Come summer all of Austria tends to burst into music and music festivals. Castles, palaces, abbeys town halls, historic mansions, public squares, even lakes are seized as fitting venues for festival productions. Local pride dictates to stage a festival that outdoes the next one.

There is the world-renowned Salzburg Festival, taking place in that baroque city. It was created by Max Reinhard after the First World War (1920) to take the people away from the grey of the everyday and the fast pace of city life.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth town was the obvious place to locate the festival – and over 80 years later it is more sought after than ever.

The program is an exciting one, and this year will offer new productions of Mozart's "Abduction from the Serail" and Richard Strauss' "Rosenkavalier." Symphonic music will not only include Beethoven, conducted by Harnoncourt, but also "music from another age," such as Dowland and Purcel, Duke Ellington and Led Zeppelin .

The Bregenz Festival has become quite well known by now in this country, particularly by Schubert lovers. The Schubertiade Schwarzenberg is presented in three installments, and goes all the way into September. And the marvelous productions on the floating stage in Lake Konstanz draw opera lovers from all over the world.

On the very opposite side of Austria there is also a lake, Neusiedl, where one can find the  Mörbisch Lake Festival. Wonderful Austrian operetta productions take place there, such as "The Gypsy Princess" and "Countess Maritza".

The "Vienna Festival Weeks" (Wiener Festwochen) have the capital of Austria as their backdrop. This year the main musical emphasis will be on contemporary music. An interesting event will be the new work by Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud, "Berenice," based on motifs by Edgar Allen Poe. More than 60 concerts will be held in Vienna's famous concert hall, the Musikverein, featuring the Vienna Philharmonic, with Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti and Sir Simon Rattle conducting.

Of course there are music festivals in the capitals of the other Bundesländer (federated states), such as the "Styriarte" in Graz, the "Early Music Festival" in Innsbruck and the "Haydn Tage" in Eisenstadt.

Then there are the wonderful festivals taking place in abbeys,. such as the Bruckner Festival in the Abbey of St. Florian, playing the Bruckner organ with all its 7,343 pipes.

There are the special Zuckerln (candies), such as the Carmina Burana by Orff at Castle Ebreichsdorf (near Vienna) or the "Opera on the Lake" in Alt Aussee, produced by Austria's famous actor, Klaus Maria Brandtauer.