Friday, January 27, 2006

Happy Birthday Wolfgang!

1. If Mozart were alive today, he would be blowing out 250 candles at the Composers' Rest Home.

2. Like his father Leopold, Wolfgang had a misshapen ear. Because of this, the congenital fusion of the crura of the anthelix and the helix has come to be known as a "Mozart ear."

3. Mozart died at the age of 35 in Vienna. I read somewhere that the life expectancy for a resident of Vienna in the late 18th century was 35 years, so in some sense he didn't die young. On the other hand, such statistics take into account infant mortality, so the fact that the life expectancy was 35 years doesn't entail that 35 was a typical age to die at.

4. Apparently his favorite food was trout. I'm guessing Schubert liked trout too. Both composers died in their thirties in Vienna; maybe it wasn't such a good idea to eat trout right out of the Danube back then.

No comments: