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December 1, 2009 ARCHIVE

D U E L I N G D I C T I O N A R I E S

With art by Vera !

IIIII

Nick and

James

Nick and

James

D U E L I N G D I C T I O N A R I E S

N J

James Wilson, 1819: If the ascendant or itslord be in any of these degrees in a nativity it issaid to denote something in the native’s fortuneor appearance corresponding; thus, if in a mas-culine degree he or she will be more masculine:if in a feminine, more feminine. If in a light ordark degree, more fair or dark; and if in a smokydegree more dun & swarthy, with dull intellect.Void degrees render the native empty & void.Nicholas deVore, 1947: It is probable thatmany of the qualities ascribed to individualdegrees have to do with sensitive points cre-ated by Eclipses, major conjunctions, or aclose conjunction in both longitude & lati-tude between a solar system body & a fixedstar, which points are accented by the transitof another planet at a later date.

NOW WEEKLY!

S T A R O F T H E W E E K

NOW WEEKLY!

Individual Degrees

– From Fixed Stars, by Vivian Robson

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01 13:40 ¡ Ã ¤ Void14:24 ¡ “14:53 £ Æ ©20:28 ¨ Ô22:04 ¤ ™

02 07:31 610“15 Full Moon03 10:28 ¡ Ã £ Void

16:01 ¡ ”04 11:45 ¤ Æ §

22:54 ¡ Ð ¢05 05:09 ¡ Ä ̈ Void

17:08 ¡ •17:25 £ š

06 17:30 ¡ Ä ¢23:52 ¡ Â ¥

07 08:59 ¡ Ã © Void09:12 £ Â ª19:07 ¡ –

for the week (all times GMT)

A L M A N A C K

Notes

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OOO

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Extracted & adapted from AstroAmerica’sDaily Ephemeris, 2000-2020. Get yours!

SABIK eta Ophiuchi 18 å 06Notes: A pale yellow star situated on the left knee of Ophiuchus.

From Sabik, Preceding One.Influence: According to Ptolemy it is of the nature of Saturn & Venus; and, to Alvidas,of Jupiter & Venus. It causes wastefulness, lost energy, perverted morals & success inevil deeds.With Sun: Sincere, honourable, scientific, religious & philosophical interests, unortho-dox or heretical, moral courage, bad for gains.With Moon: Secret enmity & jealousy, trouble through relatives, successful but not wealthy,success in breeding stock.With Mercury: Injury from open enemies, little help from friends, failure in business, fairly goodfor gain but legal losses, scandal through relatives.

IIIII

Chiron ±

OOO

OOO

OOO

OOO

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THIS week Martin Lass’s 2005book, Chiron, Healing Body &Soul re-turned to stock. It still says

First Edition inside, but in the back it saysprint on demand. It’s an excuse for a re-view of Chiron-atic books:

Lass’s book is about Wounds & Victims& Healing. A lot about wounds & victims,not much practical stuff on healing. Of itssort, this is probably the best book on Chi-ron, but I have to be frank & say that wound-ing & victimization shades too much intomanipulation & codependence for my taste.

The best book on Chiron is still one ofthe earliest – Zane Stein’s Essence & Ap-plication, A View From Chiron. And it’sthe best precisely because it was the first.Full of the excitement of discovery, with allthe wonderful loose ends that hadn’t yetbeen tucked out of sight, the sheer rawness.I get this directly from Zane, which means

it isn’t in general distribution. I only do thatfor books of outstanding merit. Years agoZane asked if I would publish it. At the timeI declined. If he asked again, I most likelywould. The book deserves a wider audience.

My favorite overview of Chiron is inMartha Lang Wescott’s Mechanics of Fu-ture Asteroids, even though it’s only 6½pages out of 244. See a glimpse of it in theOctober 6 newsletter.

Barbara Hand Clow’s Chiron RainbowBridge, has long been the most popular of allthe Chiron books. Influenced by Stein, herrainbow bridge was picked up by Lass.

Another early book is Richard Nolle’sChiron, The New Planet in Your Horo-scope, from 1983. In establishing his defi-nitions, Nolle gives a great many delinea-tions, for signs, houses, aspects & more.

For those who want more sophistication,there’s Chris Brooks’ Midpoint Keys to Chi-ron. Delineations of the various midpointstructures are both detailed, and solid.There’s a lot in this little book.

Finally, there is Rudy Flack & Helen Ad-ams Garrett’s Chiron Ephemeris with Keysto Interpretation, a small comb bound bookof 156 pages. The ephemeris is from 1680-2051. Includes stations, 1900-2010.

TChiron ±

December 1, the 335th day of the year.800 – Charlemagne judges Leo III.

Copyright © 2009 by David R. Roell. All rights reserved.

%IVY’SGEMOFTHE

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Buy the book! Meet the author! Headlines, graphics, book titles & authors are all clickable. So click already! Go places!

HHHHHelpfulintsForUpcomingBrides

From Never Throw Rice at a Pisces,by Stacey Wolf, $13.95

© Debbi Kempton-Smith, 1999

(© Stacey Wolf, 2007)

MOZARTMOZARTMOZARTMOZARTMOZARTThe 218th anniversary of his death is on Sat-urday, 5 December. It remains unsolved.

PrologueProloguePrologueProloguePrologue

WHAT killed Mozart? Poison? Tu-berculosis? Bad pork? A rabiddog? (No, that was Poe.) Ten

years ago I heard that a researcher had thedefinitive answer: Bad teeth. Abscessescan kill. Every dentist knows that. Well, Ithought, that was that. Case closed.

And then four or five years ago, I heardthat bad teeth wasn’t it. It was Bright’s Dis-ease, i.e. bad bladder. And I threw up myhands in disgust. Not teeth, not poison, notpork; so why should I believe bladder? Thesewere nothing but wild guesses. Since I’m agreat wild guesser, why shouldn’t I have ashot? Everything else having been tried al-ready, I went contrarian. What’s the oppo-site of dead? What if Mozart didn’t die?What if he lived? An absurd thought, butwhat else did we have? And as I batted itabout, as I teased out a story, I was aston-ished. Speechless. I still am. Here it is:

The Life, Deathand Life of

Wolfgang MozartIt is commonly believed that Mozart died,

in Vienna, on December 5, 1791, a few weeksshy of his 36th birthday. In support of thisare the following facts:• Mozart’s body disappeared within hours.• There were no medical records.• The signed medical examiner’s report was

contradicted by eyewitnesses, and thereforeignored.• Eyewitness reports, of which there seem

(continued, page 4)

MOZARTMOZARTMOZARTMOZARTMOZART

The Life, Deathand Life of

Wolfgang Mozart

WLesson 19:

Arrangementof Planets

WITH your chart before you, thefirst thing you notice is the dis-tribution of planets around the

wheel, giving some indication of your modeof action in life – your pattern.

