MOZART HOUSE – AUGSBURG
Museum and Birth House of Leopold Mozart
It is highly doubtful there would be a composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, without his father, Leopold, and for more than the practical reason of being born. Mozart’s father was a man of the Enlightenment and a self-motivated natural promoter. A music teacher who wrote and published his own instructional textbook, he was a natural hustler, and hustled his son into a prominent career. The story is fairly well known of Mozart’s dad hauling his prodigy son around to play before kings and crowds like an 18th Century “Who’s Got Talent” road show. Other may be more familiar with the rather shadowy, slightly villainous part he plays in the play and movie “Amadeus” as the ghost of a strict demanding force in a dying Mozart’s imagination.
The Mozart House in Augsburg is a small and charming museum in the house where Leopold Mozart was born. He left at 18 to move to Salzburg, where most of the Mozart story originates, but his days in Augsburg shaped him and his influence on his prodigiously prodigal son. Leopold Mozart was from the middle-class, the son of a Burgher of the Fuggerei workers housing district, and a rather a self-made man in a time when position and family was the rule.
A short bio from the museum.
Johann Georg Leopold Mozart was born in this house on Frauenstrasse in Augsburg, now number 30. He was baptized at St George’s Abby Church on November 14, 1719. He got his early education from the Jesuits who also gave instruction in music. He moved to Salzburg in 1737 to continue his education. Starting his career as a musician and a valet, he rose to the position of deputy Choral Master at the Salzburg court chapel by 1763. Married to Anna Maria Walpurga Pertl, with children Maria Anna (Nannerl) born in 1751, and Wolfgang in 1756. He recognized the talent in his children early on and devoted himself to their advancement. After the death of his wife in 1788, after Amadeus went on his own tours, he spent lonely years in Salzburg and died May 28, 1787
But the story goes deeper. Leopold Mozart was a product of the Enlightenment. He supported the ideals of reason, equality, tolerance and education. He had a wide range of interests, a deep knowledge of history, the natural sciences and foreign languages, and he was friends with other Enlightenment figures of the day, Gellert, Diderot and d’Alembert and read Enlightenment writers Fenelon and Wieland.
Leopold valued independence and intellectual freedom. An entrepreneur of his day, he sold his own compositions, privately published his own music textbook, and Wolfgang Mozart’s early printed works. He also sold enlightenment literature on commission and worked as a publishing agent for music publishes Lotte in Augsburg, and Haffner in Nuremburg.
Fundamental Principals of Violin Playing
In 1756 Leopold Mozart privately published his book ”Treatise on the Fundamental Principals of Violin Playing”, with his former publisher Lotte, based on his approach as an experienced music teacher, his systematic and theoretical structure were seen as progressive, even by his Enlightenment contemporaries. Additional reprints made his textbook a standard.
Leopold began his trips with his children to the royal capitals of Munich and Vienna in 1762. He would make later trips to both cities. From 1763 to 1766, he packed his entire family in their own carriage, with servants, and went on a road trip through Germany, France, England, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Leopold made all the arrangements himself and his knack for drawing the press and promotion, set the foundation for Wolfgang Mozart’s rise to international fame. The museum even has a cartoon of the family carriage rides, which must have been quite a grueling affair. In 1769 to 1773, the father and son trips extended to Italy. Eventually Mozart, the son’s, career would far outpace the father.
The museum presents a chronological story of Leopold Mozart in nine rooms on three floors with musical instruments, especially a grand piano of Johann Andreas Stein, the innovative designer of the “Vienna” Forte Piano for which much of the Mozart piano music was composed, items from the Zenger collection of images, engravings, hand-written letters, and music, including original copies of Leopold’s music text book.
Listing stations allow hearing Mozart compositions, and entertaining peepholes, like a magic lantern house, allow glimpses of performances, period costuming images and some other surprises. Concert rooms in the house also offer regular live music performances and recitals.
Visiting the Mozarthaus Augsburg
Open hours are Tuesday through Sundays 10 am to 5 pm. Admission is € 3.50 adult, €2 Students and Disabled. A family Ticket is €7 and a Combination with the Small Golden Hall is €4. © Bargain Travel Europe
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See Also:
LUTHERSTIEG – ST ANNE’S CHURCH AUGSBURG
CALLENBERG CASTLE - PRINCE ALBERT & VICTORIA - COBURG
AUGSBURG CATHEDRAL VIRGIN MARY
AUGSBURG TOWN HALL GOLDENER SAAL
