Mozart may not have died rich, but friends and admirers came to his widow's aid, helping her pay debts and funeral costs. Large graveside gatherings and grand funerals were discouraged in Vienna during this period, hence Mozart's simple burial, but a church service was certainly held in his honor.
He was buried as a man of his social standing would have been at the time. At this point, Mozart had a grave; however, at some stage during the next years, "his" plot was dug up to make room for more burials. The bones were re-interred, possibly having been crushed to reduce their size; consequently, the position of Mozart's grave was lost. Again, modern readers may associate this activity with the treatment of pauper's graves, but it was common practice.
Some historians have suggested that the story of Mozart's "pauper's burial" was first encouraged, if not partly started, by the composer's widow, Constanze, who used the tale to provoke public interest in her husband's work and her own performances of it.
Grave space was at a premium, a problem local councils still have to worry about, and people were given one grave for a few years, then moved to an all-purpose smaller area.
This was not done because anyone in the graves was poor. There is, however, one final twist. In the early twentieth century, the Salzburg Mozarteum was presented with a rather morbid gift: Mozart's skull.
It was alleged that a gravedigger had rescued the skull during the "re-organization" of the composer's grave. Although scientific testing has been unable to either confirm or deny that the bone is Mozart's, there is enough evidence on the skull to determine a cause of death chronic hematoma , which would be consistent with Mozart's symptoms before death.
Several medical theories about the exact cause of Mozart's demise—another great mystery surrounding him—have been developed using the skull as evidence.
The mystery of the skull is real; the mystery of the pauper's grave is solved. An avenue runs alongside the main path, the sides of which are overarched by vegetation. A path around the boundary of the park complements this simple and effective system of paths. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in and was buried in a pauper's grave in the St.
Marx Communal Cemetery. For many years the location of Mozart's remains was unknown until when it is believed the grave was discovered.
In Hanns Gasser built a monument there. This was later transferred to the group of honorary graves for musicians at Vienna's Central Cemetery. All All. January 31st, Tags: composers. More Press. To mark the th anniversary of Mozart's death, fans from around the world will flock to the place where his grave is thought to be. Vienna's most prominent graveyard is the Central Cemetery.
The cemetery, which was opened in , has a network of paths between the , graves that covers a total of kilometers. Europe's largest cemetery even has its own bus line. Marx Cemetery, however, is regarded as an insider tip and as a gem among Vienna's graveyards. It's the sole survivor among five Biedermeier-style communal cemeteries in Vienna.
Botanists recommend visiting it in April and May, as that is when Vienna's biggest collection of lilac bushes is in bloom. For romantics any time of the year is an experience - from spring when the white lilac is in bloom, to finding a cool shady place in the throbbing heat of summer and the golden autumnal months leading up to a misty and haunting November.
The charm of this "Biedermeier cemetery" is not undermined by the constant noise from Austria's busiest road, the A23 motorway, which unfortunately leads past it. It's due to the historical graves. Charmingly and touchingly, touching way they ensure that everyone knows the elevated social standing the deceased once held in life.
Here you find "the wife of a host in the Leopoldstadt district" or a "civic sewer worker", a "imperial court mouth washer" or " a pleasure and ornamental gardener's son" as well as " a really privy councillor" - who had so many titles to his name that the stonemason in the end just opted for a laconic "etc. The more dilapidated the tombstone and inscription are, the more haunting the memento mori, the proud referral to the former status and riches of the deceased.
After all, you can't take it with you when you die. The cemetery owes its existence to an enlightened emperor, Joseph II.
0コメント