Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died 233 years ago. But his legacy lives on—and teaches us more about life than any philosophy.

He died shortly after midnight. Outside it was cold; December had Vienna firmly in its grip, and the wind drove snow through the narrow streets of the Inner City. In the small Kayserhaus on Rauhensteingasse, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lay in his bed, his eyes closed, the fever finally broken—but not as his wife Constanze had hoped. The composer, whose music had enchanted all of Europe even during his lifetime, was dead. He was thirty-five years old. Two hours before the end, he had still been conscious, humming the alto part of his unfinished Requiem in a weak voice, while friends sang the other parts.

That was on December 5, 1791. Today, 233 years later, we commemorate the anniversary of his death. One could write one of those sentimental commemorative pieces that fill the culture pages on major anniversaries. One could speak of the tragedy of his early death, of the unfinished Requiem, of the enigmatic grave in St. Marx Cemetery that no one can find anymore. But Mozart deserves more than sentimentality. He deserves truth. And the truth about Mozart is more complicated, more fascinating, and ultimately more human than the gilded legends would have us believe.

A Genius with a Penchant for Vulgarity

Who was this man whose music makes angels weep? The answer is more complicated than the sentimentalized biographies would have you believe. Mozart was no ethereal being, no pale saint of music floating through the world in a daze. He was a man of flesh and blood, with all the contradictions that entails. A small man—barely five foot five—with a large head, striking blue eyes, and a pallor that, according to his sister Nannerl, was beside the point of his genius.

His letters reveal a man of biting wit and—it must be said so bluntly—a predilection for scatological humor that might shock modern readers. To his cousin Maria Anna Thekla, his "Bäsle," he wrote lines of such crudeness that later editors censored them out of shame. The canon "Lick My Ass" bears his name not without reason. Mozart took pleasure in the crude, the physical, the unvarnished. He wrote to his father about Salzburg, hoping it wouldn't be necessary to say "that I care very little about Salzburg and nothing at all about the archbishop, and I couldn't care less about either."

Doesn't that fit the image of the ethereal genius? Therein lies the lesson. Mozart wasn't a superman, but a complete human being. The same hand that dabbled in obscene jokes composed the "Ave Verum Corpus." The same mind that delighted in wordplay and silliness devised the most complex fugues. This contradiction is not a weakness—it is the secret of his art. Anyone who knows the entire spectrum of human experience, from the sublime to the grotesque, can also capture it in music. The prudery of the 19th century stylized Mozart into a saint; the 21st century deserves to rediscover the human being.

A Network of Brothers and Admirers

Mozart was no recluse. He cultivated friendships, even if his fickle temperament didn't appeal to every contemporary. The most important of these relationships was with Joseph Haydn, the master of the symphony, twenty-four years his senior. The two played string quartets together, with Mozart on viola and Haydn on first violin. When Haydn learned of Mozart's death in London, he wrote, shaken, to their mutual friend Michael Puchberg, that he was "completely beside himself" and couldn't believe that Providence had called "such an irreplaceable man" to the other side so soon.

The two composers had inspired each other, admired one another without a trace of envy—a rarity in a world where artists competed for favor and commissions. Mozart dedicated six of his most beautiful quartets to Haydn, his "children," as he called them, the fruits of "long and arduous labor." Haydn reciprocated by assuring Leopold that his son was "the greatest composer I know, both personally and by name." It wasn't a rivalry between great figures—it was friendship among equals, a brotherhood of spirit that transcended death.

Another network encompassed Mozart during his Vienna years: Freemasonry. On December 14, 1784, he joined the lodge "Zur Wohltätigkeit" (To Charity), was soon promoted to Fellow Craft, and attained the degree of Master Mason. The ideals of the Enlightenment—liberty, equality, fraternity, tolerance—resonated with his character. In the lodge, he found not only intellectual exchange but also practical help. His "true friend," Johann Michael Puchberg, also a lodge brother and a wealthy cloth merchant, helped him out with loans more than once during financial difficulties. Mozart thanked him with music that became immortal and with begging letters that still move us today.

But Mozart was also a difficult character. In her studies, biographer Eva Gesine Baur paints a picture of a man who could lie, intrigue, and slander others. A man who disappointed his father, abandoned his sister in her grief, and failed to attend his father's funeral. A man who "spoke vulgarly about people to whom he owed so much." He made the horn player Joseph Leitgeb kneel on hard wooden floorboards for two hours while he composed a rondo. The truth is: geniuses are not necessarily good people. They are simply brilliant. Mozart was both—genius and human being, with all the light and shadow that entails.

Death as a True Friend

Mozart knew about death. He had encountered it early on—four of his six children died in infancy, and his beloved mother passed away in 1778 during a trip to Paris, far from home and far from his father. In a remarkable letter to his father in 1787, he wrote: “Since death, strictly speaking, is the true end of our lives, I have, for the past few years, become so acquainted with this true, best friend of humankind that its image no longer holds anything frightening for me, but rather much that is calming and comforting.”

