The Morgan Library & Museum: Exhibit on Mozart’s Life / Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg, 3.23 – 5.31st

Exhibition on Mozart’s Life Features
Significant Items including His Childhood Violin and Clavichord On View for the First Time in the United States

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg

March 13 through May 31, 2026

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New York, NY (January 21, 2026) – In an unprecedented collaboration, the Morgan Library & Museum and the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg have partnered to organize Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg, an exhibition that traces the extraordinary life and enduring legacy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). On view March 13 through May 31, 2026, this two-gallery exhibition combines the Morgan’s significant holdings in Mozart manuscripts and first editions with remarkable objects, on view in the United States for the first time, from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg. These include Mozart’s clavichord on which he composed The Magic Flute and his childhood violin, as well as famous portraits, letters, and personal objects of Mozart and his family.

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Giambettino Cignaroli (1706–1770), Mozart in Verona, 1770. Private Collection. Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images.

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Evoking the cities, homes, and people that influenced the composer, the exhibition highlights Mozart’s many travels, his continual quest for employment and renown, tensions within his family, and his prodigious creative output amid frequent illness and other challenges. It illustrates how Mozart’s career was shaped by aristocratic patronage, a context both foreign and familiar to modern viewers. In addition, it documents how the nineteenth century would recast Mozart as a foundational figure in the emerging idea of “classical music,” partly through Beethoven’s influence. The exhibition explores how Mozart forged deep connections with listeners during his life and examines his enduring influence after his death.

At the heart of the exhibition are the artifacts, musical instruments, and Mozart family memorabilia on loan from the Mozarteum, which offer unique insight into Mozart’s biography and creative process. No less compelling is a rich selection of manuscripts publicly on view together for the first time, primarily from the Morgan’s collection. Featuring Mozart’s most familiar works in his own hand, the selection includes excerpts from operas such as The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and The Magic Flute (1791); his variations on what is now known as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”; and his Symphony no. 25 in G Minor, K. 183, which serves as the opening theme to the 1984 film Amadeus.

“The Morgan is deeply grateful to the Mozarteum Foundation for its generous partnership and for opening its vaults so that we can present this comprehensive exhibition dedicated to one of the most significant figures in Western music,” said Colin B. Bailey, Katharine J. Rayner Director of the Morgan Library & Museum. “Mozart’s influence is still heard everywhere today, from piano lessons and concerts to children’s rhymes. Anchored around Mozart’s compositions, the exhibition will offer visitors an unprecedented opportunity to engage with the life and work of an artist whose music they recognize and hold dear.”

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), Earliest Compositions, K. 1a–1d, 1761. Manuscript in the hand of Leopold Mozart (1719–1787). The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Mary Flagler Cary Music Collection. 

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The exhibition focuses on the two family chapters of Mozart’s life: his youth with his father, Leopold, and sister, Nannerl, in Salzburg; and his adult life with his wife, Constanze, in Vienna. After Mozart’s death in 1791, Nannerl and Constanze returned to Salzburg, where they, with the composer’s two sons, Carl Thomas Mozart and Franz Xaver Mozart, preserved and built his legacy. Their collection became the foundation of the modern-day Mozarteum.

“The exhibition highlights the ways in which Mozart’s life and career were extraordinary even in his own time,” said Robinson McClellan, Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Music Manuscripts and Printed Music. “It gives insight into his environment and humanizes this great composer, illuminating his loves, passions, triumphs, and sorrows.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg delves first into Mozart’s childhood in Salzburg and his relationships with his family members, who were the most important influences on his early musical career. His father, Leopold Mozart, was a well-known violin teacher and the Deputy Kapellmeister at the Salzburg court. He took Wolfgang and his sister, Maria Anna (Nannerl), an exceptional pianist, on tour in Europe, where they performed for nobility and gained exposure to new musical styles across the Continent. In addition to Mozart’s childhood violin, items on view include his earliest compositions, among them four keyboard pieces (K. 1a through K. 1d) composed in 1761, when he was just five years old, as well as a series of portraits of the family.

The exhibition’s “second act” follows Mozart’s Vienna years, during which he wrote many of his best-known and most important works. While in Vienna, Mozart earned income from teaching and public concert performances he called “academies,” which inspired many of his great masterworks, including fourteen piano concertos composed primarily for these concerts.

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The exhibition includes the Morgan’s autograph manuscript of the Piano Concerto in C, K. 467, one of Mozart’s best-loved and most familiar works, among others.

In his final five years in Vienna, Mozart composed five major operas. The first three—Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (premiered in Prague in 1787, in Vienna in 1788), and Così fan tutte (1790), all created in collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte—took opera buffa (Italian comedic opera) to new artistic heights. Mozart completed two more masterpieces in the autumn of 1791: La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). The exhibition includes a first edition of Da Ponte’s libretto for Le nozze di Figaro (1786) and Mozart’s autograph manuscript sketch for “March of the Priests” from The Magic Flute, K. 620, no. 9 (1791), from the Morgan’s collection, among other works related to these operas.

Mozart died in December 1791, leaving behind around 150 unfinished works.

Organization

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg is organized by the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, in collaboration with the Mozart Museums of the International Mozarteum Foundation, Salzburg. It is curated by Robinson McClellan, the Morgan’s Mary Flagler Cary Curator of Music Manuscripts and Printed Music, in collaboration with co-curators Deborah Gatewood, Armin Brinzing, and Linus Klumpner of the Mozarteum, and Christopher J. Salmon.

Sponsorship

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Treasures from the Mozarteum Foundation of Salzburg

The exhibition is made possible by the Packard Humanities Institute; an anonymous donor, in memory of Melvin R. Seiden; and Brook Berlind; with generous support from the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund; Christopher J. and Julie K. Salmon; Anne and Chris Flowers; the Achelis & Bodman Foundation; and Ayesha Bulchandani.

Programs

Programs accompanying the exhibition include a French-language tour on March 20; an online three-part adult workshop in April; a music-themed family story time on April 4; a self-guided listening tour of the exhibition geared toward college students on April 5; a family-friendly performance with Young Concert Artists on April 18; a showing of the film Amadeus (1984) on May 9; and a drawing workshop on May 14.

Morgan Library & Museum

A museum and independent research library located in the heart of New York City, the
Morgan Library & Museum began as the personal library of financier, collector, and cultural benefactor Pierpont Morgan. The Morgan offers visitors close encounters with great works of human accomplishment in a setting treasured for its intimate scale and historic significance. Its collection of manuscripts, rare books, music, drawings, and works of art comprises a unique and dynamic record of civilization, as well as an incomparable repository of ideas and of the creative process from 4000 BC to the present.

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The Morgan Library & Museum | 225 Madison Avenue | 212-685-0008 | themorgan.org

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