‘In Mozart's Words’ <http://letters.mozartways.com/eng/index.php> provides multilingual access to the voluminous correspondence of Mozart and his family – approximately 1, 400 letters – that will progressively be made available online. The project aims to create a uniform database of all references to people, places and musical works contained in the letters, facilitating systematic searches.

This undertaking will be carried out over several years and will be made public on the European Mozart Ways site in the form of thematically or chronologically homogeneous modules. In this initial stage the website hosts the 114 surviving letters sent by Mozart and his father Leopold to his mother Maria Anna and his sister Nannerl – plus a few other correspondents – during their three journeys to Italy (1769–1773).

The site provides a complete, four-language, annotated, searchable edition of the Mozarts' letters. It is based not only on the best modern scholarship but also on new research, and it offers users first-hand insight into the workings of a remarkable eighteenth-century musical career. As a platform for disseminating ‘Mozart’, it is infinitely expandable: aside from the identification of people, places and works, it can or will include links to a source catalogue, recordings of Mozart's works and the works of others and a complete iconographical and documentary record of Mozart's life and times. In short, everything that is relevant to Mozart can find a place here.

For reasons of both time and budget, the site is at present embryonic. It will develop gradually in terms of both content and technological sophistication, but, even in its present form, we hope it is effective for users.

It needs to be stressed, too, that we see ‘In Mozart's Words’ as a publicly shared project. It is open to scholars, librarians, students and music lovers, and we welcome comments and suggestions.

Cliff Eisen (academic director, cliff.eisen@kcl.ac.uk )

Patrizia Rebulla (project manager, patrizia.rebulla@castaliamusic.it )