Tourette
and
Mozart
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
A
documentary to be screened in by Britain's Channel 4 television
network, suggests that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may have suffered
from Tourette Syndrome.
The
British composer James McConnel, a Tourette's sufferer himself,
claims that letters and music written by the composer hint at
a likelihood that Mozart had Tourette Syndrome.
According
to McConnel, Mozart's fascination with wordplay and obsession
nature, as well as his documented twitching all pointed to him
being a Tourette's sufferer.
McConnel
believes the root of Mozart's Tourettes is to be found in the
music itself - something McConnel knows from his own experience
of composing.
Mozart
and Tourette?
The
filthy, excrement-obsessed letters Mozart wrote provide a useful
starting point for McConnel.
"There's
a very rare condition in Tourette's called coprographia - the
need to write down filth. We Touretters have filthy minds! "When
you write a song, as Mozart did, called Lick Out My Arsehole,
that in itself is not so shocking judged by the standards of his
day. But what is very odd and Touretty about it is that he set
it to the most gorgeous, sublime tune. It's Tourettishly inappropriate."My
sense of humor is the same. I never know when to stop."
The
language in his letters was sometimes filthy. Mozart
was obsessed with filthy verse and breaking wind - evidence, says
the composer James McConnel, that his hero was a fellow Tourettes
sufferer. In the 18th century, filthiness was largely sanctioned,
but Mozart took it further than even his broad-minded contemporaries
could accept.
Mozart's
nine letters to his cousin Maria Anna, were "full of the
obscene childish scatological
humor, characteristics, that also runs through his letters
home." To his mother, Mozart writes, in verse, "Yesterday,
though, we heard the king of farts/ It smelled as sweet as honey
tarts/ While it wasn't in the strongest of voice/ It still came
on as a powerful noise."
Another
example: Mozart wrote a song called L**k Out My A***hole and put
it to beautiful music. Penned when he was 26-years-old,
the lyrics are said to include: "L*** out my a*******, L***
it till it's good and clean." I have not completed
the words out of dicernment for our youth audience. If you
are not sure of the implied content, you may contact
us and we can clarify for you.
Not
only did he write disgusting letters but he wrote disgusting songs,
often set to the most beautiful music. That is an indication
of the tension between chaos and control in Mozart's music.
When
Mozart was born, counterpoint and fugue were going out of fashion.
The great courts of Europe wanted nice, fluffy, tuneful dance
music. But Mozart rejected the less complex, more formalised musical
forms with which he had grown up and looked back to the fugues
of Bach and Handel. Fugue and counterpoint became an obsession
and he reinvented them: the contrapuntal complexity of his six
"Haydn" quartets baffled his friends.
Fugues
appear to be chaotic but are rigidly and beautifully structured.
Mozart loved to write passages that broke all the rules, yet needed
to keep them within a tight overall musical structure.
Mozart's interest in counterpoint and fugue - its unfashionable
complexity may have appealed to his Touretty side.
Benjamin
Simkin, M.D. author of Medical and Musical Byways of Mozartiana
looks at some of Mozart's lesser-known "society music"--serenades,
cassations, concerted songs, and dance music--and finds there
some of the most carefully crafted music ever written, entertainment
music that rose to the summit of high art.
Mozart
and Tics
"I
suspect Mozart didn't have physical jerks as much as me. But there
is definite evidence of his grimacing and feet-tapping."
We also know a lot about his inability to rein in impulses, the
sudden boredom, his sense of mischief and his scatological obsession,
which all point to Tourette's. He even had a morbid fear of the
trumpet until he was nine. Seriously! He would lie down and scream
if he heard one."
The
only time McConnel doesn't twitch (put a gun to his head and you
could make him stop, he says, but only for so long) is when he's
at his piano, composing. In the program he argues that Mozart,
too, "self-medicated" by writing music.
"The
self-medicating theory is that music is a replacement for the
twitching. With me it was subconscious. It wasn't until I was
about 25 that someone pointed out that I wasn't twitching when
I was at the piano."
Another
theory is called the "Mozart
Effect®".
Science teacher Anne Savanfound could observe the calming effect
by measuring a drop in student's blood pressure while they were
listening to Mozart's music. Her results now form part of her
PhD research on the subject.(article)
Medicating
with music dates even to biblical times. King Saul summoned young
David to play the harp for him when he was tormented to calm his
spirit. (1
Samuel 16)
Mozart
had numerous obsessions: clocks, cats, shoe sizes, his
wife's safety - he had an unnatural fear of letting her out of
the house. There is evidence of him twitching, grimacing, tapping
his feet together and behaving oddly. As Peter Shaffer noted in
Amadeus, he loved diversions and was always the life and soul
of the party; he enjoyed rhymes, silliness and playing with words;
he liked jokes and sometimes went too far, in the way that Tourettes
sufferers often do.
Because
he suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) McConnel takes
half an hour to go through all his bedtime rituals - checking
lights, looking behind doors and so forth.
"When
I am doing them I know it is completely barking," he says.
"But I can't not do it and feel comfortable. If I don't,
the house will burn down, the children will fry, there will be
some terrible calamity as a consequence. That's how it feels."
The
same was apparently true for the young Mozart. "When he was
a child he had to do his bedtime rituals with his father, Leopold,
and if they weren't right he would do them all over again."
