On 5 December 1791, the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at his home in Vienna at the age of 35. The circumstances of his death have attracted much research and speculation.

The principal sources of contention are: Whether Mozart declined gradually, experiencing great fear and sadness, or whether he was fundamentally in good spirits toward the end of his life, then felled by a relatively sudden illness What disease caused Mozart's death Whether his funeral arrangements were the normal procedures for his day, or whether they were of a disrespectful nature

There is a range of views on each of these points, many of which have varied radically over time.

The course of Mozart's final illness

Traditional narrative

Mozart scholarship long followed the accounts of early biographers, which proceeded in large part from the recorded memories of his widow Constanze and her sister Sophie Weber as they were recorded in the biographies by Franz Xaver Niemetschek and Georg Nikolaus von Nissen. For instance, the important biography by Hermann Abert largely follows this account. The following is a summary of this view.

When in August 1791 Mozart arrived in Prague to supervise the performance of his new opera La clemenza di Tito (K. 621), he was "already very ill". During this visit, Niemetschek wrote, "he was pale and expression was sad, although his good humour was often shown in merry jest with his friends."Quotation cited from Following his return to Vienna (mid September 1791), Mozart's condition gradually worsened.For this point cites an article in the Berlin Musikalisches Wochenblatt ("Musical Weekly"), written shortly after Mozart's death. For a while, he was still able to work and completed his Clarinet Concerto (K. 622), worked toward the completion of his Requiem (K. 626), and conducted the premiere performance of The Magic Flute (K. 620) on 30 September. Still, he became increasingly alarmed and despondent about his health. An anecdote from Constanze is related by Niemetschek:

Constanze attempted to cheer her husband by persuading him to give up work on the Requiem for a while, encouraging him instead to complete the Kleine Freimaurer-Kantate (K. 623), composed to celebrate the opening of a new Masonic temple for Mozart's own lodge. The strategy worked for a time – the cantata was completed and successfully premiered on 18 November. He told Constanze he felt "elated" over the premiere. The words are as related by Constanze decades later to the visiting English diarist Mary Novello. Mozart is reported to have stated, "Yes I see I was ill to have had such an absurd idea of having taken poison, give me back the Requiem and I will go on with it."

However, Mozart's worst symptoms of illness soon returned, together with the strong feeling that he was being poisoned. He became bedridden on 20 November, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.Solomon, Maynard. (2005). Mozart: A Life. Harper Perennial, p. 491.

From this point on, scholars agree that Mozart was indeed very ill. He died about two weeks later, at his home in Vienna, on 5 December, at 12:55 am.

Revisionist accounts The view that Mozart was in near-steady decline and despair during the last several months of his life has been met with much skepticism in recent years. Cliff Eisen supervised the reissue of Abert's biography in 2007 in a new edition, supplementing it with numerous footnotes. While generally deferential to Abert, Eisen expresses sharp criticism in the footnoting of the section leading up to Mozart's death:

In the main biography article of the Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, Eisen writes of the decline-and-despair account:

As for why Constanze might have been "prompted by complicated motives both personal and financial" (Eisen), Halliwell contends that "Constanze and Sophie were not objective witnesses, because Constanze's continuing quest for charity gave her reasons to disseminate sentimental and sensationalist views."From Ruth Halliwell's article "Mozart" in The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, p. 332. By "charity" Halliwell may be referring to the many benefit concerts from which Constanze received income in the years following Mozart's death, as well as, perhaps, the pension she received from the Emperor.

Christoph Wolff, in a 2012 book entitled Mozart at the Gateway to his Fortune, disputes the view that Mozart's last years represented a steady slide to despair and the grave; he also disagrees with interpretations of the music as reflecting late-life despair (for example) "the hauntingly beautiful autumnal world of [Mozart's] music written in 1791".. The quotation, of H. C. Robbins Landon's book Mozart's Last Year, appears on p. 2.

Cause of death The historian William Stafford described the effort to determine what disease killed Mozart:

In the parish register, the entry concerning Mozart's death states he died of "severe miliary fever". Numerous sources, even published biographies (, ), have altered this term to "military fever". – "miliary" referring to the appearance of millet-sized bumps on the skin. This is not the name of the actual disease.

Mozart had health problems throughout his life, suffering from smallpox, tonsillitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, typhoid fever, rheumatism, and gum disease.For a thorough survey of Mozart's health history, with an M.D.'s proposed diagnoses, see . Whether these played any role in his death cannot be determined.

Conjectures as to what killed Mozart are numerous.

Epidemic disease

The view that Mozart died of an infectious disease circulating widely in Vienna in late 1791 was put forward in 1824 by one of Mozart's contemporaries, Dr. (1763–1827) who in his career had worked as a public health official in Vienna. Responding to the rumor that Antonio Salieri had poisoned Mozart (see below), Guldener wrote a letter to the author and journalist Giuseppe Carpani, giving his memories of Mozart's diagnosis and illness (Guldener had been in contact with Mozart's doctors, Sallaba and Closset, at the time).

