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Amadeus: An Alternative Theory

Peter Shaffer wrote the play Amadeus, first performed in 1979, based upon Pushkin’s play 'Mozart and Salieri' from 1830, and this was made into the Oscar winning film from 1984. But it’s fiction. A whole lot of fiction. In fact, one could almost be forgiven for calling it nonsense.

For those that are unaware of the plot, an ageing composer by the name of Salieri, now in an infirmary, confesses to a priest that he is culpable for the death of Mozart. Flashback to his life as a younger man, he then basically sets out to destroy Mozart’s reputation, which is far higher than his own, and finally triumph over him by anonymously commissioning a requiem mass for the dead, which he then plans to say is his own work, and play it at the funeral of Mozart, thus finally having the last laugh. Unfortunately for Salieri, Mozart dies before it is completed and then it is removed from the premises by the wife of the deceased composer.

There are many errors and assumptions in the play, the film too, which are easily dismissed. Mozart did not write out pieces of perfectly composed music without error. On the contrary, there are many cases of revisions and reworkings by Mozart, some that went on over prolonged periods of time.

The dual personality of divinely gifted musical genius and yet at the same time a man with a penchant for bawdy humour, a fatuous giggle, and little respect for other musicians is an invention by the playwright.

What we do know about Mozart, which is hardly mentioned and only hinted at in the film, is that he was an ardent mason, in fact he was the man responsible for sponsoring Joseph Haydn’s initiation into the lodge. Joseph Haydn died in 1809, eighteen years after Mozart. He was also a strong admirer of Mozart and tutored him in composition and economy of style.

The works known to have been composed for the masonic lodge number 16, including the last and most famous of his masonic works, the opera The Magic Flute. He also directed and conducted some of the performances of his pieces at lodges across Vienna, which numbered eight in the city. So you have an idea of how widespread and popular the masonic fraternity was at the time, although at the emperor’s insistence, the eight lodges were amalgamated into three in 1786.

Alongside the official freemasonic lodges, there existed two others. The Strict Observance was one, and the second was The Enlightened ones of Bavaria, started by Adam Weishaupt, and now known more commonly as The Illuminati. Leopold Mozart wrote to his daughter regarding the Enlightened ones, saying “I have learned that one percent of what is said here about them (Weishaupt’s group) is true...authentic freemasons are very annoyed by these strange gentlemen.”

Strange gentlemen. Indeed. Baron Gottfried van Swieten, a long time friend of Mozart, and someone who held a high position within the lodge, received a notice relieving him of his official duties on December 5th 1791, the exact day of Mozart’s death. Something was going on.

At the funeral of Mozart, beloved composer and brother of the masonic fraternity, there were five people. Yes, you read that correctly, five. The Baron, mentioned above who seems to have been kicked out of the lodge the day of the death of Mozart, Salieri the composer who in the film is portrayed as Mozart’s enemy. Highly unlikely considering his presence at the man's funeral, and Salieri would continue to conduct the works of Mozart in public performances, not exactly the actions of a man that is hell bent in destroying the reputation of the famous composer. Sussmayr, student of Mozart and the composer who completed the Requiem and two other unknown persons. Not even his wife attended. Now, does this sound like the funeral of the greatest composer of his time who had composed multiple pieces for the Viennese lodges, revered and admired by the literally thousands of brothers throughout the city, as well as across Austria? I mean, where were his brothers? Not one of them attended? Almost like they were ordered not to.

Evidence for Mozart’s enthusiasm for masonry is easy to find. A few months after his initiation into the lodge in 1784, he reached the degree of Fellowcraft, and a mere three months later show him present at the assembly of the True Harmony lodge, which implies he is now a master mason because this was an assembly of the third degree masons only. To reach this level, candidates had to submit “papers”, and during this period Mozart composed three masonic pieces, two adagio’s and a masonic funeral march. These are likely to have been his submission for acceptance into the third degree.

He obviously had such respect and admiration for the lodge that he managed to sponsor both Joseph Hadyn and his own father, Leopold Mozart, through the initiation process at the time he was admitted to the third degree.

The change that occurred over the next six years, considering the music wrote over this period, including his late great symphonies, is astonishing. Highly respected freemason, composer of some of the finest music the world at that time had heard, to someone who had only five people at his funeral, and not even his wife, beggars belief. What could have happened to him?

It is my belief that with the composition of The Magic Flute, completed just months before his death, certain high ranking officials, either in the official lodges, or the two unofficial ones mentioned above, the strange gentlemen as described by Leopold Mozart, were highly outraged that the secrets of the lodge were being portrayed on the stage in front of the uninitiated. The set and storyline of the opera are explicit in their portrayal of the beliefs of the brotherhood, as I myself have witnessed at a recent staging of the opera at the Royal Opera House in London.

The other possibility is that the lodges in Vienna, and across Austria, had been infiltrated by the Enlightened Ones and the previous focus on the spiritual that had inspired both Mozart’s and Hadyn, had changed. One thing is certain, the giggling buffoon in a wig is nonsense. Indeed, what we see as shown in the activities by Mozart in the records of the time, show him to be highly religious, spiritual and on a genuine path of seeking knowledge and then sharing it with a wider audience. That is why I think he died young. Thanks for reading.


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