Mozart’s Remains

Sonata in Am K310     W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)

At three o’clock in the afternoon of December 6, 1791, the body of Mozart received the final benediction in the transept chapel on the north side of St. Stephen’s Church in Vienna. A violent storm of snow and rain was raging, and five friends — including Salieri, and Mozart’s student Sussmayer (who completed his teacher’s unfinished Requiem for us) — stood under umbrellas around the bier, which was then carried to the churchyard of St. Mark’s. The storm continued to rage so fiercely that the mourners decided to turn back before they reached their destination, thus not a friend stood by when the body of Mozart was lowered into the grave. Due to poverty no grave had been bought, and his body was consigned to a common vault made to contain from fifteen to twenty coffins, which were dug up every ten years or so to make room for new. So no stone marks Mozart’s final resting place — indeed his mortal remains are completely lost.