Mozart s Fantasia, or The Man in Gray

;I never lie down in bed without reflecting that, young as I am, I may not live to see another day.
— W. A. Mozart
;In every human life, there is a place for Mozart.
— Ketil Bj;rnstad
;Germans in the City
;When Sasha and I were finishing our studies, a German invasion hit the Novosibirsk Conservatory: the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts had twinned with our institution.
;This domestic friendship was celebrated with a staging of Mozart’s The Magic Flute—the Westerners brought their own production, and we put on ours. Two nights in a row, the exact same opera was performed in the Conservatory’s Concert Hall. (I vividly remember our Russian Queen of the Night spectacularly botching her fiorituras).
;For several months, all of us lived under the sign of Mozart. Back then, doubting his genius was simply not done; he was revered as the "eternal sunlight in music."
;And then there was Oleg T-ko, a pianist and my neighbor in the conservatory dorms. Stepping into the communal kitchen after attending both premieres, he uttered a phrase worthy of the boy in The Emperor's New Clothes:
;"Man, Mozart’s music is so sketch—it's just non-stop cadences!"
;We all burst out laughing. Talk about a strike at the sacred. But if we are being completely honest, he had a point: the composer blatantly abuses the major mode, scalar passages, galant anticipations, formulaic turns, and relentless cadences all the way through.
;Then again, during his brief thirty-five years of life, Mozart composed an unbelievable amount of music to order. It is hardly surprising that the absolute "hits" are relatively few. On the other hand, everything he wrote is light, sunny, and optimistic. Ultimately, it’s good for your health!
;It was not without reason that the infamous "Mozart Effect" entered public consciousness—the theory that pregnant women should frequently listen to Mozart's slower, major-key works so their children are born gifted. (Absolute obscurantism, if you ask me, but it didn't just appear out of thin air).
;As for the opera The Magic Flute itself, it left our entire class rather bewildered. Egyptian pyramids, Moors, bird-catchers... it was impossible to tell good from evil. How were we to know back then that the composer was attempting to stage a stylized parody of a Masonic initiation ritual?
;Regards from Mozart
;Many years later, on the Thai island of Koh Samui, we crossed paths with a music school where several Austrian musicians were holding court—some straight out of Vienna, bearing regards from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself. Even the chocolates they treated us to were called Mozartkugeln. After that grand, pompous Mannheim epic of our youth, it felt almost sacrilegious to chew on his face.
;Out of sheer respect for his glorious name, I finally decided to learn one of Mozart’s genuinely popular pieces—specifically, the Fantasia in D minor, K. 397.
;At first glance, the Fantasia struck me as a fragmented jumble of unfinished ideas, completely disconnected from one another. The form simply refused to cohere. The tempo shifts a staggering seven times—what on earth was the Maestro thinking? And he is supposed to be one of the founding fathers of Classicism! Everything about this piece is bizarre. And distinctly nervous.
;For starters, the opening is thoroughly un-Mozartean: a brooding, romantic arpeggiation. Where are the notorious cadences? Where is the sunny major-key positivity?
;Even the main vocal-like melody is deeply personal, restless, weeping, and unresolved. What was wrong with you, Maestro? Listening to this should be strictly forbidden for pregnant women. Furthermore, every single time this melody tries to establish itself, someone loudly and forcefully cuts it off. Who could that possibly be?
;Ah, there it is—a soulless entity with a heavy, mechanistic stride: the descending chromatic bassline. Is it the motif of Fate, or the Stone Statue of the Commendatore?
;Mozart tries to guide his theme into the dominant key, but it is abruptly shattered by a technical cascade—a scalar avalanche crashing down across the entire keyboard, followed by another passage, entirely alien, this time rushing from the bottom up.
;Our protagonist is hunted down once more by the mysterious Stranger. The Stranger tracks the theme, shifting keys alongside it: you cannot hide from me...
;Terrified, the helpless little creature tries to flee again: a trembling theme with a racing pulse—driven by fragmented syncopations—strains toward the upper register. All in vain; it is cut down by yet another passage. This cascade is even longer, and clawing one's way back out of it is even harder. Once more the Maestro, looking so small, attempts to anchor himself in the original key.
;Alas, the endeavor fails. Thanks for trying... The pleading, sobbing cries catch in his throat, the pauses grow heavier with dark meaning, and an implacable Fate reclaims its rights. Following a dramatic run across the tones of that same infernal diminished seventh chord, a cadence finally resolves—quietly, mournfully. And it doesn't sound like Mozart at all.
;But that is not the end.
;Out of nowhere bursts the Allegretto—exquisite and drenched in sunlight. What is this? A melody drifting in through an open window (how beautiful the world is)? The happiness that was so close at hand? Or a final testament to posterity—joy to you, my friends?
