Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- When
- 1791
- Where
- Mozart's home in Vienna; Vienna
- Episodes
- 3
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at his Vienna home on 5 December 1791, aged 35, at 12:55 am, after falling seriously ill on 20 November with swelling, pain, and vomiting. The cause of death is not known with certainty; researchers have proposed over a hundred causes, including acute rheumatic fever.
Episodes
- Onset of final illness
Mozart fell seriously ill on 20 November 1791, taking to his deathbed with swelling, pain, and vomiting.
- Death of Mozart
Mozart died at his Vienna home on 5 December 1791, aged 35, at 12:55 am.
- Uncertain cause of death and later research
The cause of death remains uncertain; over a hundred causes have been proposed, and Zegers et al. found a late-1791 mortality spike supporting Guldener's claim.
Background and detail
Background. Mozart's final year included public successes: Die Zauberflöte was frequently performed to packed houses in his lifetime, and the Kleine Freimaurer-Kantate K. 623 premiered on 17 November 1791. His financial situation, a source of anxiety in 1790, had finally begun to improve before his final illness.
Final Illness. Mozart fell seriously ill on 20 November 1791 and took to what turned out to be his deathbed. He suffered from swelling, pain, and vomiting during the roughly two weeks before his death.
Cause of Death. The cause of Mozart's death is not known with certainty. Researchers have suggested more than a hundred causes, including acute rheumatic fever, streptococcal infection, trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment. Modern work by Zegers et al., tracing death records of the time, found a modest spike in the death rate for late 1791, supporting Guldener's claim.
People involved
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · deceased composer
Sources
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-26
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.