Wolfgang Mozart and Salzburg, Austria…

We all know that Wolf was born in Salzburg, and grew to hate it.  He left for Vienna when he was able, and never returned. However, the story of why Wolf lived such a short life may have a connection to his relationship to Salzburg.  How?  Let me explain.

When Leopold realized that he had not one (Nannerl) but two child prodigies in his family, he looked around and despaired at what he saw.  Salzburg was out-of-the-way, provincial, dull.  It grew very cold in the winter.  How could a loving Gd possibly give him such amazing children and expect them to grow up and flourish in such a place?  He was deeply offended by the shortcomings that Salzburg presented.  

Leopold knew that his children represented the royalty of music.  Why not then present them to royalty of this world?  They were the best, so only the best for them would do.  With all the earnest zeal of the children’s greatest mentor, he pushed them onto the world scene.  He demanded that the world pay attention to them.  He refused to allow them to be ignored and die forgotten in Salzburg.  He was adamant that this is what Gd would want.  

Unfortunately, as history shows, Leopold’s vision was false.  His family became divided, turning on one another.  His daughter’s gifts became forgotten as excitement over Wolf’s increased.  In a last desperate trip to find Wolf a permanent spot at court, Maria Anna died in Paris.  Leopold held Wolf responsible.  It was easier to do that than look inward and acknowledge that it was his plan that had brought on destruction of his family.  Arrogance and pride held sway, and he never managed to apologize for Wolf for his mistaken vision.

In fact, the truth was right under their noses.  Being Catholic, they didn’t spend much time with the Bible.  In fact, the probably expected the priests to tell them everything they needed to know about it.  Had they looked within, they might have noticed a statement about ‘the salt of the earth’.  Salzburg was just that.  A town with a great salt mine that produced salt for the entire region.  It seems to go down for miles.  At the bottom is a lake.  A symbol of the depths of human character.

What if Gd wanted the Mozarts to be what they were — common people, ‘salt-of-the-earth’?  What if Nannerl and Wolf’s gifts had been allowed to mature in a small-town environment, away from the ridicule and gossip of the courts?  What if Wolf had been able to mature emotionally instead of being stuck in the role of an immature and conditioned puppet? Might Leopold have been able not only to assess the height of Wolf’s gifts, but also their depth?  

 

 

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Why Mozart was killed…

Yes, I do believe he was done away with.  No, I don’t think it was Salieri.  Mozart said he felt as though he was being poisoned.  He even described the type of poison he thought had been used — agua toffana.  But what possible motive would there be for getting rid of Mozart?  What threat did he present?

For one, he had an unusual gift (no, not those of musical genius per se) that caused great consternation in anyone who actually knew him.  There was something about him that was ‘different’, and it was something more or other than simply his gifts.  It is what I call a gift of “shalom”.  Someone else has labeled it in his music as “The Mozart Effect”.  We all know what that means — we listen to his music and cannot help but become at least a bit more centered and relaxed, if not happier and emotionally stronger.  This gift as we hear it in his music is what makes Mozart’s music the most exciting music there is.  In real life, however, there was more to this gift than what we can hear in his music.  There was a sort of challenge of energies, so to speak, between him and those around him.  He set people on edge.  He was disliked.  He was considered obnoxious.  He didn’t help himself because he thought he was protecting these priceless gifts of musical talent.  But this extra gift that he had managed to turn his birth family upside down and destroy his family relationships.  He was virtually disinherited by Leopold. His Mother died tragically on his watch.  His sister and his wife are buried at opposite ends of Salzburg.

This gift of “shalom” had a connection to creating substance.  Of course he thought that if he composed enough great music he would be rewarded with ample resources as a result.  That was not the case.  It was more complex than he realized, due to the unusual qualities of this gift.  This gift of ‘shalom’ could only work in his favor if he held no negative thoughts.  We can see from all his letters that he was intensely critical, at times to the point of arrogance — more of the music of others, but also, by inference or directly, of the people themselves.

So the negativity worked against Wolf, as did his arrogant assumption that he understood “God” and that he was a good servant.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  He was Catholic, indoctrinated with all the dark mysteries of that false gospel.  He became a mason — darkness and mystery to the extreme.  Spiritually speaking, he was living in a counterfeit world.  Only his music was honest.

At the same time, Wolf was an exploited child, conditioned at an early age to give adults (namely Leopold) what they wanted.  He operated on rote as an adult as a result.  So it is possible that he was too immature and frightened to analyze what was going on in his mind in regards to money.  I doubt that he did.  So here he was with this great gift, but one that could only be used for good — and his ego was weighing it down.  He lived at the center of a vortex.  Those around him realized that if they could trip him up and slander him, they could, in effect, steal money from this gift of his.  And so the noose tightened.  He became surrounded by what I would call an “evil eye” — a group of people in agreement to his murder.

And so it happened.  His music was, in effect, stolen by those who performed it pretending to be him.  And these murderers and their descendants have continued this practice for over 250 years.  They claim, because of this, that they have stolen the “Mozart G’zillions” that, had he used his gift properly, could have belonged to him.