Prince: Nothing more to eat, I beg you, my lord - unless a dozen or so of oysters are available...
Lord Grenville: Not oysters, sir, but the musicians from the Italian Opera at your command.
Marguerite: What are they to sing?
Lord Grenville: Arias by Mozart, my lady.
Sir Percy: I don't think that Mozart fellow was murdered - I think she had him for lunch.
This line in the play puzzled me until I looked up the "death of Mozart." Mozart fell ill on September 6, while in Prague for the premiere of his opera La clemenza di Tito, written in 1791. He was able to continue his professional functions for some time, and conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute on September 30th. The illness then intensified ti the at which Mozart became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.
Mozart was nursed in his final illness by Constanze and her youngest sister Sophie, and attended by the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset. It is clear that he was mentally occupied with the task of finishing his Requiem. However, the evidence that he actually dictated passages to his student Süssmayr is very slim.
Mozart died at 1 a.m. on December 5, 1791 at the age of 35. The New Grove gives a matter-of-fact description of his funeral:
Mozart was buried in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the St. Marx Cemetery outside the city on 7 December. If, as later reports say, no mourners attended, that too is consistent with Viennese burial customs at the time; later 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 cause of Mozart's death cannot be known with certainty. The official record has it as "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary fever", referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds), a description that does not suffice to identify the cause as it would be diagnosed in modern medicine. Researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death, including trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that Mozart died of acute rheumatic fever.
Being without the looking glass of modern medicine, one can easily see how rumors would arise around a popular figure like Mozart and the subject of his death. Indeed, at the time of Sir Percy's statement, this kind of topic was still quite relevant. The validity of Mozart's possible murder still surface today, and there are quite a number of medical journals that discuss the issue. See below articles for further reading, or enjoy the video of Mozart's last masterpiece "Requiem"
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