A Critical Examination of the Circumstances Surrounding Mozart’s Final Illness and Death

By

John A. Mongiovi

November, 1994

Introduction

The purpose of this research is to describe the circumstances surrounding the last days of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as spent in Vienna, Austria in the year 1791. Various theories which have been put forth in the last two centuries in order to explain his tragic final illness and death have cited Antonio Salieri, the Freemasons, the Viennese nobility, manifold childhood illnesses, and even a jealous husband as being responsible for the composer's demise. These diverse hypotheses will be examined and possibly reconciled with one another and with medical evidence supplied by documentation and correspondences from that time. Such resolution without bias is necessary as existing theories may be slanted as a function of their origin within a certain time period. The derivation of the various theories and their transformations over the course of the past two hundred years will also be explored. In the wake of the bicentennial of Mozart's death there has been much controversy as to the cause of his final illness. Because there are some questions about Mozart's life and reputation and because his death is at the very heart of the mystery, it is more than a matter of mere curiosity that the exact cause of the composer's expiration be known. The life and character of Mozart, probably more so than that of any other composer, have been the subject of a considerable amount of legend and myth. His death fascinated his contemporaries and continues to fascinate scholars of today. Spectacular stories began circulating within weeks of Mozart’s death and have continued to evolve for the past two hundred years, oftentimes distorting the composer's image by reducing him to a fictional character in literature and in popular plays, from Alexander Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri (1826-30) to Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus (1980). Such propaganda has caused a desire among historians to determine whether his fate was the inevitable consequence of his lifestyle or an accidental, senseless death. This need to better understand Mozart's true history may, to a great extent, be fulfilled by understanding his terminal illness, the cause of his death, and his burial.

The Requiem

No investigation of Mozart’s final illness and death of Mozart would be complete without a discussion regarding the genesis of his Requiem Mass (K. 626), the piece which he was composing during his last year and left uncompleted on his deathbed. The purpose of the following discussion will be to describe the commissioning of the Requiem and to determine its effect on Mozart’s declining state of physical and mental health. Countess Anna von Walsegg died at her estate on February 14, 1791, marking the beginning of what is probably the most mysterious chain of events in music history. Her husband, Count Franz von Walsegg, was an Austrian landowner, industrialist, and amateur musician who played the cello and the flute. He wished to memorialize his dead wife with a monument by a leading Viennese sculptor and a Requiem by Wolfgang Mozart which was to be performed annually on the anniversary of her death. Walsegg was in the habit of anonymously commissioning works from famous composers of which he was to retain sole ownership. Upon receipt of a completed work he would copy the score and write out the individual parts in his own hand. The Count made a game of having his players guess the composer of the work and would laugh at their naiveté when they guessed, as usual, that it was himself. Friedrich Rochlitz, editor of the Leipzig journal Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung described the commissioning of the Requiem:

As he sat one day sunk in such melancholy phantasies, a carriage drew up and a stranger was announced. Mozart had him brought in. A somewhat ageing, serious, imposing man, of a very respectable appearance, unknown either to Mozart or his wife, entered. The man began, “I come to you as the messenger of a very distinguished man.” “From whom do you come?” asked Mozart. “The man does not wish to be known.” “Good - what does he demand of me?” “A person has died who is and ever will be very dear to him; he wishes

to celebrate the anniversary of her death in a quiet but worthy manner, and for that purpose asks you to compose a Requiem for him.” Mozart was deeply affected by this speech, by the mystery which

overspread the whole affair, by the solemn tone of the man, and because of his own state of mind, and promised to do as required. The man continued, “Work with all possible diligence: the man is knowledgeable about music.” “All the better!” “You are not held to a deadline.” “Excellent.” “Approximately how much time do you require?” Mozart, who seldom

bothered to calculate time and money, answered, “Approximately four weeks.” “I shall return then for the score. How much do you stipulate as payment?” Mozart casually answered, “A hundred ducats.” “Here they are,” said the man: laid the money on the table and left. Mozart sank again in deepest reflection, heard nothing of what his wife said to him, and finally called for pen, ink and paper. He began at once to work on the commission. His interest in it seemed to grow with every bar: he wrote night and day. His body could not stand the strain: on a few occasions he fell fainting over the work.1

Another story maintains that the unknown messenger delivered to him an unsigned letter, which inquired whether Mozart would be willing to compose a Requiem. It is not known for sure whether it was Walsegg’s agent, Dr. Johann Sortschan, or his estate manager, Ignaz Leutgeb, who was the messenger. It may have been Leutgeb’s job to see to the payment for the Requiem and Sortschan’s duty to see to its completion. In any event, half was to be paid up front and the other half upon the work’s completion (figures have been given ranging from 60 to 400 ducats). The above account proposes that Mozart readily accepted the commission and set to it with great haste, possibly because he was anxious to prove his abilities as a church composer to the new Emperor. A conflicting view is offered by an anecdote in the Salzburger Intelligenzblatt of January 7, 1792 suggests that Mozart was less than enthusiastic about working on a Requiem mass:

Because this work did not appeal to him, he thought, “I will ask for so much that the patron will certainly leave me alone” – Mozart wrote to the unknown patron that he could not write it for less than 60 ducats, and then not before two or three months. The servant returned immediately with 30 ducats and said he would ask again in three months and if the mass were ready he would immediately hand over the other half of the money. So Mozart had to write it, which he did, often with tears in his eyes, constantly saying: “I fear that I am

writing a Requiem for myself.”2 It is not certain when Mozart actually received the commission but it must have been after the death of the countess and before he received the commission to go to Prague and write La Clemenza di Tito, placing it some time in the spring or summer of 1791. Niemetschek, Carl Mozart’s guardian in the 1790’s told this story which was obtained from an interview with Constanze:

Just as Mozart and his wife climbed into the carriage for the journey to [Prague], there stood the messenger like a ghost, pulled at his wife's skirts and asked: “What is the prospect for the Requiem now?” When in Prague Mozart was continuously ill and taking medicine; his color was pale and his expression sad, although his more cheerful mood still frequently broke forth in joyful fun in the company of his friends. Upon his return to Vienna he immediately took his mass for the dead in hand, and worked on it with much effort and a lively interest; but his illness visibly increased and drove him to gloomy melancholy. His wife observed this with sorrow. One day when she went with him to the Prater [on October 20 or 21], in order to provide him with diversion and uplift, and the two of them were sitting there alone, Mozart began to speak of death, and asserted that he was setting the Requiem for himself. Tears stood in the eyes of this sensitive man. “I have a strong sense,” he continued, “that I do not have much longer to live: without a doubt, someone has given me poison! I cannot free myself from this thought.”3

Niemetszchek's story corroborates the previous account from the Salzburger Intelligenzblatt which indicates that the Requiem indeed weighed heavily upon Mozart’s mind. Constanze soon became distressed by her husband's deteriorating health and spirits. She took her husband's score but returned it by mid-November when his spirits improved and he wrote and conducted a masonic cantata (K. 623). Mozart then started to work on the Requiem again, “spasmodically, turning from one movement to another.”4 Author Dyneley Hussey suggests that Constanze did more harm than good and “probably contributed something to Mozart’s exhaustion; for everything points to her being one of those invalids who borrow such health as they have from others, whose vitality is thereby sapped.”5 Despite this interruption, the bulk of the Requiem was written during October and November, before Mozart took to his bed on November 20. The following letter of September, 1791 to Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist, is of unverifiable authenticity, but it offers an additional view of Mozart as a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, oppressed by the urgency and mystery of the commission. In this letter Mozart was to have written:

I cannot get rid of the vision of this unknown man. I see him perpetually; he entreats me, presses me, and impatiently demands the work. I go on writing, because composition tires me less than resting. Otherwise I have nothing more to fear. I know from what I suffer that the hour is come; I am at the point; I have come to an end before having had the enjoyment of my talent. Life was indeed so beautiful, my career began under such fortunate auspices; but one cannot change one's own destiny. No one can measure his own days, one must resign oneself, it will be as providence wills, and so I finish my death-song; I must not leave it

incomplete.6 This letter supports the familiar story that Mozart, in his last weeks, was already mortally ill, was working feverishly on the Requiem, and was convinced that Walsegg’s agent was a messenger from another world. It should be noted here that the above letter stands unsupported by the composer’s own letters of October, 1791 which indicate that he was in good spirits and enjoying the success of Die Zauberflote. On the other hand, Niemetschek states that, “On the day of his death he had the score of the Requiem brought to his bed. ‘Did I not say that I was writing this Requiem for myself?’, he said, and carefully looked through the whole score with moist eyes.”7 An account attributed to Benedikt Schack and published in 1827 states that:

Even on the afternoon before he died he had the score of the Requiem brought to his bed and himself sang the alto part (it was about two o’clock in the afternoon); Schack, the friend of the family, as he had always done before, sang the soprano part, Hofer, Mozart's brother-in-law, the tenor, and Gerle, later of the Mannheim theatre, the bass. When they got to the first bars of the Lacrimosa, Mozart began to weep violently, and laid the score aside. Eleven hours later, at one in the morning, he passed on.8

The account from the Salzburger Intelligenzblatt goes so far as to state that he completed the Requiem a few days before his death.9 Examination of the autograph score, however, reveals that Mozart stopped work early in the Lacrimosa.10 Mozart instructed his pupil Sussmayr on how to complete the Requiem. How much of the additional movements absent from Mozart’s autograph are Sussmayr’s has been the subject of much debate since the work was published in 1800. Immediately after Mozart's death, the messenger revealed himself to be Walsegg’s servant and collected the unfinished work. Though the Requiem was performed as the Count’s own composition he later admitted that it was Mozart's work and offered it to Constanze who then gave it to a publisher. Walsegg protested this action because he felt that the mass belonged to him since he had ordered and paid for it. Constanze was threatened with a lawsuit, but the Count changed his mind and dropped the case. He even granted her the original copy to be used in the publisher’s proofs. Though the letter to Da Ponte and the account attributed to Schack are of unverified authenticity and, perhaps, exaggerate the deterioration of Mozart’s mental health, they paint similar pictures of his condition in his final weeks and must not be completely discounted because of a few inconsistencies. It is fairly evident from the corroborating accounts of Rochlitz and Niemetschek that the mysterious circumstances surrounding the commissioning of the Requiem did have some negative effect on Mozart's physical and mental states.

Mozart's Declining State of Health and Final Illness

Although Mozart was extraordinarily productive during his last year, there is substantial evidence that his health was steadily deteriorating. His work on La Clemenza di Tito and Die

Zauberflote was said to have been interrupted by frequent fainting. During the early months he exhibited a swollen face, plump hands, pallor and weakness and was disposed to paranoid behavior. His state of health then declined more rapidly in the latter half of the year. It is clear from his letters to lodge brother Michael Puchberg that he suffered from depression, musculo-skeletal pain and violent headaches in his final months (excerpts from which will be seen later in the context of the composer's medical history). Neuropsychiatric symptoms were also recognized as early as 1784 by Joseph Barisani, his friend and physician. Mozart’s worsening condition was exacerbated by the fact that he would often sleep as little as four hours a night and is known to have eaten poorly and drank heavily. Michael Kelly’s reminiscences of 1826 stated that “He was remarkably fond of punch, of which beverage I have seen him take copious draughts.”11 The following account taken from Ludwig Tieck’s memoirs of 1855 which describe a conversation between Mozart and innkeeper Joseph Diener is an indication that the symptoms of the composer’s illness were apparent to casual acquaintances:

When Diener caught sight of the composer he stood still and looked at him long and carefully. Mozart looked unusually pale, his powdered fair hair was in disarray and the little pigtail was carelessly tied. Suddenly he looked up and noticed the landlord. “Well, Joseph, how are you?” he asked. “I should be asking you that question,” answered Diener, “for you look quite ill and wretched, Maestro. I heard you were in Prague, and the Bohemian air has not done you any good. So much is quite clear. You are drinking wine now, that’s good; you probably drank a lot of beer in Bohemia and upset your stomach. You’ll be all right, Maestro!”12

The next day, November 20, Mozart was sick in bed.

The Final Illness “There is a small quantity of direct eye-witness testimony concerning Mozart's last illness and death, and a larger quantity of reporting what eye witnesses are alleged to have said. Altogether it would not cover ten pages; some of it vague, and some of it downright unreliable.”13 One of these dubious accounts can be ascribed to Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard who, in 1804, suggested that the composer was debilitated for some months before he died and composed the Requiem with great difficulty. Evidently, Suard made this claim simply to fit the events of Mozart’s last months to his own diagnosis of secondary syphilis.14 In reality, Mozart's final illness lasted only fifteen days and was characterized mainly by a high fever, much sweating, arthralgias and myalgias, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea. His feet and hands were said to be inflamed and greatly swollen, and he complained of pain upon movement. Partial paralysis is thought to have set in because contemporary accounts maintain that he had to be pulled into a sitting position in his bed, and Sophie Haibel (Constanze’s sister) and her mother made him night shirts that could be put on him from the front because he could not turn over. His emotional lability and hypersensitivity to sound was manifested in his intolerance of the singing of his pet canary, which he asked to be removed from his room. Constanze, her mother, Sophie, Benedikt Schack, Franz Hofer and Sussmayr attended the composer in his final illness while many friends and professional acquaintances made frequent calls.

