The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment, by William Stafford (TPB, 1991, $1.50)
Who would have known there were all those rumors of stuff going on during Mozart's last days! What I like about this author is his refusing to decide what happened. Of course we will never know what really happened, but it is so refreshing that an expert admits it.
So, what are the myths? Let's see-
1. Was he poisoned?- almost certainly not
2. Was he anti-Semitic?- probably not, but maybe?
3. Was he melancholy and self-destructive just before he died? He was certainly exhausted, probably dealing with heart failure brought about by rheumatic fever, and massively in debt.
4. Did he see himself as a genius or a failure? A failure? How could he thought himself a failure? He had been a child prodigy, and as a young adult, a successful composer and performer. As he got older, though, his works were seen as too old-fashioned. People stopped buying his music. Before he died only 20% of his compositions were in print. Then he died, and people became interested again in his music. Both his widow and his son would be able to live lives of leisure. So as he was dying how did he see himself? We will never know.
5. Did he know he was dying when he composed his last work, the Requiem? Did he really push himself to exhaustion to finish it before he died? Did he hear a rehearsal of Requiem on his last afternoon? - Most likely not, since when he died the work was still not finished.
6. Did the weather get suddenly dark and stormy when he died? - Nope!
7. Was he buried in a pauper's grave? Is that why his grave site is unknown?- Nope. Actually during this time no one had lavish burials. Most of the middle-class were buried in wooden coffins, five to a grave, marked only by a wooden marker. Many times when more burial space was needed, bodies, including Mozart's, were dug up, the bones crushed, and then reburied elsewhere. By that time even his wife didn't know where his remains were. To complicated matters, in 1855 a marker was put up where people thought his body might be. Later, the marker was moved again. (And please don't ask about his supposed skull, and how it ended up separate from his body!) So, to summarize, his was not a pauper's grave, but where it is no one, even now, knows.
How weird is all this? Read more about this in the book, to be found on the new non-fiction table. (9/20) (L-mu)
