The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Mozart

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

I arrived expecting to see the Von Trapp children singing on tabletops and skipping down the streets of Salzburg and to hear Julie Andrew’s melodic voice as she spun in circles on a hilltop beyond the city. What I found instead where pictures everywhere of the little white-wigged composer and hundreds of thousands of tourists. The Sound of Music has a small piece of the marketing attention for Salzburg – you can spot an occasional tour and there are a few postcards indicating the places where the movie was filmed. There is even an attractive little book priced at a hefty 14 euro, but well done with the history of both the musical and the real life experiences of Maria Von Trapp who actually wrote the story (and I was sad to learn was bamboozled by Wolfgang Reinhardt and never earned a red cent for the film rights or other royalties for the story that is so dear to the hearts of so many).

But the real attraction to this small, quaint riverside city is its fortune of having been the birthplace of Mozart – never mind that he had little love for the city and spent most of his life elsewhere. His picture is everywhere in this town; a semi-profile pose with his head turned just enough to gaze at you from every candy bar, liquor bottle, marquis, shop window, and postcard in the city. Even Hermes had a huge elegant poster picture of him in the window next to a sharply designed woman’s outfit done in rich silk, complimented by a gorgeous vest depicting a reproduction of what presumably was his favorite style violin. I learned later that I had unwillingly arrived not only during the year celebration of the 250^th anniversary of his birth, but also during the world-renowned Summer Festival which showcases many and some of the best of the town’s 4,000 performances a year. With one in three people employed in the tourist industry, Salzburg is generally filled with tourists, but now it was excessively so. One could barely walk down Getreidegasse; the famed shopping street boasting all the standard la-de-dah stores for the rich and famous. Supposedly there were actors and actresses, millionaires and heiresses roaming the streets with the rest of us, though I never saw any of them.

Salzburg is situated on the Salzach River and has been a wealthy stronghold throughout history thanks to its plentiful supply of, can you guess it? Salt. Literally, Salzburg means Salt Tower and Salzach - Salt River. The first settlements to grow up around this salt mining paradise date back to the Stone Age with a stronghold during Celtic times which was eventually taken over by the Romans. Warring territories fought over the land until around 700 AD when Franconian Bishop Rupert founded the monastery of St Peter and the Convent Nonnberg. Salzburg became an archbishopric and was given rich landholdings in 798. It is interesting to me that the citizens of any given town can generally tell you whether their town was originally run by the church or by the proverbial state (i.e. by an archbishop or a prince). Construction began on the Hohensalzburg Fortress, considered Europe’s largest and most well preserved fortress, in 1077 and it was continuously re-modified until the 17^th century. The Fortress sits pristine and white, like a crown jewel, high on a hill above the city. It was the Archbishop Wolf Dietrich who in the early 1600s turned Salzburg into a royal seat, creating many of the famed buildings of today. But it was in 1756 that the single most important event took place for Salzburg’s future – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was born in number 9, Getreidegasse. The rest is history for the world; marketing history for Salzburg.

By a stroke of luck, Michi had dropped her mother off in Salzburg and had time to meet me for lunch before taking the train back to Vienna. I was happy to get one last time to chat with her in the turn of the century ‘grand station’ restaurant. I think we were the only people in there who weren’t alive when it was constructed in like 1910. With her linguistic support (i.e. ordering for me), I finally had my first Weiner Schnitzel. I always thought Weiner Schnitzel was a sausage. Imagine my surprise to learn it is basically Chicken Fried Steak – a childhood favorite. The time flew, as it does in good company, when suddenly we realized it was three minutes until her train left. We said quick goodbyes and she dashed off, calling me from the train to let me know she had made it. It truly was an unbelievable stroke of luck to meet Eva on the night train and then Michi. I am strongly considering spending a couple months in Vienna in the spring to practice my German. Knowing I already have friends there makes it all the more tempting.

I tried to brave old town after I left the station, but the tourists were just too much for me. It was like being in Disneyworld during a joint AARP/Samsung convention. I didn’t really begin to enjoy Salzburg itself until I escaped Tourist Land and climbed up the backside of the hill to the fortress. The back path I chose took me past Nonnberg Abbey, the convent where, both in the movie and in real life, Maria had lived before being hired as a nanny by Mr. Von Trapp. The walk was lovely, winding through neighborhood streets, past perched houses on the hillside, and encountering a new view of the town below and the hills and the mountains beyond at every turn. The fortress was indeed impressive, giving one a true sense of what it was like to live behind these fortified walls, with many rooms still intact and even canons standing at the ready in the firing windows above the city. I was elated to discover that since I had arrived after the museum closed but before the fortress closed I only had to pay half price. I was then bummed to discover that since there was a concert that night, when the fortress closed the ticket man left the door open and went away. Worth remembering on future trips to Salzburg though next time I’d like to see the museums and do the audio guide as well

From the fortress I wandered down to Mirabell Gardens to catch a concert in traditional music and costumes. The Mirabell Castle was built by Archbishop Dietrich for his mistress in 1606 (funny how “celibate” bishops always had mistresses back then). It was almost completely destroyed in the city fire of 1818 but later rebuilt and today still holds weddings for happy brides and grooms from around the world. The gardens are beautifully manicured and tastefully accentuated with fountains and statues. My host Karin had suggested the concert as she had other plans when she agreed to host me – just two days after she signed up on the site mind you. We had too little time together between her work obligations and my short time to see the city, though I have no doubt we could become great friends.

When I arrived Tuesday afternoon, the heat wave that had gripped Europe had just broken. It was beginning to get chilly when she met me at the station and by the time we stashed my bags at her place and headed out for lunch and a quick tour, the clouds had moved in. Before we even made it to the information stand to get me a map it started pouring. We ran, sharing an umbrella, through the streets of Salzburg searching for a coffee shop that wasn’t overrun with tourists hiding from the rain. Karin told me that it rains quite often in Salzburg, especially the mid-afternoon rains known in many regions of the world. I was soaked to the skin and shivering by the time we arrived at one of the more famous coffee houses outside of the tourist district but I wasn’t about to complain after having been traveling in oppressive heat without air-conditioning for so many weeks.

We got acquainted at the café until it was time for her to head to a meeting. Almost my age, she is at the beginning of a life transition and is full of eagerness for what lies ahead. It is funny how when we embrace transitions, all things become possible again. We are, for a time, like teenagers full of dreams and ideals, aware of the significance of coincidences, and faith that we are on the right path and that dreams do come true. It is strange how time and life and the world beats this eagerness out of us, though it seems it is always there to be found again, when we let it come out. We only had a couple more opportunities to really talk though I promised I would come back again, and I will - when the tourists are gone!