Draft:The Mozart Myth

The child prodigies Wolfgang and Nannerl Mozart in an engraving by Delafosse from a portrait by Carmontelle (1764)

The Mozart myth is a complex of stereotypes, anecdotes and beliefs that, in the Austrian's composer biography, form a traditional narrative capable of returning a legendary image of him that only partly corresponds to historical reality. The name of Mozart is synonymous with musical genius and the child prodigy, and his idealized – yet in other respects, demonized – figure appears wrapped in an aura of predestination.

The narrative embodies a Romantic conception of genius. It began to take shape as early as the musician's first years of life, solidified immediately following his death, and continued uninterrupted through biographies, literature, cinema, and music itself, enriching and varying Mozart's image according to historical periods. Thus it has contributed to perpetuating in modern culture a popularity equal to the importance of his music and independent of any knowledge of it.

Others, rather than debunking the myth, aim to understand the contexts in which it was formed, the influence of past perceptions of Mozart on the present, and the mark left by his legend on the cultural history of recent centuries. Moreover, although many beliefs have been disproven, the myth still influences popular culture and the common perception of Mozart, not least in the wake of the film Amadeus (1984). IIndividual beliefs that have already been debunked persist among musicians and musicologists.

Imprint

Adolf Bernhard Marx

The enduring popularity and universal appeal of his music, subject to very disparate interpretations, place Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart among the greatest composers of all time, and his extraordinary versatility also distinguishes him from other greats. His reputation as an absolute genius and his mythological portrait, however, correspond to a Romantic ideal, which the myth itself corroborated and to which it conformed over time. Mozart's life and work have been framed within a Hegelian ideological framework, particularly by musicologists Adolf Marx (1840) and Franz Brendel (1848).

Hegel recognizes in genius and talent the presence of a natural component, inspiration (Begeisterung), but denies that it has the capacity to produce art on its own, divorced from thought, reflection, technical practice, and a study of the external and internal world that allows the artist to acquire material and content for creation.

The philosopher did not, however, have a high opinion of pure music. In general, he considers that it requires little or no consciousness of content, and pertains only to the inner motion of feeling unaided by thought. Then, specifically addressing simple talent, he states that it does not claim any experience of the world and can manifest itself in the fullest naivety and ignorance.

It is most probably with Mozart in mind that Hegel asserts:

Musical talent announces itself [...] most often in very early youth, when the head is still empty and the soul little moved, and can in a short time reach a very considerable height before life and spirit have gained experience; just as we very often see a very great virtuosity in musical composition and performance coexist with a remarkable poverty of spirit and character.

— Das musikalische Talent kündigt sich [...] am meisten in sehr früher Jugend, bei noch leerem Kopfe und wenig bewegtem Gemüte an und kann beizeiten schon, ehe noch Geist und Leben sich erfahren haben, zu sehr bedeutender Höhe gelangt sein; wie wir denn auch oft genug eine sehr große Virtuosität in musikalischer Komposition und Vortrage neben bedeutender Dürftigkeit des Geistes und Charakters bestehen sehen.

The Hegelian approach converges on the fundamental core of the emerging myth of Mozart, which characterizes the composer as a childlike and immature genius.

The dialectic of opposites further holds that every entity lives in necessary relation with its negative: in Mozart's case, this concept would support the constant association of the transcendental dimension of his genius with an instinctual and earthly counterpart, a dark and demonic side of the man and his music.

Hegel finally frames intellectual and art history in a teleological vision. The spirit of the world (Weltgeist) realizes its purpose in history in a constant tension toward progress and perfection, manifesting itself in a disciplined and necessary process of development. The echo of this vision fueled the idea of the fulfillment of a mission by genius, to which the genius is sacrificed. As late as 1945 Einstein, albeit metaphorically, would make explicit reference to the spirit of the world and the sacrifice of the man to the musician, of the person to art.

Within this framework, the mythological portrait of Mozart is shaped and recomposed in the coherence of all its elements: the ease of the creative process, the prodigious memory, the infantile character that makes the composer irresponsible, dissolute and maladjusted, and finally the idea that his early death marks the necessary fulfillment of a divine or otherwise transcendental mission. This picture and the Romantic stereotype of the child genius it reflects were taken up by Schopenhauer and supported Romantic and late-Romantic aesthetic theories.

Origins

Friedrich Schlichtegroll

The origins of the myth date back to the very first biography of Mozart, the lengthy obituary written by Schlichtegroll in 1793 and republished the following year. Schlichtegroll had not known Mozart, but as was his custom collected news by correspondence, via a questionnaire sent to eyewitnesses. The composer's widow, Constanze Weber, did not respond. It was therefore from Nannerl Mozart that the journalist obtained most of the information. Nannerl's account, which also had the diligence of consulting private correspondence, was assisted by the family friend Johann Andreas Schachtner for the remote details she did not recall.

This circumstance was a first factor of distortion of the biography: Schlichtegroll in fact acquired much biographical information from Schachtner, but it focused on childhood, to the point that a full twenty-five of the thirty-one pages of the obituary ended up dwelling on the period 1756-1773 and recounting Mozart’s life in Salzburg as a child and adolescent.

A second and more important factor was the addition, at the end of Nannerl's reply letter, of a postscript in an unknown hand. The handwriting of the anonymous seems to be that of Albert von Mölk, a suitor of Nannerl whom she rejected and who later became a priest.

The postscript read at the end:

[...] Wolfgang was small, thin, pale in color, and entirely without pretension in physiognomy and body. Apart from music, he was and remained almost always a child; and this is a main feature of his character on the shadowy side; he would always have needed a father, a mother, or some other guardian; he could not manage money, married a girl not at all suitable for him against his father's will, and hence the great domestic disorder at and after his death.

— [...] Wolfgang war klein, hager, bleich von Farbe, und ganz leer von aller Prätenzion in der Physiognomie und Körper. Ausser der Musik war und blieb er fast immer ein Kind; und dies ist ein HauptZug seines Charakters auf der schattigen Seite; immer hätte er eines Vatters, einer Mutter, oder sonst eines Aufsehers bedarfen; er konnte das Geld nicht regieren, heyrathete ein für ihn gar nicht passendes Mädchen gegen den Willen seines Vaters, und daher die grosse häusliche Unordnung bei und nach seinem Tod.

The physical and characterological portrait of this postscript traced the path followed by subsequent biographies, which often also drew from one another verbatim. It is unclear whether their authors and witnesses, at least when they had known Mozart, really intended to confirm the content of the obituary or whether it instead influenced their memories by making them selective.

Focused on Mozart's life in Vienna, the biography by Niemetschek (1798) relies entirely on Schlichtegroll for earlier events. Morally, while describing the composer as "kind and amiable," Niemetschek cannot avoid acknowledging his flaws and attempting to excuse them.

Georg Nikolaus Nissen

Arnold's Mozarts Geist (1803), in its biographical part, adheres slavishly to the obituary.

The biography by Nissen (1828) is particularly valuable for our understanding of Mozart in two respects: the author was Constanze Weber's second husband, and he had direct access to the composer's correspondence, which was therefore published for the first time, albeit not in entirety. But Nissen also does not refrain from drawing on the material of his predecessors, and Constanze's own memories appear to refer to facts derived from the other biographies. This suggests poor assembly or casts doubt on the reliability of her memory, which had faded over time. Constanze apparently relied on the reliability of her – already belated – which she had conveyed to other biographers, Niemetschek and Johann Friedrich Rochlitz. Nissen's work contains serious contradictions that undermine its full credibility.

Jahn's later biography (1856-1859) has the merit of subjecting the material collected up to that time to rigorous criticism, but in doing so it still echoes legendary anecdotes and definitively consecrates them as part of the canonical narrative. Its main flaws are that it popularized the myth of the child prodigy and, for the first time, presented an unflattering portrait of Constanze.

Two family propagandas contributed to the birth and consolidation of the myth: that of Leopold Mozart, who during Wolfgang's childhood exalted his son's talent in every way in the desire to profit from it, and that of Constanze Weber, who after her husband's death aimed, through the proceeds of the Requiem and other compositions, to guarantee economic security for herself and her children. Mozartian mythology was not, however, artificially created by the musician's own propaganda, nor does it sprout from his music, and this distinguishes it from the myth constructed years later by Schindler around the other towering figure of classicism, Ludwig van Beethoven.

Narrative

In keeping with the Romantic vision, Mozart is portrayed as an eternal child, giddy, scurrilous, but with an instinctual genius that manifests itself in extraordinary abilities, almost like an idiot savant. Assisted by a phenomenal memory, he composes mentally, then writes the music down at a stroke and without errors. The negative of this picture is his image as a maladjusted genius, misunderstood, devoted to gambling, alcohol and extramarital affairs. Oppressed by debts, declining in success and health, he is reduced to poverty when death overtakes him, so much so that at his funeral he is accompanied only by a small cortege and is buried in a mass grave. His mysterious death justifies suspicions of murder and conspiracy, and is tinged with supernatural elements: just as if his genius, predestined for a divine mission, had burned itself out quickly in carrying it to completion.

William Stafford has written on the subject:

Two hundred years on, we are distressed by Mozart's death, by the thought of all that was lost thereby; this story tells us not to grieve, for all was accomplished. Mozart had done his work.

