Just a thought: "Question 17" Which pets did the Mozarts keep?

End of January and so many incidents in daily life! (like ordinary drawbacks and missed occasions of doing the right things according to the situations).
That is why it is useful to have an open door on to another life, a mixture of 'utopian'territory mainly through music and the few blogfriends who happen to connect with me and give me plenty of happiness. There is the daily information very often distressing and sad about what is going on here and around.
This mixture makes a balance which can be tolerable, even when dreadful news reaches me like the increasing number of losses in Afghanistan or the sudden illness of dear friends.
Up to now here, in our house, which is 112 years old, apart from some tiles which were blown away in the last gale, on Jan 7th with a great orchestral crash in the yard, life is getting on rather smoothly!
Music is helping a lot. There was a magnificient Verdi's Requiem in Montpellier on the 15th.





Maestro Muti I saw for the first time there was as smart as his photos always show him.
I was terribly impressed by Olga Boridina's intonation and voice in her solo parts and duets with Tatiana Serjan. Both were very moving.
But tonight, I am going back to my memories of Saint- Gilgen, where I spent a day in late August to try to imagine what sort of landscapes little Wolfgang was accustomed to see when he visited his mother's family, the Pertl from Saint-Gilgen, not far from Salzburg now, a very pleasant coach ride up the mountains, certainly much more adventurous and longer in 1756, the year Wolfgang was born, on the 27th of January.
Now, being the 28th here (Provence, 20 kms away from Aix) it is time to try to imagine the chimes and music played for his christening at the Salzburg Cathedral at 10.30 a.m, with his lovely older sister Nannerl by his side, and of course his beloved Mother Anna Maria daughter of a court deputy prefect, Judge Wolfgang Nikolaus Pertl.
Papa was here too, and was so proud of this baby son born five years later than Nannerl.
During my four days in Salzburg, I had decided to only follow the Mozart Trail: the two houses where he lived, the places where he gave his first performances, and the Cathedral where he was christened, then Saint-Gilgen, because his Mother and Nannerl lived there. (he did not)


'Joannes Chrysosthomus Wolfgangus Theophilus'.

This is his full name, the first two names because today the 28th, is this Saint day.
What I enjoyed a lot while visiting Salzburg is this book I bought at The Mozarteum Foundation 'Next to Mozart'. I discovered the happiness of the family. The children enjoyed the company of a 'songbird' (canary?) and a little Fox Terrier named Pimperl!
From this book I learnt Mozart kept a starling in Vienna and noted the music he sang. When the bird died, he had a genuine sorrow and wrote a poem. The internet allows us to
read all about it just in a click !
Here is the illustration of this happy family:
"P33 Question 17 from " NEXT TO MOZART
Answers to 111 most common questions."

'Bolt-shooting target, designed by Ingrid Ramsauer in 1995, depicting Nannerl at the keyboard with the family pet, Pimperl.



Back in the yard, today the 28, day dearest wolfgang listened to his first organ concert in the cathedral in his home town so many years ago, my Corsican Helleborus niger are in full bloom for this fabulous event!
The purple ones had a white offspring last year which I planted separately.