Death Of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart example essay topic

The death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has long shrouded with mystery. There are many reasons for this. Medical knowledge was not as sophisticated in the eighteenth century as it is today. There was never an autopsy done on Mozart's body. Mozart's sudden sickness and his young age also brought confusion. Because of these factors, mystery has surrounded Mozart's death.

There are many possible explanations for the death of Mozart and in the following paragraphs I will explore the most plausible ones. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria on January 27, 1756 and died in Vienna, Italy on December 5, 1791. There are many rumors and ideas of what actually killed Mozart, but the facts are all the same. In Mozart's final years he was struggling financially. He had put himself in debt to many people. We know this because he moved from place to place, always to someplace less expensive.

He also sent many letters begging for money to a fellow freemason, Michael Puchberg. In these letters, Mozart mentioned debts to a former landlord, a pawnbroker, and the publisher of Art aria, for books, music and manuscript paper. Wolfgang Mozart was also very generous to his friends, by always lending them money. Even though he started to get back on track financially before his death he still was in debt after his death.

Around mid-July of 1791, Mozart was commissioned in secrecy, unknowing of who commissioned him, by Count Walsegg Stuppach to compose a requiem for the count's late wife. He postponed the work on this requiem until October of 1791, so he could finish the opera, La Clemenza di Tito, and the production of Die Zauberfl " ote. Mozart worked feverishly on the requiem, believing it would commemorate his own death. While working on the requiem he began having premonitions of his own death and started to believe he was writing the requiem mass for himself. On November 20 he was bedridden. Two leading Viennese doctors, Clos set and Sall aba, watched over him.

He was also nursed by Constanze, his wife, and her younger sister. December 3 he seemed to improve, but that night he worsened. On December 3rd Mozart was visited by several friends, and possibly Salieri was one of them. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died around one o'clock on December 5. Mozart was buried in a common grave and despite myth it was not a rainy or snowy day, but a calm clear day. In the movie Amadeus, the idea of Salieri killing Mozart is dramatized.

In the movie Salieri stresses and works Mozart to death. Mozart works on the requiem mass day and night until he dies in his bed. Constanze comes home just in time to see her husband die, creating a very dramatic ending to the movie. Hollywood's version of Mozart's untimely death is of course false. Mozart was bedridden for fifteen days before he died and Constanze was at his side the entire time. The way Amadeus portrayed Mozart's death is false, but it comes from a theory that was widely spread during the nineteenth century, of Mozart being poisoned.

At the Fourth Pushkin Conference in Russia in 1952, I.M. Sarkisov, a scientist stated that according to available evidence, Mozart had been poisoned by mercuric chloride. Dr. D iter Kerne studied the symptoms of Mozart's final illness and achieved to the same conclusion, a poisonous arsenic preparation, similar to the mercury poisons, was a well-known poison in Italy. The theory or rumor of Mozart's death involving foul play pointed to Salieri. There were several reasons that people believed Salieri poisoned Mozart.

Salieri and Mozart were rival composers and Salieri was extremely jealous of Mozart. The enmity arose when Mozart took an opera Salieri had given up on, Cosi Fan Tutte, finished it and had success with it. Another important reason people blamed Salieri was because he admitted to killing Mozart. At the end of Salieri's life he began having nervous breakdowns and was not in his right mindset. During these fits he would accuse himself of killing Mozart, but when he was in the right mind set, he would deny his own accusations. His students, which included Ludwig Van Beethoven, were frightened by these accusations.

During the beginning stages of his illness, Mozart became obsessed with the idea that someone had poisoned him. He first mentioned this idea to Constanze on October 27 or 28 and she writes about it in letters after his death. Mozart described the poisoning by saying, "I know I must die, someone has given me acqua toff ana and has calculated the precise time of my death for which they have ordered a Requiem, it is for myself I am writing this". Even though all of this evidence points to Salieri killing Mozart, this theory is false.

Salieri would have to become very close to Mozart to have poisoned him, but Salieri was only a business associate of Mozart. They were merely acquaintances of each other. Also towards the end of Salieri's life, when he began accusing himself, he was losing his mind. He spent the end of his life in an asylum, locked up.

He even tried to kill himself once. Several disease specialists have stated that "there's no evidence to suggest Mozart had symptoms of acute poisoning". Several diseases were also blamed for the death of Mozart. The symptoms Mozart exhibited when he died included: swelling of hands and feet, vomiting and diarrhea, extreme fever, headaches, pale skin, chronic renal failure and almost complete inability to move. Two hours before he died he fell into a coma. The first disease, the disease the two doctors caring for Mozart when he died diagnosed, was severe miliary fever.

Later on the diagnosis was changed because the symptoms did not all add up. Two Italian Doctors, Gr either and Davies, diagnosed the disease as Uraemia. The symptoms of Uraemia include "emaciation, weakening of the muscles, weakness throughout the body, anaemia, dry skin, itch, a smell of ammonia (mouth), illness and vomiting". Many of the symptoms of Uraemia are similar to Mozart's but many did not occur to Mozart or were not mention by him. Dr. Jan. V. Hirschmann of Puget Sound Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Seattle believes that Mozart was killed by trichinosis, a worm infestation usually caused by undercooked pork.

Mozart wrote a letter to his wife 44 days before his illness began saying, "What do I smell? Pork cutlets! Che Gusto (What a delicious taste). I eat to your health". A Trichinosis epidemic was going around Vienna around the time Mozart fell ill. Trichinosis, whose incubation period is up to 50 days, causes symptoms similar to Mozart's including vomiting and diarrhea.

The most recent and most likely theory is that Rheumatic inflammatory fever is what killed the young composer. Rheumatic fever is an immune system disease that can result from streptococcal infection of the blood. February 11, 2000 a panel of medical experts and scholars ruled that Mozart was most likely killed by Rheumatic inflammatory fever. They came to the conclusion from the research of Dr. Faith T. Fitzgerald, internist and professor of medicine at the University of California. Fitzgerald's research included analysis of Mozart's case history as reported by Mozart's family and physicians.

Mozart had suffered from the fever as child and it had weakened his heart. "Eyewitness accounts by Mozart's sister-in-law, Sophie Hai bel, indicate symptoms of rheumatic fever". The rheumatic fever is most likely what killed Mozart, but like the other theories nobody knows for sure. In Mozart's final year, he was struggling financially.

I believe his financial struggle played a large part in his earl death, because he wanted to get out iof his debts so eagerly that he stopped caring for himself. He worked feverishly on the requiem and the lack of sleep and the stress caused, from how hard he was working on the requiem most likely lowered his immune system, aiding in his untimely death. It was a great tragedy that such a talented man had to die so young. What killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? We will probably never know for sure. Chrysostom, Johann, "The Final Years".

In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 2001. Vol. 17,290-295 Crawford, Franklin. "Medical experts and scholars, including Cornell professor, rule out foul play in death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart".

In Cornell News (February 2000) Donaldson, Bryna. "Did Salieri Poise n Mozart?" Bryna Donaldson Music Journal. (1972) Landon, Robbins H.C. Mozart's Last Year. New York: Schirmer Books, 1988. Mifflin, Houghton. "Mozart" in Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Rice, John A. Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Solomon, Maynard. Mozart: A Life. New York: HarperCollins Publisher, 1995. Spaethling, Robert.

Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. Tanner, Lindsey. "Pork cutlets may have killed Mozart". In Cnews (June 2001).