The attending physician, Doctor Nicholas Closset soon became alarmed by the composer’s rapid decline and sought the help of the Chief of Medicine at the General Hospital of Vienna, Dr. Mathias von Sallaba. Both physicians were deeply pessimistic about the prognosis, but it is apparent from their later reports that foul play was not suspected.15 Von Sallaba noted a rash which he recorded as “Hitziges Frieselfieber” (“heated miliary fever”).16 A sedative was given and venesections were performed in order to alleviate the fever. In eighteenth century Vienna, venesection was routine treatment in cases of fever and inflammation. The author will show later that extensive venesections may have contributed directly to Mozart's death. On Saturday, December 3, Mozart commented on the prospect of visiting his mother-in-law on her name day, suggesting that he fully expected to recover. Sophie remembered this as Saturday, December 3, but her mother’s name day was November 22. Bar suggests that it was probably the previous Saturday, November 26. For Mozart to have made this comment before November 22 would place him in bed on November 18, but he did not fall ill until November 20. The Saturday before that would have been November 18. Sophie commented that she and her mother often visited him and that he looked forward to wearing his dressing gown. This suggests that he was ill for quite some time before the sequence of events described above took place. It is more reasonable to assume that her mother's name day was not celebrated until the week after Mozart’s death than to suggest that Sophie mistook a span of two weeks for two days. The end seems, in fact, to have come quickly. On Sunday, December 4, Mozart’s friends gathered at his bedside. According to an account by Benedikt Schack, the composer was alert enough to rehearse the Requiem with Schack, Hofer, and Gerl only eleven hours before his death. He attempted to sing the alto part of the Lacrimosa, puffing out his cheeks in an attempt to imitate the trumpets for dictation by Sussmayr. Cold compresses were ordered by Closset in order to keep the fever down, but shocked the composer into a coma in which he remained until he died, two hours later. Closset was called a few hours before his death and ordered ice compresses. A priest delivered the Last Sacraments, and Mozart fell back dead on attempting to rise to receive the host. On December 5, at fifty-five minutes past midnight, Mozart was dead. According to diaries of Vincent and Mary Novello dated July 14-17, 1829, Constanze:

threw herself on the bed and sought to catch the fever of which he died, but it was not to be. There were moments, she declared, when she not only prayed sincerely to die but that she did not love her children, everything was hateful to her in the world, yet here I am still, and have gone through all this suffering.17

A thorough account of Mozart's last days attributed to Sophie Haibel appears as Appendix I.

The Burial At the time of the composer's death, innkeeper Joseph Diener “performed for Mozart the services which it is usual to pay to the dead. In the morning Mozart was laid out and covered with a black drapery from the burial society, as was then the custom. The corpse was taken into the

study and placed near his pianoforte.”18 The body was removed from Mozart's home to St. Stephen's Cathedral where the consecration of his remains took place at 3:00 p.m. on December 7. He lay in state in the Kreuzkapelle of St. Stephen's Cathedral as mourners passed by, and was then transferred to the Kapistrankapelle (“crucifix chapel of the new vault”), a mortuary chapel outside the cathedral's north side, half in the open air. This is where the brief formal ceremony took place. Reports differ, but those said to be present were Salieri, Baron van Swieten, Sussmayr, Deiner, Roser, Osler, Abrechtsberger and Hofer and Lange (Mozart's brothers-in-law). All reports conclude that Constanze was too grief stricken to attend the funeral. Deiner's memoirs (1856) recall that he “found Mozart's widow dissolved in tears, and so weak that she could not stand upright. These few people [those mourners present] with their umbrellas stood round the bier, which was then taken via the Grosse Schullerstrasse to the St. Marx cemetery.”19 At the time of Mozart's death there were four types of funerals in Vienna: first, second and third class and a pauper's burial. Fifty-one of the seventy-four funerals which took place in Vienna in November and December 1791 were of the third class. Swieten advised the widow Constanze, recommending a third class funeral which cost 8 florins and 36 Kreutzer (the hearse cost an extra 3 florins), and so Mozart received the most ordinary type of funeral at the time. Constanze sat amidst her needy children and in a significant amount of debt. An administrative official gave her ten Gulden against her husband's watch so that he could be buried (fortunately, from benefit performances and the sale of unpublished scores Constanze was able to put herself into comfortable circumstances).20 Swieten arranged for Mozart’s burial to take place at the graveyard of St. Marx Cathedral on the eastern outskirts of Vienna. This was not the main cemetery but a smaller cemetery six kilometers from the cathedral. A law decreed that transportation of the coffin to a cemetery outside the city walls was prohibited until 6:00 p.m. in the winter so that hearses would not be parked outside of taverns in the middle of the day with coffins on board. Therefore, Mozart’s body rested in the Kapistrankapelle for some time and was then transported at nightfall through the Landstrasse suburb to St.Mark's cemetery and consigned to a common grave with about five or six other coffins. Isla Barea, the Viennese social historian stated that Mozart's body:

was taken to St. Marx cemetery in a third class funeral against a blast of wind and sleet that made the few mourners turn back at the city gate and leave the light coffin on the hearse to hired men, to a priest at the graveside, and to a gravedigger who had no duty to mark the spot if no one else did.21

Diener’s memoirs state that:

The night of Mozart’s death was dark and stormy; at the funeral too it began to rage and storm. Rain and snow fell at the same time, as if nature wanted to show her anger with the great composer's contemporaries, who had turned out extremely sparsely for his burial. Only a few friends and three women accompanied the corpse . . .As the storm grew ever more violent, even these few friends determined to turn back at the Stuben Gate.22

Historians have sought to raise controversy by bringing up the fact that the Viennese meteorological records stated that December 6, 1791, the recorded date of Mozart's burial, “was a relatively mild day with a frequent mist,”23 and that a light north wind blew the morning mist away, revealing a clear sky. Such findings have lent support to suspicions that the story of a storm was concocted in order to provide an excuse for those mourners who did not accompany the body to its final resting place. From this theory came the ludicrous notion that the mourners were kept from going to the burial site so that Mozart’s grave would remain inconspicuous and the body would not be exhumed and examined for traces of poison. The fact is that it was not customary in those days to accompany the coffin to a mass grave and that graveside ceremonies were not permitted. What seems a more likely explanation for the finding that December 6 was a clear day is that the registry made a mistake and that Mozart's funeral actually took place on December 7. This is consistent with the fact that regulations required forty-eight hours to elapse between the time of death and the time of burial to ensure that no one was buried alive. Accordingly, it has been found that there was a heavy wind on the evening of December 7 and that dust storms on the roads around Vienna were common. Mozart was buried on the following morning by the gravedigger and his assistant along with those residents from his quarter who had died that same day. He was placed in a grave which was 2.25 meters deep in which bodies were buried in two layers, each covered with lime. Individual graves in Mozart's day were limited to mausoleums and tombs for wealthy and high-ranking individuals. A day or two after Mozart’s death, a friend told Constanze that she ought to leave some kind of marker on her husband’s grave. “Let the church do it!! was her reply.24 Deiner approached Constanze and asked her if she would like a cross erected on her husband's grave. She answered “They will give him one any way.”25 When King Ludwig of Bavaria visited Constanze in 1832 and asked her why there was no marker on Mozart's grave she replied, “I have often visited cemeteries both in the country and also in big towns, and everywhere, especially in Vienna, I have seen very many crosses in the cemeteries. I was accordingly of the opinion that the parish in which the funeral takes place is also responsible for the provision of a cross.”26 Apparently the widow was ignorant that, because of the lack of space and the fact that they were reused every seven to ten years, the setting of crosses on these common graves was forbidden. The following letter written by an Englishman who was residing in Vienna at the time appeared in Wieland's Neuer Teutscher Merkur in September 1799:

Here is the place in the cemetery where Mozart’s mortal fame (extinguished, perhaps, by violence) lies buried, remains unknown. Good Mozart! you erected a gravestone to a favourite bird in a garden which you rented, and you even wrote an epitaph for him. When will that be done for you which you did for your bird?27

A reprint of this letter in Vienna in 1808 caused Constanze to go to the cemetery St. Marx. She failed to find her husband's grave.

Cause of Death

When a person dies in a coma, as did Mozart, five causes of death are considered.28 Four

of these causes are cerebral hemorrhage, epilepsy, injury, and uremia. There is no evidence or mention anywhere that shows that Mozart suffered from epilepsy. The possibility of uremia or cerebral hemorrhage will be discussed at a later point. The fifth cause of death considered when a patient dies in a coma is an overdose of poison. In the eighteenth century, aqua-toffana had quite a reputation of being the favorite device of would-be murderers.29 In 1659, the Roman police investigated the poisonings of various men by their wives and discovered that the poison was aqua-toffana. It was traced back to its inventors, Teofania di Adamo and her daughter, Julia who were from Salermo and Naples, Italy, respectively. The two women were arrested, but not before the poison was passed down in vials.30 Aqua-toffana is a slow-acting poison made up of white arsenic, antimony, and lead oxide.31 Since it is odorless, pale blue in color, and can be easily powdered, it can go easily undetected in a glass of wine. The poison cannot be easily traced and leaves symptoms which can be mistakenly diagnosed as natural ailments. The antimony can sometimes leave an unusual metallic taste in the mouth which some proponents of the poisoning theory have taken to be the subjects of Mozart's comment to Constanze on his death bed, “I have the taste of death on my tongue...”32 Lead oxide, another ingredient of aqua-toffana, can cause headaches, vomiting, and ultimately a fall into a coma, ailments which were present during Mozart's last weeks and final illness. Symptoms of arsenic poisoning are vomiting, loss of sensation in the hands and feet, weakness and a rash on the skin. This type of rash could be incorrectly described as a miliary rash, and might explain the reference to “miliary fever” on Mozart's death certificate. A fever could occur as a terminal complication. The above symptoms support the theory that Mozart was poisoned with aqua-toffana about as much as they support the other theories which have been put forth in an attempt to elucidate the cause of the composer's demise. What the poisoning theorists require and lack most, however, is a motive based on hard, solid facts and not hearsay or falsified documentation. In the following section, the author will discuss several different theories which those who favor the poisoning hypothesis have put forth in an effort to provide a reason for Mozart's death. These theories, for the most part, began circulating right around the time of the composer’s death and have been the subjects of much controversy throughout the last two hundred years. After Mozart’s death German authors endeavored to explain why he died in obscurity and poverty. A footnote to a February, 1799 poem on this subject by Johann Isaak reads, “For the sake of the honour of mankind and of the art of music, it is to be hoped that this Orpheus may after all have died a natural death!” The earliest recorded reference to a possible unnatural cause of death can be traced to the following report of a Prague correspondent which appeared in the Berlin paper Musikaliches Wachenblat on December 31, 1791:

Mozart is - dead . . . Because his body swelled up after death some people believe that he was poisoned . . .Now that he is dead the Viennese will at last realize what they have lost in him. In his life he was constantly the object of cabals, which at times may well have provoked his sans souci manner.33

This report prompted what is undoubtedly one of the most debatable topics in music history. Vienna's Uber das deutsche Singspiel den Apotheker des Hrn. v. Dittersdorf provides

evidence of these “cabals” in a 1786 article which relates how those interested in the German Singspiel were treated poorly because of a “conspiracy by the aristocracy and some influential musical scholars,” and how the “poor German muse” had been “hunted from the stage in order to tyrannize our taste with foreign nations.” It also points out that Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflote had “put to shame the ridiculous pride of this fashionable sect.”34 Upon this account has been based the notion that Mozart fell victim to the Italian composers in Vienna. Credence was given to the poisoning rumor in 1798 with the publication of Franz Xaver Niemetzchek’s biography (for which Constanze was the primary source) which asserted that Mozart himself believed he was being poisoned. Apparently, these rumors were well known and carried a certain weight with some, for when Carl Maria von Weber, a cousin of Constanze, arrived in Vienna late in March, 1813 he “refused to yield to Vogler’s pressure to meet Salieri around whom the rumors of his having poisoned Mozart had been circulating.”35 Evidently, he accepted the rumor that Salieri had a part in Mozart’s death. Further evidence that the poisoning rumors specifically implicated the Italian faction is offered by Georg Ludwig Peter Sievers who reminisced in 1819:

I was having a composition lesson with Schwanenberg, the worthy, late Kapellmeister at Brunswick, just at the moment that he received a letter from Vienna, informing him of Mozart's death. I mentioned in passing the rumor that Mozart had fallen victims to the Italians in Vienna. “Pazzi”, answered Schwanenberg ironically (now and then he very gladly spoke Italian), “that's ridiculous: he did nothing to merit such an honor.”36