;In short, we get a happy ending.
;The Mystery of Mozart’s Death
;"How are things?" asks my Austrian friend, Paul, a jazz pianist.
;We are sitting on the veranda of our house. He has once again traveled from Vienna to Samui, bringing along the obligatory pouch of chocolate marzipan balls, each adorned with Mozart's profile.
;"What are you up to while your husband is away in Russia?"
;"You won't believe it," I reply. "I'm solving the mystery of Mozart's death."
;"Is this a joke?" The elderly Austrian looks at me with pure skepticism. "Look, I get that crowds of crazy people constantly flock to Vienna thinking they are going to crack a historical mystery no one else could. But you, sitting here in Thailand, are going to solve the case? Don't tell me you don't believe he died of natural illness?"
;"Of course I don't. He was poisoned."
;"Ah, right, the Russians always think that..."
;"Just not by Salieri."
;"Oh? Do you have facts?"
;"No, but I can hear it in the music."
;"Perhaps you can even name the killer?" Paul smirks.
;"Give me a week," I promise, entirely deadpan.
;Something told me that the riddle of the Fantasia was intimately bound up with the mystery of Mozart's death. Decode the music, and you unlock the secret. Notably, almost all researchers agree on one thing: the great composer died far too young and under highly unnatural circumstances.
;A violent death is indirectly signaled by the fact that the authorities flatly refused to perform an autopsy despite the highly ambiguous symptoms. It looks a lot like someone was covering their tracks, doesn't it?
;The funeral arrangements are equally suspicious: rushed, conducted under the cheapest third-class designation, devoid of family members, and virtually without witnesses. What precisely transpired remains a subject of fierce debate to this day.
;But please, don't tell me it was Salieri. I implore you! Let’s recall the incredibly sketchy route by which this myth entered the public consciousness: some friends shared a rumor with a deaf (!) Beethoven that Salieri, while confined to an asylum (!) before his death, supposedly confessed (!) to a monk that he had committed a terrible sin—specifically, murdering the composer Mozart.
;What spectacular evidence: a madman incriminating himself, a monk violating the seal of confession, and the entire rumor taking wing during a conversation with a deaf man.
;And while Alexander Pushkin brilliantly crystallized this myth in literature, I cannot take it seriously. Besides, the "envious" Salieri’s career and finances were doing infinitely better than those of the unfortunate Mozart.
;Or perhaps the blame lies with the enigmatic "Man in Grey" who commissioned the Requiem? There is a theory that the psychological terror of this visitation broke the sensitive Maestro's spirit, triggering his untimely demise.
;Could Mozart have been poisoned by the very man who commissioned the Requiem—the notorious plagiarist Count von Walsegg? Perhaps he eliminated the composer whose music he intended to pass off as his own.
;Yet, the theory that the Freemasons had a hand in his death deserves exceptional scrutiny.
;Consider this angle: the composer was tasked with glorifying Masonry in his opera The Magic Flute; instead, he delivered a caricature of it and compromised the secrets of their ritual. According to the enduring masonic conspiracy theory, Mozart was harshly punished for this betrayal.
;Or consider an alternative: a bitter rift opened up between the composer and the Masonic society. A disillusioned Mozart was reportedly preparing to leave the lodge to found his own order, where he would reign as Grand Master and reformer.
;Now we are getting warmer! It felt to me as though this was precisely where the truth lay buried.
;Is this not why the Masons, for whom the composer had written an enormous amount of music, refused to offer a single groschen of financial assistance for the burial of the apostate?..
;Where Did Mozart's Body Vanish?
;"How is your investigation coming along?" Paul inquires a week later. "You promised to name the murderer. So, who was it?"
;"Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Or rather, the Masons, using his hands. His father, who belonged to the very same lodge, happened to be the court apothecary. He is the one who prepared the poison."
;Paul’s expression turns serious. "Interesting. It actually sounds plausible."
;"But this version is staring us right in the face! The person who hides the body is usually the one who committed the crime. It was van Swieten who took charge of the funeral arrangements, managing everything in a way that left everyone thoroughly bewildered. By the way, Edvard Radzinsky, our historian, accuses him too. Granted, Radzinsky doesn't mention the Masons in his version; he is convinced Baron van Swieten had a strictly personal score to settle with Mozart."
;"What kind of score?"
;"Envy. He fancied himself a composer, too. Radzinsky argues that 'Salieri' did indeed exist—his real name was just van Swieten..."
;They say the body was dumped into a communal pauper's grave, an arrangement orchestrated by Baron Gottfried van Swieten himself. He was the one who persuaded the grieving widow and children not to attend the burial. Interestingly, the gravedigger also departed for the next world shortly thereafter. Presumably, he had become a dangerous witness. A witness to what?