Are they standing alone & thus dis-persed? This reveals a scattering of inter-ests, too many irons in the fire & danger ofknowing a little about too many things thatmay interfere with knowing a lot aboutsomething in particular. In such a case, takethe planet that squares the 1st cusp, the As-cendant, and recognize that it is the one youwill ultimately succeed with (the square be-ing forceful & the Ascendant representingyour personal activity). Note the house theplanet is in to see where its interest lies (page8 herein) and the Sign the planet is in tofind the channel it will operate through(page 10 or 11), and also the decanate ofthat Sign (page 12), which gives an addedcharacteristic to take into consideration inits make-up. If the ruler of the Ascendantis standing alone in a Sign or house it meansthat you work best alone: you can forgeyour own way in life, independently, and atan early age. — Correspondence Coursein Astrology, 1968

W

Lesson 19:

Arrangementof Planets

The Wedding Dress

Sagittarians love being brides, butpass on the bling-bling for a morenatural look. A delicate headband

of satin & rhinestone flowers, an elegantgemstone bracelet, and low heeled mules tocomplete the look. Sag may even choose toskip the veil, although don’t pass on the hair& makeup. You can get a natural look that’smore polished by a talented professional.

If Sag’s don’t watch out, you can be eas-ily influenced. Don’t let anyone else’s ideaof the perfect outfit sway you. Sag Kawana,who got married on a beach says, “I didn’twant to wear shoes. My mom insisted that Iget a pair of shoes, still to this day I haven’tworn them.”

S

How Do YHow Do YHow Do YHow Do YHow Do You Speak?ou Speak?ou Speak?ou Speak?ou Speak?Mercury and theMercury and theMercury and theMercury and theMercury and theYYYYYak-Yak-Yak-Yak-Yak-Yak Tak Tak Tak Tak Tablesablesablesablesables

Sagittarius—You have a gorgeous, sexyspeaking voice, Richard Burton–even whendead, you are still the greatest orator in allthe galaxies. You can sell anyone anythingwith your cheerful philosophy.Capricorn—Nixon’s Mercury wuz here.You’re a master of diplomacy if it suits you.Your mind is like a steel trap. This is an ex-cellent place to have your talker–you see theBig Picture.Aquarius—If you’re not a member of somecrazy fanatic cult, your ideas are way aheadof their time. You have an excitable, logicalway of expressing yourself, with a slightstammer when rabid.Pisces—Cute spoonerisms creep into yourspeech. You’ll do anything to avoid hurtingpeople’s feelings– You are their heart & soulof tact. You’d even lie, but you forget the de-tails. Witty.

How Do YHow Do YHow Do YHow Do YHow Do You Speak?ou Speak?ou Speak?ou Speak?ou Speak?Mercury and theMercury and theMercury and theMercury and theMercury and theYYYYYak-Yak-Yak-Yak-Yak-Yak Tak Tak Tak Tak Tablesablesablesablesables

December 1:1420 - Henry V enters Paris1640 - Portugal leaves Spain1822 - Peter I crowned in Brazil1918 - Transylvannia unites with Romania1919 - Lady Astor enters Parliament1952 - Christine Jorgenson is a girl

Don’t fall from the sky! Get your Astrology books from AstroAmerica! All the books, all the time, fast service, fair prices.

© Marian Futterman, 1976, Your Dogand Astrology, $3.00. Yes, Marian, westill have copies. Some of the best sun-sign writing I ever came across.

DOG OF THEMONTH

WHOWHOWHOWHOWHOWHENWHEREWHEREWHEREWHEREWHEREWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY

WHAWHAWHAWHAWHATTTTTWHEN4ELECTIONAL

ASTROLOGY

Order on-line at

www.AstroAmerica.comOrder toll-free: 1-800-475-2272

Martha LangWescott’s

ASTEROIDOF THEMONTH

ASTEROIDOF THEMONTH

**

— from Mechanics of the Future Asteroids, ©1988, 1991

DOG OF THEMONTH

— Electional Astrology, by VivianRobson

+ The New Newsletter

Most people, most astrologers,even, have no idea how rich,how varied, astrology really is.

I’m lucky. For the last fifteen years, I’velived in what amounts to a world-class as-trological library, which I’ve been passingoff as AstroAmerica. Every week I willserve up a tiny slice, for your amusement.

‘Til next week – Dave

+

M

Cupido-A

Part 37: So last year!

Borrowing Money

FORTIFY the lord of the second, thesign containing it, and the second cuspin both the radical & electional maps;

also fortify Jupiter. Let the Moon be decreas-ing in light & in Leo Scorpio, Sagittarius,Aquarius or Pisces; and let Jupiter or Venusbe in favourable aspect to the ascendant, orMoon, or both if possible, but see that nei-ther Jupiter nor Venus be cadent. Take carethat the Moon is not afflicted by any of themalefics, nor in conjunction, or any afflic-tion, with Mercury. If the Moon is afflictedby Mars there is much solicitation, difficulty,and often quarrels; while if the affliction isfrom Saturn there is considerable delay, andoften failure or a disappointing end. Neverborrow or lend money when the Moon or as-cendant is in the first degree of Gemini, Leo orSagittarius, or the Moon is in the ascendant atnoon, for much inconvenience will arise, par-ticularly to the lender.

If the transaction is to be kept a close se-cret, let the Moon be within 17o from the Sun& applying to a conjunction or good aspectof Jupiter or Venus which are themselves freefrom affliction. If the Moon after separatingfrom the Sun applies to the conjunction . . .

THE name, Cupido-A, is used to dis-tinguish the Uranian Point, Cupido,from the asteroid, Cupido-A. The

glyph shows “a shielded Venus” – becauseCupido-A in manifestation is a close relativeof Venus & the transneptunian point Cupido,exhibiting similar interests in love, relation-ships, beauty and art. Analysis of Cupido-Ain the natal chart is best done with referenceto natal Venus–comparing & contrasting thesigns, houses & aspects of each. Like deriva-tive angles, Cupido-A often shows “a differ-ent level” of Venusian manifestation. Ofcourse, both Venus & Cupido-A “attract” in-dividuals with aspects to their degree.

Demeter

FROM the position of Demeter onedraws additional information about therelationship with the mother, the nur-

turing experience, and the style of interaction(how one attempts to nurture or establish aparental relationship). As with Ceres, seeDemeter also as “food” and emotional suste-nance. Its conjunctions often indicate a per-ception of a heightened need for care &nurturance, along with an emphasis on theimpact of the mother & childhood (on the con-joined point). The sign & house of Demeterreflect conflicts established through the mother& her attempt to nurture & care for the indi-vidual. In Greek mythology, Demeter was themother of Bacchus.

T

F

THE Sagit-tariusd o g

will often run awayfrom home, so al-ways check all thelocal pounds notjust the one in yourneighborhood, asdistance means

nothing to this loner. He will come backfor awhile and then be off again, so don'tbe too heartbroken. It has nothing to dowith your treatment, they just like seekingnew places to play. Extremely docile whenbrought home, he makes you feel protec-tive towards him.

