Was Mozart a Freemason?
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    And this mitigates consideration of his music how?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Masonry does nothing to mitigate consideration of Mozart's music. His music does that alone.
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  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Bingo.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    However, it could be Masonry that (despite his efforts) put him in the history books, and his music in print.
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    Backtrack a bit - what's the issue with mathematicians? Numbers in music is bad? I'm confused.
  • Wait, I didn't know Mozart also built buildings!

    ...

    Actually, I did know about his Freemasonry. I'm not sure how much of Vienna's particular brand was explicitly anti-Catholic, though the Church certainly had good reason not to trust them. Mozart even got Haydn to consider membership (and maybe even join), though Haydn did nothing with it.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Masonry was the rage at the time and appealed to many by telling them how enlightened and rational they were. They apparently liked that. However, that was another time and place with groups seeking some degree of freedom from European monarchs and the church hierarchy. I am leery of looking back in time and applying today's ethics, morality, and cultural philosophies to earlier times. It is often not a valid comparison.
    Thanked by 1ClergetKubisz
  • For what it's worth-

    Mozart also liked to go around in public wearing the insignia of the Knights of the Golden Spur, which was awarded to him by the Pope. So much so that when some aristocrats were teasing him for wearing it, he called them out on the fact.

    "Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends."
    (Mozart to his father, Mannheim, Feb. 2, 1778)