The footsteps of Mozart in Vienna

Vienna is the imperial jewel of Europe, dripping in Baroque opulence and the scent of old money. It’s the kind of place where the ghosts of white wigs and powdered noses still linger in the alleyways. You don’t just visit Vienna, you waltz into its arms with a glass of Riesling and a soundtrack of string quartets echoing from a cobblestone past.

And somewhere in that echo is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He wasn’t born here, that honor belongs to Salzburg. But Vienna is where he composed, gambled, performed, partied and finally died in relative obscurity. A rock star before the term existed, with all the excess and tragic burnout included.

Schönbrunn palace.

When he was six, Mozart played his first royal concert at Schönbrunn palace in the presence of Maria Theresa and the royal family in 1762. The Orangerie on the palace grounds was also the place of his musical duel with the arch nemesis Salieri, which the latter actually won.

Mozart lived at 11 different addresses in the city, including Figarohaus at Domgasse which is the only remaining residence today. His last apartment at Rauhensteingasse, brought to mythic proportions by the composing process of Requiem, was demolished in 1847 and is today the location of Steffl kaufhaus.

Figarohaus at Domgasse.

Mozart is considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time, but the contemporary audience was perhaps not always as overwhelmed as later generations turned out to be. The Swedish diplomat Fredrik Samuel Silverstolpe arrived in Vienna in 1796. He reported back to Stockholm that the operas were “horribly recited for a Swedish ear, tasteless and often miserably sung, and moreover the orchestra does not fulfill its duties well”. He also commented on The Magic Flute that “it would certainly have no success in a Swedish theater”. I guess he was proven wrong.

In the city, Stephansdom looms like a gothic sentinel, a stone beast keeping watch over centuries. Mozart was married here to his beloved Constanze, and it was also the place where his dead body was brought in 1791 for registration before the simple anonymous funeral at St Marx.

It seems he is in good company, as other people who died in Vienna includes Beethoven, Vivaldi, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Haydn, and even Marcus Aurelius himself.

In the cathedral.

More than 200 years after Mozart’s death, I sit down inside the cathedral and listen to his last work Requiem on my phone. I remembered how much this piece of music meant for me almost two decades ago. The world keeps turning but some things never change.

Vienna can feel like a city frozen in amber. Timeless, beautiful and a little too perfect. But when you peel back the layers, it hums with stories. And none louder than that of a short, swaggering genius with a filthy laugh, a fragile soul and a gift that still rattles the bones of this city.