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This chapter presents Reich's interview with Wolfgang Gratzner, first published in Nähe und Distanz—Nachgedachte Musik der Gegenwart, Salzburg, 1995. Reich answers questions about his composition of Different Trains.

Towards the end of the 1570s, the forces of the Counter-Reformation were already rallying at the courts of Munich, Innsbruck, Vienna, and Graz, reflecting a more general though gradual Catholic recovery in central and eastern Europe towards the end of the 16th century. To the eyes of contemporary observers, however, the Inner Austrian nobility seemed to have achieved a success that spelt religious toleration for the Austrian lands at large. This chapter shows that 1578 was a turning point in bringing the opposed Catholic forces together in an effort to stem the tide of heresy. Although the Catholic counter-attack during the second half of Karl II's reign could not effect a complete reversal, it was able to discourage the further spread and institutional consolidation of the new faith by restrictive legal and political measures against urban Protestantism and the Lutheran school and church ministry.

This chapter outlines how the need for Austrian Jews to come to terms with their changed social status after World War I drove the creation of new cultural productions that provided potential answers—or, at the very least, an escape—for both Jewish and non-Jewish Austrians seeking an inclusive national cultural ideal. Max Reinhardt’s involvement in—and passion for—both the baroque Catholic Salzburg Festival and the Yiddish theater in Vienna points to the significant role of Austrian Jews as driving forces behind two seemingly oppositional forms of culture which both thrived at a time of deep social crisis. The fact that Reinhardt and Hugo von Hofmannsthal played major roles in creating the conservative Salzburg Festival revisits the overdetermined portrayal of Jews at the forefront of modernity in all aspects of European culture. But the fact that both Jews and non-Jews were avid enthusiasts of Yiddish theater in Vienna emphasizes the appeal of an explicitly Jewish theater to broad audiences in the city. Despite their differences, both forms of theater sparked intense, emotional reactions in audiences, using provincial and urban stages to reinvent mystical worlds of the past and create new ethical and cultural ideals with possibilities for future redemption.

This chapter began with the contextualization of the historical circumstances in Burma and the United States that brought about the interactions between these two groups; namely, Burmese Buddhist specialists (monks and lay meditation teachers) and the American vipassana practitioners. It argues for a more comprehensive understanding of what “modern Buddhism” means for various constituents by investigating the ways in which some of the key figures of both Asian Buddhist modernists (e.g., Mahasi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin, Ajahn Cha) and the pioneers of American vipassana movement (e.g., Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzburg) converged with respect to the dissemination of vipassana meditation. It examines modernist approaches of these central figures of both East and West in the adaptation of vipassana meditation.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756. Direct evidence of his urge towards composition comes in the form of early keyboard pieces, which his father Leopold helped him write down. As a performer Mozart was to be best known as a master of the keyboard, but he was also a violinist, and took singing lessons. He sang in public, with a small voice but with perfect taste, until his voice broke during the first visit to Italy when he was fourteen. He learned to understand wind instruments thoroughly, and his writing for them is among the most rewarding in the repertoire. His habit of consulting instrumentalists and singers about their capabilities was probably founded early, during the family's Grand Tour of Western Europe.

On 12 December 1769, the male Mozarts set off for Italy, aided by 120 ducats from the court treasury. The Mozarts gave their first concert in Verona at the end of 1769, then travelled on to Milan. The Austrian governor, Count Firmian, a relation of a former archbishop of Salzburg, was particularly supportive, and he commissioned Mozart to write the main opera seria for the next Carnival. The Mozarts moved on to Florence, where Archduke Leopold ruled as governor of Tuscany, and where Mozart formed his brief but close friendship with Thomas Linley; it included playing music together. Mozart returned to Salzburg in March 1773 a recognised maestro, skilled on keyboard and violin, and an experienced composer with the necessary equipment to be a Kapellmeister. But he was barely seventeen, and so unemployable in a capacity where he would have the direction of older, possibly recalcitrant or self-opinionated, musicians.

