How do I love thee Salzburg...

This trip seems to be going by so quickly! At first I was really worried about being homesick since I've never been so far away and for so long. Every place we travel to I want to share with my family, but I wouldn't trade these experiences for anything! It is crazy to think we have less than a week left and one more place to go. Tomorrow we leave for Vienna, but we are making the most out of our time here in Salzburg. 
Today was a free day! We woke up, had breakfast at the hostel, then some of us went to the oldest bakery to get delicious bread! After this we walked to the abbey where The Sound of Music was filmed (the inside, not the courtyard)! While we were there the other group met up and it was amazing because we heard nuns singing in another room!!! I quickly pulled out my phone and created a voice memo! It's a little quiet, but it worked! Then my group went and found the shop Fürst where we bought Mozart chocolates! The other 4 tried them and said they're pretty good. I decided to save mine for later so I'll have to take their word. Next we went to the Mozart cafe where Hannah Eger, Annalise King and I got goulash! Annalise and I got hot chocolate too! It was so great and the waiter was funny. If I went back to any restaurant it would probably be to this one. Seeing as how it's the Mozart cafe you would think the prices would be high, but they were very reasonable! After all this excitement the five of us decided it was time to go back to the hostel, pack for tomorrow, rest a bit, change for tonight's concert, then go back to town early. Annalise and I took Hannah and Caleb up to the monastery because they didn't go with us the other day! We had a lot of fun, and at the bottom of the hill we found a gummy candy store!!!!! It was called gummy paradise and it was. The minute we walked in until the minute we walked out the woman was giving us gummies to try. She also wouldn't let us buy anything without first tasting it! I loved that store. Then we met up with Taylor and went to dinner Steigl!!! I got a bratwurst and French fries with sprite! Then we walked over to the Mozarteum to meet with the test if the group to see the MozarteumOrchester! It was amazing! Again. I was in the first row and next to me was Dr. Powell in exactly the middle seat! There were (we think) a father and son who played cellos that sat right in front of me. The son was so fun to watch because he would just smirk at certain parts of the music and look at the dad or the concert master and they would smirk back. At the fast and loud parts he would smile big and shred his bow because he played so fast and hard. It was great! The soprano sounded gorgeous except she was busting out of her dress when she took a deep breath and her shoulders would rise and hide her neck a bit. The runs were do good and after one Mozart aria I turned to Dr. Powell and told him I wanted to song that song. The whole concert was great and I couldn't believe how fast it was over. Back at the hostel we are all on internet and getting ready to go to Vienna tomorrow. Off we go...

Great concerts and The gummy bear

The past couple of nights have been amazing. The concerts at the Mozarteum have been a pleasant surprise- these ensembles are phenomenal! The Salzburg Camerata concert was my second most impressive and favorite this entire trip. Those guys know how to play Mozart- full of energy and spunk! They were so in sync with each other, they barely needed the conductor-who was fabulous to watch! you could really tell he enjoyed what he was doing. The same goes for all the performers. They loved an were fully committed to what they were doing. It was such a fun concert to attend! The Mozarteum orchestra concert was fabulous as well- they also really enjoyed playing immensely. However the conductor was a bit... Odd. I'll let others explain! 

The night of this concert was the night of the gummy bear quest. At the concert the night before I had this idea to put a gummy bear on one of the performers stands at intermission (we were so close to the stage, it would be easy!) so tonight I decided to do it! At all intermissions here pretty much everyone leaves the hall to get fancy refreshments, so intermission was the perfect time to do the deed. The 2nd violin concert master was my victim. Melanie and Caleb were my wingmen. They stood up and we non-chalantly shuffled to the stage and commenced fake conversation. Green gummy bear in hand, I reached over to the stand, acted like I was looking at the music, and placed the confection. It was done- there was no going back.

 For the rest of intermission I sat in my seat and ran through every worst-case-scenario in my head. Kai said I would get in trouble for malicious placements of confectionary sweets. What if he thought it was rude and threw it away? What if someone saw and I got kicked out! Arrested! Deported! 

Luckily, none of those things happened. Actually, what happened was exactly what I was hoping would happen! The ensemble came back on stage. My heart pounding from the suspense of his reaction, I hid behind my program as to not look suspicious. The sweet gummy went unnoticed for a bit, then his stand partner pointed quizzically at the gummy bear with the tip of her bow. He looks down at it and they both look at each other, chuckle and shrug. The man picks up the gummy bear, and pops it in his mouth! Smiling the whole time. It. Was. Legendary. 

The Mozarteum Orchester and the English T-Rex

We just got back from the Mozarteum Orchester's concert, conducted by Englishman Ivor Bolton. The orchestra sounded incredible, and I really enjoyed the two Clementi symphonies they played. I especially liked Symphony no. 3, which quoted "God Save the Queen" extensively. There was also a fantastic soprano soloist and on one of her arias she was accompanied by a natural horn! Before this concert I had heard of natural horns but I didn't know they were still played. Natural horns have no valves, so any adjustment in pitch is done with the musician's embouchure. The horn player was amazing and his accuracy was phenomenal.