These dogs love games, so take themto the local park or beach & throw balls orsticks for them to catch & retrieve, and thiswill keep them around for awhile. Certainlykeeps you on your toes, which is healthyfor you.

Needless to say this is the perfect com-panion for the outdoors man. They are cou-rageous and adaptable to any situation

T

December 1 births1761 – Madame Tussaud1896 – Georgy Zhukov1935 – Woody Allen

FBorrowing Money

Copyright © 2009 by David R. Roell. All rights reserved.

to be many, are themselves so contradictorythat no known medical condition has yet beenfound to account for them. Not in 200 years,and despite the most modern medical re-search & diagnosis. See a poor discussionhere. (I caution that the last ten years it hasbecome fashionable to invent Mozart death-bed stories wholesale. This is presumaby theresult of intense frustration.) Additionally,Mozart died a friendless pauper. His body wastaken to a mass grave the very next day & mostlikely covered in quicklime, like the rest ofVienna’s poor. No one saw him buried, noteven his wife.

But let’s have another look. Mozart hadthat year alone (1791) staged two successfuloperas & given numerous other concerts.Imagine Andrew Lloyd Weber opening notone, but two new musicals in London’s WestEnd in the same year. Or Stephen Sondheimdoing the same on Broadway in New York.At his death, Mozart was neither obscure, norbroke. He very likely died with receipts stillowed him.

Vienna's medical examiner said Mozartdied of “acute miliary fever”, and furtherstated that he had examined the body itself.Acute miliary fever is tuberculosis. Thiscontradicts all first-hand accounts and so isignored or fudged by Mozart scholars. Theypretend that we can no longer know what wasmeant by “acute”, “miliary”, or “fever”, thatmedicine was primitive & its terms vague.

To the contrary. Acute can have only lim-ited meaning: Rapid, or intense. Miliary is

that which is similar to millet, which is a tinybrown seed. Fever is an elevated body tem-perature. Miliary is specifically applied totubercular-type diseases, of which tubercu-losis of the lungs is by far the most common.There is no ambiguity. Moreover, everysniffle & sneeze of the infant Mozart has beenbrought out of the dark ages of medical su-perstition into the bright light of modernmedicine, and this often from mere casualreports. Mozart's biographers have willfullyignored his final medical report.

When discrepancies exist between themedical examiner's report and those of eye-witnesses, when those eyewitnesses arethemselves inconsistent, when no indepen-dent medical records survive, and finally,when the body itself disappears, we have acase of SUSPICIOUS DEATH.

THAT Mozart’s death was faked is nothard to puzzle out. No body, no causeof death are two big clues. The best

guess, after nearly 220 years of study, is thatMozart died of Bright’s Disease. Dr. Brightpublished a study of the disease in 1827 &thereby attached his name to it, but it wasknown far earlier. Know this:

Bright's Disease is not fatal. Suffererscommonly live into their 60’s, the actorSydney Greenstreet among them.

Bright’s Disease was not unknown. In1658 - more than a century before - Nicho-las Culpeper's widow (he of the famousHerbal) published his treatise on Urinalia.

In it, he wrote:If a vein chance to break in the bladder,

as sometimes happens, then the blood thatfalls out of it into the bladder thickens andcurdles.

Which, as Culpeper goes on to explain,can have life-threatening consequences.Culpeper suggested blood-letting, but if thatfailed, then,

Bright's Disease had a cure. Culpeper:

If the clotted blood stops the passage ofthe urine, you must bring out the urine witha syringe....

I myself publish this book. The materialquoted above is from pgs. 175-176. Ama-zon will be happy to sell you a copy.

What does Culpeper mean by “syringe”?He presumably means a long, thin tube ofmetal, presumably copper, inserted in thepenis (in Mozart's case), running into thebladder. Such was known to 17th centuryEnglish doctors. It was doubtless known to18th century Viennese doctors. Sound likefun to you? No. But if it was the differencebetween life & death, I'd do it. I'm grateful Idon't have to.

So much for Bright's Disease, and all theother futile guesses. Among them, Mozartdied of bad pork. Mozart died of acute toothdecay. Mozart died of strep throat, Mozartdied of this, or Mozart died of that. This ab-surd game of Clue has gone on far too long.

The Life, Death and Life of Wolfgang Mozart

Constanze Weber, 1762-1842, in 1802. Wolfgang Mozart, 1756–????, in 1782. The “Viennese Nissen”, ????–1826, in 1809.

— The players —

The Life, Death and Life of Wolfgang Mozart

T

NEWSLETTERfrom the Astrology Center of America / AstroAmerica.com

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Copyright © 2009 by David R. Roell. All rights reserved.Astrology HomeAstrology Home Newsletter ArchiveNewsletter Archive New Astrology BooksNew Astrology Books New Vedic BooksNew Vedic Books New Tarot DecksNew Tarot Decks Top Ten BooksTop Ten Books

ALLEGED events of that night, 4-5December, 1791, are not hard to de-molish.

The story goes that after her husbanddied, Constanze Mozart (née Weber) flaggeddown the public hearse, as - allegedly - theMozarts had no money for a proper funeral.

Regrettably, flagging down the publichearse was impossible, for her, or for thatmatter, any other citizen of the city. Regard-less of income, or necessity, or even desire.

In Vienna, and, I presume, many othercities, hearses ran only after dark so as not todisturb the citizens. Vienna’s public hearseserviced only the local police precincts.There, they picked up the bodies of vagrantswho had died the previous day. These de-ceased individuals were unknown in the city.They had no friends, no next of kin, and, cru-cially, no parish affiliation. It was the city’sjob to dispose of such unclaimed remains,and the public hearse, and public cemetery,were the means by which it did.

ALL the citizens of the city of Vienna,along with their relatives, guests and

hangers-on, were members of one parish oranother. Rich and poor. Even non-believers& Freemasons. The city of Vienna, like allother medieval cities (as this was a medievalcustom that was still in use) was divided intoparishes, which accounted for every singlehouse in the city. Should you have a birth inyour house, you contacted your local parish,and a priest came to baptize the child. In herlifetime, Constanze Mozart bore six children.She knew the procedure.

And at the time of her husband's “death”,she had already buried four of them. Whenthere was a death in the house, you again wentto your local parish church. In most cases,the parish was expecting the visit, as you hadpreviously called them out for Last Rites.Now you came with news of death itself.

Whereupon the next evening, the parishsent its own hearse. Each parish had its ownhearse, though I presume the smaller, orpoorer parishes may have shared one. Theparish hearse collected the body, took it tothe parish church, where it was dressed &placed in a waiting coffin. Early the nextmorning, grave diggers prepared a plot in theparish cemetery, and at some point beforesunset, there was a funeral Mass & the bodyinterred.