Most of Mozart's sacred music was composed for the Salzburg liturgy. Although the finest pieces date from the later years, the essential patterns were laid down earlier. As a boy in Paris he composed an independent setting of the first section of the Ordinary of the Mass, a Kyrie eleison, and in Vienna (1768) he contributed both small and large types of complete setting (Missa brevis and Missa solemnis). Colloredo's decree concerning the length of the liturgy may explain the predominance of the Missa brevis in Mozart's output, but certain days in the church year required more elaborate music, including the four C major masses composed between 1775 and 1780, the four Litanies and, in his last two years in Salzburg, two sets of Vespers.

This chapter examines how the German Benedictines actively engaged in dialogue with modern philosophy. At the center of this dialogue was the University of Salzburg, a Benedictine institution, where monks from throughout Southern Germany and Austria taught until the school's closing in 1810. A positive opinion of the Enlightenment was prevalent there, especially under the protection of Archbishop Colloredo. Among the new themes the enlightened Monks proposed were a more optimist anthropology, a positive view of Leibniz and Locke, a focus on experimental physics, as well as a clear preference for the vernacular as the new language of academia. During the last quarter of the 18th century, the Benedictines also welcomed many of the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, while trying to integrate them into their philosophical systems.

The lesson opens with a lengthy discussion on scordatura, the reasons for it, problems associated with it, and advice on how to cope with it. There is a section on symbolism and the Jesuits, their relevance to Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber personally and to the performance of the sonatas. The text is intermingled with quotations from the New Testament and connections established between the two. The rhetorical fragments in a single line are identified and described in detail as an example of how to seek out and dramatize the rhetorical meaning of the music. Objective truth in this kind of activity does not exist: to each person, a fragment may elicit different reactions entirely, but if the images or feelings conjured up by the informed imagination are successfully transformed into sound, the interpretation will be all the stronger and more authentic. Theological, historical, rhetorical, interpretive, and technical information are here in abundance.

This chapter seeks to identify the dynamics of mustering allies at a local level for the Austrofascist cause, reviewing as a case study the current of the movement in Salzburg. The Salzburger Volksblatt was representative of a German-nationalist milieu whose cultural and intellectual roots lay in the Bohemian and Moravian lands. Its owner, Hans Glaser (1877–1960), who was part of the younger German nationalists, infused Salzburg's liberal associational culture with the pan-German ideas they had brought along from the borderlands. His political connections with German nationalists in the inter-war period tended to be formed through expediency rather than ideology. Glaser joined the Greater German party after its inauguration in Salzburg in 1920, partly because the party leadership informed him that paper quotas would be allocated only to those newspapers that enjoyed political patronage. Quite paradoxically, for the owner of a German-nationalist newspaper, he maintained amicable terms with various prominent Christian Social elements.

Librarians are principled professionals engaged with their communities in transformative social engagement. Types of librarian preparation are discussed (librarian by education, by title, and by spirit) as well as an overview of the Salzburg Curriculum is presented. Competencies for librarians are discussed: transformative social engagement; technology; asset management; cultural skills; knowledge, learning, and innovation; and management for participation.

The content of Mozart's Ghosts is put into a counterpoint with The Mozart Effectä, and recent digital sites of reception are discussed as the basis of a review of the theoretical basis of the book as well as its principal themes.

When he was expelled from Germany in 1933, Bruno Walter and his family moved to Vienna, which would become his main center of activity for the next several years. The day after he arrived in Vienna, Walter received a telephone call from Rudolf Mengelberg, who asked him to conduct several concerts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. For Walter, conducting the Concertgebouw was a welcome respite. He would take a number of lengthy trips in the next five years in order to continue conducting throughout Europe without crossing into German territory. He also conducted the Vienna Philharmonic on a regular basis and became a hero of the Salzburg Festival. The year 1933 was a tumultuous period for Walter personally, but saw him being more in command than ever before from a musical standpoint. In June 1936, however, Walter's musical serenity was disrupted when some Austrian Nazis threw stink bombs during one of his Viennese performances of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

In 1925, Bruno Walter became musical director of the Städtische Oper in Berlin, where he also began a long association with the Salzburg Festival. In the 1920s, Berlin had a number of great conductors including Wilhelm Furtwängler, Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, and Walter. The last phase of Walter's operatic career in Germany commenced on September 18, 1925, when he conducted a performance of Richard Wagner's Meistersinger. Although Walter's work in the opera house kept him busy, he also had a series of concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic even as he continued his exhausting travels to cities such as London and Milan. Walter's final opera during his tenure at the Städtische Oper was Fidelio, which he conducted on April 14, 1929. That same year, he left Berlin for Leipzig to succeed Furtwängler as music director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra.