In the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of February 24, 1819, Sievers concluded an article which attacked a plan to revive Salieri’s opera Tarare in Paris by repeating the story that Mozart may have been murdered by Italians in Vienna. Although Salieri's name is not mentioned, the implication is clear. Here, for the first time, the rumor implying that Mozart may have been poisoned by Salieri appeared in print.37 The story was apparently not taken seriously by everyone, however, for Giacomo Rossini felt comfortable enough to joke about it when he visited Salieri in 1822. Though it appears that Salieri chose not to publicly acknowledge the poisoning rumors, it seems as though their circulation expedited his declining state of health in 1823. In October of that year he suffered a severe physical and mental collapse which can, perhaps, be partly attributed to a head injury received in a fall earlier that year. Since his daughters could no longer take care of him he was admitted to the general hospital where he spent the last two years of his life confined to a bed, his mental and physical capacities rapidly deteriorating. He soon lost his hearing and began to possess increasingly deranged thoughts. “During sleepless nights and fits of depression he accused himself of terrible crimes and once attempted suicide by cutting his throat. This was interpreted by some as a self-incriminating act and the rumor gained momentum.”38 In November, 1823, Johann Schickh wrote in Beethoven's conversation book, “Salieri has cut his own throat, but is still alive.”39 From this point on rumors began to circulate that he had confessed to murdering Mozart. Karl van Beethoven wrote in his uncle’s conversation book, “Salieri maintains that he has poisoned Mozart.”40 An entry by Anton Schindler reads, “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 confession of it – so it is true once again that everything has its reward.”41 At the end of 1823 Johann Schickh wrote, “The odds are one hundred to one that Salieri's conscience has spoken the truth! The manner of Mozart’s death confirms this statement!”42 As recently as 1953, a Russian Pushkin scholar, Igor

Belza, published a book in which he asserted that there is an existing record of Salieri’s confession, stemming from the attending priest. It has not been proven, however, that such a document exists. Once again the poisoning rumor was further disseminated in publication when Calisto Bassi, on May 23, 1824, distributed printed copies of his poem A Lodovico van Beethoven Ode Alcacia in which 16th, 17th and 18th verses several stanzas insinuate that Salieri poisoned Mozart. The poem was confiscated by the Viennese police who, with the assistance Count Dietrichstein, the ailing composer's friend, interrogated Bassi. In August, 1824, Giuseppi Carpani wrote an article in which he defended Salieri (who was obviously unable to protect himself) and printed a formal statement by the two nurses who attended him continuously from the winter of 1823 and were the only ones permitted to see him other than his doctors. The proclamation claimed that Salieri had never confessed to having murdered Mozart. Carpani's article was published in an Italian monthly journal on June 25, 1824 and reappeared in June 5 1825. On May 25, 1825, the following account appeared in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, a Leipzig paper:

Our worthy Salieri, to use the popular phrase, just can't die. His body suffers all the pains of infirm old age, and his mind has gone. In the frenzy of his imagination he is even said to accuse himself of complicity in Mozart's early death: a rambling of the mind believed in truth by no one other that the poor deluded old man himself. To Mozart's contemporaries it is unfortunately all too well known that only over-exertion at his work, and fast living in ill-chosen company, shortened his precious days!43

The author of this article apparently did not know that Salieri had died at 8:00 in the evening on May 7, 1825. The rumors, however, were still very much alive, for Karl van Beethoven soon thereafter wrote, “Even now people still claim very forcefully that Salieri was Mozart’s murderer.”44 Another defense of Salieri appeared when his former pupil Ignaz Moscheles, who had obtained permission to visit the ailing composer in the fall of 1823, reported the following account in his biography which was printed after his teacher’s death:

The reunion . . . was a sad one; even the sight of him shocked me and he spoke to me in broken sentences of his approaching death; finally he used these words: “Although this is my last illness, I can in all good faith swear that there is no truth in the absurd rumor; you know – I’m supposed to have poisoned Mozart. But no, it’s spite, nothing but spite, tell that to the world, my dear Moscheles; old Salieri, who's going to die soon, told you that.” I was greatly moved, and when the old man cried and thanked me again for my visit, after having overwhelmed me with thanks when I arrived; it was time for me to leave quickly so as not to be overcome. As to the rumor the dying man referred to, it had indeed circulated without ever influencing me. His intrigues certainly harmed [Mozart] morally, and ruined many an hour for him.45

The last sentence of this statement, of course, is a reference to the many times Salieri deliberately attempted to hinder Mozart's career. Marianne Martinez was the pianist to whom Michael Kelly was referring when he commented that “Mozart was an almost constant attendant

at her parties.” Salieri and Mozart were probably in frequent contact at the Martinez home when Mozart settled in Vienna in April 1781.46 Salieri had already resided in Vienna for many years (since his sixteenth year) and had the benefit of many powerful friends, including the Emperor. At age thirty-one he was in charge of the Viennese Italian opera and from 1788 to 1824 controlled the highest musical position in Vienna where his power, influence and pay were superior to those of any other composer of the time. Therefore, it is not surprising that Mozart would have had contempt for Salieri. He surely must have felt it unjust that a composer so clearly of inferior talents to his own could hold such a powerful position. Either recognizing both Mozart’s disdain, the threat of his talent, or both, Salieri naturally did what he could to impede his rival’s success, perhaps with the expectation that Mozart would become disheartened and pursue his career elsewhere.47 There are many instances in the Mozart correspondence which reveal competitiveness between he and Salieri. On December 5, 1781, Mozart wrote to his father of the prospect of having Princess Elizabeth von Wurttemberg as his pupil. Ten days later, however, he reported that “The Emperor has spoilt everything, for he cares for no one but Salieri.”48 This disappointment did not dampen Mozart’s optimism, for in August of 1782 he was cheerful about the prospect for giving the Princess piano lessons. He was to be disappointed again, however, when Georg Summer, a minor court musician, received the appointment. It is almost certain that Salieri may have used his influence to destroy his rival’s chances for this position.49 Salieri apparently used his influence to negatively affect Mozart's prospects more than once. On June 30, 1783, he crushed the performance of Mozart's aria for tenor Per pieta non ricercate which was to be to be inserted in Anfossi’s Il Curiosi Indiscreto performed in Vienna. Their competitiveness reached a high point in February 1786 when both composers were commissioned to provide entertainment for some guests at a royal festival at Schonbrunn palace. Salieri’s operetta, Prima la Musica e poi le Parole was far more favorably received than Mozart’s Singspiel, Der Schauspieldirektor. Another clash came when Count Orsini-Rosenberg attempted to wreck the production of Le Nozze di Figaro and embarrass Mozart's librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, who subsequently wrote a lengthy description of the intrigues of Rosenberg, Salieri, and the other conspirators.50 Later, when Da Ponte promised to write another opera for Mozart, the composer wrote to his father, ‘If he [Da Ponte] is in league with Salieri, I shall never get anything out of him. In other letters he regarded Salieri as an “enemy” and denounced his “tricks.”51 Salieri retired from the position of Kappelmeister in 1790 when Emperor Joseph II died because the new emperor, Leopold II, showed hostility toward him. Mozart, in his petition for Salieri’s post, stressed, more than his experience as a composer of church music, Salieri’s lack of it. Mozart, in those days, was described as being “as touchy as gunpowder” and, when writing an opera at the same time as Salieri and Respigi, he swore he would put the score of his opera into the fire if it was not produced before theirs. This account comes from the memoirs of Michael Kelly who, along with Da Ponte, defended Mozart against the intrigues of his Italian enemies.52 Mozart’s biographer Niemetschek wrote in 1798 that while in the service of Joseph II, Mozart’s enemies, “particularly just before and after his death, became so wicked, and so loud in their slanders, that many an evil story about Mozart arose actually to the ears of the Monarch himself. These rumors and lies were so shameless and so shocking that the Monarch, who never heard the other side of the story, was enraged.”53 Relations between the two composers seem to have been less strained during the last year of Mozart's life. On April 16, 1791 Salieri conducted a special concert for the benefit of the Society of Musicians in which a symphony by Mozart (possibly K. 550) was performed. On October 13, 1791 Mozart invited Salieri and his mistress, Caterina Cavalieri, to his private box to

watch a performance of Die Zauberflote, and it seems that he put much importance on his guests’ opinions, for he wrote to his wife:

You can hardly imagine how charming they were and how much they liked not only the music, but the libretto and everything. They said that it was an operone (a grand opera) worthy to be performed for the greatest festival and before the greatest monarch...54

Salieri is said to have visited Mozart on the day before his death, though this report cannot be confirmed, and was also present at the funeral service. After Mozart's death, Salieri was critical of his rival. According to Jahn, “Salieri, even in his old age, when among confidential friend, expressed, with a passion that was painful to his hearers, the most injust judgments on Mozart's compositions.”i If Constanze suspected that her husband had been poisoned by Salieri her behavior did not provide any indication. In a letter to her youngest son, Franz Xaver, dated January 20, 1807, Constanze praised the Italian composer’s friendliness and the benefit of his training. It is not known how long Mozart's son studied under Salieri who, as was his practice, received no payment for the lessons, but at the conclusion of Franz Xaver’s studies Salieri wrote an overly optimistic recommendation for him in which he predicted a career equal to that of his “celebre padre,” thus securing for him a position in Lemberg.56 Although Constanze’s second husband, Georg Nikolaus Nissen, devoted a large portion of his 1828 biography of Mozart to discrediting the poisoning theory, it seems as though the revival of the poisoning rumors at the time of Salieri's attempted suicide raised her suspicions once again. In 1829 she informed Vincent and Mary Novello:

Some six months before his [Mozart’s] death he was possessed with the idea of his being poisoned – “I know I must die,” he exclaimed, “someone has given me acqua toffana and has calculated the precise time of my death – for which they have ordered a Requiem, it is for myself I am writing this.”57

Constanze specifically implicated Salieri, claiming that his animosity toward her husband arose from Mozart’s setting the Cosi fan tutte which Salieri had previously begun and given up as being unworthy of musical invention. She also raised the question as to whether Mozart’s student, Franz Xaver Sussmayr may have been in league with Salieri in the matter of her husband’s death. Sometime after Mozart's death, probably early in 1792, Sussmayr began to study with Salieri and may have requested Salieri’s help in completing Mozart's unfinished Requiem. Salieri was in attendance at the rehearsals of the piece which was performed on January 2, 1793 for the benefit of Mozart’s widow. The diary of Vincent Novello (July 1829) indicates that he became suspicious when Sussmayr came forward after Mozart’s death and claimed to have written the last part of the Requiem. This caused Novello to ask Constanze “whether he was not possibly some envious and concealed enemy [rather] than a sincere friend and grateful pupil, and when the widow owned that although Sussmayr had a few lessons from Mozart yet he was also a pupil of Salieri’s (Mozart's bitterest foe), my suspicions were at once confirmed of his treachery, easily traced and naturally accounted for.”58 Perhaps Novello believed that Sussamayr administered the poison at the bequest of Salieri. In 1837, Constanze related the belief of her eldest son, Karl Thomas, that “he does not

have, as his father once had, envious people to fear, who strive after his life.”59 Karl Thomas wrote a letter regarding the poisoning story in which he stated that:

Another indicative circumstance is that the body did not become stiff and cold, but remained soft and elastic in all parts, as was the case with Pope Ganganelli and others who died of organic poisons.60

Apparently, some members of the Mozart family still retained their suspicions concerning the poisoning theory. A thorough examination of the relationship between the two composers, however, suggests that Mozart would have had more of a motive for murdering Salieri. Though it appears that Salieri was jealous of Mozart or anti-German, or both, there is simply no verifiable evidence that Salieri actually did poison Mozart. It is, however, quite evident that he contributed to his rival’s death by plotting against him and inhibiting his success, bringing about indebtedness, depression and overwork which led to his final exhaustion. Franz Xaver, Mozart’s youngest son, put it best when he said, “while Salieri had not murdered his father he had truly poisoned his life with his intrigues.”61 The relationship between Mozart and Salieri has been the inspiration for many authors who have taken some the afore mentioned stories, some of questionable authenticity, and established them as fact through their treatment of them in literature. The first attempt, and probably the worst, to make a novel of the legend that Mozart was murdered by Salieri came in 1825, the year of Salieri's death, when Gustav Nicolai published his “historical novel” Der Musikfeind in Arabesken fur Musik freunde in Leipzig. In 1830, Aleksander Pushkin provided envy as the motive for which Salieri Poisoned Mozart in his one act “little tragedy” Mozart and Salieri. In the first scene, Salieri is reminiscing about his early years as a struggling composer and how he has at last won fame but still “deeply in anguish envies.” His jealousy stems from the fact that “the sacred gift” of musical genius has been rewarded to a “lackwit,” a “frivolous idler” such as Mozart rather than to himself who has shown “perfervid love and utter self-denial, and toils and strivings and beseeching prayers.” Mozart appears with a blind old fiddler who plays, for Salieri, an air from Don Giovanni. Salieri spurns the old man while Mozart laughs and proceeds to play two or three melodies at the piano at which point Salieri accuses Mozart of being unworthy of himself – “Mozart, you are a god and know it not! I know it.” As Mozart takes his leave, Salieri plans to bring about his demise, saying “I have chosen to arrest his course. If he lives on, then all of us will perish.” Pushkin must have been referring here to Salieri’s actual comment on Mozart’s death in which he said “It is a pity to lose so great a genius, but his death is just as well for us. If he had lived, not a soul would have given us a crust of bread for our work.”62 Mozart enters in Scene II and tells Salieri of the mysterious stranger who has commissioned a Requiem from him and how he terrifies him. Eventually, Mozart takes a drink from the cup which Salieri has poisoned, and goes to play his Requiem at the piano. Mozart retires to bed complaining that he feels unwell, leaving Salieri to reflect on the “sad and painful duty” which he has performed. In 1897, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) set Pushkin’s little tragedy to music in his one-act opera Mozart and Salieri, Op. 48. In setting Pushkin’s original story, Rimsky left the text completely intact. The score was published in Leipzig in 1898, and received its first performance on December 7 of that year at the Solodovnikov Theatre in Moscow.

