Along the long side of this square, where a hotel stands today, there was once a hall called the Mehlgrube, named after the flour trade that used to be based there.
It was here, in the winter of 1785, that ran his own concert series the way a businessman might: he rented the hall, set up a subscription, sent sign-up lists round the nobility, and performed the piano concertos he wrote for those very evenings himself.
sat in the audience and, in a letter home, added up what was left after the rent for the hall, in the tone of someone who could hardly believe it.
When the started to drain the nobility's money, the sign-up lists emptied out, and within two years it was all over.
We follow the Kärntner Straße south until the hotel with the red awnings comes into view.
Sources. Story: Wien Geschichte Wiki, Stadt Wien; Mozart correspondence, Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum
