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The world went Mozart mad on Friday as a wave of his music spread around the globe to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of our greatest composers.
His birthplace of Salzburg, nestled at the foot of the snowy Austrian Alps, led the celebrations for the composer who bequeathed to the world such operas as "The Marriage of Figaro," "The Magic Flute" and "Don Giovanni."
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born at 8:00 pm on a snowy night on January 17, 1756, to Leopold, a violinist and composer, and Anna Maria Mozart.
He was soon to show his precocious talent. By the age of three he was playing on a keyboard and at just five he had written his first composition.
When he died just 35 years later, he had toured the European courts and composed a prodigious body of some 630 works including 41 symphonies and 27 piano concertos.
Today, some 250 years after his birth, he remains one of the world's best loved composers, and performances of his music were being held around the globe on Friday to celebrate his legacy.
"Mozart remains very current. He knew how to say the indescribable with the simplest of means," the Italian conductor Riccardo Muti told Austrian radio ORF.
All eyes were on Austria, which has seized on the occasion to celebrate its favourite son, also hoping to cash in on his popularity by attracting tourists with money in their pockets.
"Mozart would have existed without Salzburg, but Salzburg, this Salzburg, would not exist without Mozart," the province's governor, Gabi Burgstaller, told the opening concert.
A host of Mozart merchandise including everything from T-shirts, baseball caps, cuddly soft toys and even golf balls have flooded the streets in Salzburg and the Austrian capital, Vienna.
But Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt hit out at the rank commercialism.
"In this year Austria is synonymous with Mozart. But this has nothing to do with him. I am afraid it is more a matter of money and doing business," he said. "We really ought to be ashamed of ourselves rather than puffed up with pride."
Festivities got underway in Mozart's birthplace, Salzburg, with the Vienna Philharmonic striking up a concert at 1000 GMT at the town's Mozarteum Foundation. Music was set to fill the streets throughout the day.
A new exhibition "Viva! Mozart" was also inaugurated exhibiting pictures, letters and documents tracing the composer's life, including some precious original musical scores.
One clarinet piece, known as KV 452, which Mozart described in a letter to his father as "the best piece he ever wrote", has been lent to the exhibition by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.
Later in the day Muti was to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in a special star-studded live gala evening in Salzburg showcasing some of Mozart's best loved melodies.
Worldwide the opening chords of the celebrations were heard in Sydney where from a barge set against the backdrop of the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performed Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and his Divertimento No. 11 in D major.
"We are delighted that it falls to Sydney Symphony to kick off the world's first Mozart birthday celebration," said Libby Christie, managing director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Other landmark events were planned in Beijing and Tokyo, as well as in Berlin, Paris, Prague, London and Vienna.
The events were being filmed as part of a huge television project called "24 hours Mozart" being screened live to 25 different countries.
The only surviving house in Vienna where Mozart lived at number 5 Domgasse, has been renovated at a cost of some eight million euros (9.8 million dollars) and was inaugurated on Friday.
The house, where Mozart composed "The Marriage of Figaro" has been renamed Mozart's House and now houses two permanent exhibitions to his memory.
Events are planned around the globe all year to mark Mozart's birthday, culminating with the Festival of Salzburg from July 24 to August 31, when 22 of Mozart's works will be presented.
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AFP 271310 GMT 01 06
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