The most recent revival of the poisoning legend can be attributed to playwright Peter Shaffer whose Amadeus opened at the National Theatre of Great Britain in November 1979 and was more recently the basis for a 1984 movie of the same name by Milos Forman. In the film, Shaffer and Forman remained true to the themes which were central to the play: Foremost among these themes is the confrontation of mediocrity with genius, another is man’s relation to God, and yet another is that of the towering genius poorly rewarded by society. Shaffer places Salieri at the “wicked center of the action” as a substitute father who establishes close contact with Mozart and induces the trusting composer to reveal the rituals of the Freemasons in Die Zauberflote. Salieri purposefully disguises himself as a dark messenger, taking a toll on Mozart's mental health. Shaffer himself points out that for Salieri to predict that Mozart would react to the appearance of the messenger in such a demented way he would have to read history backwards. Though the film Amadeus has had a magnificent effect on reviving interest in Mozart’s life and music, it has also, to a certain extent, contributed to a great deal of ignorance in the general population of non-historians. One striking example is a letter from Dr. Jackson of the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada who, writing on the death of Mozart in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, pointed out that he had “always understood that Mozart had died at an early age and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave on a grey and rainy day, with not a friendly soul present in attendance.” It is, however, common knowledge to Mozart historians that Mozart was given a third class burial and not a paupers funeral and that the weather was clear on the day of his burial. The source of Jackson's ignorance is clear, however, when he states that “This scene was poignantly recreated in the film Amadeus.” Shaffer himself spoke of his collaboration on the film with Forman:

From the start we agreed upon one thing: we were not making an objective “Life of Wolfgang Mozart.” This cannot be stressed too strongly. Obviously, Amadeus on stage was never intended to be a documentary biography of the composer, and the film is even less of one.63

Such insights would indeed be beneficial to those would-be historians who have a difficult time distinguishing between reality and the movies. Salieri, though the most popular target of the blame, is not the only person at whom the finger has been pointed. G. F. Daumer, editor of Aus der Mansarde (“Out of the Attic”) in 1861 offered the story that the Freemasons, seeking to achieve word domination, are the enemy of Christianity. Daumer offers that this struggle was symbolized in Die Zauberflote, but that Mozart, because of his devout faith in the church, subverted the masonic propaganda of the opera. Evidence that Mozart had come to be at odds with the masons is offered by Daumer in the form of a letter from Constanze to Breitkopf and Hartel in 1799 in which she reveals Mozart’s plan to found Die Grotte, a rival order. Daumer believes that Mozart's estrangement from the brotherhood is further revealed by the fact that they did not help his widow with the funeral expenses but allowed him to be buried like a dog. He therefore concludes that Mozart was poisoned by the masons, who used Stadler, the clarinettist, as their agent to administer the poison. In 1910, Hermann Ahlwardt suggested that the Jews were responsible for Mozart’s untimely death in his book Mehr Licht. In 1953 Igor Boelza, a Soviet, set forth the theory that there was a plot against Mozart which involved Salieri, who did the actual poisoning, and Baron van Swieten who had Mozart buried in an unmarked grave because he feared a revolt of the working class of Vienna against the nobility who had victimized their beloved Mozart. A more elaborate vision of a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy came in 1926 when General Erich Ludendorff, a

German World War I commander and early supporter of Hitler, wrote an article alleging that the Freemasons had poisoned Mozart to punish him for writing the anti-masonic opera in the Magic Flute. His wife Mathilde Ludendorff M.D., an ardent Nazi, cited Daumer's article as evidence for her theory that a Jewish-Roman conspiracy existed against Mozart in her 1936 book Mozart’s Life and Violent Death. She maintains that his desire to be a German musician rather than composing in the popular Italian style threatened the goals of his lodge brothers and that his works, which provided the German people a sense of nationalism, earned him the hatred of those people who wished to force the Germans into a Judeo-Christian world-empire. Ludendorff provides her readers with the notion that the Jews and the Romans used their substantial influence to guarantee that Mozart became neglected and impoverished. She therefore proposes that the Viennese Jews ordered Schikaneder, Giesecke (a lodge brother and actor in Schikaneder’s company) and Mozart to celebrate Freemasonry in an opera but that Mozart inserted his own anti-masonic message. long with Daumer, Ludendorff believes that Mozart sought to protect himself by founding a rival order but that Stadler betrayed him. According to Ludendorff the masons are to have commissioned the Requiem (which they later had performed) and a cantata and to have poisoned Mozart with acqua-toffana. The suspicious circumstances of his death were not investigated because many of the conspirators occupied high-ranking official and judicial places. Baron van Swieten, whom Ludendorff cites as the agent by which the poison was administered, is to have arranged the funeral according to the Jewish ritual for criminals and prevented Constanze from erecting a marker. The Freemasons did away with the grave diggers and the records of the burial, mutilated a monument which was later erected on the presumed site of burial, and tore down the home in Vienna in which he died. Rumors were purposely spread which placed the blame for a poor funeral on Constanze. Later, Ludendorff maintains, Nissen was persuaded to discredit the poisoning theory in his biography of Mozart. The freemasons were once again the target of suspicion in 1966 and 1971 when the German doctors Dalchow, Duda and Kerner had three books published (not surprisingly by the Ludendorff press). They assert that Mozart did not die of natural causes as evidenced by his good health, revealed in his enormous capacity for work, right up to the end. This time the masons and the Viennese nobility, rather than the Jews, are the subject of accusation. In 1786, Le Nozze di Figaro offended Mozart’s patrons with its social radicalism. The masons were angry with him for revealing the secrets of their order in Die Zauberflote. The German doctors propose that it was the practice of the masons to perform a human sacrifice upon completion of an important building and to incorporate the body into the foundations and so Mozart was sacrificed as part of an elaborate ceremony surrounding the dedication of a new masonic temple. Much of Dalchow, Duda, and Kerner’s argument rests on the supposition that mercury was chosen as the poison because of its symbolic significance in the masonic ideology and that the symbolism in Die Zauberflote is about the eighteenth, Rosicrucian grade of the masons. These doctors cite confidential Viennese masonic files which reveal that Mozart had attained the nineteenth grade and thus new the secrets of the Rosicrucianis which he revealed in his opera. For example, Sarastro is accompanied by 18 priests, his name is spoken 18 times and sung 18 times and he has 18 spoken sentences and sings 180 bars. The chorus which accompanies him when he first appears is 18 bars long and his aria ‘O Isis und Osiris’ is number 18 in Mozart's piano reduction. Papagena is 18 years old and the opera lasts 180 minutes. Moreover, the cantata written just before Mozart’s death was written for the dedication of the new temple and was first performed on November 18. Mozart was dead 18 days later, at the end of 1791, whose digits add up to 18, in his 36th year (which divided by two is 18). Furthermore, they propose that the story of the commissioning of the Requiem by Walsegg is fabricated and that it was actually commissioned by the masons.

Dalchow, Duda and Kerner submit the characteristic mercury finger tremor evident in the last three bars of the Requiem and the swelling of his body as evidence that Mozart was poisoned. Van Swieten is to have arranged for Constanze to be out of the way and to have ensured that no one accompanied the body to its resting place in the foundation of the temple. Otto E. Deutsch, biographer of Mozart, was accused by these doctors of being a mason who was persuaded by his lodge brothers to prove that Mozart died of rheumatic fever in order to remove suspicion from his order. Deutsch, who maintains that he has never belonged to any lodge, has retained a sense of humor regarding the frivolous accusations which have singled him out as a co-conspirator. He remarked in 1964, “The fact that Dr. Ludendorff still lives at a great age allows us to conclude that Lodge murder has become less common.” William Stafford, in his book The Mozart Myths succeeds in debunking these theories which place the masons at the head of a conspiracy against Mozart. The ludicrous notion of Daumer and the Ludendorffs that Freemasonry was part of a Jewish conspiracy falls flat on its face with Stafford's revelation that masonic membership lists prove that very few Jews gained entry and that Viennese Jews were powerless anyway because of discrimination. He points out that Daumer's whole case rests upon a strained interpretation of Die Zauberflote and the reference in Constanze’s correspondence to form Die Grotte. Stafford points out that Mozart was a loyal mason even when the Freemasons fell from favor. Mozart also had more contact with Jews than was usual. His former landlord, who was Jewish, was godfather to Mozart's first child. Dalchow, Duda, and Kerner’s story is shabbily supported by the highly dubious documents which they have interpreted to fit their theory while they reject reliable evidence which contradicts their theory (such as the evidence that the Requiem was actually commissioned by Walsegg). They also present no evidence that those who they accuse of being conspirators, such as van Swieten, were Freemasons. Regarding their theory concerning the eighteenth grade, there is no evidence that the lodge to which Mozart belonged had higher grades. In fact, existing documents revel that Viennese lodges had only three grades. These German doctors claim to have crucial documentation supporting this theory but have failed to produce it. Stafford points out that, given enough things to be counted, coincidence will produce a great many recurrences. By their cautious selection of what to include and exclude, the frequency of the number 18 was easily increased. In other words, they simply revealed what they themselves imposed. In contrast to these theories which place Mozart’s death in a grand scheme designed to protect a special interest group, be it the Italian musicians, the Freemasons, the Jews, or the Christians, a more intriguing theory has been proposed which places Mozart in a web of jealousy and is supported by some very curious circumstances which occurred on the day of Mozart’s funeral. Mozart was known as a lady’s man and is said to have had many affairs with pretty actresses and such smart married and unmarried women, a fact which Constanze began to accept after her husband's death. The relationship between Mozart and Magdalena Hofdemel has been said to be the most exceptional of Mozart's supposed love affairs. Magdalena was one of Mozart’s last keyboard pupils and was the attractive young wife of Mozart’s Masonic lodge brother Franz Hofdemel, a clerk at the court in Vienna from whom he borrowed 100 gulden in 1789. On August 19, 1827, Karl Zelter wrote in a letter to Goethe:

We must remember the circumstances of Mozart’s death only too well.

As a result of such good training, production went so smoothly that he had time for a hundred things. Time which he spent with women; in consequence, it did not do him any good.64

Perhaps Zelter was referring here to the supposed affair between Mozart and Magdalena Hofdemel which has been proposed to have been linked to the composer's death. This theory was the subject of a short story in 1841 called “Mozart and his Lady Friend” in which Franz Hofdemel, a miser, is jealous of his wife's adoration for the dying composer. When he asks her to lend him three thousand florins she cannot oblige him as she has used the money to pay Mozart for the Requiem which she commissioned in order to help his financial situation. When Franz Hofdemel finds out that Mozart is dying and that the money is now forever lost he quarrels with Magdalena and the fight ensues. This story was made the subject of Wolfgang Goetz’s Franz Hofdemel, published in Vienna in 1932, but most recently has been the subject of a novel by English author Francis Carr called Mozart and Constanze, published in 1983. Carr sets the following scenario: Magdalena was a very attractive woman of twenty-three years, and she was a gifted pianist when she became one of Mozart's pupils. During the last years of the composer's life, the number of his piano students began to decrease, and Magdalena was one of his last two students. It was unusual for Mozart to visit his pupils at their homes. Constanze even once told a friend that Mozart would not take the trouble to give piano lessons to any ladies but those he was in love with. Mozart gave her lessons in her private residence which was only a five minute walk away from his own apartment. Carr provides some convincing evidence, though highly circumstantial. He points out that Ludwig Van Beethoven gave credence to the love affair between Mozart and Magdalena by refusing to perform in Magdalena’s presence. When she stayed at one of his pupil’s homes and the pupil requested that he play for her, Beethoven resisted saying that “too great an intimacy had existed between her and Mozart.”65 This statement has been interpreted as evidence that Beethoven may have considered their affair an indirect cause of Mozart's death. On the day of December 6, 1791, following Mozart’s funeral, a worker went to the ground floor of the Hofdemels’ home to do some work and heard an argument upstairs followed by loud screams and a shriek. The worker did nothing because such scenes in the Hofdemels’ home were frequent. Later, a visitor who was aware of the screams arrived and, unable to gain access, decided to call a locksmith. Fearing that some criminal act had taken place, the visitor decided to enter the apartment with two witnesses. When they entered the apartment, their worse fears were confirmed. Magdalena was found lying in a pool of blood. Her face, neck, and arms had been sliced. The next room, also locked, had to be broken into. Franz Hofdemel lay inside. His throat was cut, and the razor was still in his clutched hand. Magdalena was in her fifth month of pregnancy. Dr. Gunther, a local physician, was quickly summoned and pumped air into Magdalena's lungs with a pair of bellows. She was revived, but her husband died and was buried in an unmarked grave. The German paper, Wiener Zeitung, stated that his funeral took place on December 10, 1791, which was, in fact, the day of his burial. However, when the official records were checked they revealed that his funeral date was actually December 7, 1791. Carr proposes that this error was made intentionally in order to keep Hofdemel’s death from being connected to that of Mozart. Reports of the tragedy quickly began to circulate. On December 7, the Pressburger

