For the past two hundred years, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death has been
shrouded in mystery. Some say his great rival, Antonio Salieri, or the
Freemasons murdered him. Others say he was simply exhausted. And some believe he
died from sickness. It has been established that Mozart suffered from various
illnesses, which no doubt contributed to his death. But some researchers have
concluded that physical and mental exhaustion greatly affected Mozart, and
contributed to his early death. These researchers claim that by cramming more
work and play into one year than most people did in ten years, Mozart literally
“burned himself out”. The constant strain on his body forced it to succumb
to the plaguing illnesses that continuously nagged at Mozart’s health, and
that he otherwise might have been able to withstand. It has been said that
Mozart had a peculiar mental and physical lifestyle, and that he was a child who
never grew up. Physically, he had childlike energy levels, and worked at an
incredibly exhausting pace. The only way he knew to gain respect was to write
music. An early Mozart biographer, Ignaz Arnold wrote, “No need for poison
here—his powers were worn out, his constitution destroyed.” He also wrote
“what straining of his imagination, what constant wearing-down of his spirit,
what excitement of his brain fibers! What continuous sapping of his vital life
forces!” In a word: his whole life was—the consumption of life. History
shows us a host of great spirits who burned themselves out. In this passage, he
is talking about the destruction of Mozart’s “creative energies”. He also
wrote about Mozart’s physical exhaustion, six piano concertos, one piano
quintet, one string quartet, and two sonatas and two sets of variations for
piano are listed, as well as a few smaller compositions. This enormous output
was not the work of a composer writing in undisturbed peace and seclusion, but
of one whose schedule included teaching obligations, as well as all kinds of
other distractions of which would have been enough to make an ordinary person
nervous. And all of this is more amazing considering that Mozart was sickly and
frail. Despite these setbacks, he almost never slowed his pace. For years, often
during sickness, Mozart continued to compose, give performances, travel, teach,
and maintain a lively social life. It is clear that Mozart was always on the go,
and this could not have been healthy for him, considering his physical state. I
believe that his grueling schedule led to exhaustion, which, along with his
illness, finally led to his death. Some people believe that the Freemasons
murdered Mozart because he revealed secrets about their organization in his
opera, The Magic Flute. After reading a little about this, I found no evidence
that the Freemasons had anything to do with Mozart’s death. In fact, I
discovered that the Masons cared very much for Wolfgang and he for them, as
well. Mozart joined the Freemasons in December 1784. He belonged to the lodge
called Zur Wohltatigkeit, which translates into Beneficence. Freemasonry was
very popular with the intellectually elite during the early 1780’s. When
Mozart joined the lodge, it consisted of 200 members, led by Master Ignaz von
Born. Master von Born was a scientist, mineralogist, and writer, who Mozart
supposedly used as a model for Sarastro, a character in The Magic Flute.
Mozart’s father, Leopold, and his close friend Joseph Haydn also joined the
lodge, no doubt under Mozart’s influence. Mozart was a dedicated member of his
lodge. He wrote music for their ceremonies, including Maurerische Trauermusik
(K.477), which was written for the funeral of two aristocratic members. The
heavy symbolism in this piece reveals Mozart’s total involvement in the
Masonic theories about life and death, and their symbolic relationship to the
Master Masonic Degree. He even used these theories in a letter to his father,
who was then on his deathbed. The Freemasons promoted brotherhood and moral
principles in their organization and in society as a whole. They looked after
their “brethren”, including Mozart. When Mozart was having a financial
crisis, at the end of the 1780’s, and could not pay his bills, Michael
Puchberg, the treasurer of Mozart’s lodge, loaned him a considerable amount of
money to make it through. Puchberg was a close friend of Mozart’s, and after
Mozart died, he waited until Mozart’s wife, Costanze, had regained her
financial stability before asking for repayment. Upon his death, the lodge
published a speech held at the funeral ceremony in Mozart’s honor. They also
printed one of his last pieces, Kleine Freymaurer-Kantate in score for
Costanze’s benefit. Antonio Salieri was the court composer in Austria. Shortly
after Mozart’s death, gossip spread that in great envy, he murdered Mozart. In
his last years, Salieri even confessed to killing Mozart, but he was very ill,
and his ramblings were influenced by his insanity. I do not believe that Salieri
murdered Mozart. In 1823, Salieri, who was then in a mental institution,
admitted to the poisoning of Mozart. Word spread around Europe, and many people
apparently believed the rumors, including Ludwig van Beethoven. In his journal,
he wrote, “Salieri is very ill again. He is quite deranged. In his ravings he
keeps claiming that he is guilty of Mozart’s death and made away with him by
poison. This is the truth, for he wants to make a confession of it, so it is
true again that everything has its reward”. Although there was no real motive
for Antonio Salieri to kill Mozart, people soon invented one. For example, the
