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MAY 16, 2004 - SALZBURG

By Ashley Nunan, senior alto

I woke up in Salzburg to the sound of rain and the clip-clop of a horse-drawn carriage and thought, "This is perfect." With a start like that, a day can't help but be great!

We sang at Mass in Salzburg Cathedral under the balcony where Mozart played the organ every Sunday. The sense of history and memory in the space was incredible. At one point in rehearsal, the reverberation of our sound seemed like a whole other choir singing back at us. The feeling of communion in space and sound was very moving.

Luckily for me, Thomas McCargar and I hung back to take pictures once Mass ended so we didn't get stuck in the hailstorm that struck everyone else. We picked up Andrea after changing clothes and went to search for food. We all wanted to try something new and also to sit down ('cause you can only eat so many vendo sausages!). We wandered the city looking for food, but, because it was Sunday, everything was closed. So we gave up and went back to the place we ate dinner the first night.

I know people are watching their pocketbooks or their waistlines or both, but there is something about eating your way through a city that is just the best. I had goulash and chocolate cake and raspberry torte AND a hot dog all in the span of about five hours. The good thing about this tour is that you work it all off within the day by walking.

After dinner we headed off to Mozart's birth house. The Mozart card is a bit overplayed here in Salzburg. But I played along and had a Mozart Kaffe and some Mozart balls - little chocolates with marzipan filling and a name that makes musicologists everywhere cringe.

Afterward the three of us walked across the river to Mirabell Gardens (the gardens built by Archbishop Wolf Dietrich for his mistress in the seventeenth century), where we posed with the statues and wrote in our journals (except Thomas, who forgot his - a theme we will return to later). We crawled around in the hedges for a while, until it started to rain. We got all bundled up in our raingear and headed back across the river, halfway home, only to realize that Thomas had forgotten his glasses (variation on theme 1). Andrea and I were good sports and walked all the way back to the gardens to get them.

It's a good thing that Thomas did forget his glasses because on our way back, we spotted a staircase leading up to a view of the Neuestadt or New Town. From this vantage point we noticed more steps leading upward. The path it leads to wound around this huge mountain (well, foothill…but foothill to the Alps!). We knew the sun was setting but we were determined to make it up this hill. Toward the top we came upon a clearing with the two most breathtaking view of Hohensalzburg (the fortress above Salzburg) in the setting sunlight. All three of us were just jumping up and down with excitement.

Thinking it couldn't get any better, Andrea and I wanted to head down again, but Thomas kept us on an upward track. And a good thing too. At the very top, we came to a walled-off clearing overlooking the entire countryside. I have never been so high up before, and the setting sun made it all the more impressive. We watched the red sun sink below the horizon and then tromped back down. Needless to say, our feet were killing us, but we agreed that it was one of those days that we will never forget. Well, Thomas might…

By Tim Robinson, senior baritone

Hello! I'm Tim Robinson, a four-year member of the Drake Choir and Chamber Choir. I thought I would share my experiences of our final day in Salzburg. I hope you enjoy my account. I certainly enjoyed the day!

Since we had to sing at Mass later in the morning, I decided to wake up at 8 and go running. I failed, however, to look out the window before leaving the hotel, so I ran outside and got poured on! Did I forget to mention that it was 50 degrees? Yes, not ideal running conditions at all. Ever the optimist, however, I found an underground parking garage and decided to do laps in there. Luckily, since it was so early there weren't any people milling around, except for a parking attendant who looked at me like I was insane. Looking at me running around in a parking garage probably did look pretty ridiculous! Then I headed back to the hotel for a quick shower and change into formalwear, then ate a particularly large breakfast at our fabulous buffet in the lobby. I'm not normally a breakfast eater, but, hey, if there's such an abundance of it, I feel obliged to eat…lots.

Dr. ABC had told us the night before that there would be music at Mass at the Salzburg Cathedral at 10 a.m., so I thought I would go before our concert and check it out. I sat towards the back of the congregation and just took in all of the beauty of the cathedral: soaring, intricate architecture, brilliantly colored paintings, haunting statuery and the echoing of every sound being made in this great space. The music I heard is honestly almost indescribable…but I'll try to anyway. Towards the front of the cathedral, there are four balconies that face each other and in each balcony were three or four musicians: vocalists, organists, trumpets, timpani, oboe, bassoon, and strings. They played and sang throughout the Mass (they performed a Mass setting by Muffat, who was a Kappelmeister at the Cathedral during the Baroque period) and the sound they made was so majestic and resonant, thanks to the musicians' superb ability and the huge ring of the sound reverberating off of the cathedral walls. It was such a neat experience, and it almost made me forget the very uncomfortable pew I was sitting in, which I assume was designed to make the worshipper sit up straight in his/her seat, because there was a large ridge sticking out where your back would rest. Hard to believe that before Mozart's time, they had Mass for four hours, instead of one. Hopefully it's something you got used to.

After the 10:00 Mass, all Drake Choir members gathered outside the cathedral to warm up for our participation in the 11:30 service. See 48 people in tuxes and gowns doing hand-sign solfege might cause you to stare; many Salzburg inhabitants certainly seemed to enjoy our visible and audible preparation for singing, as we drew quite a large crowd. Our participation in the Mass was such a cool experience. We stood on the risers at the front of the cathedral and sang to the congregation during the prelude, offertory, communion, and postlude of the Mass. I was pretty humbled at the thought of our voices being added to all the musicians and worshippers who had ever made music in this amazing space.

After the Mass ended, I walked out the door of the cathedral into pouring rain, again. I felt particularly dumb this time because I neglected to bring an umbrella. I decided to brave it anyway and ran back to the hotel, getting inside just before hail started coming down.

After a quick change of clothes, I met some fellow choir members in the lobby and headed to lunch. We chose an Italian restaurant which ended up having great pasta and a waiter who spoke good English. 0ur lunch group split up afterwards and Christina Marinos, Kristen French, Stephanie L. Johnson and I wandered around for a bit, then decided to stop at an outdoor café for a beer. Chris Skoog and Courtney Huxtable joined us and we were chatting it up when it started to rain. Tired of blending in with the Salzburg crowd (ha ha), we decided to just continue our beer drinking and conversation while holding our umbrellas. Seeing six people huddling under four umbrellas at a table outside drinking beer with no one around is a funny sight--just ask the people inside the bar who were chuckling at the sight of us.

My intent was to go to dinner after I got back from wandering around, but a nap got the better of me. Finally at 10 p.m., I went out with some others and got dinner. I meant to go to sleep when I got back to the hotel, but my roommate, Justin Gill, made me laugh until the wee hours of the morning with his shenanigans, not to mention Steph Johnson and Christina calling me with random voices and speaking "German." (or gibberish to anyone else). A great day overall!

Photos