Mozart Was Born Here

Alright everyone, welcome to our “Salzburg Old Town Essentials” walk. We’ve started here in the Mirabellgarten, the baroque garden beside Mirabell Palace. This is a free, self-guided walk of nine outdoor stops. From this garden we will cross the river into the historic centre, and finish at St. Peter’s Cemetery, with Hohensalzburg Fortress looking down on us at the end. The walking route is about 1.7 kilometres. With the audio and time to look around, it usually takes around 90 to 120 minutes. You do not need a ticket for the route itself. The Mozart museums, the cathedral interior, the catacombs and the fortress are optional and charged separately. You can skip them and stay with the walk. The historic centre, including these gardens and the palace, has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996. UNESCO describes Salzburg as an ecclesiastical city-state: for centuries it was ruled by prince-archbishops, who were both churchmen and territorial princes. You can still see that on the ground — monumental churches and palaces in one part of the town, and the tight burgher streets we will walk later in another. Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau had this palace built in 1606, originally under the name Schloss Altenau, for Salome Alt and their fifteen children, according to Tourism Salzburg. His successor, Markus Sittikus, required the family to leave and renamed the house Mirabell, from the Italian for “admirable” and “beautiful.” Around 1690 the gardens were reshaped under Prince-Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun, to plans by the baroque architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. The formal layout you see, and the long view toward the cathedral and the fortress, belongs to that design. The four figure groups around the central fountain, by Ottavio Mosto, stand for the four elements: fire, air, earth and water. The palace now holds the offices of the mayor and the city administration. The Marble Hall, when it is open, is used for concerts and civil weddings; Leopold Mozart and his children Wolfgang and Nannerl once played there. If you walk a short way toward the palace, you will find the Pegasus statue, by Caspar Gras. The statue, and the garden steps, were used as filming locations for the 1965 film The Sound of Music. The garden is public, and it is free to enter. When you are ready, leave the garden at the south end and walk out onto Makartplatz, a few minutes away. Our next stop is the Mozart Residence, at Makartplatz number 8, on the square.

You are now on Makartplatz, looking at the Mozart Residence, at number 8. Tourism Salzburg still uses the older name as well: the Tanzmeisterhaus, or Dancing Master’s House. From 1711, Lorenz Spöckner gave dancing lessons here for young nobles preparing for court life, and the house was recorded under that name from 1713. The Mozart family, who were friends of the Spöckners, moved in after their third journey to Vienna, in 1773. The apartment on Getreidegasse, which we will see in a few stops, had become too small for receiving guests. The family occupied a spacious eight-room apartment on the first floor. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived here until he left for Vienna in 1781. His mother, Anna Maria, had died in 1778; his sister, Nannerl, married and moved to St. Gilgen in 1784. Their father, Leopold, remained in the apartment until his death on 28 May 1787. The building you see is partly a reconstruction. On 16 October 1944 an aerial bomb destroyed about two thirds of the house. The International Mozarteum Foundation later bought the surviving part, then the office building that had been put up on the ruined side, and rebuilt the house to old plans. The museum opened in its present form on 26 January 1996. Inside, if you choose to go in, are original documents, portraits, and Mozart’s fortepiano. In the courtyard stands the little wooden Zauberflötenhäuschen, which the Foundation brought from Vienna in the nineteenth century. Tourism pages treat the story that Mozart composed The Magic Flute in it as a tradition. You can see the hut later if you visit the museum. When you are ready, walk toward the river, to the south-west. In a minute or two you will reach a pedestrian and cycle bridge over the Salzach. Walk out to the middle of the bridge. That is our next stop: the Marko-Feingold-Steg, still often called by its older name, the Makartsteg.

Pause here in the middle of the bridge, on the pedestrian walkway and out of the cycle path if you can, and look across the river. In front of you is the tight roofscape of the Old Town, and above it Hohensalzburg Fortress sits on the Festungsberg. The Salzach runs under the bridge, and the far bank is the Old Town side we will walk next. The bridge was long known as the Makartsteg, and you may still hear that name. In September 2020 the Salzburg city council voted to rename it the Marko-Feingold-Steg. The new name was celebrated on 27 May 2021, and a small exhibition on the bridge, curated with the Salzburg Museum, was opened at the same time. Marko M. Feingold was born on 28 May 1913 in Neusohl, today Banská Bystrica in Slovakia, and he died in Salzburg on 19 September 2019. The city’s official biography records that he survived four Nazi concentration camps — Auschwitz, Neuengamme, Dachau and Buchenwald — and that the United States Army liberated him at Buchenwald on 11 April 1945. He settled in Salzburg that May. In the years after the war he helped run a kitchen for camp survivors in the city and, as the exhibition on this bridge records, helped care for Jewish displaced persons and assist their emigration. He was president of Salzburg’s Jewish Committee in 1946 and 1947, a body that stood in at that time for the Jewish community. From 1985 until his death he was the official president of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, Salzburg’s Jewish community. When you have taken in the view, continue to the far bank — the Old Town side. At the end of the bridge, bear left into Getreidegasse, the narrow shopping street with the wrought-iron guild signs hanging over the pavement. Walk along it until you reach number 9, Mozart’s Birthplace, with its yellow facade. That is our next stop.