This is not a pose. This is the attitude of a man who has grasped life in its entirety. Mozart never went to sleep without considering that he might not live to see the next day—and yet, he emphasized, no one could say that he was “stubborn or peevish” in his dealings with others. This serenity in the face of the inevitable, this stoic serenity in the face of mortality, is perhaps his greatest achievement beyond music. It speaks from every one of his late works, from "The Magic Flute" as well as from the "Requiem."

What ultimately killed Mozart remains a matter of debate. The official diagnosis was "acute miliary fever"—a vague term that meant everything and nothing. Modern researchers suspect rheumatic fever, triggered by streptococcal bacteria following a throat infection. In December 1791, a small epidemic of such illnesses swept through Vienna. The symptoms fit: high fever, swollen joints, back pain, and ultimately a body so bloated that he could no longer turn over in bed. The doctors of the time made everything worse—the bloodletting they ordered likely hastened the end of a man whose body was already on the verge of collapse.

The rumors of poisoning by his rival Antonio Salieri are nothing more than legend. Salieri, himself a respected composer and by no means the envious villain from Miloš Forman's film "Amadeus," had neither motive nor opportunity. He was more successful than Mozart, enjoyed greater favor at court, and earned more. Why would he murder? The truth is more banal and tragic: Mozart died of an illness, like thousands before and after him, born in the wrong century, when medicine did more harm than good.

Over Six Hundred Works in Thirty-Five Years

What remains of a person when they die? Mozart's legacy is unparalleled. Over six hundred compositions, listed in the Köchel catalogue – symphonies, operas, concertos, sonatas, chamber music, masses, serenades, and divertimenti. Forty-one symphonies alone, twenty-seven piano concertos, and twenty-two operas. And all this in thirty-five years, the first of which were devoted to childhood, before the three-year-old even discovered the piano. A productivity that was unmatched even in the age of prolific composers.

The quality of these works is as astonishing as their quantity. "The Magic Flute" and "Don Giovanni" are among the most frequently performed operas worldwide. The "Requiem," although unfinished and completed by his student Franz Xaver Süßmayr, is considered one of the most moving works in music history. Every child knows "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," and every television viewer knows the melody from "The Marriage of Figaro." The late symphonies—in E-flat major, G minor, and the "Jupiter" Symphony in C major—are milestones of the genre, against which Beethoven had to measure himself and which even Mahler grappled with.

Mozart shaped Viennese Classicism like no other composer besides Haydn and the young Beethoven. He refined sonata form and revolutionized opera by transforming it from courtly spectacle to human drama. In "The Marriage of Figaro," he has servants triumph over their masters—a revolutionary idea, years before the French Revolution, which only escaped being burned at the stake because it was set to music. In "The Magic Flute," he sings a paean to the ideals of the Enlightenment, wrapped in a fairytale plot that even the common people could understand.

The Silent Revolution

What did Mozart change? First and foremost, the music itself. Before him, opera was a vehicle for virtuoso singers and lavish sets, a spectacle for the eyes and ears, but not for the soul. After him, it became an expression of human passions, psychological drama in music. His characters—the cynical Don Giovanni, the loving Countess in "The Marriage of Figaro," the steadfast Pamina, the comic Papageno—are no longer mere types, but human beings with contradictions and depths. That was new. That was revolutionary. Its impact is still felt today.

But Mozart also changed the very image of the composer. He was one of the first to attempt to live as a freelance artist, independent of princely favor. The break with the Archbishop of Salzburg, Colloredo, in 1781 was an act of self-liberation, of emancipation from the role of the liveried servant. That he often failed, fell into financial difficulties, and had to beg from friends—so be it. The attempt is what counts. Mozart emancipated the artist from courtier to citizen. Beethoven, who later pursued this more consistently, stood on his shoulders.

And finally, Mozart changed our understanding of what music can be. Before him, it served entertainment, devotion, and ceremony. With Mozart, it became the expression of the ineffable, the language of the soul. Karl Barth, the great theologian, said that the angels in heaven played Bach when they were among themselves—but when they played before God, they played Mozart. This, however exaggerated, is a profound truth. Mozart's music transcends the circumstances of its creation, speaking to people of all times and cultures.

The Echo

233 years after his death, Mozart is more present than ever. His music resonates in concert halls and ringtones, in commercials and lullabies. It has become part of our collective heritage without losing any of its depth. That is the true miracle: that this music, written for an aristocratic Vienna of the late 18th century, can still reach everyone, regardless of education, background, or prior musical knowledge. Mozart spoke a language that everyone understands.

Constanze Mozart visited her husband's grave only seventeen years after his death, at the urging of an acquaintance. By then, it had long since disappeared, leveled according to the custom of the time, in which graves were reused after seven years. There is no place where one could mourn Mozart. But perhaps that is as it should be. Mozart doesn't need a grave. He lives on in every note played today. In every child who hears "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" for the first time. In every lover who cannot hold back the tears at "Voi che sapete." In every person who, in the "Lacrimosa" of their Requiem, grasps their own mortality.

On December 5, 1791, a voice fell silent in Rauhensteingasse. Yet its echo still reverberates through the centuries. It will never fade away.

Sapere aude!

S.

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