For Eisen, the heroic myth of Mozart's premature death is a powerful narrative that instills fear and discourages approach to the composer and his music.

The idea of the creative transfiguration of the late Mozart, with the rapid consumption of inspiration that intensifies toward the end of existence, already appears in the early biographies, but the theme is quintessentially Romantic and recurs in Goethe, in the conversations he had with Eckermann. Predestination is rarely truly identified with a supernatural event, and rather corresponds to the Hegelian vision: Mozart's life fits into a higher order of things, as if his coming were an inescapable stage in the history of music.

A critical tradition discerns in the works of the last year of life (Piano Concerto K 595, The Magic Flute, Clarinet Concerto K 622, Requiem) a sense of resignation, autumnal tones and deathly chill. This is consistent with the biographical circumstances reported by Constanze, and in particular with the episode in the Prater, where Wolfgang would have confided to his wife his fear of being poisoned with aqua tofana and that he was composing the Requiem for himself. The epiphany of the dialogue between the composer and death is seen above all in the Requiem (1791), but also in Don Giovanni (1787).

Innate talent

Mozart as a student in Bologna

Son of an excellent composer and teacher, Mozart began to take an interest in music very early, and at about the age of five immediately wrote his first short works. The first symphony dates from 1764 (age eight), the first concerto from 1767 (age eleven). Leopold accompanied Wolfgang on a long journey that saw the very young musician and his older sister Nannerl perform before the main courts of Europe. From 1769 to 1773 the Mozarts went to Italy three times to give concerts, seek patrons and allow Wolfgang to deepen his studies by taking lessons in counterpoint.

Mozart's talent did not spring up miraculously as the father's skillful propaganda led people to believe, but was cultivated for many years through daily study. The sensational terms in which Leopold described the little boy's intellect resonate in the early biographies, and most of them have always taken for granted that Wolfgang soon eclipsed his father himself. In reality, the latter rather gave him a big hand. According to a study by Plath, many of Wolfgang's autographs up to age twelve show Leopold's handwriting in whole or in part, and some corrections are also present later.

The same entrance examination for the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna was narrated by Mozart père in enthusiastic terms, reporting that his son had passed it brilliantly in less than half an hour. The originals of the test (the four-voice harmonization of Quaerite primum regnum Dei RV 86/73v) and the academy's records show instead that the time was longer and that the boy found himself in difficulty: his final attempt, later judged "sufficient," was elaborated with the decisive assistance of the master Padre Martini. Even in piano performance, the skill of the young Mozart – who was nonetheless a great improviser – seems to be uncritically exaggerated by Leopold and contemporaries, at least according to the testimony of Grétry:

I once met in Geneva a boy who performed everything at sight; his father said to me in front of everyone: "so that no doubt remains about my son's talent, compose for him by tomorrow a very difficult sonata movement." I wrote him an allegro in E-flat major, difficult but unpretentious; he played it, and everyone except me cried miracle. The boy had not stopped, but following the modulations he had substituted many passages for those I had written.

— Je rencontrai jadis à Genève, un enfant qui exécutoit tout à la première vue; son père me dit en pleine assemblée: pour qu'il ne reste aucun doute sur le talent de mon fils, faites lui pour demain un morceau de sonate très-difficile. Je lui fis un allegro en mi bémol, difficile sans affectation; il l'exécuta, & chacun, excepté moi, cria au miracle. L'enfant ne s'étoit point arrêté: mais en suivant les modulations, il avoit substitué une quantité de passages à ceux que j'avois écrits.

Mozart was without doubt a child prodigy, but he had to devote the same substantial sacrifice to study as every musician. The father's role was fundamental in preserving the boy's assiduity and the high didactic level. According to one study, his path was similar to that of other very young musical talents, among whom only Bach had a professional father himself, proof that Leopold was important above all as a parent.

Another study argued that achieving excellence in composition generally requires at least ten years of study: if one takes the first composition as a starting point, Mozart took much longer than another child prodigy, Felix Mendelssohn (12 years versus only 4), while the gap narrows if one looks at the first lesson (14 years versus 11). The study also found a relationship between the precocity of teaching and productivity, which in turn increases the chances of composing a certain number of excellent pieces. In this case Mozart had much greater productivity than Mendelssohn: over 600 compositions versus about 170, with a surprising peak of 43 in 1788.

Genius and memory

Mozart (Fantasy for Mechanical Organ K 608) and Beethoven (Trio op. 70 no. 1) are sometimes compared for the neatness of the former's scores and the disorder of the latter's: this is a false demonstration of the legendary instantaneousness of Mozartian genius

The stereotype of the child genius implies irrational, even unconscious creativity, guided solely by emotion. It draws nourishment from Mozart's biography as early as Schlichtegroll's obituary, which incidentally emphasizes the musician's incapacity in everyday matters. Emphasis on memory and ease of composition appears in Niemetschek. The image of the otherworldly and prodigious genius, but with a dark side, then consolidates among other biographers, especially novelists such as Arnold and Stendhal, and is handed down to the twentieth century with opposing characters: now angelic, now diabolical, now classical, now Romantic according to eras, visions and authors.

Mozart is credited with the ability to create music transcendentally: elaborate compositions come to life at once in his head to be transcribed almost mechanically, so much so that the scores are without corrections. The belief has a basis in truth, but rests on only two anecdotes: that of the revelation to the world of the secret score of Allegri's Miserere, which the fourteen-year-old Wolfgang heard at the Sistine Chapel and rewrote from memory, and that of the composition of the Don Giovanni overture in a single night, on the eve of the premiere.

The common belief risks obscuring the difficulty of composing and the very complexity of the final result. The presence of second thoughts and laborious elaboration in Mozart's creative activity is conspicuously attested by the Quartet K 458, whose autograph shows an entire passage completely scraped off with dense pen strokes, evidence of several unsatisfactory attempts to write a segment to be inserted at an earlier point in the piece. All the originals of the Haydn Quartets show similar erasures.

Nissen, while accepting the stereotype of spontaneous creativity, reports that Mozart made notes and corrections, and that composing was laborious for him, as the correspondence also confirms. His sacrifice had not ended with his training: he studied the pages of colleagues, attended their concerts, sketched ideas that he often abandoned.

The existence of many drafts, largely lost, is attested by the 58 surviving fragments out of 98 – still a conservative figure – delivered by Constanze to Breitkopf & Härtel in 1800. The method of entirely mental composition is disputed by Jahn, who precisely emphasizes the existence of sketches and reports that, upon the emergence of a musical idea, Mozart would immediately run to the keyboard.

Composing from memory is not as unusual as it seems: for example, Handel was capable of it, as was the modern composer Tippett. It is possible that a subconscious development of musical ideas, already in the works for some time, sometimes allowed Mozart to write the entire work at one go. On the other hand, the absence, as a rule, of corrections on the originals prevents a precise reconstruction of the Mozartian creative process, which remains in some respects mysterious and unsettling. This does not mean, however, that it was an easy and immediate process: on the contrary, the author used to get up between 5 and 6 in the morning and compose for hours, tackling all kinds of music every day of his life.

As for memory, only Leopold was a witness to the Miserere episode. The piece was already circulating in some copies and, although composed for nine voices, it is repetitive and has a relatively simple contrapuntal style: rewriting it in its entirety was certainly a very difficult feat for a fourteen-year-old boy, however accustomed to musical listening, but not impossible. Some suspect instead that Leopold's account is exaggerated in two aspects: Wolfgang would have remembered only some parts, and the Church could not have been all that protective of the Miserere if Clement XIV, rather than being angered, conferred the Golden Spur on young Mozart. The Mozart autograph of the Miserere has been lost.

Personality

Immaturity

In line with the anonymous postscript, the early biographers of Mozart – with the sole exception of Nissen – saw him as an eternal child and, from Schlichtegroll's obituary onwards, attributed to him hyperkinetic and restless behavior, except for his ability to transform himself completely as soon as he sat down at the piano. This portrait finds an apparent contradiction. The pupil Johann Nepomuk Hummel reports that the master had a gentle, pleasant demeanor, and a melancholic seriousness. This description seems stereotyped in the opposite direction and idealized, and as such does not have the hallmarks of full credibility; but the stark contradiction between those who had known the composer (Hummel) and those who had not (Schlichtegroll) stands out.

The image of Mozart as an eternal child seems to be based on a double distortion. On the one hand Schlichtegroll accepted the anonymous portrait without reservation, on the other he added even less flattering details, depicting the composer as an undisciplined, unreasonable, immoderate person indifferent to worries. Such judgments may arise from Schachtner's memories of the child Mozart or from the oral tradition of Salzburg, which remembered Wolfgang under Leopold's guardianship. In 1804 the unreliable Suard concluded that Mozart was more or less incapable of everything except his music, extremely susceptible and superficial in affection. Nissen contested the common belief, offering biographical counterexamples.

Among the components of the myth, infantilism is the one to whose establishment Mozart himself contributed most, in particular with the scatological humor of his letters, which he also transposed into the canons Leck mich im Arsch, Bona nox, O du eselhafter Peierl and Difficile lectu. Yet this kind of humor, before being prohibited in the course of the nineteenth century, was quite common in the eighteenth: also among other composers and writers, and especially in Salzburg. It was practiced by the entire Mozart family and the children inherited it from their parents.