This is Getreidegasse, the main burgher street of the Old Town, and number 9 is Mozart’s Birthplace. The Mozarteum Foundation and Tourism Salzburg both record that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born here on 27 January 1756, in the Hagenauer House. The family lived in a third-floor apartment for 26 years, from 1747 until 1773, when they moved to the house we have just seen on Makartplatz. Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart raised Wolfgang and his sister, Maria Anna, known as Nannerl, in these rooms. The museum, opened by the International Mozarteum Foundation in 1880, now occupies the whole building. If you go in, you can see the original rooms and instruments associated with Mozart, including a violin and a clavichord. You do not need to go in for this walk. Stand on the street in front of the yellow facade of number 9, and look up at the house and at the other facades around you. Many still carry dates, family names, or the Eye of God above the windows. From the first floor up, the windows often become smaller — a characteristic of these houses that Tourism Salzburg points out. The wrought-iron signs hanging over the pavement are guild signs; Tourism Salzburg notes that the locksmith’s workshop Wieber, here on the street, still makes them by hand. Passageways, or Durchhäuser, cut through some of these buildings and lead through to courtyards and to Universitätsplatz. Tourism Salzburg traces the street’s name from older forms — Trabe-, Trab- or Trav-Gasse — related to the word for trotting, not to grain. Only later did the spelling settle as Getreidegasse. When you are ready, keep walking along Getreidegasse in the same direction, toward the east. In a couple of minutes the street opens into a small square with a fountain in the middle. That is Alter Markt, our next stop. Stand at the fountain.

Alter Markt is the old civic market of Salzburg. Tourism Salzburg dates the square as a town market to the thirteenth century. For a long time this was where weekly trade happened, with neighbouring markets for milk, herbs, root vegetables and pottery. It was also a stage for seasonal festivities: the Whitsun dance, the sword dance of the Dürrnberg miners, midsummer fires, and, until the nineteenth century, the Lenten market and the autumn Rupertimarkt. The weekly market itself moved to today’s Universitätsplatz in 1857. Between 1873 and 1927 the square was renamed Ludwig-Viktor-Platz, after Archduke Ludwig Viktor, before the older name came back. The fountain in the middle is the Florianibrunnen. A market well was built here in 1488, on the site of an older draw well. The eight-sided basin you see was made in 1685 to 1687. The iron grille around it was made by Wolf Guppenberger in 1583, and the figure at the top is Saint Florian, sculpted in 1734 by Josef Anton Pfaffinger. Both the column and the grille carry the city’s coat of arms. Look at the houses that close the square. Most have medieval cores, later reworked. Beside Café Tomaselli stands what Tourism Salzburg calls the smallest house in the Old Town, only 1.42 metres wide, built in a former alley between about 1830 and 1860. On the square you will also find the old prince-archiepiscopal court pharmacy, here since the late sixteenth century, and, opposite the Old Residence, Café Tomaselli and the confectioners Fürst. The founder of Fürst created the Mozartkugel, the chocolate sold in shops all over the city. When you are ready, walk on toward the cathedral towers, a short stretch to the south-east. You will come out onto a much larger paved square with a great baroque fountain. That is Residenzplatz, our next stop. Stand on the square, just north of the fountain.

Residenzplatz is the ceremonial square of the prince-archbishops, between the Old Residence, the New Residence with its carillon tower, the cathedral, and a row of burgher houses. Tourism Salzburg records that Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau had this square laid out, and that fifty-five medieval buildings were cleared to make it. The plan is credited to the Italian architect Vincenzo Scamozzi. The fountain is the Residenzbrunnen, commissioned in the seventeenth century by Prince-Archbishop Guidobald Thun. Tourism Salzburg calls it one of the most important baroque fountains in Europe. Four sea-horses seem to burst from the rock; figures above them hold a basin, and dolphins support the upper bowl. In the tower of the Neue Residenz is the Salzburg Glockenspiel. Prince-Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun bought its 35 bells in Antwerp, from Melchior de Haze, around 1695; they first sounded here in 1704. Today the carillon usually plays at 7:00, 11:00 and 18:00, except on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. If you want to go up the tower, that is only possible on a booked tour, in season. On 30 April 1938, only weeks after Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany, a public book burning was staged on this square. Today the event is marked by a pavement memorial called Buchskelett, or “Book Skeleton,” by Fatemeh Naderi and Florian Ziller, near the west wall of the Neue Residenz, and by a plaque on the south facade of St. Michael’s Church. The city unveiled the memorial in 2018. When you are ready, walk toward the cathedral. The small square immediately to the east is Mozartplatz: the Mozart monument stands there, and so does the official UNESCO plaque for Salzburg’s historic centre. Then continue under the arches onto Domplatz, and stand in front of the west facade of the cathedral. That is our next stop.

