, like Mozart, towards Vienna.