Emanuel Schikaneder

Leopold's letters also contributed to the establishment of the stereotype, as he appeared to many as an overbearing and suffocating presence, if not quite incapable of resigning himself to the loss of his child prodigy, now an adult. Many of the father's judgments or prejudices, emerging both from reproaches to his son and from certain descriptions he gave of him, seemed clear evidence of Mozart's immaturity.

Recklessness

According to a line of thought that originates from the general portrait offered by Schlichtegroll and embellishes it with details, Mozart was a lover of the pleasures of life and excess, drinking and carousing with friends. A bad reputation surrounds the librettist of The Magic Flute Schikaneder, whom Hummel himself, on his deathbed (1831), seems to have pointed out as the rock of scandal capable of dragging the otherwise moderate Mozart toward excess.

In all probability the composer liked to drink, especially punch, but according to his sister-in-law Sophie only to the point of being cheerful. It is known that he himself extolled the Moselle wine in a letter to Constanze (1790), and yet no credible testimony exists that he was always drunk.

Complete degradation, abandonment to pleasures to the point of exhaustion which would have ruined him financially, forced him into overwork in the last year of his life and led him to death, is an essential and suggestive part of the picture. The well-known anecdote of the Don Giovanni overture tells, in one of its many variants, that Mozart composed the piece only on the eve of the premiere, after having feasted and drunk with a merry priest, and that he set to work only at one in the morning, with friends sleeping at his house and Constanze serving him punch.

Relationships

Family

In the context of family relationships, the one that linked Wolfgang to his father Leopold stands out, both during the musician's training and during the Viennese years. Leopold's figure has long been vilified and described in caricatural terms. As early as 1839 the London journal The Musical World published an excerpt from the anti-Mozart article by the Frenchman Jules Maurel, which depicted Mozart père as a wretched exploiter and compared him to a well-known circus tamer. He would have forced his son in childhood, causing him serious moral harm, and would always have remained for him a father-master: he opposed his desire to travel alone in search of opportunities, continued to admonish him about life's difficulties, hindered his relationships with girls, and tried to control him in every way.

Leopold Mozart

A valid composer, violinist and teacher, author of the Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (1756), a violin method that was long fundamental in the German lands, Leopold Mozart took personal charge of the children's education in all disciplines (music, mathematics, literature, dance, foreign languages, religion and morals). The tours on which he was long accused of profiting were part of an educational project derived from the university lessons of Desing, which understood travel as an essential part of a modern cultural education. On this conception, as on the practice of "useful sciences" and languages, Leopold insisted several times, shaping Wolfgang's curiosity and interests in literature, science, and current affairs.

In the father's total dedication to his son's career, the socio-economic structure of the time played a role: in the absence of social security, it required parents to launch their male children into careers so that they could enjoy their support in old age. In the case of little Wolfgang, his great talent marked the path to follow: to demonstrate the boy's skill and find him stable employment in one of the greatest and richest European courts, even at the cost of the serious discomforts of travel, the risks of illness and the frustrations.

There are conflicting indications as to whether the relationship between father and son, in later years, really was irreparably compromised as is claimed. Einstein deduces it from the late letters to Nannerl, in which Leopold no longer calls Wolfgang by name but refers to him as "your brother," but this is only a faint clue. It is known that at least once Wolfgang warmly invited Leopold to Vienna and he was very happy with the stay.

The traumatic death of Anna Maria Pertl in Paris (1778), while accompanying her son in search of fortune, must, however, have in some way torn the intimate relationship between the two: Leopold, already very harsh with Wolfgang on other occasions, went so far as to instill guilt in him for his mother's death, in what sounds like an attempt at manipulation to make him return to Salzburg. Even in this regard, however, it has been observed that the mutual recriminations took place at a very difficult time, which included the separation between father and son, Wolfgang's disaffection for his native city, and his professional failures.

Social

The traditional image of the maladjusted Mozart seems confirmed by Leopold's reproaches, who in a letter accuses his son of pride mixed with naivety. Incapable of holding his tongue, prone to making enemies, out of place in high society and fallen into low-level company, he would also in this way have contributed to his own self-destruction. Other accounts are, however, far too laudatory of his amiability, sociability and human empathy. The early biographies maintain an all in all benevolent judgment, which attributes the tendency to make enemies to the composer's too open and cordial character. The whole gives a complex picture, since the correspondence leaves no doubt that Mozart was capable of harsh and at times ruthless judgments toward colleagues (Clementi) and other people (on the death of Voltaire).

Romantic life

Mozart dedicated the aria Ch'io mi scordi di te K 505 to Nancy Storace and to himself: speculation therefore assumes that he had a relationship with the singer

In his romantic life, some see Mozart as an inveterate womanizer and others as a victim of the opposite sex's scheming. Some claim that he was unfaithful to Constanze and betrayed her with pupils and singers, if not also with some maidservants, but confessed his adventures and was forgiven.

This narrative has several variants, and according to some there were instead violent quarrels between the spouses. Betrayals with servants do not seem to be mentioned before 1905 and apparently link back to a Salzburg oral tradition. The quarrels, on the other hand, derive from Jahn's biography, which cites in this regard – by hearsay – a sister of Constanze, presumably Sophie; the earlier biographies that draw on her memories, however, make no mention of those disagreements. Some report small extramarital gallantries, but the passage that seems most genuine speaks only of vague "venial sins" in a tender and affectionate conjugal relationship. None of the subsequent biographies relies on first-hand testimony.

Relationships have been attributed to Mozart with Barbara Gerl, Anna Gottlieb, Magdalena Pokorný, Josepha Hambacher, Teresa Saporiti, Caterina Bondini, Henriette Baranius, Nancy Storace, Therèse von Trattner, Martha Elisabeth von Waldstätten, and also unwanted pregnancies (of Magdalena and Martha). This biographical area is based on gossip that the Mozart correspondence partly reveals.

The customs of the time tolerated much sexual freedom in courtly life, and it is reasonable to assume that the composer conformed to them. However, from Mozart's letters there emerges an almost obsessive affection for his wife, while infidelity is not attested, and can only be read between the lines.

On the composer's sexual behavior, Suard wrote, on the basis of a rumor, that he had composed the Magic Flute only to win the favors of a woman who would have given him syphilis. The composer's always steady hand on the later scores testifies that he did not suffer the side effects of mercury, administered at the time against the disease, and the terror he manifested in 1777 when he observed the symptoms of syphilis in his friend Mysliveček is well known. He then reiterated these same feelings at the sight of a traveling companion in a carriage to Strasbourg (1778) and finally, in a letter of 1781, confirmed to his father his repulsion for mercenary relations due to fear of the French disease:

[...] I have [...] too much horror and disgust, fear and anxiety of diseases, and too much love for my health to be able to carry on with whores [...].

— [...] habe ich [...] zu viel Grauen und Eckel, scheu und forcht vor die krankheiten, und zu viel liebe zu meiner gesundheit als daß ich mich mit hurren herum balgen könnte [...].

Marital

Constanze Weber

The other important common belief about Mozart's relationships with women is ruthless toward Constanze and the entire Weber family. They would have exploited the composer's passion since his relationship with the other daughter Aloysia, who left him when, having achieved success, she no longer needed him (1778). Years later he began to frequent Constanze (1781), who had remained living with her mother after the death of her father, who had left nothing but debts. Wolfgang married her despite Leopold's distrust, so soon (1782) that the latter perhaps suspected a marriage of convenience.

According to the myth, Constanze would prove to be a bad wife, lazy, petulant, who did not understand her man and did not love him, betrayed him and neglected the children, a mediocre person inadequate for high society, incompetent in music, an incapable housewife and a hypochondriac habituée of stays at the Baden spa, which reduced the family fortune and left Wolfgang to fend for himself.

In this case Schlichtegroll ignored the anonymous postscript, which is crossed out in the part about Constanze, and gave a positive image of her. Jahn, however, made use of it, and that was enough to create the legend, which then progressively amplified to the peak of antifeminism at the time of the first emancipation movements (early twentieth century). The anonymous author is isolated among the primary sources.

Apart from the portrait of a capable and thrifty housewife that Wolfgang himself offered in a letter, the historical evidence of the family security she achieved as a widow, with the completion of the Requiem, income from publications, organization of concerts, obtaining an imperial pension and the extinction of debts, all before her second marriage to Nissen, paints a very different picture. Of her ability to manage the domestic economy, indeed, her father-in-law himself bore witness, who had harbored many prejudices about her.

Constanze was a pianist and singer (a good soprano, but perhaps not a sublime voice). Mozart composed for her in both capacities, although only two examples survive: fragments of a sonata movement for two pianos (K 375c) and some solfeggios (K 385b) for the difficult solo soprano part he gave her in the Mass in C minor K 427, which he conducted in Salzburg in 1783.