As
Mozart's friends describe him they saw Mozart fidgeting compulsively,
talking nonsense and delighting in word-play and the coarsest
bathroom humor, and even leaping about the room miaowing like
a cat.
"Tourettes
is a constant battle between having a compulsion and trying to
control it, and that can translate into music. Mozart let his
music run off in chaotic directions but then always brought it
back under control."
James
McConnel is not the first person to suggest Mozart suffered from
Tourette syndrome."In 1992, an article was written in
the British Medical Journal, speculating that Mozart had Tourette
Syndrome." It's not a new theory. But it is one which
McConnel is in a unique position to argue because he himself is
a sufferer.
The
idea of Mozart having Tourette Syndrome had a start from a Scandinavian
scientist who based his theory on the scatological tone of Mozart's
letters. But, as a composer and somebody with Tourette's, McConnel
has a unique perspective. "What I set out to do was to reassess
the documentary evidence, as well as to analyse the music. Was
there something there that only somebody with Tourette's would
recognise?"
McConnel
has a background in musicals but also composes for television
and film. His wife is the Country Life cartoonist Annie Tempest
- and seems to not be bothered or notice his Tourette Syndrome.
Their son Freddie, 12, is also classed as having Tourettes. A
member of Mensa, he was recently on Mastermind. His specialist
subject? Mozart.
The
family, however, clearly regard the condition with a sense of
humor; McConnel's e-mail name is McTwitch and there is a plate
in the kitchen inscribed: "Warning: mad twitcher on the loose.
Did
Mozart really have Tourette Syndrome?
Was
there a "Malady behind his Melody?"
In
late 1992, the British Medical Journal published an article by
endocrinologist Benjamin Simkin, M.D. (along with a disputing
editorial by neurologist Oliver Sacks, M.D.) speculating that
Mozart's love of scatological * language meant that he had Tourette
Syndrome. An Associated Press wire story about those articles
was picked up by newspapers worldwide, and caused an international
sensation! The AP story was full of inaccuracies, and after determined
advocacy on the part of the National Tourette Syndrome Association,
the wire service issued a retraction.
Media Headlines on "Mozart's TS" Real Dirt on Mozart
-- NY Newsday
Mozart's
Foul Mouth Blamed on Tourette's -- Vancouver Sun
Mozart
had Tourette's, Doctor Said -- Hartford Courant
Illness
Could Explain Dirty Words in Mozart Letters -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Rethinking
Mozart: Doctor Believes Composer Had Tourette Syndrome -- LA Daily
News
Study
of Mozart's Letters Led Doctor to Claim Composer Had Tourette
Syndrome -- The Sun, Baltimore
Mozart's
Foul Mouth Leads to Speculation About His Having Tourette Syndrome
-- Arizona Daily Star
Needless
to say, the sensational coverage of the musings of Dr. Simkin
on medical history created a stir of interest and controversy.
Nevertheless, while speculation about whether a famous historical
personality of Mozart's genius might have had a medical condition
makes for intriguing reading, we can never know if it is true
or not. Obviously children and adults with Tourette Syndrome are
maligned by such speculation.
Having
said that, it has been documented that Mozart's scatalogical letters
were written to his cousin Maria Mozart whom he may have loved.
He was known to be hyperactive, have mood swings, tics, sudden
impulses and a love of nonsense words. He was observed spinning,
leaping, fidgeting and performing strange motor movements.
According
to Dr. Oliver Sacks, regarding BMJ's editorial: "the case
for Mozart's having TS doesn't strike me as entirely convincing.
. . But the case for Samuel Johnson having TS, although also circumstantial
is extremely strong . . ." Sacks goes on to say that Johnson".
. . was observed to have innumerable rituals and compulsions,
tics, gesticulations and a great range of involuntary movements
and mimicries . . . . His enormous spontaneity, antics and lightning
quick wit may have been connected organically with his accelerated
motor impulsive state."
*
American Heritage Dictionary - The study of fecal excrement (medicine)
or an obsession with excrement or excretory functions. Obscene
language dealing pruriently or humorously with excrement or excretory
functions.
We
can't prove Mozart had Tourettes. Without a living patient,
any theory must remain speculation. Nonetheless, Tourette
Syndrome could explain a great deal about the way he composed
and the direction his music took. He would have been a genius
anyway, but Tourette's could give a distinctive flavour to his
musical processes. What we do know is that he wrote letters
to his cousin Maria that contained many obscene words, especially
words having to do with bodily functions. His music words sometimes
had filthy verses. It has also been documented that he was
hyperactive, suffered from mood swings, had tics, and loved made-up
words.
Other
points worth noting about Mozart and Tourette.
"The
story of Mozart's life informs us that he may have lived longer
and given us still greater gifts if his father had loved him and
accepted him unconditionally. It is this unconditional acceptance
of all aspects of the child with TS, to include all his unruliness,
irreverence, and wild behavior, that creates the soil in which
his gifts will flower to their potential magnificence" -
George T. Lynn, M.A., L.M.H.C., psychotherapist from Bellevue,
Washington
Tourettes
wasn't recognized in Mozart's day. Much has been made of his constant
childhood illnesses. These, apparently, could have triggered Pandas
(pediatric auto-immune neuro-psychiatric disorder), which can
lead to Tourette's.
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