My sister and I were born to music teachers. My mother taught middle school band and my father was a high school marching band director. Our idea of rebellion? She and I would play string instruments. Watch out, we are some real badasses!
When my sister and I knew we were going to be in Vienna, the home of Mozart was a must! We and my husband took the metro to the Stephansplatz metro stop and took in all the majestic wonder that is the St. Stephan Cathedral. When we were there, scaffolding obscured just a bit of the masonry, but since they're in the middle of restoring the stone and cleaning it, it's easy to forgive. There was still plenty of the cathedral to wonder at.
We made our way around Domkirche St. Stephan and found Mozarthaus Vienna. The ticket price wasn't too bad, and we were given audio headsets in English before heading up to the top floor.
No pictures are allowed, but that's OK. Really, there's not that much to take pictures of. Slight spoiler alerts from here on out, but you might want to read them if you're not a die hard Mozart fan like me and my sister:
Mozart only lived in this residence for 2 years while in Vienna. That means there have literally been centuries upon centuries of other tenants who lived in these apartments, so the entire building has been whitewashed and essentially resembles a museum.
If you're familiar with Mozart, you know he had debts upon death, so the remaining artifacts of his life are lost to us. This means that the museum studied his death estate and displayed some items that Mozart most likely would have had in this apartment, since it was the most magnificent of his residences. That means there are era chairs and clocks, but that's about it.
The bulk of the tour centers around Mozart's work while he lived at this residence. So there is a lot of background information on The Magic Flute and his Figaro work; the musicians and thought leaders he ran in social circles with, and his association with the Free Masons. It was definitely interesting, particularly the stage set design notes, Mozart's own letters, the portraits of friends and family, and the history and political climate of Vienna. Also the rivalry between German operas and Italian operas was interesting to us as well.
Overall, it wasn't what I was expecting. The utter lack of Mozart's own possessions was a bummer, as was the entire white washed look to the premises. However, on that note, there was information as to how the apartment would have looked, and in order to get that feel, I highly suggest going to the Belvedere Museum and checking out the medieval exhibit on the first floor. One of the rooms there has a near identical preserved paint job to the area when Mozart lived in this residence, so the cross reference really helped open my eyes to the grandeur Mozarthaus looked like in it's day.
As a music geek, this was worth it. My sister and I took away a lot of value and bought our Mother a mother's day present from here (and then recorded a video at the Danube while humming it's famous composed piece for a mother's day surprise), and even my husband, who is more of a choral music nerd, found the Free Mason influences in The Magic Flute really interesting. But if you're not a Mozart snob, you might not enjoy this. It's not exactly visually stimulating, but there's certainly a lot to read and listen to and understand the atmosphere of the times. read more