Such is how death was handled in Vienna.Even for the poor. There were no exceptions.

Like as not, the parish undertakers whocame to your home were men you actuallyknew. Members of your parish. The samemen who had come to the homes of your

friends, to take away the bodies of their fa-thers or mothers. You may not have likedthem (well, who would?), but they were notstrangers.

The men on the public hearse were dif-ferent. You never saw them. Like as not,you rarely ever caught a glimpse of the pub-lic hearse itself. If, some dark evening, youshould run out into the street and find it, andif, by chance, you had a death in the house,and if you asked them to remove the body,they would have refused. At best, theywould have presumed you to be new in thecity (from the country, perhaps) and unfa-miliar with its ways. At worst, they wouldhave laughed at you. They would not haveset foot in a private house. Not yours. Notmine. Not Mozart’s. Not for money, not fordrink, not for sex with cheap whores. It sim-ply was not done. Anyone who claims oth-erwise must show even one other case whereit was alleged the public hearse picked upthe body of a known citizen.

Now does the story of Mozart’s deathsound fishy? Wait. There’s more.

Mozart, who was alleged to have beenailing for weeks, or maybe it was days, or, atany rate, for at least a good hour or two,should have received Last Rites. Also knownas Extreme Unction. One of the Seven Sac-raments. Usually given along with a LastConfession, final penance and a last HolyCommunion. Without this care and atten-tion, your soul might well be lost to an eter-nity of hell. For this reason, until the priestarrived, deathbeds were scenes of absolutepanic.

So you will be relieved to know that, ac-cording to both Constanze, and her sisterSophie, Mozart received last rites.

You will be puzzled to learn thatConstanze’s second husband, the Danish dip-lomat Georg Nicholas Nissen, a man whowas not present, a man who was not even inVienna at the time, in the very last year ofhis own life, emphatically stated that Mozartdid not receive last rites.

Deliberately, and in writing, contradict-ing the written account of his own wife, aneye-witness.

Wiki has the story. Read it here. As re-counted by Wiki, the story is both clownishand absurd. Whether or not there were “bellsrung” (and they were to be rung for goodreason, but that's a dive into metaphysics thatdoesn't belong here), biographers seem un-aware the parish itself - in this case, the bish-opric of St. Stephens - kept its own records.A priest did not administer Last Rites with-out making a written note of it. These records

presumably still exist.Why do the stories not match? Because

Constanze & “Nicholas” had conflicting pur-poses. Constanze had to show that she hadbeen a good wife & had done her duty in thelast hours of Mozart's life. If events weren’texactly like that, well, she was fibbing. Shewould go to confession & admit it. Com-mon lies are venal sins, they are no big deal.

Nissen, whom I believe to be Mozart’spost-1791 alias, was trapped. He could notlie that he had received Last Rites, and thengo to confession & admit it. He would beadmitting he lied about the affairs of a priest,in relation to himself. He would then be ask-ing a priest to forgive that lie. Which no priestcan, or will, do, as it is a fundamental breachof confidence. You cannot lie about a priest,and then expect a priest’s trust. In catechismclasses, in preparation for First Communion,we are taught, it is drilled into our heads, thatforgiveness of sins is a grace. It done at thediscretion of the individual priest. It is neversomething to take for granted.

Then we consider the further actions ofhis widow, Constanze, in the days & weeksafter Mozart's death. If he's really dead, shewill behave as a grieving widow. If he's not,she will behave in a radically different man-ner. Did you know that Constanze did notattend her husband's funeral?

This is my third attempt to describeMozart’s faked death. The difficulty has notbeen that his death was faked - as it clearlywas - but who, precisely, was doing the fak-ing.

FOR some years I had the understand-able belief that if Mozart’s death wasfaked, that Mozart himself must have

been the one who faked it. Presumably hewas under duress. In support of this are wildrumors that Mozart bought or stole most orall the compositions attributed to him & sowas in increasing legal difficulties. (SeeRobert Newman & Giorgio Taboga for de-tails.) Or perhaps it was a string of wildlypopular, yet obscene & politically offensiveoperas (Cosi Fan Tutti, The Marriage ofFigaro, Don Giovani, The Magic Flute) thathad earned Mozart the ire of the local au-thorities. Or maybe it was one too manyadulteries with the wrong man's wife. What-ever the reason, there was a need for escapeand a new start, or so I presumed.

But though it was easy enough to findMozart’s new alias & trace his subsequentlife, I was never quite able to convince my-self that Mozart himself faked his death.Aside from a new name, Mozart seemed to

A

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Copyright © 2009 by David R. Roell. All rights reserved.

make no effort to hide himself. If he did notfake his death in order to hide or flee, thenwhy did he fake it at all? Efforts to explainthis contradiction were unconvincing.

I stumbled across the actual sequence ofevents while contemplating the fate of MarieAntoinette. She & her husband, Louis XVI,were more or less usurped in the fall of 1789,and found their freedom increasingly re-stricted as the months & years passed & thesituation in Paris grew ever more dangerouslyout of control.

AS a result, all the crowned heads in Eu-rope took note. Transport the King &

Queen of France out of Versailles, to theTuileries, against their will? European roy-als had never seen anything like it. WhenLouis & his queen suffered even worse, thekings, queens & monarchs of Europe beganto fear for their own safety. In this regard,please note: Marie Antoinette was notFrench.

Marie Antoinette was the youngestdaughter of Maria Theresa (1717-80), themost powerful monarch Austria ever had. In1789, when the French Revolution started,Marie’s eldest brother, Joseph II, was HolyRoman Emperor, i.e., the king of Austria.(Reigned, 1765-90.) Up to 1789, he waslargely a foppish ruler, having permitted themoral decay that lead to Mozart’s operas. Isuspect Vienna in the 1780’s to have beensimilar to Weimar Berlin of the 1920’s.

The events of 14 July 1789, the stormingof the Bastille, was a wake-up call. Both Jo-seph, and his successor, his brother, LeopoldII (reigned 1790-2), set about in a panic toclean up Vienna. In typical Viennese fash-ion.

Fearing a public outcry - which might eas-ily lead to a public revolt, as was by thenwell-underway in Paris, Vienna quietly “en-couraged” the worst of the miscreants toleave town. Lorenzo da Ponte, one ofMozart’s librettists, fled. He ended up inAmerica & is buried in Brooklyn. Exactlywhy he left town has been - up to now - some-what mysterious. Doubtless research willfind others who mysteriously left about thesame time.

As one of the major instigators ofVienna’s moral depravity, as well as beingsuspected of being a petty thief, Mozart wasa prime target. But Mozart had long had hisway with the courts of Europe, entering &leaving them at will. He, like many in Vi-enna, as well as Paris (Marie herself among

them), thought the troubles would pass.When pressure, in the form of not-so-subtle-hints, came to bear in late 1790 or early 1791,Mozart responded with a vast number of con-certs, new compositions, operas & more. Notonly was he going to tough it out, he wasopenly declaring he was bigger than the au-thorities. Push him out of Vienna? He wouldonly make a big noise elsewhere. In Prague.In Berlin. In London. All places he had beenbefore. They might as well let him stay.