;Perhaps a witness to the theft of the corpse?..
;One must wonder: who would have a use for the dead composer's body?
;It is well documented that the skull, bones, and skeleton are vital attributes of Masonic symbolism, extensively utilized in mystical rituals and meditations. Furthermore, the skull is viewed as the vessel of the soul even after its owner has passed. The skull of a genius would hold immense value for a specific circle of initiates. There is even a macabre version suggesting that the Masons were preparing a sacrifice to consecrate a new temple, and selected Mozart as their victim. The premise is not as absurd as its ghoulish nature might sound.
;However, extracting concrete details is near impossible: a secret society is called secret for a reason—it keeps its mysteries. Yet, the theft of skulls belonging to illustrious figures was a remarkably common phenomenon, particularly in that era.
;One way or another, today there is no body, nor any precise coordinates of his final resting place. Even his widow, Constanze, was unable to locate where her husband had been buried when she looked for it years later.
;Nevertheless, at Vienna's St. Marx Cemetery, a symbolic monument to Mozart stands to this day—fashioned as a broken column, clearly erected by "grateful" Masons. In Masonic iconography, a broken column explicitly signifies a violent, uncompleted life. It feels as though they are brazenly and openly acknowledging the deed. Is this not yet another piece of circumstantial evidence pointing to Masonic involvement in the composer's murder?
;We can leave the remaining theories—concerning "Jewish" or "Jesuit" plots, crimes of passion, or professional jealousy—to rest in peace, or on the internet. They say the stream of pilgrims to Vienna never dries up, each traveler hoping to investigate the circumstances of the great composer's death on site.
;But what actually happened will remain forever shrouded in mystery.
;What the Fantasia in D minor Revealed
;"But we can still do everything within our power," I tell Paul. "For instance, I analyzed Mozart's music and tried to grasp what this man was feeling in the vortex of these events. Take the Fantasia in D minor. There is far too much personal truth exposed here..."
;"No, it doesn't add up," Paul objects. "The Fantasia is dated to 1782, which is a long way from the composer’s death. Mozart hadn't even joined the Masonic order yet. That wouldn't happen for another couple of years."
;"True, but musicologists agree that the Fantasia in D minor was left unfinished," I counter, ready for the meticulous musician. "The piece abruptly breaks off at measure 97, and the D major Coda, according to the most widely accepted version, was completed by August Eberhard M;ller. This means that, away from the rush of commercial commissions, Mozart allowed himself to be entirely authentic in this music. But theoretically, he could have returned to it shortly before his death. Or perhaps back then, in 1782, he simply looked into his own destiny as if into a mirror. It is a diary of sorts."
;"You can't prove that."
;"So be it. Let’s just treat this music as a diary entry. At worst, we are simply adding one more theory to a pile of crazy ones."
;In the opening arpeggios, one hears the profound sorrow of a doomed soul. That person knows something. What exactly? Could it be the knowledge that he is already poisoned? That a lethal dose of slow-acting poison has already been administered to him without his knowledge? (In fact, the Maestro actually shared this terrifying suspicion with his wife, Constanze).
;Or perhaps, as an advanced Mason, he knew precisely which poison was running through his veins? In all likelihood, the poisoning bore a symbolic character.
;The alchemical element corresponding to the planet Mercury—under whose astrological sign Mozart was born—is quicksilver. Mercuric chloride, or corrosive sublimate: that is the poison that was systematically fed to the composer in minute doses over several months. In my version of events, the true masterminds behind the Requiem were the Masons. I am convinced they explicitly let the composer know he had been chosen as a sacrifice.
;The main theme of the Fantasia is a sort of alter ego for Mozart. What do we hear in it? The mortal terror of a hunted creature, darting about in search of refuge, a desperate attempt to escape. It is all futile: there is nowhere to run, the lethal mechanism is already active, the dark forces have long since assumed control, and the "Man in Grey"—acting as the Stone Statue of the Commendatore—ultimately traps the little man.
;The Fantasia in D minor is an incredibly terrifying piano work: right beneath your fingers, a benevolent genius goes to his grave, betrayed by the beautiful ideals of the Enlightenment and Philanthropy.
;Yet it is no accident that this Fantasia features a positive finale—one that seems to belong to "a completely different opera."
;In the D major Coda, we finally hear the Mozart closest to our hearts—sunny, joyous, and radiant. Within this music lives the love that the eternally youthful composer so generously gifts to us. And spring... ("Spring will come, but I shall not see it"). O Death, where is thy victory?
;This final resolution is for us, his descendants. And may the great Maestro be forgiven for his major cadences.
;If you want to live, you must listen to Mozart.
— Elisso Virsaladze
;Olga Skvirsкая
Koh Samui, 2560 (2017)