DID MASONS PLOT TO KILL MOZART?
Or was it strep? Here we examine the mystery, rumours and speculation that still surround the great composer’s death
O‘An epidemic of streptococcal infections in Vienna at the time’
n November 20, 1791, two days after he had attended his Masonic lodge in Vienna, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart took to his bed with an illness that killed him a few weeks later, on December 5.
Shortly afterwards, a Berlin paper reported that his body had mysteriously swelled up before he died. The rumour machine took over. The divinely-inspired Mozart, the greatest composer and musician of his era, dead at the age of 35? Couldn’t be natural. Had he possibly been poisoned?
That poisoning rumour has had a very long life, culminating in the play Amadeus by Peter Shaffer and its multi-Oscar-winning movie version that practically accuses the envious composer Salieri of poisoning Mozart, although Shaffer insisted he wasn’t writing history.
The real question is not was Mozart poisoned, but whether he had picked up his fatal final illness during that visit to the Masonic lodge in
November. There was an epidemic of streptococcal infections running through Vienna at the time. One doctor reported it was so prevalent that few people escaped its influence: but Mozart had that nasty extra ingredient we’ve become familiar with – underlying conditions.
All the available data and symptoms as reported, indicate that he died from a combination of streptococcal infection, terminal bronchopneumonia and severe oedema (fluid retention). The body swelling was a common indication of kidney failure. There’s not a hint of poison in any of the medical research.
And then, as now, there was an age factor.
The register of deaths in Vienna at the time shows that deaths from oedema and associated conditions were the only ones that increased noticeably among younger men in the months surrounding Mozart’s death.
In December 1791, 47 men, aged 40 or under, died from the condition. In 1790, 16 had died from the illness. In 1792 just 10 died from it.
Mozart was particularly susceptible because of his previous health problems and his hectic work schedule from October to December 1791.
During those weeks, he finished writing The Magic Flute and conducted performances of it (conducting usually also involved playing the piano part): he composed the clarinet concerto and a cantata for the Masonic lodge, as well as working on the Requiem mass which had been mysteriously commissioned. His long working hours, lack of sleep, and worries about his financial situation almost certainly exacerbated his condition.
He felt so morbidly ill and depressed that he told his wife he might have been poisoned.
But bad health had been a constant in his life. From the time he was a six year-old, his father had hauled him around Europe often in freezing weather and coaches, to show off his exceptionally gifted son at royal courts. By the time young Wolfgang was 12, he had contracted a collection of streptococcal infections, bronchial problems, rheumatic fever,
smallpox, frostbite and a form of hepatitis. The epidemic of fever in Vienna in 1891 hit his already weak constitution.
Then almost 40 years after Mozart’s death, the Russian writer Pushkin wrote a short play called Mozart And Salieri in which the insanely envious Salieri pretends to admire Mozart, but secretly poisons his drink. Mozart feels very ill, and decides to go and sleep. When he leaves, Salieri intones darkly, ‘You will sleep for long Mozart.’
That piece of melodrama was the inspiration for Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, made into the 1984 film that won a stack of Oscars. The film portrays Mozart as a musical genius, but an immature adult, with the personality of an undisciplined, giggling nincompoop who has no idea how to behave in courtly society. One Mozart scholar said the film was superb entertainment that had little to do with Mozart’s actual life. Another critic wrote: ‘Historically it’s baloney, theatrically it’s a feast.’ Particularly unpleasant is the depiction of his devoted wife Constanze as a degraded sexy nymph, ready to sell herself to Salieri. In fact she was often in bad health, and after Mozart’s death she worked tirelessly to promote his music.
At one stage a rumour emerged – that has even re-surfaced in more recent times – that the Masons had Mozart killed because the music and words of The Magic Flute revealed much of the secret Masonic code, and such revelations were forbidden under an oath swearing initiates to secrecy ‘under the penalty of having my throat cut, or my tongue pulled out of my head’.
In fact, the Masons actually thought Mozart had done a good job of making the organisation look acceptable at a time it was suspected of supporting the French Revolution.
‘He felt so morbidly ill and depressed he told his wife he might have been poisoned’