Zeitung merely stated that “a man had committed suicide after trying to commit murder.”66 The date of this report supports the finding that Hofdemel’s death occurred on December 6 instead of December 10. One week later, the Guitzer Zeitung stated that “jealousy and other domestic circumstances caused rows and anger between Frau and Herr Hofdemel, who has committed suicide.”67 This was the first time names were revealed. Two days later, the same report was published, but this time it added that, “it is known that faint heartedness was the reason for the attempted murder of Frau Hofdemel, and the suicide of Hofdemel himself.”68 Peter J. Davies has speculated that it was perhaps Franz Hofdemel's catastrophic gambling losses which drove him to the attempted murder and his own suicide. A third report appeared on the December 20, stating that “Hofdemel explained to his wife that he wanted to die and asked whether she wanted to go with him. The suicide was an act of jealousy of the most wretched passion.”69 On December 21 the same paper stated that:

The widow of the suicide, who, as is now known. took his life from dejection rather than jealousy, is still alive, and not only several ladies, but also her majesty the Empress, herself, have promised assistance to this woman... Provision has also been made for the widow of the late Kappelmeister Mozart. His Majesty the Emperor has granted her husband’s full salary, and Baron Van Swieten has provided for her son.70

Discussion of Frau Hofdemel and Constanze in the same article has been seen as an indication that there existed some association between the deaths of their husbands. Curiously, these reports never appeared in a Viennese paper, perhaps to avoid arousing suspicions of a possible connection to the death of the cherished composer. Early in 1792, the Vienna Journal for Ladies reported that a resident of the same house heard, “It's the end for me! There’s no help anymore. I must die! Woman, no one else will have you! You must die with me!”71 If Hofdemel did indeed poison Mozart, as Carr explains, he would have been overcome with remorse and guilt and perhaps committed suicide because of fear that someone would discover that he did indeed poison Mozart. Carr, however, fails to provide any convincing evidence that Hofdemel knew of the affair in advance of his own death and that he poisoned Mozart in order to protect his marriage. Moreover, Hofdemel’s actions of December 6 are not those of a controlled individual who, knowing of his affair with his wife, could calmly place poison in Mozart’s glass without becoming violent with him. Incidentally, public scandal impelled Magdalena to leave Vienna. Gossip spread that she had been Mozart’s mistress, that her child was actually his, and that her husband attacked her in a fit of jealousy during a quarrel which followed Mozart’s funeral. She went to live at her father’s house in Brunn where she gave birth to a son on May 10, 1792. She named her son Johann von Nepomuk Alexander Franz, using both Mozart’s and her husband’s full names.72 Both Magdalena and Constanze refused to speak about what happened on the day after Mozart’s death. The previously discussed theories, ranging from the mildly intriguing to the downright ludicrous, have all, for the most part, been disregarded by those Mozart scholars intent on revealing the truth rather than perpetuating rumors. This, however, has led to some difficulty for those who, while unable to give credence to the outlandish theories of jealousy and intrigue, still believe that Mozart’s symptoms closely resembled those which would have been the result of poisoning. Most often, these authors attribute the supposed poisoning of the composer to accident.

It has been proposed that the numerous medicines administered to Mozart over his lifetime and during his final illness could have poisoned his system. 1969 Katner and Kerner (the same Kerner who, in 1966, put forth the theory that Mozart was poisoned as part of a plot by the Viennese nobility) surmised that Mozart may have treated himself for syphilis with mercury and miscalculated the dose. Mozart was rumored to have contracted syphilis from Barbara Gerl, raising the possibility of secondary syphilis, but Davies provides convincing evidence that Mozart could not have been suffering from this venereal disease.73 There is also no evidence that the composer was ever treating himself. Furthermore, Mozart had a lasting impression and dread of venereal disease after seeing the syphilitic ulceration that had eroded away at the nose of Joseph Myslivechek in Munich in October 1777. The principal vector of the disease, which was endemic in eighteenth century Europe, was prostitution, and it is clear that Mozart avoided this situation. In a letter to his father dated December 15, 1781, he stated, I have too much horror and disgust, too much dread and fear of diseases and too much care for my health to fool about with whores.”74 In light of these findings it seems rather unlikely that Mozart was poisoning himself with mercury in an attempt to cure himself of a syphilis infection. Thus, it appears that he was not poisoned deliberately, nor did he poison himself accidentally. It has been proposed, however, that Mozart was poisoned inadvertently by his attending physicians during his final illness. The feeling that Mozart's illness was perhaps exacerbated by his physicians’ ignorance has persisted in the medical literature. Ian James, physician and pharmacologist at London's Royal Free Hospital argued that Mozart was poisoned inadvertently by his own doctors with antimony and possibly mercury, which were used as medicines in 18th century Vienna. Using an 18th century book of symptoms and treatments, James discovered the standard treatment for Mozart’s vague symptoms of fever, fatigue and depression was antimony and perhaps mercury. He maintains that the side effects of antimony poisoning match the symptoms of Mozart’s final illness: fainting, swollen hands and feet, depression, weakness, blanched skin, pustular eruptions, and kidney damage. There is no existing documentation, however, indicating that such toxic medications such as mercury purgatives or antimony ‘diaphoretics’ were given to Mozart by his physicians. Though it seems probable that these metals were administered to treat him in accordance with prevailing eighteenth century medical standards and that such treatment was simply never documented, it is more likely that he fell victim to some other malady since the tremor, dementia, or salivation which accompany heavy metal poisoning were absent from his final illness. A letter from Counsellor Guldener, Austrian first physician, to Giuseppi Carpini (June 10, 1824) stated that “The statutory examination of the corpse did not reveal anything at all unusual.” A full autopsy, however, was never performed, although that was the convention because of a decree passed by Maria Theresa which prescribed that an autopsy must be performed on a corpse by an independent doctor within twenty-four hours of death in order to determine if there was any foul play. Karl Mozart stated that:

A couple of days before death a general swelling set in, to such an extent as to make the smallest movement impossible for the patient, moreover there was a stench, indicating an inner dissolution, which grew stronger after death making an autopsy impossible.75

In any case, Viennese doctors at the time were very familiar with the signs of mercury poisoning because mercury chloride was often taken internally for syphilis and overdosing occurred frequently. It has been inferred that indecisiveness among Mozart’s doctors regarding the diagnosis of his final illness is an indication that poison was suspected. This could not have

been the case, however, as Sallaba, one of the attending physicians, is known to have had a special interest in poisons and would surely have been able to detect its presence. Thus, even though some of Mozart’s symptoms have been interpreted to have been due to poison, disease or injury seem more likely causes of death when existing reports of his symptoms are taken into consideration. A thorough discussion of the possible natural causes of Mozart’s final illness would not be complete without an in-depth investigation of his prior medical history. Nearly everyone who is familiar with the music of W. A. Mozart has also heard how his father, Leopold, gave up his own successful career as a court musician in order to take Wolfgang and his sister, Marianne (or “Nannerl”) on tour throughout Europe and show off his prodigious talent. It is evident from correspondences from that time that Leopold gave priority to avoiding fatigue and always planned a few days rest between engagements in order to keep the children well. However, in hindsight, it is apparent that he may have underestimated the potential hazards of such journeys. Going to one country after another, the children were exposed to numerous endemic (continuously present in a particular region) and epidemic (rapidly affecting many people in a circumscribed period of time) diseases of the times. s travelers, they were at particular risk of contracting an endemic disease, since they often lacked the immunity of the local population. In addition to this, their journeys were often taken in extremes of weather, and they frequently played in concert halls which were deficient in facilities, ventilation, and hygiene. Wolfgang Mozart’s medical history can be described as a large body of secondary literature which is supported by a small body of primary documentation (i.e. family correspondences). Fortunately for historians, Leopold Mozart's excellent observations and reports dealing with his son's health allow present day doctors to make confident diagnoses, although many of these diagnoses differ. Such an investigation into the nature of Wolfgang’s early ailments is warranted as they may have caused permanent damage to his health, contributing to his eventual demise. Seven years of Wolfgang’s early life (1762-1771) were spent exhibiting his prodigious talents in the courts of Europe, exposing him to the numerous endemic and epidemic diseases. He had four illnesses during the autumn and winter of 1762 which all seem to have been related. The first of the frequent infections he would suffer from throughout his life occurred at age six in 1762 while in Linz, Austria where the Mozart family stopped several times, on their way to or from Vienna, Austria. Here he acquired a severe throat infection presumed to be a streptococcal (bacterial) upper respiratory tract infection. On October 4, 1762, Leopold wrote that Wolfgang suffered catarrh (inflammation of the upper respiratory passages) during his journey on the Danube from Linz to Mauthausen. Seventeen days later he became ill with fever and a few painful, tender, very red and slightly raised spots which were described by Leopold as being “the size of Kreutzer” (2 to 3 centimeters in diameter). These lesions were distributed around his shins, elbows and buttocks and increased in size but not in number over a period of a week. Wolfgang was ill for eleven days and treated with Pulvis Epilepticus Niger (Black Powder, an antiperspirant), and Margrave Powders. Though Dr. Bernhard, Professor of Medicine at Vienna attended and diagnosed “a kind of scarlet fever,” Leopold Mozart’s letters clearly describe typical erythema nodosum (as first diagnosed by Dr. Hans Holz) caused by the first of a number of severe streptococcal infections that were to plague his health. This mistaken diagnosis is understandable as it was not until 1808 that erythema nodosum was first described. Erythema nodosum is a vascular syndrome characterized by recurrent groups of painful, red lumps in the region of the skin of the legs, or occasionally the arms which vary from 0.5 to 2 centimeters in diameter and usually resolve within three weeks without scarring. Scarlet fever rash consists of raised flecks, superimposed on a fine flush and begins on the face and spreads to the neck and

upper chest, and then over the trunk and onto the limbs. The rash usually disappears within a week and peeling of the reddened skin often appears after the fever subsides. On October 21, 1762 Wolfgang complained of pain in the region of his backside and hips but was well enough to be taken for a drive to Karlskirsche on November 4. On November 19, 1762 in Vienna Wolfgang again suffered one of the recurrent serious throat infections which were most likely due to tonsillitis. In December, at Salzburg, Austria, he was put to bed with fever and rheumatism in his feet. His knees were affected so that he could barely stand. Diagnoses of rheumatic fever and primary tuberculosis have been put forth. Rheumatic fever was probably first proposed because it is a complication of scarlet fever during the second or third week of illness, but, even if the first illness was not scarlet fever, rheumatic fever could still have resulted from the streptococcal infections supposedly suffered in October and November 1762. A tuberculosis infection cannot be discounted and could have given rise to later complications, according to Rothman's report of 1945. Dr. Peter J. Davies, who has written in great length on Mozart’s illnesses and death, supports the rheumatic fever diagnosis but also proposes that this may have been a manifestation of Schonlein-Henoch syndrome which, like rheumatic fever, is an auto-immune reaction. We will see later that Davies supports Schonlein-Henoch syndrome as the cause of the fatal illness. Once again, in Salzburg on January 5, 1763 Wolfgang was unable to stand. Leopold later wrote that it was similar to the illness in Munich of November 1762. Wolfgang appears to have recovered after a week or so in bed. This illness was in all likelihood transient in nature as Leopold mentioned it only when reminded of it by a similar illness in November, 1766. Once again, Davies proposes rheumatic fever as a diagnosis since it has a tendency to recur. One cannot be too sure of this diagnosis, however, as these two illnesses proposed to be rheumatic fever only fulfill one of the five accepted criteria for diagnosis (transient rash, subcutaneous nodules in the joints, brain inflammation, arthritis, and cardiac damage). Later, on September 22, 1762, Wolfgang suffered from a head cold. On June 9, 1763, the Mozart family set out on their Grand Tour of Europe. On February 16, 1764, in Paris Leopold wrote that Wolfgang “was ill in bed for four days with sore throat, cold, very high fever, and in danger of choking.” He spent four days in bed and was well again by February 22. Nannerl was also afflicted but less severely, and she did not have a fever. To account for the above mentioned symptoms, Davies suggests a severe attack of follicular tonsillitis. J. S. Jenkins suggests the same, accompanied by a possible peritonsillar abscess. Peritonsillar abscesses, however, tend to recur and usually require tonsillectomy. Also, they are rare in young children (Wolfgang was 8 years old at the time of this illness).76 On May 20, 1764 in London, he was ill again for ten days with what may have been a recurrence of tonsillitis. Leopold became sick after him. In 1765 Mozart acquired otitis (ear infection) in Lille, France, typhoid in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and another throat infection. On September 12 Nannerl caught a cold and then improved after a few days but developed chills on the 25th went to bed. Her throat was so swollen that Leopold sent for Dr. Hayman, who bled her on the 28th. A second doctor was summoned who described “boils” and “pocks on the lungs” (pneumonia). Her pulse improved, but the fever persisted and she became delirious. She received the Last Sacraments on October 21 but was recovering by mid-November. She improved and was on the way to recovery by mid-November. Wolfgang was also afflicted on November 15. Leopold wrote:

Over the next month it made him so wretched that he was not only unrecognizable, but had nothing left to save his tender skin and his little bones. I

had to take much care of his mouth. Most of the time his tongue was like dry wood, and dirty, so that it had constantly to be moistened. Three times his lips lost their skin, and became hard and black. By the middle of January, he was recovering and able to walk unaided.77

