Mozarteum and Mirabell Palace

The Mozarteum, while one of the world's greatest music schools, is very unprepossessing on the outside. It consists of a number of grey blocks with little character:

It is, I believe, like a full-fledged university, but with only one department: music. Next to the Mozarteum is the Mirabell Palace, originally built in 1606 by the Archbishop Wolf Dietrich Raitenau for himself and his mistress Salome Alt. Back then archbishops had mistresses, apparently, while nowadays only the king of Thailand does.

Salome Alt

The palace was rebuilt a few times and it is surrounded by extensive gardens that I walked around in today.

And overlooking the gardens is just the kind of place I would like to have if I lived in Salzburg:

Let's have a little music. This is a piece I am going to hear played by the Mozarteum Orchestra on August 10, one of a group of divertimenti by Mozart sometimes called the "Salzburg Symphonies" written soon after his return from Italy in his mid teens. This is the Divertimento K. 137 in B flat: