Funeral
The funeral arrangements were made by Mozart's friend and patron Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Describing his funeral, the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states, "Mozart was buried in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the St. Marx Cemetery outside the city on 7 December." Jahn (1856) wrote that Salieri, Süssmayr, van Swieten and two other musicians were present.
The tale of a storm and snow is false; the day was calm and mild."
The common belief that Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave is also without foundation. The "common grave" referred to above is a term for a grave belonging to a citizen not of the aristocracy. It was an individual grave, not a communal grave; but after ten years the city had the right to dig it up and use it for a later burial. The graves of the aristocracy were spared such treatment.
Read more about this topic: Death Of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Famous quotes containing the word funeral:
“And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;”
—Charles Wolfe (1791–1823)
“A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)