One cannot overstate just how much a venue adds to our enjoyment of a classical concert. The beauty of the surroundings and their historic associations serve to heighten all our senses, creating an emotional response that is tangibly different from simply listening to our favourite music in our own homes.
Austria has many delights, but Salzburg Fortress, the breathtaking edifice that takes the name of the charming city below it, has to top them all. Dating back to the eleventh century, a bastion of the Holy Roman Empire, the Festung Hohensalzburg vies for the title of Europe’s best preserved castle, a fortification that has never suffered the depredations of battle, even if it did give itself up to Napoleon’s forces at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Today, visitors to the fortress can enjoy both dinner and music in the Festung Hohensalzburg. An Evening at the Fortress offers the most complete experience of Salzburg’s famous landmark and includes: your journey on Austria’s oldest funicular railway from the heart of Salzburg to the castle (please note that this applies to journeys taken on the cable railway no more than half an hour before the start of your meal; the journey itself lasts just under a minute); an exquisite dinner; and the Salzburg Fortress Concert at which you will be entertained by the brilliance of the musicians that form the Salzburg Mozart Ensemble (on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays between 1 May and 31 October, the Mozart Chamber Orchestra Salzburg takes to the stage). The VIP ticket, which depending on the date of your visit takes place either in the Fortress' Arms Hall or Golden Hall, includes a concert programme and glass of sparkling wine in the interval.
This being Salzburg, the concerts naturally feature the music of the city’s most famous composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was born in Salzburg at number 9 Getreidegasse on 27 January 1756. But both the Ensemble’s and the Orchestra’s programmes celebrate many other composers, including Mozart’s compatriots, Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert and Johann Strauss the Younger, as well as Antonín Dvořák and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Now is the time to feel on top of the world, with an evening you will never forget in Salzburg Fortress.