Constanze Weber did not have an easy life. Married to a man with a busy life and a feverish activity – the Mozart household hosted Wolfgang's pupils, almost daily rehearsals, a constant coming and going of friends and copyists, and even hairdressers every day – she had to bear the pressure and make ends meet. She bore six children from the marriage, four of whom died in infancy. She stayed in Baden for genuine health problems: in the autumn of 1791, shortly before Mozart's death, the doctor had ordered her spa treatments for a serious infection in her leg, which he feared would develop into gangrene.

Her activity of collecting and posthumously publishing manuscripts was decisive in reliably transmitting Mozart's unpublished production, including fragments and autographs. The couple Vincent and Clara Novello, who knew her when she was elderly, reported a very good impression of her.

Political ideas

Especially from the twentieth century, Mozart has been seen as a champion of revolutionary political ideas, intolerant of the Ancien Régime and noble privileges, a partisan of the bourgeois middle class against social hierarchies and the clientelistic system. The portrait is sometimes seasoned with a certain German nationalism. These tendencies would also have contributed to isolating the composer, impoverishing him and forcing him into that overwork that would have caused his death, especially due to the persistent necessity of patronage. The thesis dates back again to the obituary and the early biographies, but its most thorough treatment in the twentieth century is due to the Massin couple.

At the court of Prince-Archbishop Colloredo, where he wrote galant music according to the taste of a provincial aristocracy, Mozart would have preferred the progressive and enlightened one of Joseph II, so much so that he later refused an attractive offer from the King of Prussia. The composer's rebellion against the nobility would thus be reflected in the music, starting with the – albeit fleeting – adherence to the Sturm und Drang (1770s). If Haydn, after his stürmisch period, fell back into line by yielding to the demand for galant music, Mozart instead seized the opportunity to introduce the passion and self-expression typical of the pre-Romantic movement within forms agreeable to patrons, thus carrying out a revolution more important than Haydn's formal innovations themselves.

Detail of a painting by Ignaz Unterberger identified by Robbins Landon as depicting a Masonic meeting (1790): the two figures in conversation may be Mozart and Schikaneder

The reception of Sturm und Drang then suggests an adherence to the national spirit, and so too the inauguration of the German tradition of opera with Die Entführung and Die Zauberflöte. However, while Die Entführung has only an Enlightenment slant, the Magic Flute, composed in accordance with the ideals of Freemasonry, would represent the maximum expression of Mozartian political radicalism, and would have procured the musician suspicions and antipathies in high society and in the Church, damaging him in his work and destroying his life.

Like Mozart, in reality, most of the Viennese cultural elite was affiliated with Freemasonry, which also counted among its ranks a high percentage of nobles and ecclesiastics. A list of members of the lodge to which the composer belonged survives and includes as many as seven priests, as well as 45% aristocrats, mostly counts or barons. It seems likely that Viennese Freemasonry was Enlightenment and progressive, rather than revolutionary.

The most subversive act generally indicated by biographers is the adaptation of Le nozze di Figaro, an opera based on Beaumarchais's play of the same name and considered, like the latter, a harbinger of the French Revolution. The thesis has been accepted – not without contradictions – by some twentieth-century biographies, and experienced a return to popularity on the occasion of the Mozart bicentenary (1991).

The censorship that struck Beaumarchais's play by direct intervention of Joseph II concerned, among the many versions circulated in Austria, only Schikaneder's staging, suspended on the eve of the first performance in 1785. Mozart and Da Ponte were aware of it and undertook their operatic project shortly thereafter. The political nature of this censorship is not explicit in primary sources, and alternative interpretations have been attempted, also highlighting how it is an isolated case in the context of a very permissive imperial policy. No archival documents exist on the matter.

Masons and Josephinists were generally as Catholic as they were Enlightenment, alternately progressive or conservative, and capable of adapting to imperial policy, which for musicians was also a career necessity. According to some, this may have been the case for the Salzburg composer. Others, however, emphasize that the idea of a Mozart indifferent to politics, if not entirely uninterested in everything that was not music, is a possible, further declension of the myth of the eternal child and a false common belief.

The Mozart correspondence is practically devoid of testimony about the composer's political ideas, although it reveals a certain rancor toward the aristocracy in two short and disappointing periods of his life. A modern musicological and historical literature emphasizes the composer's full integration into the cultural and political climate of the time. The musicologist Lidia Bramani, through the reconstruction of the Mozart family's intellectual relationships, Wolfgang's readings from a very young age, his education, his personal contacts, and operatic themes attributes to him a convinced adherence to Masonic ideals and a consequent cultivation of progressive ideas, to be considered legitimately revolutionary, but not violent and not coinciding with the spirit of the French Revolution.

No historical document, in any case, suggests that Mozart was a politically suspect person or disliked by the authorities.

Success and finances

The myth holds that Mozart was incapable of managing money and success, to the point of ruining himself financially, finding himself forced into overwork and dying from it.

As for his managerial skills, Rochlitz reports a certain liberality and carelessness with money, which would have made him even willing to work for free, although this is considered very unlikely. The traditional reproach of financial irresponsibility, which comes from Constanze, may be aggravated by her tendency toward greater thrift, or be part of a propaganda aimed at obtaining advantages as a widow.

That Wolfgang was not so incapable in economic matters seems testified by what he wrote to Leopold in 1782:

The emperor is a cheapskate anyway. If the emperor wants me, he must pay me, for the honor alone of being in the emperor's service is not enough for me. If the emperor gives me 1000 florins and a count gives me 2000, I will make my compliment to the emperor and go to the count – provided it's secure, of course.

— Der kaÿser ist ohnehin ein knicker. Wenn mich der kayser haben will, so soll er mich bezahlen, denn die Ehre allein, beÿm kaÿser zu seÿn, ist mir nicht hinlänglich. Wenn mir der kaÿser 1000 fl giebt, und ein graf aber 2000, so mache ich dem kaÿser mein kompliment und gehe zum grafen – versteht sich auf sicher.

A few months later, in another letter, he also demonstrated in detail that he had understood well how not to be exploited.

As for financial ruin, around the time of the bicentenary (1991) several scholars worked to question it: apart from only a temporary difficulty from which he would have emerged brilliantly in the last year of life, Mozart always earned rather well, on average more than many colleagues, and was acquiring international fame, enough to be one of the most performed composers in Europe in 1791. This complete reversal of perspective is judged excessive by some.

Fresh from the enormous success as a child prodigy, Mozart would have struggled to establish himself until his arrival in Vienna launched him on a brilliant career. It is not easy to establish what and how large his main income was: he certainly gave rather expensive lessons (although perhaps they decreased over time), benefited from patronage, gave public and subscription concerts, enjoyed the proceeds of his operas and then received an imperial salary as Kammerkompositeur of 800 florins a year.

Ticket for a Mozart concert

It is known that he was in high demand following the success of Die Entführung, so much so that in 1784 he gave twenty-one concerts in less than two months, one of which in a court theater and at least three others very remunerative. His star would have dimmed, however, after 1785, as public concerts, which had been increasing up to that point, were reduced to only five events in the last six years of his life. An exact reconstruction of the concert trend is, however, very complex and linked to the survival of Wolfgang's letters to Leopold, almost all lost after 1784; official reports no longer exist. Concerts were rarely reported in the press, and even those who believe that Mozart's popularity as a performer declined over time surrender to the impossibility of proving a negative fact, which precludes any certainty on the matter.

The assumption of debts is attested in the correspondence as early as 1785. The problematic turning point regarding finances is, however, 1787: thanks to the salary and the increase in opera proceeds, from that year onwards income seems comparable to that of the previous period, but insolvency appears. From 1788 to 1791 the composer borrowed 1451 florins from his Masonic brother Michael von Puchberg, a wealthy merchant who always granted them with tolerance on deadlines.

The reason why he incurred debts is unclear. In Vienna at the time, indebtedness was rather common, especially – but not only – among those who engaged in seasonal activities, such as musicians, and Mozart always had variable income. Some imperial policies damaged patronage; the taxation and inflation of 1788, due to the war with the Turks, aggravated the economic situation, the price of bread soared and riots broke out in Vienna.

Niemetschek argues that Mozart's music, original, richly expressive and complex, difficult even for performers, would have remained misunderstood, and if nothing else it is true that the operas were less in demand than those of contemporaries such as Paisiello, Salieri, Martín. Mozart's production as a whole, however, was better received than that of the generality of colleagues, excluding Haydn and perhaps Pleyel: apart from some ungenerous reviews in northern Germany that, stemming from a different stylistic tradition, found his music complicated, extravagant, too ambitious, critics paid him wide appreciation and, after his premature death, many and emphatic were the obituaries in the European press.

It has been argued that he lived far beyond his means and dissipated his fortune playing billiards and cards. There is no doubt that he allowed himself a high standard of living, but not necessarily so extravagant, and it is not excluded that the whole thing – debts included – was a conscious choice in an attempt to establish himself as a free artist. The recourse to Puchberg's credit, who was his friend, may have been induced by momentary difficulties – periods of illness for him or Constanze, seasonal breaks – and not by a chronic need for money.

The loss of large sums at gambling is not attested by any source except the suspect memoirs of Kapellmeister Destouches and, while some infer it from the mere fact that he owned a billiard table, others suppose that, if it had really happened, the gossip that almost always enveloped Mozart would have left traces. On the whole it seems unlikely that he gambled, although verification of the hypothesis depends on a correct evaluation of his income and expenditure, which is subject to a large margin of error. According to many scholars, the thesis overestimates income.

