January 27, 1756, 170 years ago, Mozart was born. Mozart is featured in the Eckhartz Press book, Back in the DDR. Sounds like it's time for a free excerpt from the novel.
This short excerpt is taken from Chapter 2 of Back in the DDR. It's the day our main character Rudi visits Mozart's birth house in Salzburg.
It was only about a twenty-minute
drive to Salzburg. Onkel Franz and Tante Margot in the front seat of their
Mercedes, me in the back.
We
attended mass at the Salzburg Cathedral. I thought Holy Name Cathedral in
Chicago was big, but this was gigantic, and beautiful. Three green domes
towered over the structure. Inside, every word echoed, and the music from the
organs went right through you. Bright white walls—probably marble—and red and
white tiles in geometric patterns on the floor, were striking. The murals on
the ceiling were obviously religiously themed, but the ceilings were so high it
was hard to even see them from my view. Surrounded by this size and beauty,
sitting in these small, wooden, uncomfortable pews made me feel like a tiny
speck in the universe. I didn’t listen to a word of the Mass. I was mesmerized
by the sights.
Before we
left the church, Onkel Franz showed me a few other things, including four giant
statues: Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and the two patron saints of Salzburg,
Rupert and Virgil. He also pointed out a baptismal font from the 1300s that was
used to baptize Mozart himself.
That was
only the beginning of the Mozart references. We walked through Mozartplatz on
our way over to Mozart’s birth-house. Mozart-related items were on sale
everywhere you looked. The Mozart-Kugeln that I gave to Tante Margot for
Christmas were literally sold in every store. By the time we finally arrived at
the Mozart birth-house (not hard to spot, it’s written in giant white script on
the front of the five-story yellow building), I was getting a little cold and
tired.
“Rudi,” Onkel Franz said to me, beaming with excitement, “try to soak it all in. Absorb the wisdom and magic of these walls. This is where the greatest composer of all-time was born and lived. He might be waiting to sprinkle some of that majesty on a fellow musical boy.”
There were portraits of him in every room,
at all different ages, and there was no escaping one thing; Mozart had a giant
nose. What a honker. It was hard to see anything else. He wasn’t what you’d
call a good-looking man, or an elegant man. In fact, he was downright ugly. I
looked right into his eyes in every portrait and noticed something else
interesting. Sometimes he had blue eyes, sometimes green, sometimes brown (not
sure why they couldn’t nail that down), but in every portrait he looked
miserable and unhappy. He wasn’t smiling in any of them.
The apartment was set up to look like it did
in the 1700s. There was a kitchen with a very large wood-burning stove, a
dining room with pewter plates, glasses, candlesticks and utensils, and, of
course, lots of musical artifacts. Mozart’s first violin and harpsichord (which
is sort of like a piano) were on display, along with letters to/from friends
and relatives. The tour guide told us about Mozart’s love of opera. She told us
that he had six siblings, five of which died in childhood. She told us about
his very strict upbringing, and about the musical background of Mozart’s father
Leopold. I didn’t know any of that before today, so I did find it interesting.
Mozart was significant to the story-line in another way, but you'll have to pick up a copy of Back in the DDR to find out what that was. It's still available at Eckhartz Press.