The west facade of Salzburg Cathedral closes this square. It is an early baroque church, faced in Untersberg marble, with a dome and two towers on the city’s skyline. Four statues look down from the facade: the apostles Peter and Paul, with key and sword, and the two patron saints, Rupert and Virgil, with a salt barrel and a model of the church. The coats of arms on the gable belong to the two builders of this church, Markus Sittikus and Paris Lodron. Tourism Salzburg notes that the dates on the gate grilles — 774, 1628 and 1959 — mark three consecrations of a cathedral on this site. The first church here was begun under Bishop Virgil, and consecrated in 774. After a fire in 1167, a great Romanesque cathedral was built. Another fire, in 1598, destroyed much of that building. Tourism Salzburg says that Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich “proceeded quite recklessly” in the rebuilding; the present church was designed by the architect Santino Solari for Markus Sittikus, as the first early baroque church north of the Alps, and was consecrated by Paris Lodron in 1628. In 1944 an aerial bomb damaged the dome and part of the sanctuary. The cathedral was consecrated again, in its restored form, in 1959. Among the treasures inside is a bronze baptismal font of 1311, with lions dated to around 1200. Tourism Salzburg records that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptised in it, and so was Joseph Mohr, who later wrote the words of the Christmas song “Silent Night.” The three main doors represent faith, love and hope, with the central door of love a little larger than the others. You can go in if you wish, and if a service or a rehearsal is not under way; this walk only needs the facade and the square. Domplatz itself is also the stage, each summer, for Jedermann at the Salzburg Festival, and for the Christmas market in Advent. When you are ready, walk around the south side of the cathedral, through or beside the southern arches, onto Kapitelplatz. You will see a golden sphere with a man standing on it, and the fortress rising directly behind. That is our next stop.

Kapitelplatz, or Chapter Square, sits between the cathedral, the old chapter buildings, and the slope up to the fortress. Anyone walking to the funicular or to St. Peter’s Cemetery crosses this square. Until the archbishopric was dissolved in 1803, the high clergy of the cathedral chapter lived here and in the palaces of the neighbouring streets. Slightly to one side is the Kapitelschwemme, the chapter fountain. A horse pond already stood on this square in the Middle Ages. The present fountain was built in 1732 under Archbishop Leopold Firmian, to plans by Franz Anton Danreiter, in a Roman manner. Horses once walked up the ramp to the water. The baroque figure is Neptune, with trident and crown, on a sea-horse, sculpted by Josef Anton Pfaffinger. You may also see an oversized outdoor chess set, and, in the middle of the square, Sphaera: a man in ordinary clothes standing on a golden globe, a 2007 work by Stephan Balkenhol for the Salzburg Foundation’s public art project. Above you is Hohensalzburg Fortress. Tourism Salzburg calls it the biggest fully preserved castle in Central Europe. Construction began in 1077 under Archbishop Gebhard, and the fortress took on much of its present outline around 1500 under Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach. The fortress was besieged from 5 July to 31 August 1525 by rebellious peasants and miners. In December 1800, during the Napoleonic wars, after the last prince-archbishop, Hieronymus Colloredo, had fled, the fortress was surrendered to French troops without a fight. We will not go up on this walk. If you want to visit later, the fortress funicular starts from Festungsgasse, just off this square; tickets and hours are on the official fortress website. When you are ready, walk west across the square, past the horse pond, into the precinct of St. Peter’s Abbey. The cemetery lies just beyond the church, against the rock of the Festungsberg. Please keep your voice down as you go in: this is still a working cemetery. That is our last stop.

This is St. Peter’s, the abbey at the foot of the Festungsberg, and the cemetery beside it. Tourism Salzburg describes St. Peter’s as the oldest monastery still in existence in the German-speaking world, and dates the first abbey church to 696, under Rupert, bishop of Worms. The house has been Benedictine for many centuries, and it is still a living abbey. The church you see has a twelfth-century core and later Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque and rococo work. Mozart and Michael Haydn both wrote music for this community: Tourism Salzburg notes a mass by the thirteen-year-old Mozart in 1769, and later a Rupertus mass by Michael Haydn. The abbey courtyard and the cemetery are free to visit during opening hours; the church is closed to sightseeing during services. The cemetery is older than the abbey. Tourism Salzburg dates it to late antiquity. In the middle stands the late-Gothic Margarethenkapelle, surrounded by tombs and arcades. Please stay on the paths and keep your voice down; this is still a working cemetery. The catacombs, cut into the rock of the fortress hill, can be visited with a ticket; they are not step-free. Official tourism text says they are most likely of late antique or early Christian origin, and that they were meeting places, not burial sites. The cemetery and the catacombs were also used as locations for the 1965 film The Sound of Music. This is the end of the walk. You have come about 1.7 kilometres, from the Mirabellgarten to this churchyard under the fortress. If you still have energy, Festungsgasse and the fortress funicular are a short walk back toward Kapitelplatz; that is a separate, ticketed visit. The abbey bakery and the abbey restaurant are here in the precinct if you want a pause before you head back into the town. Thank you for walking with us.