Did Mozart die from writing too much music

[waste gate]

I recently watched the film Amadeus. I remembered that I found it interesting and amusing when it first saw it. I recently rented it and wondered does writing music kill a man?

[Konovalov]

Great film. What ever happened to the actor F Murray Abrahams? :-?

On the subject, is it any different from say the Chinese guy who died from gaming online non-stop? :hmm:

[STEED]

On the subject, is it any different from say the Chinese guy who died from gaming online non-stop? :hmm:

Yes. :yep:

[waste gate]

We need a musicologist.:know: Whatever that is, we need one to step in and answer the question.

[fatty]

Where's Takeda? :hmm:

[The WosMan]

Ahh a great mystery. I believe that he probably died from disease since there were so many back in those days and then the fact they threw some leeches on you or bled you didn't help. He may have even got some trichinosis from eating undercooked pork. I doubt he was murdered like the movie suggested.

[waste gate]

Ahh a great mystery. I believe that he probably died from disease since there were so many back in those days and then the fact they threw some leeches on you or bled you didn't help. He may have even got some trichinosis from eating undercooked pork. I doubt he was murdered like the movie suggested.

I was thinking mercury (quick silver) poisioning. At one time the concesus was it a cure all.

[Chock]

First winner of the Mercury Music prize?

If it is possible to die from banging out too many tunes, I think we should strongly encourage James Blunt to release more records, so he can hurry up and pop his clogs, thereby doing the music world a huge favour:rotfl:

:D Chock

[AntEater]

AFAIK Mozart died from Syphillis (and Absinthe), just like any other artist in that age, but as he had an umarked, his remains were never found and nothing can be proven.
:D
But you can't really do that in a 1980s Hollywood movie.
Also I've always wondered why the german arias in "Amadeus" were in english. Was that a director's twist to make them more accessible or the usual anti-german bias?
It surely was weird since in the german version, the singers in the Zauberflöte still sing english.

Actually it seems he was not that poor as suggested in the movie. In 1791 there were laws in force in austria, which actually governed that everybody except the extremely famous and rich had to be interred in unmarked graves and there were only set times.
He had huge debts, but did not live in poverty.

Mercury at the time was considered the cure for Syphilis. Alledgedly Frederick the Great was cured to impotence by Mercury, but at least he lived.

[AVGWarhawk]

Anteater is correct. He was quite the ladies man and well, picked up something along the way. Dying flat broke is conjecture I believe.

[The WosMan]

Ha, everyone had syphillis back in those days. It was like the common cold.

[Big Paul]

Old Wolfie was rather fond of the odd tipple, and as mentioned before, he had a few problems in the bilges, if you get my meaning!:oops: :oops:

[The WosMan]

Anteater is correct. He was quite the ladies man and well, picked up something along the way. Dying flat broke is conjecture I believe.

I thought he was just beginning to come into some wealth by the end of his life. He was one of the first musicians to break away from the old format of being commissioned by kings or the church and sorta going freelance / independent agent. He is my second favorite classical composer after JS Bach but Mozart certainly was ahead of his time.

[Takeda Shingen]

I'm a musicologist. The death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has become more a domain of legend, rather than fact. W. A. Mozart died on 5 December 1791. Legend places the time at 1 am, but no reliable sources indicate anything other than that his corpse was removed from the residence shortly after sunrise. Also, we know that his death was from an illness, but speculation on the type ranges from influenza to the plague. Still, there are others, mostly conspiracy types, that suppose that he was poisoned, either by mercury or arsenic.

What we do know is that Mozart held a busy schedule from early 1790 until his death. After being barred from the Salzburg court of Archbishop Corlloedo, he struck out to Vienna to find work as a freelance composer. The social structure of Europe dictated that composers for hire worked as court writers and musicians. In other words, they wrote music for the social and artistic functions of the local ruler. He tried to enter the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, but was only marginally successful in achieving a part-time position. He was very successful as a keyboard virtuoso, but the required novelty of a new performer would be short lived in such a metropolis that was Vienna.