Although perhaps not as disastrous as long believed, Mozart's true financial situation is very difficult to reconstruct, and the fragmentary documentation of money movements exposes it to more optimistic or more pessimistic interpretations. The only concrete circumstantial picture seems to be offered by the inheritances. At his death he left only 60 florins in cash, but also luxury goods: clothes for 55 florins and furniture for 229. The wardrobe was of comparable value to Salieri's (56) and higher than Beethoven's (36); the furniture was slightly more valuable than Haydn's (211). Mozart died much younger than all three. This picture, taking debts into account, remains compatible with the hypothesis of a period of prosperity followed by a significant reversal of fortune. A genuine fall into poverty, however, is implausible.

Health

A widespread common belief has Mozart as frail in health, or claims that his premature end was caused by an unhealthy and stressful lifestyle, either practiced by the musician in adulthood, or inflicted during childhood by the constant travels across Europe. The belief seems to arise from the anonymous postscript, taken up by the descriptions of Schlichtegroll, Niemetschek, Nissen, Hummel, Keller. All depict Mozart as small in stature, some also slender or pale. Niemetschek attributes to him a developmental deficit, due to an overload of mental exercise compared to physical exercise in childhood.

The surviving Mozarts around 1780: siblings Nannerl (29) and Wolfgang (24) had reached adulthood, having survived typhoid and smallpox

The composer, however, escaped, unlike five of his six siblings, the very high infant mortality of the time. His pathological history is very detailed for the entire time he lived with his parents, since the father described his illnesses with accuracy and concern.

Although various sources consider the episodes of illness – especially respiratory – suffered by Mozart too frequent, from Leopold's letters it only emerges that, from ages 7 to 15, Wolfgang was ill thirty-two times. Respiratory episodes were twelve, i.e. on average 1.5 per year: a figure lower than the estimated 2.5 for late twentieth-century British boys between the ages of 5 and 14, who lived in much better hygienic conditions. Even if a rigorous comparison is not possible, there is no indication that the musician was excessively delicate in health.

Many, including Einstein, accuse the travels and exposure to infectious agents of weakening Mozart's physique, ultimately favoring his fatal illness. It is certain that on his travels he suffered considerable discomforts; however, it remains unproved that they produced such harmful effects. On the other hand, his recovery from typhoid (1765) and smallpox (1767), combined with his ability to sustain heavy work rhythms as an adult, lead some to believe that the boy had rather a fairly strong constitution.

It seems likely that he suffered from a form of rickets due to vitamin D deficiency, very common in Vienna until the end of the nineteenth century. How severe it was, however, is unknown, and perhaps it was mitigated by sun exposure during his stay in Italy.

It cannot, however, be excluded that illnesses suffered in childhood or adolescence produced the damage underlying the future fatal illness. Interpreting the episodes of 1763 and 1766 as acute polyarthritis, it has been argued that one or more streptococcus infections compromised the heart valves, causing a silent pathology affecting the heart or kidneys. Such infections are not clinically diagnosable and therefore remain hypothetical.

It is also not excluded that the fatal collapse of health was triggered by the stress of 1790, followed closely by the overwork of 1791. 1790 is in fact an infertile year on the creative level and in which the contraction of the greatest debts is attested, not only from his friend Puchberg but also from the merchant Heinrich Lackenbacher: so it seems to have been a year fraught with worries.

The image of a Mozart in physical decline in 1791 may, however, be the result of uncritical acceptance of anecdotes reported in the early biographies and based on Constanze's posthumous testimony, who may have had an interest in disseminating sentimental and sensational narratives. It is claimed that in his last days he was depressed, paranoid, slept and ate little, drank a lot instead and suffered from hallucinations.

It has been pointed out that fragments of correspondence from that year – well beyond the premiere of the Magic Flute on September 30 – return a different picture, and do not support a chronic illness: an artist in full creative fervor, enjoying good appetite and regular sleep, and whose good reproductive health is testified by the birth of his son Franz Xaver on July 26. There is no trace in the letters of melancholy or fear of death, while only one third-party source indicates an episode of doubtful nature in early September: the composer had been ill in Prague before the premiere of La Clemenza di Tito, but by late October he had improved and in November he was in excellent spirits.

On the emotional level, an attempt has been made to identify a possible mood disorder of the musician, reconstructed as manic-depressive psychosis, but, although the diagnosis found support in a musicological analysis by Robbins Landon, some consider the latter flawed by incomplete evidence and circular reasoning. According to others, the very recognition of bipolar disorder is based on a selective reading of the available data, which do not satisfy any diagnostic criteria and rather indicate normal personality traits and common reactions to life events. Hyperactivity and the tendency to playful obscenity have been considered expressions of Tourette syndrome, but the hypothesis is contested. Scatological humor, on the other hand, appears intentional and controlled, and the composer resorts to it only in specific contexts, such as the letters to the Bäsle; it then manifests itself in writing, and not as coprolalia.

Death

Further information: Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Requiem (Mozart)

The Last Hours of Mozart, painting by O'Neil (1849): Romanticism sublimated Mozart's death, making it noble and spiritual, whereas it was painful and anguished

The obscure circumstances of Mozart's death (December 5, 1791) are the biographical aspect most often the subject of speculation, suspicions, contradictory and largely false testimonies. This is decisively contributed to by the commission to write the Requiem, conveyed to Mozart by a mysterious messenger on behalf of an anonymous person a few months earlier. Legend depicts the intermediary as a spectral figure, dressed in gray, tall and thin. It was probably the legal counsel of Count Franz von Walsegg, Johann Sortschan, or the administrator Franz Anton Leitgeb who, of Turkish origin, had an olive complexion.

The appearance of the stranger would have disturbed and obsessed Mozart, who would have seen in it a foreboding of death and would have confessed this suggestion in a letter to Lorenzo Da Ponte; however, this is a forgery. There is no certainty that the composer was aware of his impending death except in the last hours of his life. Very doubtful is the assignment in extremis of the task of completing the Requiem to the pupil Süßmayr; extremely improbable that Mozart tried out the composition during his illness or worked on it until the end.

Some narratives, very late and sometimes indirect, about the composer's last hours are steeped in fantastic details: his sister-in-law Sophie Weber reported that she had rushed to his bedside after seeing the flame of a lamp go out suddenly and for no reason; the innkeeper Joseph Deiner would have testified to the fury of the elements unleashed with rain and snow on the day of the funeral. In reality there was no bad weather on December 6, but it is possible, though unproved, that the funeral took place on the 7th with a strong wind, considered responsible for the dispersal of the funeral procession.

It is a fact, however, that Mozart was accompanied to St. Stephen's Cathedral by a far from deserted cortege, and the idea that he was abandoned by everyone suffers from a misunderstanding of the customs of the time, which did not attach much importance to the transport to the cemetery. It has long been debunked that he was buried in a mass grave: instead, he had a third-class funeral, like many of his fellow citizens of the time, and an imperial regulation observed de facto meant that he was interred in a shaft tomb with five or six other corpses.

The most striking aspect of the speculation surrounding Mozart's death, however, consists in the investigation of its causes: both because it extends to the present without reaching a definitive answer, and because it produced in the Romantic age suspicions of murder and conspiracy theories. The opinion that Mozart fell victim to the envy of the Italians seems to have spread in Vienna early on, and the first rumors of assassination were already circulating on December 12.

Constanze adopted an ambiguous attitude on the subject: she discredited the hypothesis of murder through Nissen's biography and also denied it to the Novellos, but seemed to corroborate it covertly in a letter, reporting an opinion of her son Karl (1837), who in turn had written a memoir on the possible poisoning of his father (1824). Allowing beliefs to persist may have served Constanze to create an aura of mystery around the Requiem and to make people believe that Mozart had completed it in full awareness.

Škafer (tenor) and Chaliapin (bass) as Mozart and Salieri in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera (1898)

The subject of the best-known legend is the shadow cast on the Italian composer Antonio Salieri, who would have poisoned his colleague out of envy. Between 1823 and 1824, they told Beethoven that the elderly Salieri had attempted suicide by cutting his throat and that he had accused himself of Mozart's murder. The rumor spread and was later consecrated by Pushkin's short poetic drama Mozart and Salieri (1830), transposed into an opera of the same name by Rimsky-Korsakov (1897). The existence of a confession by Salieri, sometimes explained by his mental decay, is doubtful: according to Belza (1953), there was a document in the Vienna diocesan archive, but it was never found.

Another legend has it that the murderer was the Mason Franz Hofdemel. He had attacked his pregnant wife, Magdalena Pokorný, and committed suicide on the very day after Mozart's death, of whom the young woman is said to have been a pupil. Reviving the theory, born from a story by Schefer (1841), was Francis Carr in 1983. Hofdemel would have poisoned the composer, or according to others would have beaten him, causing a brain hemorrhage that led to his death.

