pitch at the entrance of the Lippizaner Horse show. It was for a 2 hour “Mozart Pops” repertoire at $70-120 per person. With Prague fresh in my mind I perused the brochure pushed into my hands. It was another superficial, touristy “Mozart pops” affair. I decided that I had experienced countless concerts of excellent quality back home in San Francisco and Stockton, and that my original intent of having the same experience in its native environment, now highjacked by these jackasses, was foolhardy. It took some effort to extract myself from the clutches of the dealer who had engaged me. From then on I ignored the swarm of Viennese concert vendors, trying to hide my annoyance as best as I could. As my tour continued, I now came to recognize a phenomenon I labeled “Mozart for sale” all over the city. First there were the ubiquitous Mozart chocolate stores, as frequently encountered as fast food joints in the U.S. Then there were numerous Mozart themed souvenir shops, cafes, restaurants and other establishments, all adorned with the wigged, powdered portrait of the composer, or his silhouette. I saw a Mozart concert truck in front of the Albertina Museum, a popular modern art venue
WINTER 2011
near the Hofburg Palace complex. It was the support truck for those pesky concert hawkers, indicative of how large an industry Mozart tourism had become in Vienna. Interestingly there were no other such touristy sales for other giants of the Vienna music scene such as Beethoven, Schubert, Johann Strauss, Brahms, Mahler and more. “Why Mozart?”, I wondered. I can only surmise that it is the after effect of the Oscar winning movie Amadeus (1984). Leave it to Hollywood, the movie capital of the world, to devalue Vienna, the one-time music capital of the world. I then wondered why these commercial touristy concerts and “Mozart for sale” bothered me so much. It was obviously because the phenomenon cheapened the legacy of great music, a major accomplishment of Western Civilization, and along with it, of Mozart, one of its most eloquent practitioners. It then occurred to me that here at home Mozart is also ubiquitous (although usually not sold by street hawkers), from countless Mozart Festivals, to Mozart packed repertoires of Opera and Symphony companies. His music is frequently featured because it draws crowds and sells tickets. Aren’t these
SAN JOAQUIN PHYSICIAN
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