MOZART AND THEM…

Europe is not essentially just a geographical space consisting of 46 countries, divided into East and West. Europe is a system of style created by composers in notes, created by artists with their brushes and writers with their pens… At the same time, tending towards capitalist interests, swallowed up by the first plants and factories, by the railways laid in keeping with commercial interests and so forth and becoming increasingly ruthless the more and more it was being swallowed up. As the years passed, Europe as a style remained solely in the sheet music written by the composers and in the artists' paintings. With just the seven notes in the gamma the composers from Venice, Milan, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Madrid, Moscow and St. Petersburg defended what related to style in Europe against the Europe of the cruel "old world" … We 're going to talk about the mysteries in the lives of these saviours. With whom shall we begin? Perhaps with Giuseppe Verdi [1813-1901]… Let's start with him.

Verdi's great alienation

The conservatory in Milan, the cradle of European culture, bears his name today. Naturally, Verdi, the composer of "La Traviata", "Rigoletto", "Otello", "Falstaff" and another 22 operas, who has used the expression "Me and Mozart" in a conversation about all the world's composers, is worthy of this. But, to begin with, let us close our eyes, change into the magnificent clothing of the counts of the 19th century and imagine that we are transported back to the year 1832. We won't hurry. We enter the Milan Conservatory and notice an unprepossessing country lad banging on the door of the director, Signor Francesco Basili. The young lad asks the director to enrol him at the conservatory. The director takes him to task and doesn't accept him. Now let's take a good look at this young lad, just as the walls of the Milan Conservatory look at him. Time will pass, there will be many changes of directors and this magnificent building will bear the name of that unprepossessing young lad, Giuseppe Verdi.

For a pupil of La Scala, for Giuseppe Verdi, every feeling, every sensation was in itself music. Perhaps Milan, Italy, even Europe itself were simply a string of notes for him. Essentially he was not living here, but just feeding the notes. But, you see, they say that the notes are nourished by the spirit, which is gradually reincarnated in them. The foundation of great music is thereby laid… 

In the mid-1840s, Verdi lost his wife, his son and his daughter one after the other. Everyone thought that, having survived such a terrible tragedy, being left all alone, music would already have remained a thing of the past for Verdi. But this supposition turned out to be untrue. For the death of his beloved wife and children became the composer's spiritual material throughout his life. Having lived to the age of 87 years, right up until his death Verdi drew on the nightmare "presented" to him by those deaths, turning it into music, but he did not exhaust it. He became a world famous person, enjoying indisputable prestige, but these deaths still had a hold on him.. "Rigoletto" and "La Traviata" were created. He showed his affection for his daughter and wife through their notes. And he was tired…

At the height of his fame, he suddenly left Milan. Everyone was looking for Verdi in the cities, but he managed to find himself in a tiny little village. There was a cosy little courtyard on his estate. There he worked the soil, and gathered in the harvest. In a small village for the first time, he dug himself an artesian well, using a method that he had learned in France. The villagers did not know who Verdi was. It was not until later that they found out that he was a skilful "master". They asked him to dig a well for water to irrigate the crops. Verdi dug wells for almost all the villagers… When he came to his senses, he saw that he was no longer in the village. Those same seven notes, which had taken him by the hands, had dug a well of such depth for Verdi, from which he could only draw great operas. He returned and, after composing several operas, including "Aida", he once again conquered the stages of Europe.

But, existing in parallel with the composer, the shock of the tragedy he had been subjected to condemned him to loneliness. Giuseppe Verdi took up residence on an estate built not far from Milan. Sometimes he would talk with the peasants, would drink a beer and even joke with them. But none of the old men he befriended ever asked him why he only played completely sorrowful melodies on the piano at night? And who in general was the author of these melodies full of pain… No-one ever asked.

So, once he had composed "Falstaff", he shut himself away all in solitude and lived 11 years far away from everybody. In 1895, he set about building the Casa di Riposo which he wanted to make into a refuge for old musicians. The construction work was completed in 1899.