But as far as the authorities were con-cerned, Mozart's continued presence in thecity was far too dangerous to contemplate.So they came up with a plan. It was an in-spired idea.

Mozart was a composer. What if Mozartwas to be “poisoned”? He would then shortly“die”. Why not commission him to write hisown funeral music in the time he had remain-ing?

Mozart was happy to accept the commis-sion, but rumors of poisoning alarmed him.Fearing there really was a plot against hislife, he did not consult his usual doctor, fear-ing the doctor was part of the plot. The plothe feared went like this:

Doctor, doctor, I fear I have been poi-soned!

My dear Mozart, you have been poi-soned! Quickly! You must drink this anti-dote, or you will die!

(Mozart drinks the “antidote”, which is,in fact, a poison. And dies.)

Instead, Mozart went anonymously to anunknown doctor. This doctor was unable togive him a definitive answer, but doubtlessdid give him the essentials of poisoning: Thatpoisons work on various parts of the body(according to the specific poison), and, ac-cording to the poison, have known symp-toms. Panic subsiding, Mozart realized hehad none of the symptoms. So he remainedin the city. He returned to his work. Thecity fathers did not, in fact, mean Mozartharm, but they were not above hoping a bitof fear would do their work for them.

PERHAPS it was that Mozart was happyto take Vienna’s money. Whatever else

you may think of Mozart, he was not stupid.He quickly figured out the danger he was in.Modern research tells us the Requiem wasallegedly to honor the memory of a youngwoman who had died in February, 1791.Mozart received the commission in July.Such a commission would have been absurd.The woman's funeral Mass would have been

within a day or two of her death. It wouldhave had all the pomp & splendor her heirscould muster. Such a ceremony happens onlyonce.

Kapelmeisters, which Mozart was not,commonly prepared funeral music in advanceof eventual need. It was part of their job de-scription. Kapelmeisters, or “Masters ofMusic”, were employed by bishops, princes,& kings. When they, or any of their immedi-ate family or entourage, passed away, thekapelmeister was required to have musicready to play the next morning. Purcell’s fa-mous Funeral Odes owe their origin to thisgrim necessity.

As Mozart had no such position, as therewas no actual need for such music, it waseasy for him to guess that he was writing hisown funeral music, that when he finished,he would immediately be declared “dead” &his own music played to prove it.

Hence the reason Mozart stalled.

STALL, delay, drag his feet, just simplyhang on long enough, and the French

panic would blow over & life would returnto normal.

Regrettably, no one told this to the mobin Paris, where conditions continued to de-teriorate. June 21, 1791, the French Royalsattempted to flee. They were quickly appre-hended & returned to Paris. The failed at-tempt only emboldened the mob. On Sep-tember 14, 1791, the new French Constitu-tion ended the monarchy. The news was notwell-received in Vienna.

In commissioning the Requiem, the cityof Vienna thought it had set Mozart the ulti-mate trap. They were surprised & angeredthat he would gladly take their money, andthen do nothing. That he would see throughthe poisoning scare. Bureaucrats are so of-ten ignorant of the ways of the world. As theweeks passed, as summer turned into autumn,they became increasingly frantic & pesteredMozart for news. Mozart’s indifference wasa mistake.

At some point in the early fall of 1791,the city abandoned their commission andwent elsewhere. There are various reportsthat some new work, some solemn piece ofmusic was in fact played at Mozart’s “funeralMass”. Where did this come from, and whomight have composed it? Enter Salieri.

Antonio Salieri was a good, reliable com-poser, popular in Viennese court circles.Having set its sights on declaring Mozartdead, physically running him out of town,

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and then staging a phony funeral to sealMozart’s fate, the city needed music of somesort. It would seem that Salieri was calledupon to supply it.

He probably took the commission muchthe same way that Mozart had taken his: Asa foolish joke. He was quickly put under agreat deal of pressure to produce something,anything, and as soon as possible. Like asnot he was unaware of the motives behindhis commission. He presumably completedthe work in late November.

About that time, perhaps as a result of acasual conversation with Salieri himself,Mozart learned of Salieri’s commission and,finally realizing the gravity of his situation,in shock & a blind panic, set about trying toavoid his fate. His days were spent in a fran-tic search to find someone, anyone, whomhe could beg, cajole or bribe. In this, he wasexceedingly discreet, that he not inadvert-ently make his situation worse. Upon return-ing home, he would spend his evenings in afeverish attack on his Requiem, until he col-lapsed, late at night, from nervous exhaus-tion. Sleepless, he would stagger up at dawnthe next day and do it all over again. This isnot the best way of bribing anyone, or com-posing much of anything. He was trying toforestall what he now knew was inevitable:His forcible removal from Vienna. Reportsare that by the evening of the 4th of Decem-ber, he had worked himself into a state ofcomplete exhaustion. He was, however, no-where near death. He was, after all, still ahealthy 35-year old.

On the night of December 4 - 5, with thefuneral music it needed finally in hand, Vi-enna made its move.

Shortly after midnight, the public hearse,having completed its rounds for the night,stopped at the Mozart apartment. I imaginethe men on the hearse to have been big, burlytypes, as such are suited for hauling bodies.They were under orders. They entered theMozart apartment, they physically seizedMozart himself, and, over the screams of hiswife & children, bundled him into the hearse& took him away, still very much alive.

They left behind a carefully prepared,completely official, signed Certificate ofDeath. The cause of death? Acute MiliaryFever, aka, tuberculosis. This document stillexists. The single good thing that may besaid of Mozart scholarship, is that this cer-tificate has always been known to be a fake.

They put Mozart in the back of the hearse,with the night's dead bodies to keep him com-pany. At Vienna's public cemetery, he wasconfined with the newly dead, terrified, un-

til dawn, when he was released. He immedi-ately fled for Prague.

At the Mozart apartment the next morn-ing when the first callers arrived, the dishev-eled, distraught, sleepless, frantic & hysteri-cal Constanze could greet them with,

My husband is dead. Here is the DeathCertificate that proves it. He was taken inthe night by the public hearse. The dog ranafter him, I could not stop it. I presume he iswith Wolfgang now, having a “pauper’s fu-neral”.

In answer to the moronic, macabre ques-tion, the one that has been asked every day,from then to now, Was Mozart working onthe Requiem at the time?, and if, perchancehe was, Constanze could truthfully reply,

He worked on it to the end.In sum, every word of the traditional story

is “true”. Just not in the way we have al-ways thought.

