Peter randall page brief biography of mozart
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People/Characters Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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- Daily attendance at the Mozartwoche, the annual festival celebrating the composer’s work in his natal city.
- Eight concerts performed by leading orchestras, chamber groups and soloists.
- The best-preserved Baroque city in northern Europe in a wonderful alpine setting.
- Five-star hotel close to the Mozarteum.
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, above all, 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 19th 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 – there are five of them. The Mozartwoche (Mozart Week) held in January every year celebrates Salzburg’s most famous son with musicians famed worldwide for their Mozart interpretations.
Our tour allows the concerts to be interspersed with a gentle program
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Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart the greatest composer of all?
There are myths and there are truths, and the former are often more entertaining than the latter. In Mozart's case, we have the glorious truths of his music but the true facts of his life have often been clouded by the mists of time and by tall tales. Our perception of Mozart has been moulded by legends. If he seems to loom larger than life, it is partly because each generation reinvents this composer for itself. There sometimes seem almost as many Mozarts as the staggering number of compositions that he left us.
The bare facts. Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus (or Gottlieb) Mozart was taught music by his father Leopold, a respected theorist, composer and violinist at the Salzburg court. (It seems likely that his education also included mathematics, languages, literature and religious training.) The child prodigy was taken on exhausting concert tours all over Europe and his skill as a composer benefited enormously from his experiences in Italy, Germany, France and England. After such an itinerant life at many of the most important royal courts and musical cities in Europe, it is little wonder that after reaching adulthood Mozart could not settle at Salzburg, which he considered to be a provincial backwater. He spe