The brilliant composer closed his eyes for ever in a room in Milan's Grand Hotel at the age of 88 on 21 January 1901. They had moved him there owing to his illness and in the hope that he would recover. When he was dying, Verdi bid them organise a quiet funeral for him, attended by only 20 people and a small military band, without any loud music. Although the funeral was arranged in accordance with his wishes, a month later the coffins of Verdi and his wife Giuseppina were removed from the temporary burial site in Milan and ceremoniously transferred to the Casa di Riposo. During the ceremony, which was attended by members of the Italian royal family, members of parliament and diplomats, thousands of people sang in chorus the famous "chorus of the Hebrew slaves" (Va, pensiero,sull'ali dorate) from the opera "Nabucco".

Mozart and the Freemasons

What was the fate of the great [Wolfgang Amadeus] Mozart [1756-1791]? Incidentally, Giuseppe Verdi first became familiar with Mozart's music as a composer of 18 years of age who had just taken his first steps, somewhat doubting his own genius, ecstatically talking about his music for a long time. Verdi, having listened to Mozart's music attentively, says with a smile "At your age, I also considered myself a great composer and always said 'I'. At 25 years I already said 'me and Mozart" and at 40 years "Mozart and I". Now I simply say "Mozart".

Mozart is possibly the only person in the world, about whose death around 150 versions exist. The best known one is that he was poisoned. In principle this is true. At the age of five or six when he could not even reach up to the grand piano, the subsequently great composer first conquered audiences in Vienna and then throughout Europe and there were already several attempts to poison the little Mozart then. They were prevented by his father who was also his manager. But, although his father was able to protect his son from many enemies, he was not able to protect him from the "Freemason fraternity", the masons.

According to suppositions, when the organisation of masons that was ruling the world at that time lost its prestige owing to the efforts of the Pope and the Catholic Church, in order to gain the trust of the people again, the Vienna masons invited famous people into their ranks, immediately bestowing a high title on them. Naturally, in keeping with the organisation's regulations, silence was demanded of them, that secrets should be kept and they should be loyal. The members of the order were prohibited from revealing to others the special symbols which were characteristic solely of the masons, even in allegorical form.

The version that Mozart was poisoned by the masons was first expressed by the German poet and philosopher Daumer in a series of stories about Mozart's death. In the libretto of his last opera, "The Magic Flute", Mozart used the symbol of the "Freemason fraternity" (the composer and his father had been members of the "Loyalty" masonic lodge since 1784) and a confrontation between Christianity and Freemasonry is depicted.. 

The author purposefully used the secret figures of the masons - 3, 6 and 18. Naturally, the ordinary spectator would not have been able to understand that. But the use by Mozart of these secret markers in his opera - the three stages in the trials, three women, three wise children, chords that were repeated three times at the beginning of the work, 18 priests, 18 seats and the number 18 relating to the complexity of the first part sung by a choir, attracted the attention of the masons 

But Mozart was not convinced that the Masonic way was the right one. The composer decided to set up his own Masonic society, the "Cave" and shared these plans with the musician Anton Stadler [1752-1812]. It would appear that Stadler told the masons about it, who sent him on a mission to poison Mozart. Supporters of the version accuse the Masons Van Switen and Puchberg of organising the "last funeral", and attribute to them the initiative to bury the composer in a communal grave, purportedly to cover up traces of the crime.

The hypothesis was developed differently in the 1910 book "Mehr Licht" ["More Light"] by Hermann Albardt, which asserts that Jews were behind the Masons who murdered Mozart. In the 1936 work by Mathilde Ludendorff on Mozart's life, "Leben und Gewaltsamer Tod" ["Life and a Violent Death"], she asserts that the murder of the Austrian composer Mozart was organised by "Judeo-Christians" (or by "Judeo-Romans") as well as by "Jewish Masons", Jesuits and Jacobites. Mozart became a Mason under the Archbishop of Salzburg, Count Hieronymus von Colloredo (who was also a Mason). This is why he refused to compose "Italian cosmopolitan music". The story with Stadler and the plan for setting up the "Cave" was also mentioned in Luden-dorff's book.

This is naturally only one of the versions relating to the death of the composer who lived a life full of mysteries. But there is a common thread running through all the versions which brings them together. This is that, no matter how Mozart died, even now no-one knows where he is buried.

According to one version, only one of his close friends knew where the grave was at that time. He opened the grave at night and severed the composer's head from his torso. He kept the skull at home for 10 years in memory of his unforgettable friend. Then he gave the skull to another musician as a present. But this remains one of the mysterious versions about Mozart which has not been fully uncovered even today.