What was the night like for Mozart him-self? It was similar to an execution. (ReadDostoyevsky, who was put through a mockexecution.) It was the end of life as Mozartknew it. Nothing would ever be the sameagain. It changed him forever. The next day,enroute to Prague, I imagine he briefly had afalse sense of cheer & confidence, but byevening he had broken down & wept, un-controllably.

SUCH is the true story of Mozart'sdeath.

You may now understand why Constanzehad no interest in attending her husband’s“funeral Mass”. She was frantic to learn ofMozart’s fate, and enraged at the city whohad stolen him from her. For his part, Salieriwas shocked, and then enraged, when helearned the use to which his music was put.He disowned the music (perhaps destroyedit outright, as it does not seem to have sur-vived) and went to his grave believing he“killed” Mozart. Lest you think the city couldhave found some other composer, considerthat men of Salieri’s talents are not plentiful.If he had refused, the city might have beenstymied for months, if not forever. Whichwas, remember, Mozart’s own opinion of thematter.

While Mozart may well have been a mu-sical pariah, his sudden, forcible removal wasa shabby affair that shocked the citizens ofVienna. As for the “posthumous” comple-tion of the Requiem, was it really Sussmayr’swork? Was Sussmayr actually Mozart’s “stu-dent”, or was he a hack the city hired to makegood on its original commission? Could

Mozart subsequently have dictated thecompletion to Sussmayr, since the “de-ceased” Mozart could hardly claim to havecompleted it himself? And, if so, wouldSussmayr have insisted on adding his ownflourishes as part of his price? These arequestions which we can now, perhaps, an-swer.

So how do I know where Mozart wentafter his night among the corpses?

Simple. In January, 1792, the very nextmonth, Constanze sent her eldest son, Carl,to Prague to stay with Franz XaverNiemetscheck, a censor. He was 26, tenyear’s Mozart’s junior, and a close friend.Supposedly Constanze sent Carl as Praguehad better schools than Vienna, which is silly.Among Mozarteans, you will hear many suchexcuses. Prague was friendly to Mozart. Pra-gue was the obvious place to go to find shel-ter, and a son was an obvious, and welcome,companion.

I speculate that in 1792, Mozart traveledto Italy, where he inspected the archives ofone Andrea Luchesi, one-time Kapelmeisterat Bonn, but this muddies Mozart’s fake deathwith Mozart’s compositions.

In 1793, Mozart returned to Vienna un-der the new name of Georg Nicholas Nis-sen, a Danish diplomat. He was allegedlythe new First Consul, i.e., ambassador. Hewas shortly thereafter discovered to be liv-ing in Constanze’s flat. He was her compan-ion for the rest of his life, but the two werenot married until 1809, some sixteen yearsafterwards.

According to the Mozarteans, Nissen wasborn in Haderslev, Denmark, on January 22,1761. Because young Nicholas was ambi-tious, and because his father was a poor par-ish priest (Denmark lets them marry), fundsfor his schooling were provided by hismother’s brother, a prosperous merchant. Incases of fake identity, watch out for the“mother’s brother”, as this person is invari-ably an unrelated friend whose only job is toconfirm the alias in cases of emergency. Iinitially presumed that in faking his new iden-tity, Mozart would do the obvious & pick anindividual who was already dead, dead as achild, so there would not be any unexpectedsurprises down the road.

This was not the case. To establish him-self as a Danish diplomat - and put himselfbeyond the reach of Viennese authorities -Mozart based his new identity on an existingDanish diplomat of approximately the samename: Nicholas Nissen.

One fine day I entered “Nicholas Nissen”into Google, hoping to find more details of

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Mozart’s alter-ego. I was stunned, amazed,shocked when Google took me to an excerptof Joseph Wheelan’s new book, Jefferson’sWar, where I read the following, from Chap-ter 17, Full Circle. (The following is from1807:)

The long layover in Leghorn [Livorno,Italy] proved lucky in one respect. Davis hap-pened to meet Nicholas Nissen there asformer Danish consul to Tripoli on his wayhome. The consul’s devotion to the Phila-delphia captives during their nineteenmonths of imprisonment had been rewardedwith a formal expression of gratitude fromthe US government and a silver urn pur-chased by the prisoners. Now Nissen wasretiring from the diplomatic corps. Hebrought Davis up to date on Tripolitan af-fairs, including the peace treaty, which Davishad not seen. The treaty, he told Davis, con-tained a secret clause. Nissen knew it didbecause he had drafted it.

WERE there two Nicholas Nissens?Both Danish diplomats? Both serv-

ing in the first decade of the nineteenth cen-tury? One in Tripoli? One in Vienna?

As you may read in Mr. Wheelan’s book,the real Nicholas Nissen was instrumentalin resolving the war between the Barbary Pi-rates & the United States. Whereupon he re-tired & slowly made his way back home toDenmark. What he did there Mr. Wheelandoes not say.

Judging by what happened to the otherNissen, in Vienna, in 1809, we may hazardsome guesses.

In 1809, the Viennese Nissen, who hadlived in sin with Mozart’s widow for some16 years, who had raised Mozart’s two re-maining children as his own (there is disputeif they called him “papa” or not), who hadbusied himself with Mozart’s affairs (how,exactly did those piano concerti come to bepublished “posthumously”? Who was theeditor who put solo score to orchestra?), whohad not one single diplomatic achievement tohis credit, suddenly marries Constanze. Sud-denly sits for the portrait, shown on page 2.

A portrait whose price, by the way, wasfar beyond the means of any mere composer.This technique of painting involves manythin washes of color, building layer uponlayer. It is a delicate, lengthy, expensive pro-cess. The subject looks distinctly uncom-fortable as well.

Early on, I showed both portraits to afriend. Look, he said, the noses are differ-

ent. Might be the same chin, might be thesame eyes, might be the same hairline, mightbe the same overall face, but look at the noses.And I did. And I thought about it.

During his generally accepted lifetime,Mozart would have sat for many portraits,both formal & informal. A sketch of his facewould have been on marquees promoting up-coming concerts. But mysteriously, the onlyportraits, made during his lifetime, that stillexist (the life that ended in 1791) show himas part of a group, usually part of his father'sfamily.

Suppose the real Nissen got back toCopenhagen, say in 1808, and found his iden-tity had been stolen. That there was a man inVienna, claiming to be him, living with theWidow Mozart. Nissen’s good name was atstake. He took the appropriate steps. He in-quired who the man’s “next of kin” was, wastold of the “mother’s brother” & quickly de-termined the truth of the matter. He was, af-ter all, the best man for the job.

He presumably sought a portrait of themiscreant. Presumably Mozart was tippedoff by friends in the Danish consulate - doubt-less the same friends who had kept him safefrom the Viennese authorities ever since hisreturn in 1793. Presumably Mozart destroyswhat portraits he can, leaving only those hecannot touch because they are group portraitsin the possession of his extended family.