He fell sick in the late autumn of a rheumatic and inflammatory fever, which being fairly general among us at the time, attacked many people. ... The illness took its accustomed course and had its usual duration; Closset had observed it and recognized with such accuracy that he forecast its outcome almost to the hour. This malady attacked at this time a great many of the inhabitants of Vienna, and for not a few of them it had the same fatal conclusion and the same symptoms as in the case of Mozart.Translation (from the original Italian) from

Guldener also wrote that in his judgment, the accusation against Salieri was a "horrible calumny", so he perhaps had motivation to emphasize the credibility of the epidemic theory. His letter was appended to Carpani's report and published.

Much later, the hypothesis of an epidemic illness was investigated empirically by , who performed a post-hoc epidemiological study examining all deaths that occurred in Vienna around the time Mozart died; they included a control comparison for the years 1790 and 1792. Their key finding is given below:

The disease they described was called "Wassersucht" in 18th century Austria.

The diagnosis of an epidemic illness is also the conclusion arrived at by Jenkins (2006), who emphasizes the evidence that Mozart was mostly in health in 1791: "[Mozart] was struck down suddenly by an epidemic illness which was then raging in Vienna."

also endorses the view that Mozart died of an epidemic disease, and offers a conjecture (p. 781) for where he caught it: "probably" the venue was the successful premiere of his last work, the Little Masonic Cantata. Mozart conducted the work, which includes choral singers.

Malpractice

Some ascribe Mozart's death to medical malpractice on the part of his physician, Dr. Closset. His sister-in-law Sophie Weber, in her 1825 account, makes the implication. Borowitz summarizes:

Other diseases A 1994 article in Neurology suggests Mozart died of a subdural hematoma. A skull believed to be Mozart's was saved by the successor of the gravedigger who had supervised Mozart's burial, and later passed on to anatomist Josef Hyrtl, the municipality of Salzburg, and the Mozarteum museum (Salzburg). Forensic reconstruction of soft tissues related to the skull reveals substantial concordance with Mozart's portraits. Examination of the skull suggested a premature closure of the metopic suture, which has been suggested on the basis of his physiognomy. A left temporal fracture and concomitant erosions raise the question of a chronic subdural hematoma, which would be consistent with several falls in 1789 and 1790 and could have caused the weakness, headaches, and fainting Mozart experienced in 1790 and 1791. Additionally, an episode of aggressive bloodletting used to treat suspected rheumatic fever on the night of December 4, 1791, could have decompensated such a lesion, leading to his death on the following day.

In a 2000 publication, a team of two physicians (Faith T. Fitzgerald, Philip A. Mackowiak) and a musicologist (Neal Zaslaw) reviewed the historical evidence and tentatively opted for a diagnosis of rheumatic fever.

The hypothesis of trichinosis was put forth by Jan V. Hirschmann in 2001.See , and critical comment with reply at .

A suggestion is that Mozart died as a result of his hypochondriasis and his predilection for taking patent medicines containing antimony. In his final days, this was compounded by further prescriptions of antimony to relieve the fever he clearly suffered.

In a journal article from 2011, it was suggested that vitamin D deficiency could have played a role in Mozart's underlying medical conditions leading to his death.

Discredited theories An early rumor was that Mozart had been poisoned by his colleague Antonio Salieri; however, this has been proven untrue because the symptoms displayed by Mozart's illness did not indicate poisoning.For discussion, with references, of the poisoning rumor see . The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music states flatly, "He was not poisoned"; see Despite denying the allegation, Salieri was greatly affected by the accusations and widespread public belief that he had contributed to Mozart's death, which contributed to his nervous breakdowns in later life.

Various conspiracy theories blame the Masons, Jews, or both for Mozart's death. One such theory was the work of Mathilde Ludendorff, wife of the German general Erich Ludendorff, both of whom were antisemites. Stafford describes such accounts as outlandish.

Funeral Mozart's funeral arrangements were made by his friend and patron Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Describing his funeral, the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states, "Mozart was buried in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the St. Marx Cemetery outside the city on 7 December." Otto Jahn wrote in 1856 that Salieri, Süssmayr, van Swieten and two other musicians were present.

The common belief that Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave is without foundation. The "common grave" referred to above is a term for a grave belonging to a citizen not of the aristocracy. It was an individual grave, not a communal grave; but after ten years the city had the right to dig it up and use it for a later burial. The graves of the aristocracy were spared such treatment."Dies irae, dies illa – Day of wrath, day of wailing: Notes on the commissioning, origin and completion of Mozart's Requiem (KV 626)" by

Another reason why Mozart was buried in this manner besides Viennese custom was Mozart's disdain for complex burials and rites he viewed as "superstitious".

A description of Mozart's funeral, attributed to Joseph Deiner, appeared in the Vienna Morgen-Post of 28 January 1856: