The people behind the house
The Mozart Family Story at Getreidegasse 9
Who actually lived in this house, for how long, and why a cramped third-floor rental in Salzburg's old town still matters so much to music history today.
See the guided Salzburg tour ↗Leopold and Anna Maria settle in
Leopold Mozart, a violinist and composer employed by the Salzburg court, married Anna Maria Pertl on 21 November 1747. Shortly after, the couple rented rooms on the third floor of the building at what is now Getreidegasse 9, owned by the Hagenauer family, who were also Leopold's landlords and friends. The apartment was modest — a kitchen, a small storage room, a living room, a bedroom and a study — hardly grand, but centrally placed on Salzburg's main commercial street. Leopold and Anna Maria would raise their family in these rooms for the next 26 years, a period that happened to cover the entire childhood of their most famous son.
Seven children, two who survived
Anna Maria bore seven children in the Getreidegasse apartment between 1747 and 1756. Only two survived infancy: Maria Anna, always known as Nannerl, born in 1751, and Wolfgang Amadeus, the youngest, born on 27 January 1756. Child mortality this severe was common across 18th-century Europe, not a mark of particular misfortune for this one family — but it's still the context in which the household actually lived, day to day, for those nine years: every pregnancy a real risk, every surviving child valued and watched accordingly. A family tree displayed in the apartment's hallway sets out the pattern plainly. It's part of why Leopold, once he recognised his two remaining children's musical gifts, invested so heavily and so early in developing them, rather than treating music as an ordinary accomplishment.
Wolfgang's birth and earliest years
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in the third-floor apartment on 27 January 1756, the seventh and last child of Leopold and Anna Maria. Leopold wrote to his publisher to announce the birth, a letter that survives and is now displayed in the apartment's storage room. Wolfgang's earliest years were spent in these same few rooms, learning music largely from his father, alongside Nannerl, five years his elder, rather than in any formal school setting — Leopold effectively built the household's entire routine around his children's musical training. By age five he was reportedly already composing short pieces; by six, Leopold judged both children ready to be shown off to the courts of Europe, and the family's touring years began, taking Wolfgang away from Getreidegasse for long stretches even as a small child.
Nannerl: prodigy, then left behind
Nannerl was, for a period in the 1760s, as celebrated a performer as her younger brother — the pair toured together as child prodigies, presented at courts across Europe by Leopold. As she reached marriageable age, convention closed off the touring and composing career that stayed open to Wolfgang; she continued teaching piano in Salzburg and later married a magistrate, largely stepping back from public performing life. She and Wolfgang stayed close correspondents into adulthood — several of the letters displayed in the museum's later rooms, including one describing his gruelling Vienna schedule, were written to her. Her own musical talent is well documented but never got the same room to develop.
Leopold's role: father, teacher, manager
Leopold Mozart was not incidental to his son's career; he was its architect. A working violinist and deputy Kapellmeister at the Salzburg court, he was also the author of a widely used violin instruction treatise, published the same year Wolfgang was born. He taught both children directly, planned and financed their European tours, negotiated with patrons, and managed Wolfgang's early career decisions well into his son's twenties. Editions of Leopold's own violin method are displayed alongside the children's early compositions in the apartment's living room — a reminder that the household's musical seriousness started with the father, not just the prodigy son.
Why the house, and why it matters
The family left Getreidegasse 9 in 1773, moving to larger rooms across the Salzach River as their finances improved — that second home, the Tanzmeisterhaus, is now the separate Mozart Residence museum. The Getreidegasse building itself became a museum in 1880, run since then by the International Mozarteum Foundation. Its value isn't in grandeur — it's a cramped, ordinary merchant's-street rental — but in authenticity: these are the actual rooms where a working court musician's family lived, where seven children were born and five died, and where the most famous composer in Western music learned to play before he could write.