er's reputation. How could any man do what wasexpected from Mozart's son? Not Mozart himself even.'Wolfgang and his father, Leopold had never regained the closeness they had shared in earlier days,but they reached a peace with each other, and maintained a steady corresponence. Leopold diedin Salzburg on May 28, 1787, at the age of 67. Wolfgang had news of his father's illness in April,at which time Constanze was ailing as well. This turn of events left him greatly depressed, and hisown health took a turn for the worse. His music from the preceding decade was only sporadicallypopular, and he eventually fell back on his teaching jobs and on the charity of friends to make endsmeet. In 1788 he stopped performing in public, preferring to compose. Mozart may have died of a number of illnesses. The official diagnosis was miliary fever, but thetruth is that the physicians who attended him were never quite sure what Mozart died of. Hesuffered from rheumatic pain, headaches, toothaches, skin eruptions, and lethargy. A commontheory today is that Mozart died of uremia following chronic kidney disease. Another possibility isrheumatic fever. Regardless of the cause, Mozart became bedridden for the last two weeks of hislife. He died at shortly after midnight on December 5th, 1791, aged thirty-five years, elevenmonths, and nine days.Mozart's legacy is incestimalbe. A master of every form in which he worked, he set standards of excellence that have inspiredgenerations of composers. Some of his representative worksSymphonies Nos. 25, 29, 38, 39, 40 41 JupiterPiano Concertos Nos. 19, 20 & 27sinfonia concertante for violin and violaString Quartets: the Hunt, the DissonanceString Quintet No.4 in G minor, K516Le Nozze di Figaro...