Throughout the illness, Wolfgang’s parents sat in six hour shifts by his bedside. Streptococcal infection was proposed as the cause of this ilness by Scarlett in 1964, and typhus was proposed by Katner, Fluker and Jenkins in 1969, 1972 and 1991, respectively. However, typhoid fever, endemic in eighteenth century Europe, has been favored by most as the perpetrator. Davies states that “the prolonged fever, severe toxemia, slow pulse, delirium, skin rash, pneumonitis, hemorrhagic exfoliation of the oral mucous membrane and the prolonged convalescence make endemic typhoid fever the likely diagnosis, as supported by Clein (1959) and Shapiro (1968).”78 Deutsch states that Wolfgang “was taken ill with intestinal typhoid; he remained in danger for nearly two months.”79 In 1990, Wheater suggested that this illness could have been typhoid fever complicated by Stevens-Johnson syndrome. This, however, is characterized by pain, swelling, and pus in the eyes and is usually fatal, making Wheater’s diagnosis rather unlikely. Typhoid, therefore, seems a sufficient diagnosis. During the following year Mozart again had a fever and articular pain. In Lille, Wolfgang and then Leopold acquired a very bad cold in August which persisted for a few weeks. This may have been a further bout of tonsillitis. In Munich, on November 9, 1766, Wolfgang was restless in bed and awakened ill with fever and rheumatism. He had polyarthritis with which his knees were affected so he could not stand or move his knees or toes. He was very hot and feverish and could not sleep for four nights. He remained ill and indoors until November 21. Leopold wrote that this illness was similar to the one in Salzburg in January 1763 which was proposed to be rheumatic fever. Wheater proposes that a confident diagnosis of rheumatic fever cannot be sustained, as fever and articular pain are only minor symptoms of this illness and these illnesses lasted only about ten days, whereas untreated rheumatic fever typically lasts six weeks to six months. However, these symptoms seem “minor” only by Wheater’s standards, and “Joint pain and fever usually subside within two weeks, often more rapidly, and seldom last longer than a month.”80 He proposes viral illnesses such as rubella or adenovirus as more likely causes, but the rash which characterizes rubella (German Measles) does not seem to have been present. If this illness was a recurrence of the illnesses of December 1762, January, 1763 (which seems to be the case), rubella can be ruled out as it confers lifelong immunity to the patient after the first illness. Also, joint pain, an obviously significant symptom, is not mentioned in the medical literature as a symptom of adenovirus infection. Thus, it seems that rheumatic fever is the most reliable diagnosis. The Mozart family returned from their Grand Tour on November 29, 1766. In September 1767, Wolfgang was to take part in the celebration for the marriage of archduchess Maria Josepha, Empress Maria Theresa’s daughter. Leopold Mozart was horrified to learn that a serious epidemic of smallpox was raging in Vienna at the time. Afraid for the lives of his children and strongly advised by a friend to flee from Vienna, the family fled to Olmutz, Czechoslovakia, but not before Wolfgang had acquired the dreaded disease. He was critically ill from October 26 to November 10, suffering from a high fever, sore eyes, an irregular pulse, and the typical skin eruptions. Black and Margrave powders were administered. He was delirious by October 28, and his eyesight was impaired for nine days. He was forbidden to read or write for several weeks in order to protect his eyes. Indeed, he was lucky not to have suffered permanent blindness which was a common complication of smallpox due to corneal ulceration or secondary bacterial infection. Though Jenkins states that Wolfgang's face was left only “slightly pockmarked,” Nannerl wrote “It was only after the small-pox that he became so disfigured.”81

Between December 1769 and March 1773, Leopold and Wolfgang traveled three times to Italy. On March 30, 1770 Wolfgang complained that he was too ill to perform while in Florence, Italy. He traveled from Verona to Mantua on January 10, 1770 with a cold and frost-bite, but he took tea and violet juice and was well within a few days. In April in Rome he was troubled with toothache, and in mid-November he suffered a few days with a dental abscess which caused swelling on one side of his face. On September 13, 1771 Wolfgang wrote “I have a very heavy cold and a bad cough.” In the same year he had bronchitis and, maybe, jaundice. During the following year his sister tells us that he had been “seriously ill” but gives no further details. He arrived in Salzburg with Leopold on December 15, 1771. Soon after December 30 he suffered a serious illness. Nannerl described his state in reference to a three-quarter-length oil painting: “He was then just 16 years old, but as he had just got up from a serious illness, the picture looks sickly and very yellow.”82 This illness was apparently associated with jaundice and could have been viral hepatitis or yellow fever. Possible diagnoses include yellow fever and hepatitis. Although yellow fever was endemic to Italy at the time and Mozart had just returned from this country, yellow fever has an incubation period of three to six days. If contracted in Italy in the autumn, the more likely diagnosis is type A viral hepatitis which has an incubation of fifteen to fifty days. This raises the possibility that liver disease may have contributed to his final illness. While in Salzburg in January, 1772, Wolfgang suffered successively from a dental infection, pneumonia, and respiratory infections. In December, 1774, Wolfgang and his father traveled to Munich. On December 16, Wolfgang developed a toothache which caused swelling of the inside and outside of his right cheek and eye. He remained indoors for six days and recovered without serious damage. Both dental abscess and acute maxillary sinusitis, which can produce similar symptoms but is more severe, have been put forth as diagnoses. In September, 1777, Wolfgang and his mother left for Paris from Salzburg. While traveling through Mannheim on February 20, 1778, Wolfgang was ill with what he described as “catarrh, a cold in the head, headache, sore throat, pain in my eyes, and earache.” He remained indoors for three days and took antispasmodics, black powders, and elderberry tea to make him sweat. Davies proposes that this illness suggests an upper respiratory tract infection complicated by sinusitis and otitis media (middle ear infection). Otitis media is a more likely diagnosis as earache is not a symptom of sinusitis and he was said to have suffered from otitis in 1765. Mozart returned home to Salzburg at his father’s request in January, 1779. On November 22, 1780 Wolfgang was ill with a bad cold and productive cough. e applied foot-baths and remained indoors for two days. On December 1 he worsened and took fig syrup and almond oil. The symptoms of this illness suggest and upper respiratory tract infection and possible bronchitis. On May 10, 1781 Wolfgang resigned from the Salzburg court. Later that evening he became ill and had to leave the opera during the first act. He became feverish and was trembling in every limb, so that he staggered like a drunkard when he walked. He took tamarind water and remained in bed the next day. Davies proposes that this may have been a viral infection. Between May to June, 1783, in Vienna Wolfgang suffered from symptoms which suggest tonsillitis and upper respiratory tract infection. Wolfgang attained fame in Vienna during his early years in Vienna (1784-1787). The illness of August 23, 1784 may provide an important clue as to the cause of his death. While attending an opera in Vienna, he sweated so profusely that his clothes were drenched. He

complained of colic and vomiting and remained unwell until the end of September. He wrote to Leopold, “four days running, at the very same hour, I had a fearful attack of colic, which ended each time with violent vomiting. I have therefore to be extremely careful.”83 Leopold stated this in a letter to Nannerl dated September 14, 1784 and also said that his son remained ill until mid-September. Wolfgang was well enough to attend his son’s christening on September 21. There is no mention of renal tract symptoms or rash, but the original letter from Wolfgang to his father has been lost. Wolfgang's doctor diagnosed “a chill on the kidneys.” Schenk, Clein, Scarlett and Fluker, in 1955, 1959, 1964 and 1972, respectively, suggested renal colic due to renal calculus, which suggests nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, or acute pyelonephritis, which suggests chills, fever, flank pain, nausea, and vomiting. Both of these diagnoses, however, discount the epidemic nature of the illness indicated by Leopold’s letter to Nannerl of September 14 in which he writes, “So, not only my Son, but a number of other people caught rheumatic inflammatory fever, which became septic when not taken in hand at once.”84 Shapiro's 1968 diagnosis of rheumatic fever would account for the abdominal pain and the joint symptoms. Davies proposes an alternate diagnosis which takes into account a subsequent development of chronic renal failure. He maintains that Mozart suffered a streptococcal throat infection which was complicated by the development of Schonlein-Henoch syndrome (SHS), and that immune complexes were deposited in his kidneys, causing glomerulonephritis which led to his death. This is supported by the assumption that Mozart was prone to streptococcal infections and tended to react by developing immune-complex diseases such as erythema nodosum in 1762, and rheumatic fever in 1762 and 1766. SHS will be discussed in greater detail in the context of the final illness. Jenkins maintains there is really no evidence for this supposition, that SHS is rare in adults, no rash or joint symptoms (which are almost universal in this condition) are mentioned, and that a diagnosis of acute gastrointestinal infection is more likely. Of course, the absence of a record of exanthem and abnormality of urine deposit does not mean these symptoms did not exist. It must be remembered that Mozart didn’t even mention his mother’s death in several letters written after her death in order not to upset his father, so one should not assume that his own letters document the details of his illnesses as thoroughly as did his father’s. In a letter from Mozart to Count Wenzel Paar dated January 14, 1786, he wrote, “It is an hour since I came home- afflicted with acute headache and cramp in the stomach.”85 In 1787 he described the same symptoms which Davies suggests may have been due to SHS. Again, on April 24, 1787, Mozart suffered from what has been assumed to be a recurrence of the 1784 illness. In July 1789 he began to complain of intermittent depression, headache, toothache and malaise, and his musical productivity declined. In 1790 he suffered from uremia (insufficiency of renal function) and was seriously unwell with rheumatic pains, headache, and toothache. There is also evidence that low-grade tonsillitis may have triggered this illness. By the spring and summer of 1790 he chronically depressed (Davies presents much convincing evidence in Mozart In Person that Mozart suffered from bipolar affective disorder, or manic-depressive disorder) and frequently ill, mentioning his symptoms in his letters to Michael Puchberg, a lodge brother to whom Mozart frequently wrote in 1791 with desperate pleas for financial support. On April 8 he wrote, “I would have gone to see you myself, but my head is covered with bandages due to rheumatic pains, which make me feel my situation still more keenly.”86 In early May he wrote, “I am very sorry that I cannot go out and have a talk with you myself, but my toothache and headache are still too painful, and altogether I still feel very unwell.”87 On June 6 he went to Baden for a few weeks to stay with his wife who was taking a cure there. On August 14 he wrote:

Whereas I felt tolerably well yesterday, I am absolutely wretched today. I could not sleep all night from the pain. I must have got overheated yesterday from walking so much, and then, without knowing it, I have caught a chill. Picture to yourself my condition – ill and consumed with worries and anxieties.

Such a state quite definitely prevents me from recovering.88 These letters are, of course, too vague to permit accurate diagnosis, but Jenkins proposes dental abscess as the cause of this lengthy illness. Davies, on the other hand, maintains that the recurrent arthralgias are consistent with SHS. Biographers have put forth many possibilities as to the natural cause of Mozart’s death, and, in doing so, have selectively chosen what to include in Mozart's medical history in order to substantiate their individual claims. The cause of death entered in the Register of Deaths by Dr. Sallaba was “heated miliary fever.” Bar concluded that this was more of a description of the illness than a definitive diagnosis. In any case, this suggests a fever accompanied by an exanthem (rash), but neither the testimony of Constanze or Sophie mention the existence of an exanthem. Davies contends that this was simply an oversight on their part due to the fact that their testimonies were both given thirty-seven years after Mozart's death, but many other possibilities have been put forth since then. Mozart’s obituary attributed his death to dropsy of the heart. Dropsy causes renal or cardiac failure which would certainly account for his generalized swelling in his arms and legs. Bright’s disease, also called nephritis, would also account for the swelling in Mozart’s limbs, but a patient afflicted with Bright’s disease usually does not feel ill and recovers within six to eight weeks. This was clearly not the case with Mozart. Also, both Bright’s disease and dropsy are accompanied by a sore throat, a symptom which was not mentioned in any of the accounts of the composer’s last days. In 1824 Dr. Guldener von Lobes described Mozart's final illness as a rheumatic inflammatory fever. This, much like the diagnosis of “heated miliary fever” was not intended to be a specific diagnosis but a description of an illness characterized by fever and swollen joints. Von Lobes’ theory was supported by in 1906 by Bokay and by Bar in 1966. Rheumatic fever, however, is frequently accompanied by a streptococcal throat which, once again, does not appear to have been among Mozart’s symptoms. Mozart’s comment during his final illness that he already had the taste of death on his tongue has been interpreted by some to have been a reference to the uremic waste products which accumulation the mouth and foul the breath. Uremia causes weakness, nausea, and vomiting, all of which were suffered by Mozart. However, it also causes itching, convulsions, drowsiness, and fits, none of which were mentioned in the reports of his final illness. More significantly, a prolonged coma after a slow decline is typical of death by uremia, and it is known that Mozart experienced a coma only at the end of his illness. Clein proposed in 1966 that Mozart may have died from infective endocarditis consequent of his illness in August 1784. Alternatively, it has been proposed that the endocarditis was contracted after undergoing a tooth extraction in May 1790 and that this resulted in a glomerular nephritis and renal failure. Davies points out, however, that the course of such an illness would be too prolonged, and that this diagnosis would not account for the epidemic nature of the illness.89 Tuberculosis and Grave's disease (goiter) have both been considered as possible explanations for Mozart's death, but both fail to account for the epidemic nature of his illness. Moreover, there is no record that Mozart suffered from the cough which characterizes tuberculosis, and there is no evidence that he suffered from the enlargement of the thyroid gland