famous Russian writer, Aleksandr Pushkin wrote a one-act play entitled Mozart
and Salieri. In this play, Pushkin suggested that Salieri was overwrought with
jealousy because he knew that he could never write as beautiful music as
Mozart’s. He was angry that God would grant such talent to an “idle
hooligan”, and he supposedly poisoned his rival in slow stages. The idea that
Salieri killed Mozart out of professional jealousy was so intriguing that it
became the most popular theory of Mozart’s death. In 1898, another Russian
composer, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov turned Pushkin’s play in to an opera, also
titled Mozart and Salieri. This inspired British playwright Peter Shaffer to
write Amadeus. This led to the 1984 film of the same name that I already
completed a film critique on. All of these productions depicted Salieri as a
weak man with minimal talent, driven by an insane jealousy. The real question
is, did Salieri actually kill Mozart? There is no hard evidence at all and the
only points against Salieri are made up of hearsay. Although it is true that the
court composer did do his best to prevent the emperor from hearing Mozart’s
music, and he criticized his music in private conversations, this is hardly
enough to justify an accusation of murder. Even Mozart’s wife Constanze,
trusted him enough to have him tutor her son in later years at the piano, and
one of Salieri’s pupils, upon visiting him on his deathbed, later said “the
reunion was a sad one; for his appearance shocked me, and he spoke only in
broken sentences of his approaching death; but finally with the words
“although this is my last illness, however I assure you in good faith that
there is no truth in the absurd rumor; you know what I mean—that I poisoned
Mozart. But no… tell the world that it is malice, pure malice; old Salieri,
who will soon be dead, has told you this.” In conclusion, although Antonio
Salieri was jealous of Wolfgang, it is very unlikely, in my opinion, that he
would go as far as to murder him. The people were obviously caught up in a false
accusation that was exciting, interesting, and incredibly romantic, without
taking into consideration reasonable thought. Throughout Mozart’s life, he was
plagued by many illnesses. Modern scholars have tossed aside the popular yet
unconvincing theory that Mozart was poisoned, and are focusing on a more
plausible cause of death, sickness. Before his death, Dr. Closset examined
Mozart. The doctor recorded symptoms such as fever, rash, and swelling of the
hands and feet. These symptoms are indicative of disease, but it is more
difficult to determine which disease actually killed him. Mozart was a frail
man, and continuous bouts with different diseases led him to become increasingly
unhealthy in his old age. The people who are trying to piece together what
disease killed Mozart believe that whichever disease it was, Mozart probably
suffered from it previously. Luckily, Mozart’s father, Leopold, wrote letters
to the rest of their family describing all of the illnesses that Wolfgang
suffered from. According to Leopold, at age six, Mozart suffered from his first
serious illness, an upper respiratory infection. He had two serious relapses of
this infection in 1762. In the same year, he contracted a case of rheumatic
fever, which was most likely a result of his strep infections. Two years later,
Mozart suffered from tonsillitis, and the following year he was struck with
typhoid fever. Leopold recorded the side effects of the typhoid, which included
weight loss, slow pulse, skin rash, high fever, and pneumonia. Mozart also
lapsed into a coma because of the typhoid fever. The sicknesses that Mozart
exhibited in his childhood were only the beginning of a long life filled with
various ailments. The next twenty-three years included such illnesses as a
second bout with rheumatic fever in 1766, smallpox in 1767, severe frostbite in
1770, hepatitis in 1771, a painful dental abscess in 1774, bronchitis in 1780, a
third attack of rheumatic fever in 1784, and another serious streptococcal
infection in 1787. In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, after examining
Mozart’s health record and the symptoms just before death, a few scholars put
together the disease theory and printed it. But it did not get much attention
because of all the excitement about the poisoning theory. Starting in the early
1960’s, another wave of disease theories came into light. Most of these
contained one of two main causes of death. The first suggestion that Mozart’s
death was brought about by another attack of rheumatic fever. The second cited
kidney failure due to repeated streptococcal infections as the cause of death.
Evidence supporting the rheumatic fever theory has been introduced. This
evidence includes Mozart’s symptoms, especially high fever and swollen hands
and feet, which are characteristic of rheumatic fever. Another shred of evidence
supporting this theory is the fact that Mozart suffered from recurring rheumatic
fever. Studies have shown that each successive attack weakens the heart, and a
final serious bout with the disease could have been the final blow for
Wolfgang’s heart. After studying all the evidence supporting the disease
theory, I have concluded that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart probably died from a
serious illness, more specifically rheumatic fever. Although this is the most
convincing theory, there will always be disagreement about the death of the
world’s greatest composer, Mozart.