Playing Mozart on Mozart's Violin

"The violin and viola that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played himself are in the United States for the first time ever. The instruments come out of storage only about once a year at the Salzburg Mozarteum in Austria. The rest of the time, they're kept under serious lockup. I talked to the musicians who got to play them at the Boston Early Music Festival earlier this week before the violin's New York premiere at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York tonight."

"I could feel my heart stop. My fingers were trembling. And I'm pretty sure I had a huge smile on my face as I tucked the violin under my chin. The instrument that Mozart used to perform his own concerts! And professional musicians got the same thrill at the Boston Early Music Festival."

"For safety's sake, the violin and viola were flown here on separate airplanes. But the six-person team from the Salzburg Mozarteum who are safeguarding them don't make for a very flashy entourage. There are no huge, beefy guys in shades with crossed arms. No SUVs with blacked-out windows. Instead, there's just a small huddle of frankly not very intimidating-looking Middle Europeans."