George sails in late May 1931—Julien and Joella Levy also on board. George meets a few prominent passengers, like conductor Alexander Smallens. He first stays in a modest Paris hotel, then moves into Jean Guérin’s empty flat through summer, determined to visit Gertrude Stein in Bilignin for sociability and a formal sitting. Meanwhile, he has advertising jobs for the Guérin family’s Parfums d’Orsay and portrait commissions. At Stein’s country abode, George takes a portrait of her strong profile overlooking the hills and valleys in the distance; he also manages an informal shot of himself taking tea with Stein and Toklas. Stein’s profile portrait will eventually have public import. Returned to Paris, George next travels through Austria and Germany with Monie, Glen, and Barbara, attending the Salzburg Festival. Glenway observes changing conditions in Germany for a new book. Barbara gifts George a pet dachshund he christens “Claus von Wiesbaden.”

In the Vita Columbani Jonas of Bobbio convinced his audience that Columbanus was the spiritus rector of the mission to the Bavarians and Slavs in the seventh century. But Columbanus twice turned down missionary activities he had originally or allegedly pursued. When he and his followers reached Bregenz he became involved almost against his will in converting Alemanns. In a vision he gladly accepted angelic advice to leave the Slavic world alone. Nevertheless, Columbanus’s disciple Eustasius of Luxeuil launched a very successful mission to Bavaria and probably founded the oldest Bavarian monastery on Herrenchiemsee. The Slavs still did not know what to do with Western missionaries, deeply frustrating Saint Amandus,whom they did not even care to kill. It took another Irishman, Virgil of Salzburg, to organize the mission to the Carantanians, who became the first Christianized Slavonic people.

The founding Americanist institution in postwar Europe took place in a baroque, bomb-damaged castle and had only the tenuous approval of the US military government in Austria. Leopoldskron Castle had been owned by the theater impresario Max Reinhardt before the Nazis expropriated it. The Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization, a transnational collaboration of student organizations and Christian relief agencies, repurposed the castle in 1947 to bring American thought and art to occupied Europe. Scholars, novelists, and poets carried the American word abroad and, in turn, were shaped by their encounters in the ruins. This chapter is the story of that institution’s early years, perched between the imaginary geography of Mitteleuropa and the political geography of the Cold War. The Seminar preceded the Marshall Plan, and its previously unexplored archives yield dramas of denazification, displacement, and the bifurcation of Europe.

F. O. Matthiessen and Alfred Kazin were the advance guard of a generation of American scholars bringing American literature to Europe after the war, but their European encounters shaped “American literature” as a canon. Matthiessen was a gay Christian socialist who taught in Czechoslovakia just before the 1948 communist coup; he committed suicide, in 1950, having come under suspicion for “un-American” activities. Originally a scholar of Elizabethan translation, Matthiessen’s encounters in Europe changed his sense of what does and doesn’t get lost in carrying over a novel, an ideology, or the entire “American renaissance.” Kazin was a Jewish-American writer whose encounters in the wake of the Holocaust yielded opposing conclusions. Their dialogue, alongside European commentaries, illuminates the power of literature in postwar reconstruction. What did it mean for a Czech Americanist to read Keats in Buchenwald? And what did it mean for Europeans to read Moby-Dick in the postwar ruins?

The lesson begins with information on Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber and the background to the Rosary sonatas. The author’s meditational approach is explained: musicians, like actors, must convince the audience by their simulation of faith. The engraving at the head of the sonata is fully discussed and there are thoughts on instrumentation and structure. The full biblical texts for the two Rosary sonatas discussed in the book are reproduced in Appendix IV. In the two lessons on Biber, the biblical and musical texts are constantly interwoven to suggest programmatic content, as if the narrative is recounted by the notes themselves, the rhetoric of the Gospel and Biber’s music fully aligned. Much in this approach is speculation, but the author believes that the clearer the performer’s vision, the more intense and meaningful will be the result. As usual, the “Observations” section is packed with suggestions and information based on many years of performing these unique works.