Mozart is alive and well. I went looking for him, and was shocked to find him really everywhere: at my breakfast-table staring at me from my cup of coffee and behind windows and on walls while I was cycling around town. We shared chocolates too and he even took me for a boat-ride.
I arrived in Salzburg some days ago, the birth-town of Mozart and a small city in Austria. It seems like Mozart, born just over 250 years ago, never died.
How the city and commercial interests have turned Mozart into plastic, goes beyond my imagination: a bridge, a street, a square, a house. And chocolates, dairy products and other food carry his name too.
When the city wrote a name-contest for a new panoramic boat the name came up first: Amadeus, the first name of Mozart.
I went looking for Mozart. I thought I would find him here in Salzburg. But all I found was a piece of plastic as any other brand. Salzburg? That’s Mozart! Nice for tourism maybe but I visited a city where I found a dead artist reborn in plastic.
And what about art? I thought while looking for Mozart. As I went to his birth-house the only art I could find were the last three letters of his name
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