THE ANNUAL WINTER FESTIVAL
- The ‘Mozartwoche’, an annual winter festival in the composer’s birthplace.
- Vienna Philharmonic with Seiji Ozawa, Mitsuko Uchida, Rainer Honeck, Tamas Varga, Harald Hörth, Michael Werba.
- Artemis Quartet; Andras Schiff; Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra with Ivor Bolton.
- Vienna Philharmonic with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Annette Dasch, Bernarda Fink, Werner Gźra, Florian Boesch.
STRADDLING THE FAST-FLOWING River Salzach and squeezed by the cliffs of the Mönchsberg on the left bank and the Kapuzinerberg on the right, the city of Salzburg is a compact maze of enchantingly picturesque streets, squares and alleys. Architectural masterpieces are scattered through the fabric, rising sky-wards to a joyous array of domes and spires. Looming over all is the Hohensalzburg fortress, the largest castle in Central Europe.
Salzburg is that rare thing, a tiny city with world-class standards in nearly everything the discerning visitor – and resident – would want. It is miraculous that such charm, and such grandeur, and such unparalleled weight of musical achievement should be concentrated in so small a place.
A virtually independent city-state from its origins in the early Middle Ages until its absorption into the Habsburg Empire in the nineteenth century, Salzburg’s days of glory had all but slipped into the past by the time Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born there. He became the unwitting instigator, post-mortem, of Salzburg’s transformation from minor ecclesiastical seat to the world’s foremost city of music festivals.
Rash would it be to promise perfection in every performance, but it seems that location in Salzburg is virtually a guarantee that a festival will be of the highest musical standards. The January Mozartwoche celebrates Salzburg’s most famous son with musicians famed worldwide for their Mozart interpretations.
Our tours allow the concerts to be interspersed with a gentle programme of walks and excursions to some of the finest art and architecture and scenic beauty in the region while also allowing plenty of free time for individual exploration of the city.
For those familiar with the city there are some developments: the Museum of Contemporary Art in a cliff-top location overlooking the city, and the transferral of the Museum Carolino Augusteum to a building which was part of the Archbishop’s Residence. Also recent is the complete refurbishment of the 1926 & 1956 Kleines Festspielhaus, the auditorium which was usefully modest in size but always unsatisfactory, and now renamed the Haus für Mozart.