Listen to the Morgan’s curator of music Robinson McClellan describe a rare surviving violin from Mozart’s childhood.
Mozart’s childhood violin was made in Salzburg by the courtly violin maker Andreas Ferdinand Mayr. Mozart probably received the instrument from his father at age six or seven. Small violins, roughly equivalent to today’s 1/4-, 1/2-, or 3/4-sized violins, were rare in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Leopold Mozart wrote about small instruments and their use in his book, A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing. Today the Mozarteum owns the largest collection of Mozart’s instruments, including three violins, one viola, and two keyboard instruments.
Andreas Ferdinand Mayr
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart's childhood violin
Spruce (front), Maple (back) corpus
Salzburg, ca. 1746
International Mozarteum Foundation 178, L2026.98.15
Hello, I’m Robin McClellan, Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Music at the Morgan Library and Museum.
Mozart’s first violin was given to him by his father when he was six or seven years old. At just under half size, it is a typical childhood violin. Thought to date to around 1746, it was made in Salzburg by Andreas Ferdinand Mayr, Lute and Violin Maker to the Archbishop’s Court and, like Mozart’s father, a member of the court orchestra.
The violin remained with Mozart’s sister until 1820, after which it passed through private ownership on three occasions before finally being acquired by the Mozarteum in 1896. Today, the Mozarteum holds six of Mozart’s original instruments, including a viola, three violins, a piano, and the clavichord seen in the second gallery of this exhibition.