Mozart’s Costa Violin will be played in Cuba

The original instrument accompanies the Austrian Federal President on his tour abroad

 

At the beginning of March Federal President Heinz Fischer undertakes one of his last trips

abroad during his term of office and travels to Cuba. Johannes Honsig-Erlenburg, president of

the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation and Gabriele Ramsauer, director of the Mozart museums,

will accompany him on this visit together with an original Mozart instrument, the so-called

Costa Violin. Two concerts on this instrument will be given during the Federal President’s

stay.

 

Frank Stadler, leader of the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, will play two concertos on the

Mozart instrument, accompanied by the Youth Orchestra of the Lyceum Mozartiano de la

Habana in the Oratorio San Felipe Neri. This orchestra was founded on the initiative of the

Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation in 2009. Through its continued support the idea of this

orchestra has evolved as an exemplary project of international cultural exchange which has

been intensified over the last three years by a subsidy from the European Union. As part of

the support for this project, the first international Mozart Festival took place in autumn 2015

in Havana.

 

W. A. Mozart’s Costa Violin was made by Pietro Antonio dalla Costa in Treviso, Italy, in 1764,

and played by Mozart during the years he lived in Vienna. The violin was purchased in 2013

by Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller with the intention of making it available to the Mozarteum

Foundation as a present. Since then the Costa Violin has been part of the Mozarteum

Foundation’s collection of original instruments. It is played regularly and can be seen in the

Mozart Residence.

 

Johannes Honsig-Erlenburg, president of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation, commented on

this trip with the instrument, “I am extremely moved by the fact that Mozart’s Costa Violin

will be played for the first time in Latin America during the visit by our Federal President.

This is in keeping with the fundamental commitment of the Mozarteum Foundation to

present Mozart’s heritage throughout the world, and it is also a sign of the special cultural

bond between Austria and the musical country of Cuba!”

 

Gerlinde Paschinger, Austrian Ambassador in Cuba, also expressed her pleasure about this

visit: “I am pleased and grateful that the International Mozarteum Foundation will present a

very special musical experience for the people of Cuba in that an original Mozart violin will

be heard for the first time in Latin America in a concert hall in Cuba together with Cuban

musicians. The occasion is the first visit by an Austrian head of state to Cuba in the history

of bilateral relationships. Moreover, this year we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of

continuous diplomatic relationships with Cuba but the historic ties between our two

countries go back a long way to the time of Mozart. Many reasons therefore, to play Mozart’s

original violin in Havana.” (Fuente:http://www.mozarteum.at)