Composer may have developed deadly complications from common infection

msnbc.com news services

What killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart so suddenly in 1791? Was the 35-year-old composer poisoned? Could it have been kidney failure? A parasite? 

A report in Tuesday's Annals of Internal Medicine, a medical journal published in Philadelphia, suggests it might have been something far more common: a strep infection. 

Researchers looked at death records in Vienna in the months surrounding his death. The data suggests that there was a minor strep epidemic around that time, and some of Mozart's symptoms, including swelling and fever, could have come from strep. 

Since the composer's death in 1791, there have been various theories about the cause of his untimely end, from intentional poisoning, to rheumatic fever, to trichinosis, a parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork. A more than 200-year-old rumor suggests composer Antonio Salieri poisoned Mozart. The rumor has been widely discredited. 

On his death certificate it was officially recorded that the cause of death was hitziges Frieselfieber, or "heated miliary fever," referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds.

But researchers from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands said studies on his death have generally been based on less-than-reliable evidence, like accounts from people who witnessed Mozart's final days, written decades after his death.

Their new study was based on information from official death registers for Vienna in the winter of 1791 that places Mozart's death in a wider context. 

"Our findings suggest that Mozart fell victim to an epidemic of strep throat infection that was contracted by many Viennese people in Mozart's month of death, and that Mozart was one of several persons in that epidemic that developed a deadly kidney complication," researcher Richard Zegers, of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, told Reuters Health.

Zegers and his colleagues said this "minor epidemic" of step throat, or streptococcal pharyngitis, may have begun in the city's military hospital.

According to witness accounts, Mozart fell ill with an "inflammatory fever," which is consistent with strep throat, Zegers and his colleagues wrote in their report.

The composer, who wrote more than 600 works during his life, eventually developed severe swelling, "malaise," back pain and a rash, consistent with a strep infection leading to kidney inflammation known as glomerulonephritis.

Zegers said it was also possible that Mozart had scarlet fever, which, like strep throat, can be caused by infection with streptococcal bacteria, but this was less likely because witnesses said Mozart developed a rash near the end of his illness and with scarlet fever, the rash appears early on.

Cello scrotum — the truth at last

LONDON (Reuters) - "Cello scrotum," a nasty ailment allegedly suffered by musicians, does not exist and the condition was just a hoax, a senior British doctor has admitted.

Back in 1974, in a letter to the British Medical Journal, Elaine Murphy reported that cellists suffered from the painful complaint caused by their instrument repeatedly rubbing against their body.

The claim had been inspired by reports in the BMJ about the alleged condition guitar nipple, caused by irritation when the guitar was pressed against the chest.

But Murphy, now a Baroness and a former Professor of Psychiatry of Old Age at Guy's Hospital in London, has admitted her supposed medical complaint was a spoof.

"Perhaps after 34 years it's time for us to confess we invented cello scrotum," she wrote with her husband John, who had signed the original letter, which was published in the BMJ Wednesday.

"Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realize the physical impossibility of our claim."

Murphy, who said the couple had been "dining out" on their story ever since they made it up, said they had decided to reveal the hoax after it was referred to in a recent BMJ article on health problems associated with making music.

She also said she suspected "guitar nipple" had been a joke.

I know Hilary Hahn as the brilliant violinist and well-spoken musical scholar, so I was charmed to come across this video of her giddy rendition of the Happy Birthday song to the composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).

She has recently recorded the Schoenberg Violin Concerto, a daunting work for the soloist, a snippet of which you can hear starting around 1:15 on this video.

Unknown Mozart fragment found in French library

By ANGELA DOLAND 
Associated Press Writer

PARIS (AP) — It's a forgotten melody, sketched in black ink in a swift but sure hand. The single manuscript page, long hidden in a provincial French library, has been verified as the work of Mozart, the apparent underpinnings for a Mass he never composed.

The previously undocumented music fragment gives insight into Mozart's evolving composition style and provides a clue about the role religion may have played for the composer as his life neared its turbulent end, one prominent Mozart expert says.

A library in Nantes, western France, has had the fragment in its collection since the 19th century, but it had never been authenticated until now, partly because it does not bear Mozart's signature.

Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, said Thursday that there is no doubt that the single sheet, the top third of which has been cut off, was written by the composer.

"His handwriting is absolutely clearly identifiable," he added. "There's no doubt that this is an original piece handwritten by Mozart."

