International Mozarteum Foundation

• 1. Introduction

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  The International Mozarteum Foundation keeps watch over Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from a building on Schwarzstrasse in Salzburg, Austria. Above its entrance portal, the word "Mozarteum" is carved in golden capital letters. On the facade, a neon inscription traces Mozart's own handwriting, repeating a phrase the composer wrote: "I want everything that is good, genuine, and beautiful!" It is a remarkable way to announce a place. And it raises a question worth sitting with: how does a city hold on to a genius who died more than two centuries ago, and what does it cost to try?

  The Foundation now employs roughly 100 people. It runs concert halls, archives, and museums across more than 800 square metres. It holds approximately 190 original letters by Mozart, about 370 letters by his father, and more than 100 autograph manuscripts. Its library contains around 35,000 titles on a single subject. That subject is one man. What does it take to build and sustain an institution on that scale, and why did it take several separate organisations, across several different centuries, to finally get it right?

• 2. A Society Is Founded

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  On the 22nd of April 1841, a group of Salzburg citizens came together and founded the "Cathedral Music Society and Mozarteum". The name joined two missions: sacred music and the memory of Mozart. Concerts were part of the charter from the start, but so was musical education, which would eventually grow into something far larger than the founders anticipated.

  The early decades produced tangible results. In 1844, Franz Xaver Mozart, the composer's younger son, stipulated that the manuscripts and fragments in his estate, along with his clavichord and his entire library, be left to the Mozarteum. That bequest established the nucleus of what would become one of the world's most significant Mozart archives. Twelve years later, in 1856, the centenary of Mozart's birth was marked with the first Mozart Exhibition, held at the composer's birthplace on Getreidegasse 9.

  Then came a formal separation. On the 16th of October 1870, on the occasion of the first Mozart Day, the International Mozarteum Foundation and the Cathedral Music Society were divided into distinct institutions. That split produced three Salzburg organisations, all still carrying the Mozarteum name: the Foundation itself, the music school that later became the Mozarteum University Salzburg in 1998, and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg.

• 3. Publication and the Festival Impulse

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  In 1875, the Foundation took on its first major scholarly project by joining the effort to produce a critically revised complete edition of Mozart's works. Published by Breitkopf and Hartel in Leipzig between 1876 and 1907, it was an undertaking on a scale that had rarely been attempted for any composer.

  Two years before that edition began appearing, the Foundation organised the first Salzburg Music Festival, held from the 17th to the 20th of July 1877. Guests came from Austria and from abroad. The event planted an idea that would take root slowly: Salzburg as a destination city for music, oriented around a single composer's legacy.

  The formal statutes drawn up when the Foundation was re-established on the 20th of September 1880 made the scope of ambition explicit. The statutes called for the construction of a Mozart House for concerts, a Mozart Library, and a Mozart Archive. A Mozart Museum was set up that same year on the third floor of Mozart's birthplace. A competition for the "Mozart House" was not announced until 1909, when the Munich architect Richard Berndl won the commission.

• 4. Building on Schwarzstrasse

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  Richard Berndl designed two connected structures: the Foundation building at Schwarzstrasse 26 and the Great Hall at Schwarzstrasse 28, both built in Munich's late historicist style. The foundation stone was laid on the 6th of August 1910 in the garden of the former Lasser Villa. Construction ran from 1911 to 1914, and the complex was officially opened on the 14th of September 1914.

  The building brought together functions that had long been scattered. The Bibliotheca Mozartiana, a specialised research library, found a permanent home there. The Vienna Hall inside number 26 was designed as a concert hall. The Great Hall at number 28 became the primary performance venue. Today, when people in Salzburg refer to a concert "at the Mozarteum", they mean the Great Hall.

  The building also serves the Mozarteum University Salzburg, which uses its classrooms. The Foundation's board holds its meetings there. The facade inscription designed by the artist Sylvie Fleury for the first Dialogues Festival in 2005 was added much later, layering a contemporary artist's response to Mozart onto a building already heavy with historical intention.

