A New Faith in Classical Music

It has been called the city of churches, and bell towers sound frequent reminders. Yet there is little about latter-day Salzburg, which fiercely commercializes its status as Mozart’s birthplace and the setting for “The Sound of Music,” that brings to mind the word “spirituality.” Tacky Mozart mementos and confections vie for tourists’ dollars with magnificent performances of his music.

Nor is spirituality a word you associate nowadays with the Salzburg Festival, a once-modest summer presentation of classical music and theater founded in 1920 by the playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the composer Richard Strauss and others, now grown huge and proud. A product of the economic and cultural despair at the fall of the Hapsburg empire, it is now the summer home of the vaunted Vienna Philharmonic; it’s famous for lavish opera productions and notorious for some of the highest ticket prices anywhere.