In frustration, Nissen - the real one - com-missioned an accredited artist to paintMozart's picture, and ordered consulate staffin Vienna to make Mozart appear. As heclaims to be a Danish diplomat, Mozart iscompelled to obey. (If he flees, he instantlybecomes a Viennese citizen, subject to theViennese authorities.) So he sits for the por-trait, one painted in such a way that it cannotbe retouched. And, in an effort to reaffirmhis identity as the “real” Nissen, he marries -or rather, remarries - Constanze.

THE finished portrait goes toCopenhagen. In 1812, the Viennese

Nissen traveled to Copenhagen, where, as a“retired diplomat”, he was put to work as anordinary censor. Such is the official storythe Mozarteans believe. Never mind that nodiplomat would accept the lowly job of cen-sor.

In reality, the real Nissen had the fake Nis-sen arrested, brought to Copenhagen, triedand then sentenced to house arrest & madeto be a common censor. If so, it was a mostdelicious punishment. Danish is not an easy

language to learn. The proceedings shouldbe part of Danish public record.

Mozart & Constanze stayed inCopenhagen from 1812 to 1820, when theyreturned to Austria. I was long puzzled as tohow Mozart left his Danish imprisonment. Iwondered if his sentence had ended, or if heescaped, or if the real Nissen had passedaway, thus making his identity moot. FinallyI realized I had the solution in front of me.It's on his gravestone: The King of Denmarkpardoned him. This, also, should be part ofDanish record. A guess would be frail health.In 1820, Mozart was 64.

BUT he was to find no peace in his na-tive land. The last six years were spent

in Salzburg. This begins the final chapter inthis sad man's life.

Vienna had taken his identity from himin December, 1791. With much work - andprobably not a little cash under the table - hehad manufactured a new identity. From hisreturn to Vienna in 1793, to his departure forCopenhagen in 1812, whenever he was rec-ognized & stopped in the streets of Vienna,

Herr Mozart! Are you a ghost?! I heardyou had passed on!

He could reply,You are mistaken, my friend! I do not

know this Mozart of whom you speak. I amGeorg Nicholas Nissen, the Danish Counsul.Not a ghost!

But in Copenhagen his identity as Nis-sen was taken away, as it was never reallyhis. What he was known as in Denmark I donot know. Quite possibly “Mozart”, or a Dan-ish variation of it.

But when he returned to Salzburg in1820, who was he?

Herr Schmidt?He could no longer live in Vienna and

claim to be Nissen, a Danish citizen, becauseif inquiries were made and if the Danes didnot disown him outright, they could be re-lied upon to explain the exact circumstances.So he remained in Salzburg & hoped hewould be quietly ignored. But whatevername he used, it was very important that hewas not Mozart. The “Mozart”, who hadbeen declared dead 30 years before (as ofDecember, 1821), was still, presumably, sub-ject to arrest & deportation. The city of Vi-enna, which was responsible for Mozart’sfaked “death”, had no reason to presume thathe was actually dead & every reason to worrythat he might well return, very much alive.In having foolishly declared him dead, but

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not actually having made him so, Vienna wasstuck just as much as Mozart was. The Dan-ish interlude had only made matters worse.From 1820 onwards, both the city, andMozart himself, lived in perpetual fear of anewspaper exclusive, “Mozart Lives!”Which not only could not be denied (Mozartno longer having any other identity he couldclaim), but which was common knowledgein many quarters.

It therefore became necessary to establishthat “Mozart” really was dead. And thoughthere was an official Certificate of Death, itdidn't seem as if it, alone, was enough. Be-cause one of the consequences of that Decem-ber night in 1791 was a certain passive, yetcruel, streak in Mozart’s personality, which iswell-known to those who have suffered a simi-lar experience, but hard to describe to thosewho have not. Since that horrible night longago, self-preservation had long been his onlygoal in life. If it was at all possible, Constanzewas even more single-minded.

The solution, the only one available, werefirst-person death-bed accounts. Constanzewrote one. Her sister Sophie wrote one. Sev-eral surviving friends each wrote one. Asidefrom Constanze, were any of them actuallypresent on that fateful night? No. The house-hold was far too frantic for guests. Truthful,historical, or even consistent accounts wereno longer necessary. (Constanze’s sistercame up with the “helpful” observation thatLast Rites would have been required. Whichonly made matters worse.) It has been notedthat all of these date from the Salzburg pe-riod, and all were done at the request of “Nis-sen”, who claimed to be writing a biographyof “Mozart”.

From the mid-1790's onward, Mozart hadsupported himself, in part, by publishing thecompositions he had written, or acquired,over his long life. Now, to make the biogra-phy work (and thereby “prove” that he wasreally “dead” & give him the security hecraved), he had to fit all these many worksinto his accredited life-span, which began onJanuary 27, 1756, and which “ended”,abruptly, on December 5, 1791. He was stillworking on it at the end of his life. This ac-count has long been the foundation ofMozart’s accepted biography. As we can nowsee, it is, without doubt, a desperate, albeitamusing, work of fiction.

THE man known at one time as GeorgNikolaus Nissen, the man who wasborn Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a

man who ultimately had no identity, diedMarch 24, 1826, aged 70. He is buried next tohis beloved wife, Constanze Weber (d. 1842),

at St. Sebastien Friedhof, in Salzburg. Look-ing at the photos, I can feel the love they hadfor each other, still pouring out.

Mozart has a grave. You may visit it.

Postscript:Postscript:Postscript:Postscript:Postscript:There is increasing evidence that Mozart

bought, stole, or faked many of his most fa-mous compositions. Even during his allegedlifetime, there were many accusations againstMozart. In London, J.C. Bach accusedMozart of stealing his symphonies. And thereis a long list of “spurious works attributed toW.A. Mozart”, a part of which you can seehere. These are invariably accounted as mere“accidents”.

With the knowledge that Mozart lived toa ripe old age, we can re-examine the con-troversy afresh. Why do Mozart’s four hornconcerti sound like Punto’s (1746-1803)?Maybe because they are. There are, in fact,five of Punto’s concerti which are “lost”.Have you ever heard Mozart's bassoon con-certo? Did you know that Johann NepomukHummel (1778-1837) wrote a carbon copyof it in 1805? There are other works, forviolin & piano, which sound strangely likethe music of Beethoven.

It is said that Mozart “anticipated” thestyles of many later composers. Perhaps so.But it is interesting the styles he anticipatedbelonged to composers who lived & workedin towns & cities which Mozart, either be-fore his “death”, or after, lived in or visited.Notably Mozart did not “anticipate” the mu-sic of Boccherini, in Madrid, or John Field,in St. Petersburg, nor of Rossini, in Italy.

It is known that Mozart was continuallybegging for money, and it is also “known”that Mozart never seemed to have anythingto show for it. If, as an eternally roving per-former, he had to buy the compositions heplayed, that would account for much of thespending. Would, say, Beethoven sell hismusic to the disguised Mozart? (And if hedid, Beethoven knew full well who the buyerwas.)