• 5. War, Loss, and Reconstruction

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  During the First World War, the Foundation's activities halted. The opera singer Lilli Lehmann, described as a great patron, was instrumental in arranging the acquisition of Mozart's birthplace in its entirety in 1917. The economic crisis that followed led to the music school being transformed into a state conservatory in 1922.

  The Second World War brought physical destruction. On the 16th of October 1944, two-thirds of Mozart's residence, which the Foundation had partially rented since 1939, was destroyed in a bombing raid. The section containing the Dancing Master's Hall survived. An insurance company later built an office building on the damaged site.

  Recovery took decades. In the 1990s, the Foundation purchased and demolished that office building, then reconstructed the full Dancing Master's House according to the original plans. In January 1996, a new museum was opened in the reconstructed Mozart Residence and the restored Dancing Master's Hall. The Foundation also installed an autograph vault in the basement, built to the most modern security and conservation standards, to protect the manuscripts and letters held in the collection.

• 6. Archives and Scholarship

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  The autograph collection held by the Foundation is available through exclusive guided tours. It contains approximately 190 original letters by Mozart, around 370 letters by his father Leopold, and over 100 autograph manuscripts by Mozart himself. Most of the manuscripts are musical sketches and drafts, though some original scores are included.

  Work on the historical-critical Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, also called the New Mozart Edition, began in 1954. It was completed in June 2007. A follow-up Digital Mozart Edition is currently being developed, which will make all of Mozart's musical scores freely accessible online and continuously updated.

  Recent acquisitions show the collection continuing to grow. In 2007, the Foundation acquired an autograph sheet of variations on "Ah, vous dirai-je, maman". In 2010, a partial copy of a symphony movement by Johann Michael Haydn was added. In March 2012, a previously unknown piano piece by Mozart was discovered. The sound and film collection runs to approximately 22,000 audio titles and 3,000 video productions, including documentaries, feature films, television films, and recorded opera productions.

• 7. Mozart Week and Living Events

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  Mozart Week, known in German as Mozartwoche, was created in 1956 to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth. It falls around the 27th of January each year, coinciding with Mozart's birthday. The festival draws visitors from around the world to opera performances, orchestral concerts, chamber music, and recitals by international orchestras and artists.

  In 2006, the Dialogues festival was added to Mozart Week. It invited contemporary artists from music, dance, literature, and the visual arts to engage with Mozart's life and work. The seasonal concert series runs from October to June and includes a chamber music series, performances by the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, and concerts featuring the Propter Homines organ and the Camerata Salzburg.

  A youth programme launched in 2008 brings children and young people into this world. Since 2012, the programme has carried the name Klangkarton, which translates roughly as Sound Cardboard. The Foundation also administers awards including the Mozart Medal, the Preis der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum, and the Lilli Lehmann Medal, the last of which honours the opera singer who helped save Mozart's birthplace during the First World War.

• 8. The Museums Today

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  Mozart's birthplace at Getreidegasse 9 spreads across three floors. Visitors encounter exhibits on Mozart's youth, his relationships with family members, his patrons, and his passion for opera. On display are his childhood violin, personal mementos, and the most famous family portraits. One section is titled "Mozart: Myth and Reverence" and addresses his time in Vienna, his musical achievements, his life circumstances, and his death.

  The Mozart Residence Museum in the reconstructed Dancing Master's House on Makartplatz, where the Mozart family lived from 1773 onwards, shows portraits of individual family members, documents Mozart's compositional output during the Salzburg years, and reconstructs the social world around him. Its particular attractions include Mozart's original fortepiano and the famous family portrait.

  The Magic Flute House, said to be where Mozart composed at least parts of his opera The Magic Flute, stood in the Mozarteum's garden from 1950 to 2022. It had originally been located in Vienna before being moved to the Kapuzinerberg hill in Salzburg, and then again to the Foundation's garden. Together, these three sites give the Foundation's mission its most tangible form: the Central Institute for Mozart Research, founded in 1931 and renamed the Academy for Mozart Research in 2003, was tasked with recording and collecting all results and findings of Mozart research on a scientific basis, and the museums are where that research meets the public.