Mozart and scatology
Mozart's scatological letters and canons, and their disputed link to Tourette syndrome.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's use of scatological humour in letters and compositions has long puzzled scholars. Some have attempted to explain it through psychiatric conditions, while others view it as consistent with the norms of his family, society, and era.
Examples
A letter dated 5 November 1777 to Mozart's cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart is written in rhymed verse. The canon "Leck mich im Arsch" (K. 231) includes lyrics that translate as "lick me in the arse, quickly, quickly!" This phrase is a standard German vulgarism, euphemistically called the Swabian salute.
Context
Musicologist David Schroeder wrote in 1999 that the passage of time has created an almost unbridgeable gulf between Mozart's era and the present, leading to misreading of his scatological letters. He noted that these letters embarrass modern readers, who have tried to suppress or explain them with pathological excuses. When Margaret Thatcher was told of Mozart's scatology while seeing Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus, director Peter Hall related that she was displeased and gave him a severe wigging for depicting Mozart as a scatological imp. Hall sent a copy of Mozart's letters to Number Ten, but Thatcher maintained he was wrong. Benjamin Simkin, an endocrinologist, estimates that 39 of Mozart's letters include scatological passages, almost all directed to his own family. According to Simkin, Leopold, Anna Maria, and Nannerl also included scatological humour in their own letters. Several of Mozart's scatological letters were written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, often called the "Bäsle letters". In these, scatology is combined with word play and sexual references.
Medical accounts
The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, a major collector of musical manuscripts in the early 1900s, thought Mozart's crude writings might reveal psychological problems. He owned the unpublished Bäsle letters and the autographs of two scatological canons. Zweig sent copies of the letters to Sigmund Freud, who apparently turned down the idea of analyzing them. Later psychobiographers used the letters to argue for mental illness in Mozart. In the 1990s, some writers claimed the material showed Mozart had Tourette syndrome. One researcher counted the vulgarities in the letters, found them far more frequent than similar language from Mozart's relatives, and combined this with contemporary reports of tics. This made headlines worldwide. German psychiatrist Thomas Kammer noted in 2007 that the Tourette theory was quickly and harshly rejected by critics, who pointed to medical misdiagnosis and factual errors in Mozart scholarship. Kammer called the diagnosis inventive but implausible, noting a lack of evidence for motor tics and questioning whether written vulgarities could be involuntary vocal tics. Neurologist Oliver Sacks published a rebuttal, and the Tourette Syndrome Association called the claim speculative. No Tourette expert or organization has agreed that credible evidence exists to say Mozart had the condition.
Scatological materials
Benjamin Simkin's compilation lists scatological letters by Mozart to his father Leopold (twenty letters), his wife Constanze (six), his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart (six), his sister Nannerl (four), his mother Anna Maria (one), his mother and sister jointly (one), his Salzburg friend Abbé Joseph Bullinger (one), and his friend the choirmaster Anton Stoll (one). The canons were first published after Mozart's death with bowdlerized lyrics; for instance, "Leck mir den Arsch fein rein" became "Nichts labt mich mehr als Wein". The list of scatological canons includes "Leck mich im Arsch" (K. 231), for six voices, composed in the 1780s; "Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber" (K. 233), whose music was shown in 1988 to be by Wenzel Trnka; "Bei der Hitz im Sommer eß ich" (K. 234), also with music by Trnka; "Gehn wir im Prater, gehn wir in d' Hetz" (K. 558), for four voices; "Difficile lectu mihi Mars" (K. 559), for three voices; "O du eselhafter Peierl" (K. 560a), for four voices, with a revised version "O du eselhafter Martin" (K. 560b); and "Bona nox" (K. 561), for four voices.
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