As it so often happens with great men, after his death public subscriptions were collected and statues erected as a tribute to his memory. At Salzburg you can see a statue of him, and yearly festivals of his works are held in his honor; and in Vienna, the opera house is decorated with frescoes of scenes from the _Magic Flute_! After his visit to Prague he was never well, and when he had finished the inimitable _Magic Flute_ he started work on his last composition, the great Requiem (a mass played for the dead) which influenced Catholic Church music for years. He became very despondent, in great contrast to his usual high spirits, and poor Constance did everything to cheer him. One day, while writing the Requiem, Mozart began to weep and declared he was writing it for himself, “I feel I am not going to last much longer, some one has certainly given me poison, I cannot get rid of this idea.” In November, being an ardent member of the Masonic brotherhood, as were also Beethoven and Haydn, believing as they did in the freedom and brotherhood of man, he wrote a cantata and led it himself at his lodge. Ill and despondent, he continued work on the Requiem, finished while he was dying. All during this time he longed to hear his _Magic Flute_ which was constantly given at the opera house, and like a child, he would say: “I guess they have just reached this or that point,” and he would hum the music as he thought it must be progressing at the opera. The day before he died, Roser, his friend, played some of the opera on the harpsichord to cheer him. The afternoon before his death, after finishing the Requiem, he and some of his friends sang it. At the _Lacrymosa_, Mozart wept. He said to Sussmayer, his friend, “Did I not say I was writing the Requiem for myself?” Later he asked his wife to tell Albrechtsberger of his approaching end, so that he would be ready to take his post at St. Stephen’s. During his last hours he was informed that he had been made director of all the music at St. Stephen’s with a salary that for the first time in his life would have enabled him to live in comfort, but it was too late! At midnight, on December 5th, 1791, he lost consciousness and fell into a slumber from which he did not awake. His wife was so overcome with grief that she was too ill to attend his funeral. A few faithful friends followed the coffin, but had to turn back as a furious tempest was raging and they could not force their way through the driving rain and sleet. Thus passed one of the rarest spirits that has ever brought Music to earth, and he lies in a grave unknown and unmarked. In 1859, the city of Vienna erected a monument to his memory near the spot where he was probably buried. Sad, sad end for so great a man! He and Raphael, Keats and Shelley and Jesus, Himself, all died early in their careers and yet had time to leave the world a finer and more lovely place for us. MOZART PRINCE OF MUSICIANS