A child prodigy who became a musical virtuoso before he could properly speak, the greatest composer of Europe, a mystic, Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756, in Salzburg and died on December 5, 1791, in Vienna. Amadeus Mozart did not live to see his 36th year. 
His very name largely determined the composer’s fate. Christened Johann Chrysostom (Golden-Mouthed), he possessed an extraordinary artistic gift. The replacement of the Greek Theophilus with the Latin Amadeus, meaning “beloved by God,” outlined his difficult path as God’s chosen one. And it was this very name that brought him success and worldwide fame. Yet his cosmogram reveals far more secrets.
Mozart was an exceptionally talented child—he began playing the harpsichord at age three and composed his first minuet at five. Starting as a pianist, Amadeus soon mastered the technique of playing the violin and other string instruments. Leopold Mozart (his father) taught his son everything he himself knew.
The Ascendant of the horoscope is at 13 degrees Virgo (the musician’s degree), with the Sun as the ruler of this degree—life is fruitful, the ability to realize dreams and ideas, but followed by ascent and then decline.
In Amadeus Mozart’s natal chart, the Sun is in Aquarius in the 5th house (symbolizing creativity) in conjunction with Mercury and Saturn, the almuten of the 10th house, indicating the father—a father who played a major role in revealing the creative personality of his son. Uranus, the ruler of the 5th house of the horoscope, points to creative self-expression, and this creativity is imbued with the spirit of novelty and inner freedom.
Saturn in the 5th house and the ruler of the 5th house indicate a genius creator, especially in music and conducting. Mozart’s pen produced over 600 works across virtually all major musical genres—symphonies, chamber ensembles, concertos, songs, arias, masses, and cantatas.
Mercury’s position in the 5th house also indicates enormous creative potential. Moreover, Mercury is at the 9th degree of Aquarius (the genius degree; the Apostolic degree), which is the degree of Neptune’s exaltation—the planet of music and art. An indication of fame—he attracted it to himself like a magnet.
The Mozart family
In 1764, Amadeus’s talent was recognized by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, who invited the Mozart family to the palace twice. In 1765, shortly after returning from London, the Mozart family was received by King George III. From 1769 to 1771, Leopold Mozart took his children on a tour of Italy, where they were received by the Pope, King Ferdinand IV, and a cardinal. The Mozarts were welcomed at the court of Louis XV during the Christmas holidays in Versailles and enjoyed great attention from aristocratic circles throughout the winter.
In Amadeus’s natal chart, royal honors are indicated by Venus, the patroness of beauty, harmony, and the arts, located at 30 degrees Aquarius (the royal degree), a degree that grants a person honor and respect, as well as a musical gift. As the ruler of the 9th house (associated with long journeys), the musician achieved recognition and awards far from his homeland.
“I am convinced that to experience great joy, one must sacrifice something. After all, in immense happiness, something is always lacking.” From the letters of W. Mozart
The pinnacle of the composer’s path was the triumph of Don Giovanni in Prague. After returning to Vienna in late 1787, Mozart began to face misfortunes, and toward the end of his life, poverty. Despite his fame and dizzying success, Mozart almost never had money. Jupiter in the chart is in the 2nd house—chances for financial success and wealth accumulation are very high, but Jupiter in this degree symbolizes the loss of fortune and extravagance. The Mozart couple loved to enjoy life without thinking about the future. Money did not stay with them long; it literally melted before their eyes. Neither Wolfgang nor his wife could or wanted to save or rationally manage funds. Once a friend visited them and, to his surprise, found them joyfully dancing around the living room. “Are you teaching your wife to dance?” he asked. “No,” Mozart replied, “it’s just the only way to keep warm—there’s no money left for firewood.”
Mozart lived passionately. Childlike, cheerful, and in love, he indulged without measure, socialized in company, gambled, and was unfaithful. In a letter to his father, Mozart wrote that Constanze was not beautiful, but she had a golden heart and was an excellent homemaker. Constanze knew almost all of her husband’s works by heart. She was his first listener, the first to sing all the female parts at home accompanied by her husband.
Mozart made no secret of his adventures and wrote to his father: “The Almighty gave me talent not so that I would ruin it through my wife and live an idle youth. I am only beginning to live; must I ruin it? If I had to marry all those with whom I amused myself, I could easily have had 200 wives.” The Moon in Mozart’s chart is afflicted by Uranus, which is in the 7th house, indicating a tendency toward self-deception in relationships and a personal inclination toward freedom and infidelity.
Constanze Weber
Uranus in the 7th house means that the decision to marry came suddenly, often without parental approval. Negative assessments from Mozart’s father and close relatives, who disapproved of his marriage, believing the Weber family had ensnared, tempted, and seduced their beloved Wolfgang, did not prevent the couple from being happy. Wolfgang and Constanze were alike—both had a lighthearted and joyful attitude toward life. The doors of the Mozarts’ home were always open to friends. Once, when his father visited Wolfgang, he remarked that his son’s house resembled a madhouse—music blared all day, a baby cried, the dog Huckle scampered about the apartment barking, and the canary Starla sang as if announcing itself. Moreover, guests were constantly present—one friendly gathering followed another.