which is typical of Grave’s disease. Typhus was at one time considered to be the cause of Mozart’s death because it causes fever, rash, dropsy, and death from renal or cardiac failure. Davies points out, however, that the absence of cough, deafness, or clouding of consciousness during Mozart's final illness make this an unlikely diagnosis. In fact, Mozart retained full consciousness until only two hours before his death. This also makes it unlikely that he suffered from typhoid fever.90 Davies proposes Shonlein-Henoch syndrome (SHS), a systemic auto-immune disease which causes nephritis and follows streptococcal infection, as the cause of Mozart's final illness. Mozart’s rashes, frequent polyarthritis, rheumatic pain, swelling, vomiting, diarrhea, paralysis, and retention of consciousness until the end provide evidence of this syndrome.91 Davies maintains that the origin of SHS in the composer was most likely the recurrent streptococcal infections which plagued him throughout his lifetime. Such chronic streptococcal infection could have led to the formation of immune complexes which are then deposited in the kidney, producing nephritis. Hypertension, anaemia, and chronic infection, could have exacerbated this renal failure. Davies asserts that Mozart's streptococcal infection, which was an epidemic in Vienna at the time, while at his Lodge meeting on November 18 and that his death from post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis was a common event at the turn of the century when streptococcal infections were endemic and not treatable.92 He therefore furnishes this diagnosis of SHS as a single explanation for the many illnesses which Mozart suffered throughout his lifetime. SHS, however, is several hundred times less likely than similar diagnoses which are equally credible. Davies shows a “striking contrast between the discerning line of reasoning he makes against alternative hypotheses and the extreme laxity with which he justifies his own proposals.”93 The task of diagnosing Mozart's final illness by considering the existing accounts of his symptoms is, by its nature, futile. Few physicians would agree that a patient can be successfully diagnosed on the basis of correspondences between those who visited him during his illness, yet countless articles which appear in well-respected medical journals have done exactly that. The diagnostic task is further complicated when one considers that Mozart’s medical history was poorly documented in his later years, there are no existing medical records referring to his final illness, and there was no autopsy performed on his corpse. Therefore, all existing theories regarding Mozart’s final illness and death are, at best, mere speculations. Perhaps the great cause-of-death controversy that surrounds Mozart’s death can finally be put to rest with the recent findings concerning a crucial piece of tangible evidence that, only recently, has been considered to be relevant to the discussion – Mozart's skull. With the help of the forensic sciences, whose task it is to determine the true condition at the time of death, there may finally be a sound theory to explain Mozart’s final illness and death. When Mozart was buried in 1791 Joseph Rothmayer, sexton of the St. Mark’s cemetery, wrapped the neck of his corpse with a wire. In 1801, Rothmayer ploughed over the common grave and retrieved the skull, reporting to Constanze in 1802 that he did not remember the place of the grave. The skull was handed down by successive grave diggers until Johan Radschopf gave it to Jacob Hyrtl, a painter and musician who tried to determine mental ability and other personal traits by examining its form. Upon his death in 1868, his brother Jacob Hyrtl, a leading Viennese anatomist, obtained the skull for his collection, which also included the skulls of Shubert and Beethoven. Hyrtl sawed of the base of the skull at the external auditory meatus in an attempt to discover a relation between the straightness of the auditory apparatus and Mozart's musicality (the base of the skull and the lower jawbone are now missing). In 1875 he placed a label on the forehead of the skull which reads, “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Gestorben 1791 geboren 1756

Misa vitat mori horaz,” set it on a velvet cushion and placed it in a glass case. On October 6, 1901, at the death of Hyrtl's widow, the skull was donated by the Hyrtl family to the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg. Since 1987 the skull has been the subject of much study by Dr. Gottfried Tichy and Dr. Pierre Francois Puech. Friedrich Gehmacher, President of the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg has voiced the opinion that the scientist’s findings do not offer conclusive proof of the skull’s identity, but the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence has proven otherwise. The skull, which was at one time on display in Mozart’s Gerburtshaus in Salzburg can no longer be viewed. Sources at the Mozarteum itself have asserted that this was ordered by the president of the Mozarteum Foundation in reaction to the scientists’ decision to go to the press with their findings prior to consulting the official Mozart Archives. That the skull was previously buried is evidenced by the presence of mineral and plant particles and collagen remnants, giving evidence of previous burial. The presence of organic collagen and brain tissue remnants, in comparison to other skulls from the same graveyard, indicate that it was not buried for more than two years. Since Rothmayer was alleged to have retrieved the skull in 1801, ten years after Mozart’s death, it should be noted here that the first documentary record of the skull dates back to 1875. The surfaces of the skull exhibit cut marks and knife notches which suggest that flesh was removed with a steel knife after exhumation. Researchers determined the skull to be that of a twenty to forty-year-old South German male exhibiting premature synopsis of the metopic suture (PSMS), a rare, self-correcting developmental anomaly in which the bone of the forehead develops in two halves and the metopic suture commonly remains unclosed after birth. A compensatory mechanism in suture closure allows later growth of the skull, resulting in a relatively broad midface and palate and an abnormally shaped, small skull. Mozart’s portraits and descriptions of his appearance by his contemporaries reveal that he had a straight vertical forehead, prominent nose, cheekbones and upper lip and prominent brow arches over anteriorly placed eyes. These features are consistent with the craniofacial irregularities known to be present in the skull and induced by PSMS. The poor bone rim protection of the eyes which is evident in this skull would have given his face the feminine appearance that has been remarked upon in descriptions of the composer. Superimposition of a photograph of the cranium on wax portraits of the composer drawn by Leonard Posch in 1778 and 1788 indicate complete conformity with all side proportions of the head.94 Using clay to reconstruct soft tissues related to this skull using clay has revealed substantial concordance with Mozart's portraits and has provided insight into how the composer really looked. Such forensic reconstruction of the head corresponding to this skull has demonstrated a remarkable similarity to Mozart portraits. The nasal dimensions indicated by the size and position of the nasal aperture are in agreement with the described dimensions of Mozart’s nose which was said to be rather large and prominent and was frequently caricatured.95 Specific features of the dentition of the skull allowed additional determination of its identity. Though the lower jaw is missing and the upper front teeth are absent, the cuspids and bicuspids are heavily marked, consistent with the dental decay history has been inferred from correspondence of Mozart's father and from Mozart’s reported habit of making toothpicks from wooden splinters taken from tables in Prague taverns. In addition, the roots of the missing incisors suggest a protrusion which conforms to existing descriptions of Mozart’s teeth. Thus, “Based on macro- and microscopic analysis of the dentition, we can now provide a positive

identification of the skull as being that of Mozart.”96 The presence of PSMS, present in about one in ten thousand adults, in this particular skull and its apparent manifestation in Mozart as indicated by his portraits should be enough to convince one that this is indeed the skull of Mozart. Further evidence provided by cranial superimposition on his portraits and features of the dentition provide almost undeniable proof of the skull’s identity. Moreover, PSMS is associated with undersized stature, consistent with the fact that Mozart was about five feet four inches tall. The agglomeration of so many independent traits linking the skull to Mozart greatly support the reliability of a positive identification. The presence of a ten centimeter long linear fracture with signs of healing about five centimeters in front of the ear suggests a bad fall some months before Mozart's death. Transillumination showed several thin areas in the frontal bone suggesting brain contact that was closer than normal and the internal surface of the skull reveals the calcified imprint of a blood clot which Drake suggests is evidence of a chronic subdural hematoma. A chronic subdural hematoma may not develop for some weeks after trauma and diagnosis is often difficult because of the time lapse between the injury and the onset of symptoms. The head injury may have been trivial, even forgotten.97 It is not uncommon to incur a head injury and die many months later. Drake maintains that Mozart's increased consumption of wine, beer and punch, suggested by the accounts of Shikaneder and Leitgeb, could have easily resulted in a fall which was soon forgotten. This lifestyle could easily have resulted in falls and injuries, which are suggested by the accounts of Leitgeb and Shikaneder. Although prone to complain of headaches in earlier years, Mozart in 1790 and 1791 wrote to Da Ponte and others, “my head is lost, I am completely exhausted, I can feel I am close to death.” Chronic subdural hematoma would account for the composer's headaches, fainting spells, drowsiness, chronic depression and musculo-skeletal pain during the latter part of 1790 and in 1791 which were described in a series of pitiful letters to Michael Puchberg. This diagnosis would certainly be supported by the vomiting, headache, and partial paralysis of his last night followed by convulsion and coma with dysconjugate gaze and facial weakness. These symptoms, especially Mozart's violent vomiting which grew worse at night, can be easily attributed to cerebral hemorrhage or increased intracranial pressure.98 Mozart convulsed and fell comatose two hours before his death and, one hour later, tried to sit up, opened his eyes wide, and fell back with this head turned to the wall and his cheeks puffed out. Davies believes that these symptoms are consistent with a massive brain hemorrhage but attributes the brain hemorrhage to SHS. Davies, who accepts the authenticity of the skull, discounts the presence of this healing fracture as saying it is only incidental to death since it doesn't correlate with the swelling of the body and the fever. Rather than reject this healing fracture, the only bit of solid evidence regarding that cause of Mozart's death, in favor of his own diagnosis of SHS which is supported mainly by questionable correspondences and reports, Davies would do well to try and resolve this tangible evidence with his own theory as did Puech and Tichy who assert that, though Mozart may well have suffered from rheumatic fever, he died of a chronic hematoma which led to the fatal meningeal coma diagnosed by Dr. Closset. Closset suspected a cerebral edema with an associated clot. In fact, the consensus of Mozart's doctors, Closset, Sallaba and Lobes, was that Mozart died from “un deposito alla testa,” or a “deposit in the head.” Dr. Guldener later wrote a testimony in which he clearly implied that this diagnosis was in referrence to a serious, life-threatening disorder of the brain.99 Drake provides the connection between the underlying systemic illness and the chronic subdural hematoma by proposing that Mozart did indeed suffer from rheumatic fever and that

either the underlying systemic illness or aggressive blood-letting (in response to the neuropsychiatric symptoms themselves or as treatment for the illness) decompensated the blood clot, producing the signs and symptoms exhibited in his terminal hours. A letter written by Dr. Sallaba stated, “Mozart is lost, it is no longer possible to restrain the deposit.”100 Though such decompensation could have resulted from the venesections or from the illness itself the following testimony of Sophie Haibel provides evidence that the blood-lettings were the major factor:

My sister-in-law thinks that Mozart was not sufficiently looked after in his illness, for instead of driving out the fever by other methods, they bled him and applied cold compresses to his head, whereupon his forces visibly forsook him and he lost consciousness, which he never again recovered.101

Whether Mozart's illness was due to a single factor or several concurrent disease processes, it is almost certain that bacterial infection was the triggering factor of his illness due to the endemic nature of his final illness and the fact that many illnesses endemic to eighteenth century Vienna were bacterial in origin. In any event, the exact cause of the infective process is of little importance. What is significant is the fact that Mozart was being treated for some bacterial infection and that extensive venesection led to the decompensation of a chronic subdural hematoma which was most likely obtained in the last two years of his life. Though this may seem as highly speculative as the other theories, this single explanation for all of Mozart's symptoms coincides with what Mozart's doctors Closset and Sallaba thought at the time and is based on solid, material evidence. Hopefully these findings can put to rest the confusion and controversy of the past two hundred years. Though historians have not been able to agree on the cause of Mozart’s final illness and death for the past two centuries, it appears that scientific technology has at last provided an explanation which is not predicated by hearsay or rumor. It is certain that this examination of Mozart’s skull will not be the last of such investigations. DNA analysis and comparison with mitochondrial DNA from the composer’s maternal line may provide irrefutable conclusive proof, not only that the skull is indeed that of Mozart, but that he may have been predisposed to certain renal disorders which have been put forth as likely causes of his final illness. Analysis of the skull and of the composer’s finger secretions on the score of the Requiem may provide evidence of poison, but such evidence would be complicated by the fact that mercury and other heavy metals were used medicinally in eighteenth century Europe and that average levels are unknown. For laymen it may be sufficient to believe that Mozart fell exhausted from constant overwork and capricious living, but scholars demand a more explicit answer in order to come to terms with the tragedy of the composer’s death, for this loss deprived the world of an evolution in music which can scarcely be imagined. It has been argued that Mozart merely completed his task on earth and was ready to die. Edward Friedrich Morike (1804-1875), author of Mozart on the Way to Prague wrote that Mozart:

rapidly and inevitable would be consumed away in the flame of his own ardor, that he could not possible be more than a fleeting apparition upon earth, if only because this world was in truth incapable of bearing the overwhelming richness of that which he would lavish upon it.102

A less poetic view is offered by contrasting the works of Mozart’s last year with those of even a year before. Such a comparison surely suggests that his genius had taken a turn in a new

direction though his physical capacity was quickly failing. Perhaps if he had been successful just a few months sooner the more agreeable economic conditions for composers and publishers in Vienna would have permitted him to obtain the rest he required in order to live about twenty-five more years. Mozart, in his last days, said:

I must go just at the very time when I could live in peace! I must now leave my art when I, no longer the slave of fashion, no longer bound by speculators, would be free to follow the promptings of my sensitivity, could write freely and independently what my heart tells me! I must leave my family and my poor children at the moment when I would be in a position to care better for their welfare.103

It is undoubtedly an immense tragedy that a fall may have deprived the world of a fundamental change in the last two centuries of music. It is this tragedy which remains at the very foundation of the great cause-of death controversy which will forever surround Mozart.

