deathstory1

So many different ideas of what killed him. So little facts. No person exactly knows what killed him. Rumors of murder by poisoning, complications from other illnesses...what did he really die from?

Theory #1-Murder

Murder suspect A- Antonio Salieri: A Jealous Composer?

The movie/play 'Amadeus' did not start the rumor. That has been going on nearly since the time of Mozart's death (actually, they mainly started around 1819 to be exact). Legend says that Salieri was so jealous of Mozart that he wanted him dead. Salieri is said by a certain source to have confessed in his old age that he 'killed Mozart'. No proof of this confession exists. As the story goes, Salieri's health was declining. In 1823, he suffered mentally and was placed in a hospital. It was there that he spent the two last years of his life. He was said to have 'accused himself of terrible crimes and once attempted suicide by cutting his throat'. Karl Van Beethoven wrote in his uncle's conversation book, "Salieri maintains that he has poisoned Mozart'. It is known that Salieri once trained Mozart's son, Franz Xaver. It is not known for how long. Salieri received no money in return. Constanze wrote a letter to her youngest son in 1807 praising Salieri's friendliness. According to one source, Salieri did express a strong rivalry with Mozart to his close friends after Mozart's death. A rivalry may have existed, but it was not bad enough to end up in murder.Did he poison Mozart? No, probably not. But, Salieri forever has 'murderer' tagged to his name..

Murder suspect B- Franz Hofdemel: A Jealous Husband?

Mozart loved the ladies. Even Constanze came to terms with this. Magdalena Hofdemel is the 'most exceptional' of his 'supposed love affairs'. She was a gifted 23 year old student of his and was the very lovely wife of Mozart's Masonic lodge brother, Franz Hofdemel. Mozart visited Magdalena at her home, something he didn't normally do for his students. Ludwig Van Beethoven believed that they had a love affair, and later on, refused to play in her presence, saying 'too great an intimacy had existed between her and Mozart'. On the day after Mozart's funeral, a worker heard an arguement in the Hofdemel home. Later, a visiter was unable to gain access to their home. He entered the appartment with two witnesses. Magdalena was lying in a pool of her own blood. Her face, arms and neck were brutally cut. In the next room, they found her husband Franz, dead of suicide. He still had the razor clutched in his hand. His throat was cut. Magdalena was in her 5th month of pregnancy. She was later revived, but Franz was not. The local people began to gossip: Magdalena was Mozart's mistress and the chld she carried was actually his. Franz was jealous and poisoned Mozart. Then, in a rage, he attempted to kill Magdalena shortly after Mozart's funeral. Then, he killed himself.
Magdalena named her son Johann von Nepomuk Alexander Franz, using both Mozart's and her husband's first names (Johann was Mozart's true given first name). Did Franz kill Mozart? Probably not. Only he knows and he is too long dead to tell his story..

Other murder suspects include: The Masons and the Jews (and just about everybody else)

Theory #2-illness: Uremia, anyone?????

Mozart had a long medical history, full of diseases and illnesses.As a child, his life was plagued with Rheumatic fever, rashes, tonsillitis, streptococcal infection, pains, colds, polyarthritis, smallpox, and numerous other sicknesses. He had frequent headaches. He may have died of Uremia, which would explain the comment he made 'I already have the taste of death on my toungue'. Uremia causes waste products to accumulate in the mouth and foul breath. The only problem with this diagnosis is that Uremia causes itching, convulsions and fits, none of which were mentioned in his final illness. A prolonged coma is also common with Uremia, and Mozart only had a coma for a short time before his death.

Mozart's Skull?

When Mozart was buried, Joseph Rothmayer wrapped the neck of his corpse with a wire. In 1801, ten years after his death, Rothmayer said he retrieved the skull. The skull was handed down until it got to Jocob Hyrtl. It eventually wound up in a collection of skulls, including those of Shubert and Beethoven. Hyrtl sawed off the base of the skull at the external auditory meatus in order to study what was the cause of Mozart's musial ability. He placed a label on the skull (on the forehead) which reads: Wofgang Amadeus Mozart Gestorben 1791 geboren 1756 Misa vitat mori horaz. After the death of his widow, it was donated to the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg. It has been the subject of much study. The Mozarteum still maintains that the identy of the skull is unknown, and is probably not that of the real Mozart. But, they keep it anyway. Research has concluded the skull to be of a 20-40 year old South German male, exhibiting premature synopsis of the metopic suture (PSMS). PSMS is a rare developmental abnormality in which the bone of the forehead develops in two halves and the metopic suture commonly remains unclosed after birth. This results in a broad midface and a small, abnormally shaped skull. Mozart's portraits and descriptions of his appearence reveal that he had a straight, vertical forehead, a rather large nose, prominate cheekbones and upper lip and prominate brow arches. These are consistant with a person that has PSMS. This contributes to the description that Mozart had a 'feminie face'. Superimposition of a photograph of the cranium of the skull on wax portraits of Mozart from 1778 and 1788 indicate comlete conformity with all side proportions of the head. Is it really his skull????? Who knows? Further testing on it has been stopped. And all for political reasons.