Well, why not? A violin-piano sonata (lis-ten to Mozart's 14th) is two or three dayswork. A publisher will pay a pittance on re-ceipt, and then maybe a bit more in royal-ties. In a year or two. Maybe. If he's hon-est.

Mozart would pay cash money, and a lotof it. What he did with the music, that washis affair. In the life of every composer therecome pretenders who will pay handsomelyfor what they can pass off as their own. Ev-ery composer makes his own decision if he

will be a part of that. The ones who do notare, of course, silent, as they have nothing tosay. The ones who do are, of course, silent,as silence is a condition of sale. And there’sgood money to be made for that silence.

For his part, Mozart spent the years from1793, to 1812, struggling to arrange his owncomeback, his own re-emergence. When thatglorious day dawned, he was going to needmusic. Good music. Regrettably, that daynever arrived.

Mozart historians hate the very mentionof theories such as this. Which is understand-able, but not a scholarly response. I expectthey will find my theory of his sudden deathintensely disorienting, even though I have ac-counted for virtually every known detail (thefaithful dog who saw him “buried”), and haveinvented nothing that cannot be clearly de-duced from available evidence (Salieri’s un-witting participation & subsequent remorse).I have incorporated a vast amount of evidencethat had previously been ignored or misun-derstood, and I have deciphered many here-tofore unexplained mysteries. All of whichsets my theory apart from all others. Theresult is shocking, and deeply tragic.

IN the end, it might be that Mozart was nota “real” composer, but however he did it,

he was able to assemble a vast collection ofmusic. Much of it was above average in qual-ity (remember that much of it is rarelyplayed), and much of it would never haveexisted, or would not have survived, were itnot for his singular efforts. It is a disgrace, atragedy, that his best years were wasted.Mozart’s phony death would have stark re-percussions, most notably on Beethoven &his well-known suspicion of Viennese nobil-ity. For his part, Beethoven all but ceasedcomposing in 1812, the same year Mozartwas transported to Copenhagen. Are thesetwo events related? Was Mozart Beethoven’ssecret muse? One that could never be men-tioned by name? Can anyone ever know?

Skeptics will ask, where is the proof?Mozart was a voluminous letter-writer.Surely if he was having problems with thecity of Vienna, the summer of 1791, he wouldhave mentioned it?

Surely he did, but when, in the 1820’s,he had to justify his continued existence as“Nissen”, not “Mozart”, he had to destroyevidence to the contrary, lest it fall into un-friendly hands. Then, as now, the true storyof Mozart's death was, frankly, explosive.Mozart had had more than enough of thatkind of surprise. The same friends who werepressed for phony death-bed scenarios werealso made to destroy the letters in their pos-

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session.What about Beethoven? If Wolfgang &

Ludwig were drinking buddies, surely somemention would have been made!?

Surely there was. Beethoven remarkedon numerous occasions, “Mozart is dead!”Why do you suppose the death of a man,many years before, rankled so much? Be-cause he was standing in front of him, liter-ally, but Could Not Be Named. Not withoutrisk of Mozart’s arrest, and probablyBeethoven’s, as well. Vienna went to a lotof bother to get rid of Mozart. It did not wantto see that effort wasted. Do we have here acause & a partial explanation of Beethoven’sfamous ill-temper?

References to mysterious third parties canbe found, if one looks closely. Here is butone example:

In the Biographical Notes of FranzWegler & Ferdinand Ries (1838), one ofthe earliest biographical sketches of Ludwigvan Beethoven, Ries remarks,

THERE was something most strikingabout the Larghetto quasi andante of the

Symphony in D [the Second Symphony] justmentioned; which Beethoven had presentedto me in a score in his own hand, out of purefriendship (and which was unfortunately sto-len from me by a friend).

(Titled, Beethoven Remembered, pub-lished by Great Ocean Publishers, 1987, pg.66)

The phrase, stolen from me by a friend ismost curious. Like the phrase, I am lying, itis logically absurd. Why was it “stolen”,rather than “borrowed” or even, “given to”?Ries does not wish to say it was stolen by athief, as it implies negligence on his part. Nor

The Life, Death and Life of Wolfgang Mozartdoes he wish to say, gee, I misplaced it, or itgot caught out in the rain or even it was lostin the mails. Any of which would have beeneasy enough, even if they weren’t exactlytrue. Nor does he wish to omit mention alto-gether, which, as he had to be goaded (re-peatedly) to write his notes, would have beeneven easier. The score was taken from him,and already, in 1838, he realizes its historicvalue. But if he says it was borrowed, thenhe is obliged to tell us where it went. Who isthis “friend”? Mozart, guilty or not, cannotbe named, as by 1838 he has long been offi-cially dead. (Before he died, Mozart him-self had said so!) In insisting on an unwel-come truth Ries would merely be spitting inthe wind, and in the process, discrediting therest of his book. But he has told us some-thing interesting, perhaps something vital.We are to puzzle it out as best we can. (Ries'sbook is full of such puzzles, as I am slowlydiscovering. I am coming to believe he wassettling scores, but I am digressing.) I amnot saying Ries’s thief was Mozart, as I donot know. How many more such puzzles,from other contemporaries, up to now over-looked, are waiting to be found?

MOZART’S “death”, on December5, 1791, may be summed up asfollows:

By late 1789 or early 1790, in a panickedreaction to the French Revolution, the cityof Vienna compiled a list of undesirables, andquietly encouraged them to leave. Most didso, at the expense of their careers. Lorenzoda Ponte was one of the unlucky, there weredoubtless many others.

Mozart refused, believing the panicwould pass.

Increasingly fearing a Viennese revolu-

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tion (how “real” this was no one today canknow) and eager to head it off, the cityhatched an elaborate plot to declare Mozartdead, physically remove him from the city,and then stage a fake funeral to make it offi-cial. In this, the city was ultimately success-ful.

Although declared “dead” on December5, 1791, Mozart lived. He eventually died34 years later, on March 24, 1826, inSalzburg. He is buried next to his wife,Constanze.

In a nutshell, that is the true story ofMozart's death. Unlike all other theories, italone can be proved. His remains rest in amarked grave. Exhume his bones, give themthe same DNA test as was given a few yearsago to the alleged skull. So often historianssettle for the safety of the superficial.Mozart's many mysteries are not for the faintof heart.

When I consider how different my find-ings are from the accepted biographies, evenI get a bit confused. I wonder if the generalpublic will be too disoriented, if inertia willnot overwhelm, if they will not find it easierto go back to the accepted mythology, thatMozart died in the Library by means of aRope. Or perhaps it was in the Conservatoryby means of a Candlestick. The truth beingfar too strange, how long can Mozart's veryown game of Clue continue?

David R. RoellJuly 24, 2009Minor edits, August 25, 2009

Copyright 2006, 2009. All rights reserved.