Exacerbating his financial problems was the fact that he was very determined to provide an extravagant lifestyle for his wife and two surviving children. This required that he travel far to promote his operas, as this is where the money was in composing. It was this travel and schedule, combined with some very poor weather in the waning days of the medieval cold period (see global warming discussion) that undoubtably caused his illness and death.

So, the short answer is: Yes, the schedule required of Mozart in his composition work killed him.

The long answer is more complicated: Mozart's schedule was a product of his self-imposed exile from the music industry of his day, as well as his desire to provide an unreasonable standard of living for his family given his handicapped means.


EDIT: The movie Amadeus is rather fanciful as a biographical depicition. Salieri was far more respected by his contemporaries than the brash upstart, Mozart.

[Tchocky]

I'm a musicologist.

:know:

:up:

Tak brings out the big guns

[Stealth Hunter]

That can be challenged. The symptoms documented describe rheumatic fever, kidney failure (took mercury and drank heavily, remember that), or even poisoning (Salieri confessed in front of a court to killing Mozart 4 times; whether or not he did it with wearing him out or actually physically killing him is up to a medical examiner to decide).

Mozart suffered from smallpox, tonsillitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, typhoid fever, and gum disease at one point or another in his life, occasionally suffering TWICE from the same illness.

So, it was either murder, an accident, or a disease.

Seems more likely, to me, that he drank himself to death and also poisoned himself with the doses of mercury prescribed during that era as medicine.

As a final note, during the last few hours of his life, Mozart's condition was reported to have involved swollen hands and feet, sudden and violent vomiting, and then a complete loss of consciousness.

[Takeda Shingen]

That can be challenged. The symptoms documented describe rheumatic fever, kidney failure (took mercury and drank heavily, remember that), or even poisoning (Salieri confessed in front of a court to killing Mozart 4 times; whether or not he did it with wearing him out or actually physically killing him is up to a medical examiner to decide).

Mozart suffered from smallpox, tonsillitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, typhoid fever, and gum disease at one point or another in his life, occasionally suffering TWICE from the same illness.

So, it was either murder, an accident, or a disease.

Seems more likely, to me, that he drank himself to death and also poisoned himself with the doses of mercury prescribed during that era as medicine.

As a final note, during the last few hours of his life, Mozart's condition was reported to have involved swollen hands and feet, sudden and violent vomiting, and then a complete loss of consciousness.

Unfortunately, there is no documented evidence of any type, from either his personal (and unusually candid) correspondences with his sister, to whom he remained quite attached even after the uncomfortable split with his father, that Mozart was unusually taken with the bottle. The alcoholism of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart remains thusly a token of imagination and legend, rather than fact.

We know for fact that Mozart was ill during the premiere of La clemenza di Tito. We know for fact that his maintained his busy schedule through the fall. We know for fact that his condition gradually worsened. We know for fact that the November weather was cold and poor. What we do not have are scientific forensic evidence. Medicine, particularly in the German-speaking areas of Europe, was very poor in this day [Voltaire regularly quipped in his work Candide, about the fact that Prussian doctors were reputed to consult the works of the ancient Greeks in diagnosing an illness.], and there is little dobut that the so-called treatment had exacerbated the illness. None-the-less, had he taken to rest, he would have likely recovered. As noted by the history of his illness and survival, Mozart was not particularly weak.

For the record, the so-called Salieri Deposition was proved a hoax in 1994. Furthermore, Salieri attended the premiere of Die Zauberflote, and the two men had written several pieces cooperatively. So, yes, everything that I have written can be challenged. Unfortuantely, it cannot be challenged by anything that is concrete.

[Stealth Hunter]

But there again is the problem of evidence that it was in fact his schedule that killed him and not his habits.

[Sailor Steve]

Great film. What ever happened to the actor F Murray Abrahams? :-?
He's still around, and still active.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000719/

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Wow, F Murray Abraham.

Omar Suarez from 'Scarface'

"Who is this dishwasher, chico?"

[Chock]

Mozart died of lead poisoning; I went back in time next week and shot him.

:D Chock

[Stealth Hunter]

Mozart died of lead poisoning; I went back in time next week and shot him.

:D Chock

You unbelievable son of a BANANA...:cry:

JK, lol.:rotfl: