Mozart Snapshots
Each week Colorado pianist Katie Mahan takes us on a journey of Mozart's life in Salzburg. Katie has been following in Mozart's footsteps and takes us to places where Mozart lived, worked and played - places that helped shape him into the person and genius composer/musician that he was.
Check back every week for a new episode!
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Anyone with children living at home can relate to wanting more space as the family grows.
- Today you can travel from Salzburg to Vienna in under three hours. When the Mozart family undertook that trip, it took three weeks!
- 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.
- 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
- 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”.
- Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” is full of drama, ambiguity, comedy, tragedy and even supernatural elements.
- 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.
- Mozart had a number of pets over the course of his short life, but one stands out above all the others: his pet starling.
- When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 35, he left his wife Constanze with two children, almost no money and his manuscripts.
- Sundays started with Mass for the Mozart family who were working musicians for the Archbishop’s weekly church service.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a petite 5′ 4″, but his shadow looms large over his city of birth, Salzburg, Austria.
- 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.
- 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.
- The tiny St. Johanneskirche am Imberg is rumored to have been the favorite little hideaway of Wolfgang and Nannerl Mozart as children.
- 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
- Mozart didn’t have an ordinary childhood. He never went to school. And he didn’t live at home very much.
- Mozart had friends in high places, most notably his father who was one of the most important musicians in Salzburg.
- 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 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.
- Wolfgang Mozart’s father, Leopold, often gets a bad rap in history as a domineering, fame-obsessed father who exploited his children’s talents.
- 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.
- 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.
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