Horn player and soprano soloist

There was one part of this concert that I did not appreciate as much as the rest of the concerts we've seen on this trip: the conductor. I've heard various descriptions, but to me a lot of his conducting looked like an awkward T-Rex. He also made very strange expressions and looked at the crowd sometimes, which was a bit off-putting. I'm not sure how the Mozarteum Orchester managed to play so well together, because there's no way I would have been able to follow that conductor- he was all over the place. Anyway, the concert was overall enjoyable, and watching that conductor was an experience. Tomorrow we're off to Vienna!!!

The Greatness of Salzburg...

A few pix from yesterday and today...

Mozart Family Kitchen

The Mean Streets of Salzburg

The Fortress Blacksmith

Wolf Deitrich!  Creepy

And chanting began at the Abby!

Snowy Salzburg

On Sunday we went to see a Mozart mass at the Salzburg Dome. It was a beautiful service with the music ringing through the church (an almost 8 second ring) and a great experience to go to a Catholic service for the first time. Afterwards there was another service that a few of us went to that had recorder and organ music instead. We were blown away by the two small probably about 10 years girls shredding away on the recorders with the organ music. It was humbling to hear the musicality of those two girls. Afterwards we went to the famous cafe where Mozart used to eat and we got hot drinks and breakfast. Mozart actually wrote a letter about the cafe saying how bad it was, including it's moldy lemonade. However, he still ate there all the time, so who really knows why he wrote that letter. He might have said that so people wouldn't go the cafe, I can imagine he would have probably liked to have a place to go that crowds of people wouldn't be at. Even Mozart probably needed his quiet time. Afterwards we went Ina  tour with a  wonderful and sweet guide named Gabby. She was funny, extremely knowledgable, and had such a love and passion for Salzburg. It was most interesting to learn about Archbishop Wolf Dietrich, who was pretty much crazy. He destroyed some church's and a graveyard to build things he wanted and had 12 illegitimate children. Yeah...an Archbishop had 12 illegitimate children. He then was imprisoned for the last of his life in the Salzburg castle. He was definitely good at making bad life decisions. Since we had no concerts that night, we had a relaxing free night. A few of us went to dinner at the Triangle, a famous restaurant right outside the Festspiel House. I had delicious beef goulash and Austrian ginger ale. I would drink that ginger ale everyday! It also has been snowing off and on all day with a couple inches of snow on the ground. Thank you Salzburg for the wonderful winter weather that we were all looking forward too! Stayed tuned for some more posts about all the Mozart music we are experiencing! 

Salzburg has a monopoly on cool things.

Yesterday's agenda: Mozart's birth home (on his birthday) and his second residence in Salzburg to visit the museums, Salzburg Castle, a birthday celebration for Mozart complete with live music, cannons, cake, and a parade, and a concert by Camerata Salzburg. What a day!

I had little expectation of the Camerata going in, knowing nothing of the group...then they blew me away! The first half was made up of back to back arias from both the Gluck and Mozart versions of Clemenza di Tito. The second half comprised of Mozart's Prague Symphony, which was cool to see having just left Prague. The orchestra was great and the opera singers were phenomenal!

Andrew Staples, tenor, hails from Great Britain. His voice projected beautifully in the hall and his tone quality was brilliant. He was extremely expressive, only sometimes interrupted by repeatedly looking down at his sore and shaking his head when he sang runs...his performance was still captivating!

Swedish soprano, Malin Hartelius, totally stole the show with her acting skills. She was so fun to watch! Her facial expressions and body movement really added to her character. I am singing a Mozart aria belonging to this same character for my senior recital in April and definitely gleaned some character choice ideas from this performance. This woman's high notes were spectacular! I only wish she'd been in better health...she seemed to have a cold or something that affected her low range. I was distracted by her dress, which was unfortunate, because her outfit would've been perfect without the broken dangly shiny thing in the front. Oh well.

And oh the mezzo...the beautiful, amazing mezzo. I don't think I've heard a voice like hers before. 26 year old
Marianne Crebassa from France can definitely sing. Her voice was almost too strong for the hall, her low and high notes both fantastic, and her acting beautifully understated and great for the small stage. She almost never looked at her score, but turned the pages anyway - this girl knew her stuff! Plus, her dress was perfect.

It was interesting to compare the styles of the Gluck and Mozart arias back to back. Gluck writes much longer pieces with lots of ornamentation, while Mozart sticks to shorter forms and lyric presentations.

Today we went to the abbey from Sound of Music, and while inside the nuns began singing from the next room for a prayer service...how freaking cool is that? I'll be sad to leave Salzburg in the morning tomorrow, but look forward to adventures in Vienna!

Wonderful Surprise!

We went to the Camerata Salzburg concert last night. I was blown away!!!  The energy and mastery if the performance was fabulous!  The level of communication was the best we've seen this far, and yes! we've seen Vienna and Berlin!  The soloists were brilliant, a tenor, a Lyric Soprano and a Mezzo Soprano along with a Bassett Clarinetist. The Mezzo was particularly good. 

I admit that I thought the concert would be good but this exceeded my expectation by a wide margin. It was terrific!!!!  We all knew we were in for a treat during the first notes played. We all walked away energized and happy. 

Here are some photos if beautiful Salzburg!