Mozart Snapshots

What was is like to walk the streets of Salzburg when Mozart was growing up there? In the old part of the city, it’s remarkably similar. Many of the same buildings remain. You can easily visit many of the places Mozart lived or performed.

Where did Mozart get his musical talent? History has long pointed to his father, Leopold. Leopold was a violinist and authored an authoritative textbook on violin playing. However, pianist Katie Mahan argues that quite a bit of that prodigious talent likely came from Mozart’s mother, Anna Maria Pertl.

Think you know Mozart? Take our quiz and discover more from CPR Classical and Colorado Symphony.

An ancient cemetery is a good setting to sort out fact from fiction around Mozart’s death. In this Halloween edition of Mozart Snapshots, pianist Katie Mahan takes us to a cemetery in Salzburg established in the waning years of the 16th century. Mozart himself is not buried there.

Anyone with children living at home can relate to wanting more space as the family grows. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his sister were born in a modest, five-room home in Salzburg where the family lived for a number of years. It had only one bedroom for all of them.

Today you can travel from Salzburg to Vienna in under three hours. When the Mozart family undertook that trip, it took three weeks! It may seem like a long trip, but Vienna was one of the closest destinations for young Wolfgang.

The young Ludwig van Beethoven had every intention of studying with Mozart. In 1787, when Beethoven was 16, he traveled to Vienna to meet and study with Mozart. But then his mother fell ill shortly after his arrival and Beethoven had to return to Bonn, Germany.

Mozart is a billion-dollar industry in Salzburg, Austria, the composer’s hometown. Tourists line up to see Mozart’s birthplace, to buy Mozart Kugeln chocolate and to attend Mozart dinner balls.

Mozart's father, Leopold, educated Mozart and his sister, Nannerl, and there's no question that Leopold Mozart taught his children music. But what about reading, writing and math?

Freemasons, the Illuminati and the mystery of who killed Mozart are all part of the lore surrounding the creation of Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute.” In this episode of Mozart Snapshots, pianist Katie Mahan takes us to two sources of inspiration for Mozart’s most successful opera.

In this week’s episode of Mozart Snapshots, pianist Katie Mahan takes us to an off the beaten path hidden gem in Salzburg, the beautiful rococo villa “Robininghof”. The home is named after it’s 18th century owner Georg Joseph Robinig von Rottenfeld, who owned a mining company outside of Salzburg.

Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” is full of drama, ambiguity, comedy, tragedy and even supernatural elements. Don Giovanni is a scoundrel who lives for pleasure, but he meets his match with the character Il Commendatore, the father of a young woman Don Giovanni tries to seduce.

Mozart might not have ever written Italian opera had it not been for a little known Count, whose house was used two centuries later as the backdrop for 'The Sound of Music.'

Finding Mozartkugeln isn’t hard. You can find it online or at a specialty grocer. But finding authentic Mozartkugeln in Colorado, or the U.S., is nearly impossible.

Mozart’s sense of humor was off-color — adolescent and inappropriate by today’s standards. Some of his scores are riddled with good natured insults and jokes, especially his horn concertos that he wrote for a family friend, Joseph Leitgeb. In Mozart’s notes about his Horn Concerto No.

Mozart had a number of pets over the course of his short life, but one stands out above all the others: his pet starling. The bird first attracted Mozart’s attention in May of 1784 when he heard it singing the melody of his latest — and not yet published — piano concerto.

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 35, he left his wife Constanze with two children, almost no money and his manuscripts. Constanze was determined to keep her beloved husband’s memory and music alive. “She did everything she possibly could to promote Mozart,” says Colorado pianist Katie Mahan.

Sundays started with Mass for the Mozart family who were working musicians for the Archbishop’s weekly church service. But after Mass, Sundays were spent with friends playing games, drinking beer and going for strolls. The Mozarts like to bowl and play Bölzlschiessen, a game of shooting darts at painted targets with air guns.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a petite 5′ 4″, but his shadow looms large over his city of birth, Salzburg, Austria. Tourism is Salzburg’s biggest industry today, and Mozart is at the center of that multi-billion-dollar industry.

Mozart lived to write opera, but he struggled with box office success. The initial run of “The Marriage of Figaro” in Vienna ran only nine times before closing. “Cosi fan tutte” was performed only five times before closing in respect after the Emperor’s death.

Fans of the movie “The Sound of Music” know the gardens of Salzburg’s Schloss Mirabell (Mirabell Palace) well.

Mozart’s star shines so brightly in history that it overshadows nearly everyone around him, including his extraordinarily talented sister, Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart. By all accounts, Nannerl was Wolfgang’s equal as a keyboard player. She also composed. She often served as her brother’s first pair of eyes for his keyboard compositions.

The tiny St. Johanneskirche am Imberg is rumored to have been the favorite little hideaway of Wolfgang and Nannerl Mozart as children. Dating back to the year 1319, this “kirchlein” is the oldest church on the east side of the Salzach River that flows through the center of Salzburg.

A strong cup of coffee may be the cure you need in the morning to wake up and begin working, but in Mozart’s time it was thought to also cure stomach ailments. Hot chocolate, besides being delicious, was thought to make your blood vessels stronger.

Mozart didn’t have an ordinary childhood. He never went to school. And he didn’t live at home very much. Instead, his father, Leopold, packed up the family and traveled Europe to show off the extraordinary keyboard skills of Mozart and his older sister, Nannerl.

Mozart had friends in high places, most notably his father who was one of the most important musicians in Salzburg. In his role, Leopold held control over which composers received commissions. Not surprisingly, a lot of those commissions for church pieces went to his son, Wolfgang.

Mozart loved to dress well and spent large sums of money on extravagant clothes and the latest fashions. His sense of style was just another extension of his creativity. Mozart’s flair for fashion developed at an early age, when he often wore hand-me-downs from royal children.

Mozart grew up in Salzburg, but over a third of his adolescence was spent traveling Europe showing off his extraordinary keyboard skills and learning from other composers and musicians. We know a lot about those travels because of the letters sent home to Salzburg.

Wolfgang Mozart’s father, Leopold, often gets a bad rap in history as a domineering, fame-obsessed father who exploited his children’s talents. There is a kernel of truth in those accusations. But he was also funny and smart, well-educated, and skilled at navigating upper crust society.

Mozart was wined and dined by royalty, yet in his extensive correspondences with family and friends, he rarely commented on the food he was served. So just what did he like to eat?

In this episode of Mozart Snapshots, Katie Mahan takes us into Mozart's Geburtshaus (birthplace) for a tourist-free walk through the house and shares a wealth of information about his early years.

In this episode of Mozart Snapshots, Katie Mahan takes us inside the Salzburger Dom and gives us an exclusive tour of the organ Mozart played every week with the current organist of the cathedral.

An exclusive new series from Denver native, pianist Katie Mahan, that follows Mozart's footsteps through the city of his birth. Katie takes us to places where no tourists are allowed.