Some conspiracy theories have identified Freemasonry as responsible for Mozart's death. They originated from the periodic writings of Georg Friedrich Daumer (1861), but were taken up several times, gradually becoming contaminated with antisemitism up to the paranoid theses of the neuropsychiatrist Mathilde Ludendorff (1928-1936). They later re-emerged, purged of the accusation against Jews, in two essays by the German doctors Dalchow, Duda and Kerner (1966 and 1971).

As far as is known, Mozart instead died of a disease vaguely described as miliary fever, about which there are only hypotheses. To aggravate his condition and hasten his end, if not to cause it, were then almost certainly the administration of emetics and the practice of bloodletting.

Music

Framing

Early critics saw in Mozart an author close in expressiveness and passion to the Romantic aesthetic, but the advent of Beethoven created an opposite stereotype, with the great man from Bonn elevated to an emblem of rebellion and the sublime, the man from Salzburg to an emblem of beauty and formal perfection. Exceptions were the judgments of Hoffmann, Kierkegaard, Mörike. Recognition of the demonic side of Mozart gained ground in the twentieth century, first in Heuß and then in Schurig, who recovered the idea of Mozart's soul divided in two, in perpetual tension between the divine and the earthly, which would have formed the premise of Einstein's biography. The nineteenth century also saw, with Blaze de Bury, the absolutization of Mozart, with his placement in a supranational dimension and in an Olympus of greats (Shakespeare, Goethe, Raphael) that excludes every other musician. A similar but extreme vision depicts the Austrian composer as the only divine genius of humanity. Echoes of these conceptions reach criticism as far as the twenty-first century.

Character

The myth of the eternal child has also produced, promoted by the media of the twentieth-twenty-first centuries and by the Viennese and Salzburg Mozart industry, a popular and superficial vision of Mozart's music, banalized in the stereotypes of sweetness and easy listening, not serious, infantile: a "tinkling" Mozart as background music, made up of short extracts that repeat obsessively in various contexts – telephone hold music, professional studios, commercial exercises, advertisements – and conceal the profound, sometimes dark and frightening moments of the same compositions from which they are taken; or they convey of Mozart himself a sentimental image of a nostalgic court artist, ignoring the ability of his music to express the entire range of human expressions and emotions. This reflexively reinforces the myth of the eternal child.

Biological effects

Further information: Mozart effect

The belief that Mozart's music produces beneficial effects on the listener has in turn been traced back to the myth and to the composer's popularity. In particular, his reputation as a child prodigy seems to come into play when talking about effects on children. Therapeutic compilations for meditation, relaxation, night rest, or those intended to stimulate the so-called Mozart effect, as well as many experiments, use a subset of Mozart's production: several pieces, such as the emblematic central Andante of the Piano Concerto K 467, in fact lend themselves by character to confirming the assumption of soothing effectiveness.

K 467

K 466

The first bars of the central Andante from Concerto No. 21 (K 467) and those of the Allegro from Concerto No. 20 (K 466) in comparison: the first composition lends itself to founding the common belief of Mozart's serenity and therapeutic power; the second contradicts it

Various studies have observed the emotional reaction to listening to Mozart, sometimes detecting feelings of sweet serenity, or more relaxation and less stress compared to what was achieved using other music or reading. The media story of the Mozart effect is well known, born from a misinterpretation of a study by Rauscher and others. The latter had only observed a temporary stimulation of cognitive abilities when listening to the Sonata for Two Pianos K 448, with an 8-9% improvement in the results of a spatial reasoning test. An article in the Boston Globe coined the expression Mozart effect, however, and the US media promoted the idea that Mozart in general favored intellectual development in children. Several US states then encouraged its availability for new mothers and nurseries, while Mozart effect became a registered trademark. The greatest interest in the Mozart effect seems to have been aroused in those states where education levels are lower.

There is suspicion that many studies are flawed by prejudice or suffer from the level of musical competence of the researchers: the pieces used have a precise character, which is not constant in Mozart's production, and one would hardly be able to trace relaxing properties or the communication of positive sensations in dramatic masterpieces such as the Piano Concerto K 466, the String Quintet K 516, the Requiem.

The ability of music to induce well-being has been recognized since antiquity, and the biological effects of it (cardiac, neurological, biochemical) have been the subject of many experiments, although not always of good methodological quality. Some studies have also observed them in other animal species, detecting positive effects with Mozart, negative with serial music and neutral with white noise. Even the Mozart effect in its original version has been apparently confirmed by a study that compared the results obtained with the Sonata K 448 and with a piece by Brahms (Hungarian Dance No. 5). A similar effect has, however, also been observed using Schubert, and it is supposed that the outcomes of many studies depend not so much on the author as on the genre, the mode of the scale (major or minor), the competence and the musical preferences of the listeners.

Historical reality

A vague portrait of the real Mozart can be reconstructed by considering biographical facts in terms of probability. According to Stafford, it is unlikely that he was maladjusted in human relationships, or that he destroyed himself with his own hands through his difficult sociability, through squandering of money or through an attitude of social and political rebellion; Constanze was not the cause of ruin, nor murder the cause of death. Rather he was:

[...] a complex man: sometimes a snob, sometimes a social rebel; torn between sharp, ironic perception of others and sentimental sympathy; sensual and usually given to hilarity, but on occasions moralistic and straitlaced; intermittently tactless, generally well-socialized. He was not having thoughts of death in 1791.

Niemetschek attests in Mozart a rational spirit and an excellent extra-musical culture, highlighting his interest in mathematics, his knowledge of three modern languages besides German (French, English, Italian) and rudiments of Latin; the correspondence then reveals a capacity for criticism of theatre and poetry, and a love of reading; there is evidence that he also read newspapers assiduously.

The composer's library included works by Ovid and Molière, contemporary writers (Kleist, Wieland, Weiße), librettos by Metastasio, essays on German history, mathematics, philosophy, literature, religion, music pedagogy, texts on Freemasonry, biographies of Frederick II and Joseph II, educational books for children, a collection of fairy tales, travel guides, the Bible. Mozart's readings throughout his life were, however, more extensive and included, among others, besides the very important Wieland, the Thousand and One Nights, Fénelon, Pezzl, probably Blumauer, Shakespeare.

The composer's intellectual curiosity, according to opera historian Nicholas Till, is the key to reading his music and makes him a man well integrated into the cultural ferment of the time, given the modernity of his library and his frequentation of Gottfried van Swieten, an influential figure whose role was comparable to that of a minister of culture. For Lidia Bramani, the atmosphere Mozart breathed from boyhood in intellectual relationships and literary circles made him an artist of modern, libertarian ideas, a proponent of freethought, pacifist, tolerant, a lover of nature and animals, attentive to children's rights and to women's sexual freedom as well, not moralistic, empathetic, egalitarian and inclined to accept the role of the monarchy and nobility only insofar as it was directed toward the common good.

Evolution of the myth

Further information: Amadeus (film)

The myth is now part of the collective imagination, which is fascinated by it and prefers it to harsh reality; it is therefore rooted in people's consciousness, including professional musicians and conductors, and pervades all expressions of art. Musicology itself, which has long reiterated the various common beliefs, has not entirely emancipated itself from it.

The tradition inaugurated as early as the early biographies with poems, stories, novels and plays continues in cinema as in rock opera. Among the early literary adaptations of Mozart's life and works, in addition to Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri, are Hoffmann's story Don Giovanni and Mörike's novella Mozart's Journey to Prague.

Mikelangelo Loconte in the musical Mozart, l'opéra rock

From the turn of the 1970s and during the following decade, Shaffer's play Amadeus (1978) drove a renewed mass interest in Mozart, to the point of leading some to speak of Mozartmania. In 1985, the single Rock Me Amadeus by Falco, a worldwide hit, promoted a neo-Romantic vision of Mozart as a punk and successful rockstar, anachronistically placed within the traditional biography of the composer. The singer played Mozart in the music video. But it was above all the success of Forman's film Amadeus (1984), based on the play of the same name and winner of eight Oscars, that gave popular resonance to the myth. The film constructs a modern image of the composer, adopting the Romantic vision and reinforcing pre-existing myths, but also creating new ones.

Amadeus has been considered an expression of popular culture, capable of producing masterpieces acclaimed by critics and not necessarily synonymous with low culture. Among musicologists, often critical of the film, some after many years recognize a certain accuracy in it: in the reconstruction of the chronology of events, in various historical details, in reflecting the way music was understood at the time and in reproducing the dialogue between improvisation, composition and performance in Mozart's concert production.

Narrated unreliably by Salieri, addressed to the general public, Amadeus would have had the merit of encouraging reflection on Mozart's biography, and of focusing, becoming a milestone, the bicentenary reception of his life and music, which is common heritage and satisfies a collective need for legend. According to Keefe:

If Mozart does indeed belong to all of us – to 200-plus years of scholars, performers, composers, concert audiences, musical ignoramuses [...], to 'all mediocrities in the world' to quote Salieri – then he has, in Amadeus, his ideal advocate.

Musicologist Robert L. Marshall believes that Amadeus reflects the desire, very much alive in a highly secularized age, to explain the extraordinariness of the talent of certain individuals of the human species. Kenyon judges the Mozart myth a rich source of knowledge about what man loves to believe about great composers, inspiration, premature death and unfinished work, and therefore warns against dismissing it hastily, also as an actual reflection of historical facts.