APPENDICES Appendix I: A letter of April 7, 1825 in which Sophie Haibel, Constanze’s younger sister, described Mozart’s final days in great detail to Georg Nikolaus von Nissen. Nissen was Constanze’s second husband who was gathering information for a biography on Mozart. The following account appeared in Haibel’s letter: Now when Mozart fell ill we both [Sophie and her mother] made him a night jacket, which he could put on frontways, since on account of his swollen condition he was unable to turn in bed. Then, as we didn’t know how seriously ill he was, we also made him a quilted dressing-gown though indeed his dear wife, my sister, had given us the material for both garments), so that when he got up he should have everything he needed. We often visited him and he seemed to be really looking forward to wearing his dressing gown. I used to go into town every day to see him. Well, one Saturday when I was with him, Mozart said to me: “Dear Sophie, do tell Mamma that I am fairly well and that I shall be able to go and congratulate her on her name day.” Who could have been more delighted than I to bring such cheerful news to my mother, who was ever anxious to hear how he was? I hurried home therefore to comfort her, the more so as himself seemed to be bright and happy.” The following day was a Sunday. I was young then and rather vain, I confess, and liked to dress up. But I never cared to go out walking from our suburb into town in my fine clothes, and I had no money for a drive. So I said to our good mother: “Dear Mamma, I’m not going to see Mozart today. He was so well yesterday that surely he will be much better this morning, and one day more or less won’t make much difference.” Well, my mother said: “Listen to this. Make me a bowl of coffee and then I’ll tell you what you ought to do.” She was rather inclined to keep me at home; and indeed my sister knows how much I had to be with her. I went into the kitchen. The fire was out. I had to light the lamp and make a fire. All the time I was thinking of Mozart. I had made the coffee and the lamp was burning. Then I noticed how wasteful I had been with my lamp, I mean, that I had burned so much oil. It was still burning brightly. I stared into the flame and thought to myself, “How I should love to know how Mozart is.” While I was thinking and gazing at the flame, it went out, as completely as if the lamp had never been burning. Not a spark remained on the main wick and yet there wasn’t the slightest draught – that I can swear to. A horrible feeling came over me. I ran to my mother and told her all. She said: “Well, take off your fine clothes and go into town and bring me back news of him at once. But be sure not to delay.” I hurried along as fast as I could. Alas, how frightened I was when my sister, who was almost despairing and yet trying to keep calm, came out to me, saying: “Thank God that you have come, dear Sophie. Last night he was so ill that I thought he would not be alive this morning. Do stay with me today, for if he has another bad turn, he will pass away tonight. Go in to him for a little while and see how he is.” I tried to control myself and went to his bedside. He immediately called me to him and said: “Ah, dear Sophie, how glad I am that you have come. You must stay here tonight and see me die.” I tried hard to be brave and persuade him to the contrary. But to all my attempts he only replied: “Why, I already have the taste of death on my tongue.” And, “if you do not stay, who will support my dearest Constanze when I am gone?” “Yes, yes, dear Mozart,” I assured him, “but I must first go back to our mother and tell her that you would like me to stay with you today. Otherwise she will think that some misfortune has befallen you.” “Yes, do so.” said Mozart, “but be sure and come back soon.” Good God, how distressed I felt! My poor sister followed me to the door and begged me for heavens sake to go to the priests at St. Peter’s and implore one of them to come to Mozart – a chance call, as it were. I did so, but for a long time they refused to come and I had a great deal of trouble to persuade one of those clerical brutes to go to him [The clergy are said to have hesitated about administering extreme unction because the patient had not himself asked for it. He received extreme unction, but not the last sacrament.] Then I ran off to my mother who was anxiously awaiting me. It was

already dark. Poor soul, how shocked she was! I persuaded her to go and spend the night with her eldest daughter, the late Josefa Hofer. I then ran back as fast as I could to my distracted sister. Sussmayr was at Mozart’s bedside. The well-known Requiem lay on the quilt and Mozart was explaining to him how, in his opinion, he ought to finish it, when he was gone. Further, he urged his wife to keep his death a secret until she should have informed Albrechtsberger, who was in charge of all the services [so that he could secure the post which he deserved]. A long search was made for Dr. Closset, who was found at the theatre, but who had to wait for the end of the play. He came and ordered cold poultices to be placed on Mozart’s burning head, which, however, affected him to such an extent that he became unconscious and remained so until he died. His last movement was an attempt to express with his mouth the drum passages in the requiem. That I can still hear. Muller from the Art Gallery came and took a cast of his pale, dead face. Words fail me, dearest brother, to describe how his devoted wife in her utter misery threw herself on her knees and implored the almighty for His aid. She simply could not tear herself away from Mozart, however much I begged her to do so. If it was possible to increase her sorrow, this was done on the day after that dreadful night, when crowds of people walked past his corpse and wept and wailed for him. All my life I have never seen Mozart in a temper, still less, angry.104 Appendix II: The following letter from Counsellor Guldener von Lobes, Austrian first physician, to Giuseppi Carpani (June 10, 1824) gives one of the only accounts of Mozart’s death attributed to a physician: It is with great pleasure that I communicate to you, most excellent Sir, all that is known to me of the illness and death of Mozart. He fell sick in the late autumn of a rheumatic and inflammatory fever, which being fairly general among us at that time, attacked many people. I did not know about it until a few days later, when his condition had already grown much worse. I did not visit him for some reason, but informed myself of his condition through Dr. Closset, with whom I came in contact almost every day. The latter considered Mozart’s illness to be dangerous, and from the very beginning feared a fatal conclusion, namely a deposit on the brain. One day he met Dr. Sallaba and he said positively, “Mozart is lost, it is no longer possible to restrain the deposit.” Sallaba communicated this information to me at once, and in fact Mozart died a few days later with the usual symptoms of a deposit on the brain. His death aroused general interest, but the very slightest suspicion of his having been poisoned entered no one’s mind. So many persons saw him during his illness, so many enquired after him, his family tended him with so much care, his doctor, highly regarded by all, the industrious and experienced Closset, treated him with all the attention of a scrupulous physician, and with the interest of a friend of many years’ standing, in such a way that certainly it could not have escaped their notice then if even the slightest trace of poisoning had manifested itself. The illness took its accustomed course and had its usual duration; Closset had observed it and recognized it with such accuracy that he had forecast its outcome almost to the hour. This malady attacked at this time a great many of the inhabitants of Vienna, and for not a few of them it had the same fatal conclusion and the same symptoms as in the case of Mozart. The statutory examination of the corpse did not reveal anything at all unusual. That is the sum of what I am in a position to state concerning the death of Mozart. I shall have the greatest pleasure if this can contribute to giving the lie to the horrible calumny on the excellent Salieri.105

Notes

1 Richard Maunder, Mozart’s Requiem - On Preparing a New Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1988) 3-4. 2 Cliff Eisen, New Mozart Documents: A Supplement to Otto E. Deutsch’s Documentary (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991) 76. 3 William Stafford, The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment (Stanford: Stanford University

Press, 1991) 3-4. 4 Dyneley Hussey, Wolfgang Amade Mozart (Freeport, New York: Books For Libraries Press, 1928) 303. 5 Ibid; 305.

6 William Stafford, The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991) 5-6. 7 Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart- A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965)

511. 8 Richard Maunder, Mozart’s Requiem – On Preparing a New Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) 13. 9 Ibid. 14.

10 William Stafford, The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991) 78. 11 Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart- A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 530.

12 Ibid. 563.

13

William Stafford, The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991) 56. 14 Peter J. Davies, Mozart in Person – His Character and Health (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989) 198. 15 See Appendix II. 16 Peter J. Davies, Mozart in Person – His Character and Health (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989) 195.

17 Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart- A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965)

540. 18

Ibid. 565. 19

Ibid. 565. 20

William Stafford, The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991) 33.

21 Hugh Ottoway, Mozart (London: Orbis Publishing, 1979) 184.

22

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart- A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 565.

23 Herbert Kupferberg, Amadeus- A Mozart Mosaic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,

1956) 195.

24 Ibid. 141.

25

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart- A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 565. 26

Ibid. 565. 27

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart- A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 489. 28

Francis Carr, Mozart and Constanze (New York: Frankiln Watts, Inc., 1984) 129. 29

Herbert Kupferberg, Amadeus- A Mozart Mosaic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956) 191.

30 Ibid. 191.

31

Francis Carr, Mozart and Constanze (New York: Frankiln Watts, Inc., 1984) 131. 32

Manuel Komroff, Mozart (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956) 165. 33

William Stafford, The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991) 31. 34 Cliff Eisen, New Mozart Documents: A Supplement to Otto E. Deutsch’s Documentary (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991) 71.

35 Edward E. Swenson, “Antonio Salieri – A Documentary Biography,” diss., (Ithaca, New York:

Cornell University, 1974) 243. 36 Cliff Eisen, New Mozart Documents: A Supplement to Otto E. Deutsch’s Documentary (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991) 71. 37

Edward E. Swenson, “Antonio Salieri – A Documentary Biography,” diss., (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1974) 287. 38

Ibid. 16. 39

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart- A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 522. 40

Ibid. 254. 41

William Stafford, The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991) 33. 42

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart- A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 522. 43

Ibid. 565. 44

Ibid. 527. 45

Volkmar Braunbehrens, Maligned Master (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1992) 5. 46

Edward E. Swenson, “Antonio Salieri – A Documentary Biography,” diss., (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1974) 89. 47

Ibid. 5-6. 48

Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and His Family (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1966) 782. 49

Edward E. Swenson, “Antonio Salieri – A Documentary Biography,” diss., (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1974) 89. 50

Ibid. 8. 51

Kupferberg, Herbert, Amadeus- A Mozart Mosaic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956), 186.

52 Edward E. Swenson, “Antonio Salieri – A Documentary Biography,” diss., (Ithaca, New York:

Cornell University, 1974) 121. 53

Grover Sales, Amadeus (Berkeley, California: The Saul Zaentz Company, 1984) album notes. 54

Herbert Kupferberg, Amadeus – A Mozart Mosaic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956) 189. 55

William Stafford, The Mozart Myths (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991) 46. 56

Edward E. Swenson, “Antonio Salieri – A Documentary Biography,” diss., (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1974) 13. 57

William Stafford, The Mozart Myths (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991) 32. 58

Edward E. Swenson, “Antonio Salieri – A Documentary Biography,” diss., (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1974) 339. 59

William Stafford, The Mozart Myths (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991) 32. 60

Ibid. 32. 61

Herbert Kupferberg, Amadeus – A MMozart Mosaic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956) 191. 62

Ibid. 191. 63

Peter Shaffer, Amadeus (New York: Signet Books, 1980) xvii. 64

Francis Carr, Mozart and Constanze (New York: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1984) 152. 65

Ibid. 152. 66

Ibid. 147. 67

Ibid. 147. 68

Ibid. 147. 69

Ibid. 147. 70

Ibid. 147. 71

Ibid. 148.

72

Mozart was baptized Johannes Chrystostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Amadeus is the Latin form of the Greek name “Theophilus.” 73

Peter J. Davies, Mozart in Person – His Character and Health (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989) 198. 74

Ibid. 79. 75

William Stafford, The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991) 41. 76

Robert Berkow, M.D., The Merck Manual (Rahway, New Jersey: Merck, Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories, 1977) 1969-1970. 77

Peter J. Davies, “Mozart’s illnesses and death,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 76 (September, 1983): 778. 78

Ibid. 778. 79

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart – A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 50. 80

Robert Berkow, M.D., The Merck Manual (Rahway, New Jersey: Merck, Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories, 1977) 85. 81

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart – A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 493. 82

Peter J. Davies, Mozart in Person – His Character and Health (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989) 47. 83

Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and His Family (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1966) 833. 84

Ibid. 833. 85

Ibid. 896. 86

Ibid. 937. 87

Ibid.938. 88

Ibid. 941.

89 Peter J. Davies, Mozart in Person – His Character and Health (New York: Greenwood Press,

1989) 201. 90

Ibid. 199. 91

Ibid. 203. 92

Peter J. Davies, “Mozart’s illnesses and death,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 76 (September, 1983): 784. 93

Lucien R. Karhausen, “Contra Davies: Mozart's terminal illness,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 84 (December, 1991): 735. 94

Pierre F. Puech, Bernard Puech and Gottfried Tichy, “Identification of the Cranium of W. A. Mozart,” Forensic Science International. 41 (1989): 108.

95 Peter J. Davies, Mozart in Person – His Character and Health (New York: Greenwood Press,

1989) 139. 96

Gottfried Tichy and Pierre F. Puech, “Identification of a ‘Passing Guest’ – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” Anthropology: 177.

97 Robert Berkow, M.D., The Merck Manual (Rahway, New Jersey: Merck, Sharp & Dohme

Research Laboratories, 1977) 1336. 98

Peter J. Davies, Mozart in Person – His Character and Health (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989) 197. 99

Ibid. 197. 100

Miles E. Drake Jr., MD, “Mozart’s chronic subdural hematoma,” Neurology 43 (1993): 2401. 101

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart – A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 527. 102

Edward F. Morike, Mozart on the Way to Prague (New York: Panthion, 1947). 103

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart – A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 511. 104

Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and His Family (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1966) 975-977. 105

Otto E. Deutsch, Mozart – A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1965) 523.

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