The 7th house (partnerships) of Mozart’s horoscope is in Pisces, which creates “blurred” relationships and illusions in love. His wife is represented by Neptune; she spoke three foreign languages fluently, had a musical and poetic gift, but was also prone to deception in marriage. Neptune is in opposition to the Sun and Mercury—the rulers of the 12th house (secrets, betrayals). Mozart’s intense work drained him of much energy. Whenever he traveled, he wrote warm and tender letters to his wife almost daily. Here is one of them: “My beloved wife, I am taking this opportunity to write to you, my dear. How are you? Do you think of me as often as I think of you? Every moment I look at your portrait and weep with happiness and sorrow. Take care of yourself for my sake and stay healthy, my love! Farewell, I kiss you tenderly a million times. Forever yours, until death parts us.”
Neither high intellect nor imagination, nor both together, create genius. Love, love, love—that is the soul of genius.
W. A. Mozart
Despite these love messages, Constanze was jealous of her husband for every skirt. Wolfgang was always surrounded by charming ladies, and Frau Mozart, exhausted by illnesses and frequent unsuccessful pregnancies, began to lose her youthful freshness. Mozart tried to calm his wife; he wrote from his travels: “Do not torment yourself or me with unnecessary jealousy! I beg you! And you will see how satisfied we will become! Only a reasonable, even-tempered behavior of a woman can bind a man to her. Understand this!”
It was rumored that Constanze sometimes looked at other men. After another childbirth, she went to Baden, where in the company of gentlemen she restored her strength. During one such trip to Baden in the summer of 1791, Constanze was accompanied by the handsome Franz Xaver Süssmayr. He was Mozart’s last pupil, as well as a friend and former pupil of Salieri. Wolfgang was very jealous of his wife for him and did not hide it in his letters addressed to her. Meanwhile, Constanze was jealous of her husband for his pupil Magdalena Hofdemel. In July 1791, Constanze gave birth to a very handsome baby, whom she named Franz Xaver in honor of Süssmayr, to please her husband. And immediately, malicious tongues began to reproach her for marital infidelity, strongly hinting to the maestro that Franz Xaver was not actually his son.
In Mozart’s chart, Constanze had six children, of whom only two survived: Karl Thomas (1784–1858) and Franz Xaver Wolfgang (1791–1844).
Mars in the 10th house indicates ambition, a great desire to reach the pinnacle, but as the ruler of the 8th house, it brings negative circumstances into life after success, a loss of prestige after elevation.
Mozart joined the Masonic lodge quite early and wrote many pieces for it, but in 1789 his relations with the Freemasons deteriorated. After the premiere of The Magic Flute, which was literally saturated with Masonic symbolism, they became outright hostile. By the way, Mozart never managed to fulfill his intention to stage a Masonic opera. To this day, The Magic Flute is performed as a fairy tale in which the religious-mystical layer is absent.
Proserpina as the ruler of the 1st and 12th houses of the horoscope indicates a desire to achieve a lofty goal and participation in the process of certain secret forces (the Masonic lodge). But Proserpina in the 8th house of the horoscope also warns of degradation, points to the destructive consequences of a single mistake that can decide the fate of years of effort aimed at achieving a cherished goal. In the worst case, a person digs their own grave and falls into it from the height of their social standing. This is exactly what happened to Mozart, who joined the Masonic lodge with the aim of improving his financial situation and social status, revealing part of the secret Masonic rituals and paying the price for it. However, the crime and punishment according to the laws of the Freemasons’ brotherhood awaited Mozart in the distant future. It was the passion, which manifested primarily in the Masonic ritualism of the opera The Magic Flute, that later played a cruel joke on the composer and may even have been one of the causes of his untimely death. At least it is known that it was after the unsuccessful premiere of The Magic Flute that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart fell seriously ill.
In revolutionary Paris, the premiere of The Magic Flute would most likely have caused a sensation, but in Austria the opera provoked a mixed public reaction. The residents of Vienna watched the massacre in revolutionary France with little interest, so the opera, filled with the spirit of Masonic ideology, did not receive much approval from Austrian music connoisseurs. But most importantly, Mozart’s opera premiere forced the Freemasons to take urgent measures to remove a member who had violated the taboo on disseminating information about the organization. The further existence of a musician who used Masonic symbolism in the plot of his opera threatened the order with the disclosure not only of the ceremonial but also of the semantic component of Masonic rites. Many well-known authors believe that the Freemasons’ refusal to provide Mozart with a decent funeral transfers the invisible finger of guilt for his death onto them.
Mozart House Museum
A strange illness that suddenly struck down the young composer’s health was very reminiscent of poisoning by slow-acting poison. All the signs of poisoning were present: a swollen body, foul-smelling ulcers, and discolored skin. At that time, people rarely left the world with the help of poisoners, so the effects of poisons on the body were well known to many.