Leisinger said the work had been "entirely forgotten." Such a find is rare: The last time unknown music in Mozart's handwriting came to light was in 1996, when a portion of an aria was sold at Christie's, Leisinger said.

The library does not plan to sell, but if it did, the single sheet would likely be worth around $100,000, the expert said. In all, only about 100 such examples of musical drafts by Mozart are known.

There have been up to 10 Mozart discoveries of such importance over the past 50 years, Leisinger said.

The sheet was bequeathed to Nantes' library by a collector in the 19th century, along with one letter from Mozart as well as one from his father. Both the letters were published in Mozart's complete correspondence, said Agnes Marcetteau, director of Nantes' municipal library.

In an annotation dated Aug. 18, 1839, Aloys Fuchs, a well-respected autograph hunter who collected works from more than 1,500 musicians, authenticated that the handwriting was that of "W.A. Mozart."

But strangely, the work never attracted much attention, partly because it did not bear Mozart's signature and partly because the catalog notation about it was extremely brief and bland, Leisinger said.

The library contacted Leisinger to authenticate the work last year.

Some of the first part of the fragment is in D minor, while the second is in D major and marked "Credo" - a major clue that the work is a sketch for a Mass, which typically includes such a movement, said Robert D. Levin, a professor at Harvard University who is well-known for completing unfinished works by Mozart.

Circumstantial evidence, including the type of paper, suggests Mozart did not write the material before 1787, said Leisinger. Mozart died in 1791 at the age of 35.

"What this sketch leaf confirms in a most vivid way is Mozart's true interest in writing church music toward the end of his life," Levin said.

Mozart had planned to become the choir and music director of Vienna's main cathedral, although he died before he could take up the post. But because Mozart had become a Freemason, some have questioned the sincerity of his interest in religious composition at that period of his life, Leisinger said.

Mozart's famous Requiem, unfinished at his death, was commissioned by a mysterious benefactor. But the rediscovered fragment likely stemmed from inspiration alone and suggests "to a certain degree that being a Freemason and a Roman Catholic was not a real contradiction" in Mozart's eyes, Leisinger said.

For anyone who wants to try sight-reading the fragment, a bit of detective work is required. Musicians must work out the key signature and clef based on other clues in the music. The tempo is also mysterious. And there is no orchestration.

"It's a melody sketch, so what's missing is the harmony and the instrumentation, but you can make sense out of it," Leisinger said. "The tune is complete."

Philip Gossett, a music historian and a professor in music at the University of Chicago, urged caution about interpreting the fragment.

"It is certainly not something that can just be scored up and played as Mozart's," he said.

Nonetheless, modern-day composers are going to take a crack at an orchestration. And in January of next year, the Nantes library says, Mozart's 18th century Mass is expected to have its first performance.

Nantes vice-mayor Jean-Louis Jossic displays a previously unknown piece of music by Mozart, found by a library as staff were going through its archives, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008, in Nantes, western France. Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, said Thursday that there is no doubt that the single sheet was written by the composerand that it is "really important." He described the work as the preliminary draft of a musical composition. (AP Photo/David Vincent)

Fiesta - Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, Gustavo Dudamel

I don't often comment on classical albums on RP since that genre is only very occasionally played, but the new album from the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela is likely to appeal to many RPeeps who aren't classical music buffs. You might like it if you have a taste for exciting Latin music. Gustavo Dudamel is a young conductor with great talent. The album was selected as an Editor's Choice by Gramophone, the British classical music magazine.  Here's an excerpt from the review:

Dudamel's wonder band whip up a Latin storm, and even out-Lenny Lenny

Here is confirmation of a pulsating talent and, perhaps, a glimpse of the future. Dudamel’s charisma beats through every bar of this scintillating survey of Latin American music. His Venezuelan players, famously drawn from their country’s streets, where music has provided a route to a better life, throw everything into “their” music. They play as if their hearts are fit to burst with pride as well as passion. And they sound magnificent, textures sharp and clean, driven on with rhythmic momentum. It’s an enormous orchestra and at full-throttle the sound they make is awe-inspiring. ... I defy anyone to listen without excitement to the hypnotic Danzón No 2. Dudamel could yet prove his doubters wrong. This is his first truly great album. I predict a smash hit. My wife hasn’t stopped playing it for about three weeks.