See also

• Amadeus (film)
• Child prodigy
• Mozart effect
• Mozart and Salieri (play)

Notes

Annotations

References

Bibliography

Mozart Correspondence

• "Mozart Briefe und Dokumente – Online-Edition". Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (in German). Archived from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.

Periodicals

• "Nachrichten aus Briefen". Musikalisches Wochenblatt (in German). 1 (12). Berlin: Verlag der neuen Musikhandlung. December 1791. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
• "The Musical World". The Musical World. 12 (185). London: Hooper. 1839. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Rochlitz, Friedrich, ed. (1798–1799). "Anekdoten aus Mozarts Leben" [Anecdotes from Mozart's Life]. Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (in German). Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. Retrieved 9 April 2024.

Mozart Biographies

• Abert, Hermann (2007). W. A. Mozart. Translated by Stewart Spencer. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07223-5. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
• Arnold, Ignaz Ferdinand Cajetan (1803). Mozarts Geist. Seine kurze Biographie und ästhetische Darstellung [Mozart's Spirit. His Short Biography and Aesthetic Presentation] (in German). Erfurt: Henningsche Buchhandlung. Archived from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Belmonte, Carola (2022) [1905]. Die Frauen im Leben Mozarts [The Women in Mozart's Life] (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Outlook. ISBN 978-3-36844-206-4. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Blom, Eric (1962) [1935]. Mozart. London: Dent & Sons. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Braunbehrens, Volkmar (1986). Mozart in Wien [Mozart in Vienna] (in German). Munich: Piper. ISBN 978-3-492-02995-7. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965). Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Einstein, Alfred (1962) [1945]. Mozart. His Character. His Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Eisen, Cliff (2023). Il vero Mozart [The Real Mozart]. Translated by Patrizia Rebulla. Milan: il Saggiatore. ISBN 978-88-428-3270-6. Retrieved 4 January 2025.
• Jahn, Otto (1867). W. A. Mozart (in German). Vol. 1. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Jahn, Otto (1867). W. A. Mozart (in German). Vol. 2. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Melograni, Piero (2007). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-51956-2. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Niemetschek, Franz Xaver (1798). Leben des K. K. Kapellmeisters Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart [Life of the Imperial-Royal Kapellmeister Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart] (in German). Prague. Archived from the original on 27 August 2023. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Nissen, Georg Nikolaus von (1828). Biographie W. A. Mozarts [Biography of W. A. Mozart] (in German). Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. Archived from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Landon, H. C. Robbins (1988). 1791, Mozart's Last Year. New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 978-0-500-28107-9. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Sadie, Stanley (1965). Mozart. London: Calder and Boyars. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Schlichtegroll, Friedrich (1794). "Mozarts Leben" [Mozart's Life] (PDF). Nekrolog der Deutschen (in German). Graz: Hubeck. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Schurig, Arthur (1913). Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: sein Leben, seine Persönlichkeit, sein Werk auf grund der vornehmlich durch Nikolaus von Nissen gesammelten biographischen quellen und der ergebnisse der neuesten forschung dargestellt [Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: His Life, His Personality, His Work Based on the Biographical Sources Collected Principally by Nikolaus von Nissen and the Results of Recent Research] (in German). Vol. 2. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag. Retrieved 9 April 2024.

Memoirs

• Grétry, André (1789). Mémoires ou essai sur la musique [Memoirs or Essay on Music] (in French). Paris: Prault. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Da Ponte, Lorenzo (1918) [1829–1830]. Memorie [Memoirs]. Bari: Laterza. Retrieved 26 April 2024.

Musicology

• General
  • Beales, Derek (1996). "Court, Government and Society in Mozart's Vienna". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). Wolfgang Amadé Mozart. Essays on his Life and his Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816443-2. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  • Blaze, Henri (1838). "Musiciens Français. II. De l'École Fantastique et de M. Berlioz" [French Musicians. II. Of the Fantastic School and M. Berlioz]. Revue des Deux Mondes (1829-1971) (in French). 16 (1): 97–121. JSTOR 44727741.
  • Bramani, Lidia (2005). Mozart massone e rivoluzionario [Mozart Freemason and Revolutionary]. Milan: Mondadori. ISBN 88-424-9128-4. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
  • Buscaroli, Piero (1996). La morte di Mozart [The Death of Mozart]. Milan: Rizzoli. ISBN 978-88-17-84494-9.
  • Hatting, Carsten E. (1985–1986). "Bemærkninger til Mozarts biografi" [Remarks on Mozart's Biography] (PDF). Musik og Forskning (in Danish). 11: 5–41. ISSN 0903-188X. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Heuß, Alfred (1906). "Das dämonische Element in Mozarts Werke" [The Demonic Element in Mozart's Works]. Zeitschrift der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft (in German). 5: 175–186. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Keefe, Simon P. (2012). Mozart's Requiem: Reception, Work, Completion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139027021. ISBN 978-0-521-19837-0.
  • Kraemer, Uwe (May–June 1976). "Wer hat Mozart verhungern lassen?" [Who Let Mozart Starve?]. Musica (in German) (30): 203–211.
  • Landon, H. C. Robbins (1983). Mozart and the Masons: New Light on the Lodge "Crowned Hope". New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-55014-X. Retrieved 10 May 2024.
  • Wolff, Christoff (1994) [1991]. Mozarts Requiem—Geschichte—Musik—Dokumente—Partitur des Fragments [Mozart's Requiem: Historical and Analytical Studies, Documents, Score] (in German). Translated by Mary Whittall. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-21389-0. Retrieved 4 May 2024.

• Specific
  • Bennett, Marie Josephine (3 April 2018). "Shamadeus? Reconstructing Mozart: The Continuing Impact of Amadeus and Myths on Mozart Reception". In Raphael, Jackie; Lam, Celia; Weber, Millicent (eds.). Disassembling the Celebrity Figure. At the Interface/Probing the Boundaries. Vol. 99. pp. 223–245. doi:10.1163/9789004365322_013. ISBN 978-90-04-36532-2. ISSN 1570-7113. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Borowitz, Albert I. (1973). "Salieri and the "Murder" of Mozart". The Musical Quarterly. 59 (2): 263–284. doi:10.1093/mq/LIX.2.263. ISSN 0027-4631. JSTOR 741525.
  • Brown, A. Peter (1992). "Amadeus and Mozart: Setting the Record Straight". The American Scholar. 61 (1): 49–66. ISSN 0003-0937. JSTOR 41211976.
  • Colombati, Claudia (2008). "Ricezione storico-estetica nel XX secolo del "Personaggio" Mozart e della sua opera. L'Ottocento e il mito di "Mozart": da Stendhal e da E. T. A. Hoffmann a Sören Kierkegaard" [Historical-Aesthetic Reception in the 20th Century of the "Character" Mozart and His Work. The 19th Century and the Myth of "Mozart": from Stendhal and E. T. A. Hoffmann to Søren Kierkegaard]. In Laborda, José María García; Aldana, Eduardo Arteaga (eds.). En torno a Mozart: reflexiones desde la Universidad [On Mozart: Reflections from the University]. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. pp. 85–126. ISBN 978-84-7800-337-2. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Clarke, Bruce Cooper (1989). "Historicizing the Mozart Myth: Volkmar Braunbehrens's 'Mozart in Wien'". The Eighteenth Century. 30 (1): 73–78. ISSN 0193-5380. JSTOR 41467463.
  • Clarke, Bruce Cooper (1995). "Albert von Mölk: Mozart Myth-Maker? Study of an 18th Century Correspondence" (PDF). Mozart-Jahrbuch 1995 des Zentralinstitutes für Mozartforschung der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg. Kassel: Bärenreiter: 155–191. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Everist, Mark (2012). Mozart's Ghosts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-538917-3. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Henneberg, Gudrun (1983). "Der Einfluß der Philosophie Hegels auf das Mozart-Bild in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts" [The Influence of Hegel's Philosophy on the Image of Mozart in the First Half of the 19th Century] (PDF). Mozart-Jahrbuch 1980/83 des Zentralinstitutes für Mozartforschung der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg (in German). Kassel: Bärenreiter: 257–262. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 April 2024. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  • Hochradner, Thomas (2015). "Einem Wunder auf der Spur: Die Mozarts und das Miserere von Gregorio Allegri" [On the Trail of a Miracle: The Mozarts and the Miserere by Gregorio Allegri]. Muzikološki zbornik (in German). 51 (2): 41–55. doi:10.4312/mz.51.2.41-55. ISSN 2350-4242.
  • Lütteken, Laurenz (2015). "The Depoliticized Drama: Mozart's Figaro and the Depths of Enlightenment". In Hall, Patricia (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Music Censorship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 203–220. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199733163.013.34. ISBN 978-0-19-998418-3.
  • Keefe, Simon P. (2009). "Beyond Fact and Fiction, Scholarly and Popular: Peter Shaffer and Miloš Forman's "Amadeus" at 25". The Musical Times. 150 (1906): 45–53. ISSN 0027-4666. JSTOR 25597601.
  • Kivy, Peter (2001). The Possessor and the Possessed. Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of the Musical Genius. New Haven: Yale University Press. doi:10.12987/9780300135114. ISBN 978-0-300-13511-4.
  • Marshall, Robert L. (1997). "Film as Musicology: Amadeus". The Musical Quarterly. 81 (2): 173–179. doi:10.1093/mq/81.2.173. ISSN 0027-4631. JSTOR 742458. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Moore, Julia (1989). "Mozart in the Market-Place". Journal of the Royal Musical Association. 114 (1): 18–42. doi:10.1093/jrma/114.1.18. ISSN 1471-6933. JSTOR 766376. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Morrow, Mary Sue (1985). "Mozart and Viennese Concert Life". The Musical Times. 126 (1710): 453–454. doi:10.2307/964305. ISSN 0027-4666. JSTOR 964305. Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  • Mountain, Rosemary (2001). "Composers and Imagery: Myths and Realities". In Godøy, Rolf Inge; Jørgensen, Harald (eds.). Musical Imagery. New York: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-64704-8. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Solomon, Maynard (1991). "Mozart: The Myth of the Eternal Child". 19th-Century Music. 15 (2): 95–106. doi:10.2307/746365. ISSN 1533-8606. JSTOR 746365. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Solomon, Maynard (1991). "The Rochlitz's Anecdotes: Issue of Authenticity in Early Mozart Biography". In Eisen, Cliff (ed.). Mozart Studies. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 1–59. Retrieved 11 December 2024.
  • Stafford, William (1991). The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1937-3. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Steptoe, Andrew (1984). "Mozart and Poverty: A Re-Examination of the Evidence". The Musical Times. 125 (1694): 196–201. doi:10.2307/963563. ISSN 0027-4666. JSTOR 963563. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Wates, Roye E. (2010). Mozart: An Introduction to the Music, the Man, and the Myths. Milwaukee: Amadeus Press. ISBN 978-1-57467-189-6. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
  • Weber, William (1994). "The Myth of Mozart, the Revolutionary". The Musical Quarterly. 78 (1): 34–47. doi:10.1093/mq/78.1.34. ISSN 0027-4631. JSTOR 742492.