In Amadeus’ horoscope, Neptune—the planet that governs musicians, as well as everything mysterious, incomprehensible, and enigmatic—is located in the destructive 10th degree of Leo. According to astrological symbolism, Neptune “oversees” all liquids, alcohol, narcotic and poisonous substances. Therefore, people whose natal charts have Neptune in a debilitated position (and in Mozart’s horoscope, this planet was in fall and in a destructive degree, as well as in opposition to the Sun) are prone to alcohol and drug addiction, and may even become victims of poisoning.
“I console myself with the thought: let what must happen come to pass, for I know that it is thus pleasing to God, who cares for our well-being (even if we do not understand it). For I believe (and no one can convince me otherwise) that neither a doctor, nor a person, nor misfortune, nor chance can give or take a person’s life. [This can] only be done by God alone, and what we can see are merely the instruments He most often uses (though not always)…
And God does everything for the best! I have something in my mind that I pray to God for every day. If it is His will, it will happen. If not, then it must be so, but at least I will do everything that depends on me.”
From Mozart’s letters
For a long time, the main suspect was the composer Antonio Salieri, allegedly out of jealousy Mozart was poisoned by Salieri. This hypothesis lacks credibility—the cosmogram of Salieri, born on the outskirts of Venice on August 18, 1750, presents him as a man not without talent (he wrote more than 40 operas) and very successful in life, completely devoid of “traits” of a murderer. Salieri was an outstanding music teacher, and among his students were Schubert, Liszt, Beethoven, and other composers of the early 19th century.
Moreover, in 1791, Mozart had little to envy: he had problems—financial, personal, and even creative (a number of works from that period, including the famous Requiem, were never completed)—while Salieri basked in the rays of glory. Unlike Mozart, Salieri’s Sun was not in detriment but in domicile, so he was completely self-sufficient, successful, wealthy, and even extravagant (as a typical Leo) and knew his worth. It is known that Salieri in the 1780s repeatedly conducted Mozart’s works, and after being appointed court kapellmeister, he first restored Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro to the repertoire. There was also a case when Mozart and Salieri wrote a joint musical work: the cantata for voice and piano “For the Recovery of Ophelia.”
Black Man
The most mysterious version of our hero’s death is connected with the composer’s last work—the Requiem. It was in July 1791 that he received an order to write this piece—from a stranger. One day, a stranger dressed all in black knocked on his door.
— I have come to you, sir, by order of a very important person. This person does not wish his name to be known.
— So be it. What does he want? — Mozart replied.
— He has recently lost a loved one. He wants to mark the anniversary of the death with a church service each year and asks you to write a Requiem for this purpose. Put all your talent into this work; you have the honor of working for a great connoisseur of music, — said the stranger and left.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was deeply captivated by the idea of composing a Requiem. He worked on it with incredible enthusiasm. Mozart took on the commission due to the generous fee, but as the work progressed, he became increasingly preoccupied with his own death, convinced that he was writing the “Requiem”… for himself! The strange mystery surrounding the unknown client only intensified the situation and weighed heavily on the composer’s agitated imagination.
Mozart died without ever learning who the mysterious commissioner was. Biographers of the composer uncovered the truth. That “dark man” turned out to be a certain Count Walsegg-Stuppach, who sought to “appropriate” the work of our hero as his own. Mozart’s death, as ever, remains shrouded in mystery, and the exact location of his burial is unknown. The composer reached the pinnacle of his creative genius and died in the prime of life, practically a pauper. In Viennese cemeteries, there are two gravestones claiming to mark the resting place of the greatest composer of all time.
“I firmly hope for the best, though I have made it a habit to always expect the worst in everything, since death is the true and final purpose of our existence. Over the past two years, I have grown so close to this true and better friend of mankind that the image of death holds nothing terrifying for me—instead, it brings me much solace and comfort! And I thank God for granting me the happiness… to understand death as the source of our true bliss. I never go to bed without considering that, perhaps (though I am still young), I may not see another dawn. Yet none of my acquaintances could say that I am gloomy or sad. For this bliss, I thank the Creator each day and sincerely wish this happiness upon all those closest to me.”
From the letters of W. Mozart
Mozart Effect
The Mozart Effect. This term refers to a set of controversial scientific findings suggesting that classical music can rapidly enhance certain cognitive abilities in humans. After listening to Mozart, individuals who take standard IQ tests show a measurable increase in intelligence. It has also been suggested that listening to Mozart in infancy benefits a child’s developing mind.
Money has been made from the “Mozart Effect” (even patenting the phrase itself) by American Don Campbell, who has published 18 books and 17 collections of classical music with instructions on how to heal memory, dyslexia, autism, and mental illnesses through music.
Other evidence of the influence of Mozart’s music on the brain has emerged. Neurologist John Hughes from the University of Illinois Medical Center (USA) conducted an experiment on 36 severe epilepsy patients suffering from near-constant seizures. During the observation, the scientist played Mozart’s music and compared the patients’ brainwave patterns before and during the music’s influence. In 29 of these patients, the brainwave activity associated with seizures became weaker and less frequent shortly after the music began.
