Mozart’s childhood violin heads to China – where it will be played for Xi Jinping by a seven-year-old girl
Anna Caecilia Pfoess, seven, will play Mozart’s violin for Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit by the Austrian government
The violin that Mozart used as a child left Austria on Friday for a state visit to China by Austrian government members. There, a seven-year-old girl will play the storied instrument for Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The girl, Anna Caecilia Pfoess, “will accompany us … as a musical ambassador and represent Austria as a land of culture”, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said.
“She will do it quite brilliantly, I am sure,” Van der Bellen told reporters before the 200-strong delegation of politicians, businesspeople and others departed.
“Music is a common language understood and appreciated the world over”, he added on Twitter alongside a photo of the grinning seven-year-old clutching the instrument and wearing traditional Austrian garb.
The violin is believed to have been made in the 1740s and belonged to Mozart’s sister Maria Anna – nicknamed Nannerl and also a child prodigy – until 1820.