Mysterious Deaths of the Great Composers
It’s been announced that locks of hair of two great composers are going up for sale at the Sotheby’s auction house in London in Thursday, May 28. The hair samples in lockets, which was a common keepsake in the 18th Century are being put up for sale by the descendants of British composer Arthur Sommervell. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s hair is expected to sell for 10 to 12,000 pounds, while Ludwig Von Beethoven’s, which includes an invitation to his funeral in 1827 is expected to only fetch 2 to 3,000 pounds. Mozart died young, so not so much hair lying around barber shops, I guess.
Mozart died in 1791 at the age of 35 and his widow Constanze gave the hair locket to the mother of family friend, the composer Karl Anschutz. But don’t expect any testing of the hair to find the cause of Mozart’s curious death and burial in a pauper’s grave, the hair keepsakes were from an earlier period in his life.
Mozart’s death in Vienna has been the subject for controversy and conspiracy theory for a long time, even fostering the famous play and movie about a rivalry with royal court chorale master Antonio Salieri. The circumstances of the death hold some points of intrigue. After supervising a performance of his new opera La Clamenza di Tito in Prague, he began to feel ill and returned to Vienna. His condition worsened over time while working on a commissioned “Requiem”. He began to speak of his own death, and said he was writing the Requiem for himself. He added the words, “I am sure I have been poisoned.” Suffering from swelling and vomiting, he died at 1am on December 5, 1791. He was buried in a pauper’s grave outside the city walls of Vienna. But the Salieri idea is not the only theory. Mozart lived in Vienna across the Freemason Temple and one theory suggests a romantic entanglement with a member’s wife. The other more real theory may be medical malpractice. Mozart was taking heavy doses of a patent medicinal cure for constipation.
Beethoven’s death was dramatic in its own way, with it’s own attendant mystery. Ludwig Von Beethoven died in Vienna on March, 26 of 1827 at the age of 56. He had been ill on and off for some time, and suffered from liver damage from heavy drinking. Perhaps thematically, for a composer famously afflicted with deafness, and known for his bombastic symphonies he died during thunderstorm, with a roiling clap of tymponic thunder. Beethoven’s hair has been tested for his cause of death, with inconclusive results, and a number of theories, though bad medications may certainly have played a part.
You may not be able to afford to purchase a keepsake lock of composer’s hair at auction, but there are a number of places to visit to follow the story of the greatest composers of the age. In Vienna, you can sit at Beethoven’s favorite corner table at the Zum Schwarzen Kameel, or his gravesite in the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery. You can attend Mozart Concerts at the Vienna Opera House. In Salzburg, the city most associated with the composer, is the house where Mozart was born and where he studied with his father. Mozart’s grave is lost to history, but the gravesite of his wife and father is in the St Sebastien Cemetery, and Mozart’s favorite hangout the Café Tomaselli. In Salzburg, you can even attend a performance of a Mozart Opera performed by Salzburg Marionettes.
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