With what do you associate the city of Salzburg? Perhaps Mozart? And “The hills are alive with the sound of music!” One of those is spot-on, and one is, well, a bit more fanciful. Details to come!
Let’s start at the heart of old Salzburg, at the cathedral, which is the largest early Baroque church north of the Alps. ※While we make fun of our ABC’s – Another Bloody Cathedral – as we travel, somehow we can’t quite resist “checking it out.” You know, because, well, we’re here aren’t we? So we popped into Salzburg Cathedral.
A cathedral had existed on this site for generations when, at the start of the 1600s, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, a man of no small ambition, ordered demolition of the old Romanesque cathedral. He sought out a starchitect of the era, Vincenzo Scamozzi of the Veneto. In 1615, Scamozzi published an extremely influential treatise, L’Idea dell’Architettura Universale (“The Idea of Universal Architecture”), which is the last of the Renaissance works on the theory of architecture. The Prince-Archbishop hired Scamozzi at about the same time. The story is that Scamozzi — also not a man of modesty — proposed a new cathedral large enough to seat 16,000 people, which was the entirety of Salzburg’s population at the time. Even the grandiose Prince-Archbishop couldn’t stomach that excess, and he ordered the scale of the cathedral to be reduced. ※
Our visit to Bavaria and Austria has been full of lessons about Baroque design. Our guide for a walking tour of Vienna said that gothic design was all about reaching as high as possible toward heaven, in anticipation of the next life. Baroque, however, and in response to the austere Protestant Reformation, was all about celebrating the wonders of this life. Salzburg’s cathedral dates for the opening days of the Baroque era, and we could feel the energy from the first moment. The stucco decorations and sculptures are muscular and exuberant and, unlike later evolution of the Baroque to the Rococo that we’ve seen elsewhere, crisp and controlled. Interestingly, many of the craftsmen who worked on Salzburg Cathedral and other Baroque structures in the region came from the Val D’Intelvi area between Lake Como and Lake Lugano in Italy. ※ So, the Italians were the artistic stars of the day. It must have been good to have been an Italian stucco artist in the 1600s!
The Cathedral played an important role in Mozart’s life. He was born in Salzburg and lived the first 25 years of his brief 35-year life in the city. The Cathedral is where he was baptized. As a young prodigy, Mozart served as a court musician and organist at the cathedral, composing numerous works for performance in the sacred space. His Mass in C Major, known as the “Coronation Mass,” premiered in the cathedral in 1779 and remains a beloved piece in the classical canon.※
A stroll around the historic center of Salzburg.
We took the funicular up to Hohensalzburg Fortress — for the views and for lunch on a sunny fall day.
A highlight of our visit to Salzburg was attending a chamber-music performance, including two Mozart pieces. The setting was Mirabell Palace.
The same Prince-Archbishop who commissioned the complete renovation of the Cathedral had Mirabell Palace built in 1606 for his mistress Salome Alt and their 15 children. ※ Remember that the Prince-Archbishop was a priest and archbishop. His having a mistress and many children came from a practice at the time by many Catholic clergymen. This was a practice that was generally frowned upon. But the church often turned a blind eye to such practices so long as some degree of discretion was exercised; the practice would often lead to eventual successors and keep the parish populated! The Prince-Archbishop’s building a lavish palace was hardly discrete, and, furthermore, could have been used to give Protestants ammunition to gather more support in the region. More evidence that this Prince-Archbishop was not a modest man.
The concert took place in Marble Hall, a lovely Baroque space that used to be a banqueting hall. The Mozart family once played here for the archbishops of Salzburg. ※
We were very fortunate to have seats in the front row only a few feet from the musicians: two violins, viola, cello, base and piano. The first three pieces were as expected: classical works by Haydn and Mozart. Music of this era isn’t particularly our cup of tea, but we thoroughly enjoyed being surrounded by the music from the musicians and their instruments right in front of us. We could watch how they concentrated, felt the music, and communicated with each other through their expressions.
The fourth piece was an arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for string quintet and piano. (You know, the piece ruined by United Airlines!) This is also a piece that David used to butcher on the piano for years. So when the musicians launched into a no-holds-barred rendition, it brought tears to David’s eyes. Sorry, Amadeus, no tears for you on this night.
What a glorious evening!
Now, on to Julie Andrews and the von Trapp kids. You can picture them, can’t you? Many other people, mostly Americans, can too. There’s an entire industry of tours to places used in the 1965 film. When we were driving to Hallstatt, which is about 90 minutes outside of Salzburg, we encountered this tour bus at a view spot above St Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang.
Panorama shots and scenes of the picnic with Maria and the kids were filmed around here. We think the next stop for the bus was going to be Mondsee where (fictional) Maria and Georg got married.
We too love the film. We had to be careful not to indulge in singing a little “The hills are alive…” and “Do re mi…” in order to keep the ear worms at bay. We googled the topic over lunch and learned that our beloved film story doesn’t quite align with reality.
The Broadway musical — which later inspired the 1965 film — was based on the memoir “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers” by Maria von Trapp (née Kutschera). But the plot didn’t always stay true to the source material.
For example, there were 10 von Trapp children not seven, Maria came as a tutor for one of the children not as a governess for all of them, and Maria and Captain von Trapp were married 11 years before the family left Austria.
Perhaps the largest historical inaccuracy was the climactic ending of the film, where the family escapes to Switzerland over the Alps as the Nazis invade Austria… The real family pretended they were going on vacation in Italy (by train) the day before the Austrian borders were closed. Once they arrived, they set up a plan to travel to the US.
(source)
One of our guides mentioned that if you bring up the Sound of Music to an Austrian, they’ll probably say, “The Sound of what?” It’s entirely an American (or at least Anglo) phenomenon.
“Edelweiss….”
We enjoyed two very nice dinners in Salzburg.
Many of the recipes on the menu come from a “cookery book” from 1718.
We sought out this restaurant a bit outside the city center, down a lonely street. We found a handsome restaurant full of well-heeled couples who were obviously local folks, probably relishing an escape from the tourist hordes — until we walked in. They seated us right in the middle of the dining room for optimal visibility. Fortunately, everyone was gracious, and the food was good!
October 2024