Who Killed Mozart?

Originally published June 7, 2011

While teaching at Loras College, I was an active participant in the "Modes of Inquiry" (MOI) curriculum, which is designed to focus on a single topic while teaching skills in writing, research and critical thinking.  Other aspects of MOI include a plethora of "transitional issues" (study habits, drug and alcohol issues, etc.) that college students face when "on the loose" for possibly the first time in their young lives.

My course, entitled "Who Killed Mozart?" was, at times, a rousing success and (at least to me) a dismal failure.  You see, the success of a course such as this, that relies in no small part on group participation and projects, can be done in by a lackadaisical cadre of students, and that's what I felt I had the first time I taught the course.  Regardless, I did receive praise from the more "serious" students in the class, while the "also-rans" seemed to quickly weed themselves from the course as well as from the college as a whole.  Subsequent versions of the class (I taught it three times) were, in many ways more successful in terms of the ability to engage the students in the entire process.

Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham

We began the course with a showing of Peter Shafer's Amadeus, which is, by all accounts, a highly fictionalized account of many of the people in the life of this genius.  While the "Salieri myth" has been around since the time of his own life (Salieri actually did confess to murdering Mozart, but this was in his latter days during which time he was institutionalized), we remain fairly certain that this is not the case.  The absence of Mozart's corpse makes a true post mortem impossible, but that hasn't stopped so-called "experts" from trying to reach a conclusion, now over 200 years after Mozart's untimely death.

During our studies, we read of a number of differing theories, including his actual medical treatment, possible rheumatic fever (something he did suffer from throughout his life), a streptococcal infection, trichinosis, and a variety of other ailments.  The latest theory, found here, suggests a vitamin D insufficiency, caused by lack of exposure to sunlight.  The fact is, we'll never know as long as we do not have a corpse and the likelihood of ever discovering that is greater that the chances of being struck by lightning or winning the lottery.  But for academicians or budding college freshmen, the exercise is certainly worth the potential reward.