Anthropology

• Danesi, Marcel (2008). Popular Culture: Introductory Perspectives. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-5546-4. Retrieved 9 April 2024.

Philosophy

• Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1978) [1835–1838]. Estetica [Aesthetics] (in Italian). Translated by Nicolao Merker and Nicola Vaccaro. Milan: Feltrinelli. ISBN 978-88-07-85084-4.

Medicine

• Bär, Carl (1972) [1966]. Mozart: Krankheit – Tod – Begräbnis [Mozart: Illness – Death – Funeral] (in German). Salzburg: Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum.
• Cervellin, Gianfranco; Lippi, Giuseppe (2011). "From music-beat to heart-beat: A journey in the complex interactions between music, brain and heart". European Journal of Internal Medicine. 22 (22): 371–374. doi:10.1016/j.ejim.2011.02.019. ISSN 1879-0828. PMID 21767754. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Duda, Gunther (1994). W. A. Mozart "Den Göttern gegeben". Ein "Bauopfertod" [W. A. Mozart "Given to the Gods". A "Building Sacrifice Death"] (in German). Munich: Hohe Warte. ISBN 978-3-88202-345-9.
• Felisati, Dino; Sperati, Giorgio (21–24 May 2008). Pazienti Celebri. Malati O.R.L. nella storia e nell'arte [Famous Patients. ENT Patients in History and Art] (PDF). 95º Congresso Nazionale. Turin: Società Italiana di Otorinolaringoiatria e Chirurgia Cervico-Facciale. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Franken, Franz Herrmann (1991). Die Krankheiten grosser Komponisten [The Illnesses of Great Composers] (in German). Wilhelmshaven: Noetzel. ISBN 3-7959-0420-X.
• Jenkins, J. S. (1994). "Mozart's last months and controversial death". Journal of Medical Biography. 2 (1): 44–47. doi:10.1177/096777209400200107. ISSN 1758-1087. PMID 11615267. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Jenkins, John (June 2006). "Mozart — portrait and myth". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 99 (6): 288–291. doi:10.1258/jrsm.99.6.288. ISSN 1758-1095. PMC 1472719. PMID 16738370.
• Karhausen, L. R. (May 1999). "The myth of Mozart's poor health and weak constitution". Journal of Medical Biography. 7 (2): 111–117. doi:10.1177/096777209900700207. ISSN 1758-1087. PMID 11623740. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Karhausen, Lucien (2011). The Bleeding of Mozart. Xlibris. ISBN 978-1-4568-5077-7. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• O'Shea, John (1991). Musica e medicina. Profili medici di grandi compositori [Music and Medicine. Medical Profiles of Great Composers]. Turin: EDT. ISBN 978-88-7063-110-4.
• Otte, Andreas; Wink, Konrad (2008). Kerners Krankheiten großer Musiker [Kerner's Illnesses of Great Musicians] (in German). Stuttgart: Schattauer. ISBN 978-3-7945-2601-7. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Pauwels, Ernest K. J.; Volterrani, Duccio; Mariani, Giuliano; Kostkiewics, Magdalena (2014). "Mozart, Music and Medicine". Medical Principles and Practice. 23 (23): 403–412. doi:10.1159/000364873. ISSN 1423-0151. PMC 5586918. PMID 25060169. Retrieved 9 April 2024.

Psychiatry and Psychology

• Ashoori, Aidin; Jankovic, Joseph (November 2007). "Mozart's movements and behaviour: a case of Tourette's syndrome?". Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry. 78 (992): 1171–1175. doi:10.1136/jnnp.2007.114520. ISSN 0022-3050. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Davies, Peter J. (1987). "Mozart's Manic-Depressive Tendencies – 1". The Musical Times. 128 (1729): 123–126. doi:10.2307/964490. ISSN 0027-4666. JSTOR 964490. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Davies, Peter J. (1987). "Mozart's Manic-Depressive Tendencies – 2". The Musical Times. 128 (1729): 191–196. doi:10.2307/965420. ISSN 0027-4666. JSTOR 965420. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Keynes, Milo (1991). "Mozart Did Not Have a Depressive Personality". The Musical Times. 132 (1785): 554–555. doi:10.2307/966207. ISSN 0027-4666. JSTOR 966207. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Lehmann, Andreas C. (1997). "The acquisition of expertise in music: Efficiency of deliberate practice as a moderating variable in accounting for sub-expert performance". In Deliege, Irene; Sloboda, John A. (eds.). Perception and cognition of music. Psychology Press. pp. 161–187. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.5.829. ISBN 978-1-138-87709-2. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
• Mitchell, Sydney D. (1950). "Music and Psychological Medicine". Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association. 77: 27–39. doi:10.1093/jrma/77.1.27. ISSN 0080-4452. JSTOR 766146.
• Mitchell, S. D.; Zanker, A. (1948). "The use of Music in Group Therapy". Journal of Mental Science. 94 (397): 737–748. doi:10.1192/bjp.94.397.737. ISSN 0368-315X. PMID 18121413. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Powell, Henry; Kushner, Howard I. (2015). "Mozart at play". Mozart at play: the limitations of attributing the etiology of genius to Tourette syndrome and mental illness. Progress in Brain Research. Vol. 216. pp. 277–291. doi:10.1016/bs.pbr.2014.11.010. ISBN 978-0-444-63399-6. ISSN 1875-7855. PMID 25684294. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Simonton, Dean Keith (November 1991). "Emergence and realization of genius: the lives and works of 120 classical composers". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 61 (5): 829–840. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.5.829. ISSN 0022-3514. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
• Sloboda, John A. (January 2007). "Mozart in Psychology" (PDF). Music Performance Research. 1: 66–75. ISSN 1755-9219. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Smith, Jonathan C.; Joyce, Carol A. (2004). "Mozart versus New Age Music: Relaxation States, Stress, and ABC Relaxation Theory". Journal of Music Therapy. 41 (3): 215–224. doi:10.1093/jmt/41.3.215. ISSN 2053-7395. PMID 15327344. Retrieved 9 April 2024.

Criticism

• Eckermann, Johann Peter; Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1949) [1848]. "Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens" [Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life]. In Beutler, Ernst (ed.). Gedenkausgabe der Werke, Briefe und Gespräche [Commemorative Edition of the Works, Letters and Conversations] (in German). Vol. 24. Zurich: Artemis. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Suard, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine (1804). Mélanges de littérature [Miscellany of Literature] (in French). Paris: Dentu. Retrieved 9 April 2024.

Encyclopedias

• Eisen, Cliff; Sadie, Stanley (2001). "Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.6002278233. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. Retrieved 9 April 2024.
• Eisen, Cliff; Keefe, Simon P., eds. (2006). The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511481383. ISBN 978-0-511-48138-3.
• "Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus". Sapere. Retrieved 17 August 2024.
• "Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus". Treccani. Retrieved 9 April 2024.

Documentaries

• Angela, Piero (30 December 2003). Mozart: la storia di una vita [Mozart: The Story of a Life]. Rai 3.
• Service, Tom (23 January 2015). The Joy of Mozart. BBC Four. Retrieved 28 April 2024.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

This page will be placed in the following categories if it is moved to the article namespace.

Categories:

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Romanticism
• Cultural history