This work investigates the final year of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life to separate historical fact from the persistent myths surrounding his premature death. H.C. Robbins Landon, a preeminent scholar of 18th-century music and biographer of Haydn, utilizes primary source documents, correspondence, and contemporary accounts to reconstruct the timeline of 1791. The text challenges romanticized narratives of the composer's demise by grounding the analysis in the socio-economic and medical realities of late 18th-century Vienna.

This text is widely regarded as a rigorous and essential resource for musicologists and historians seeking a factual account of Mozart's final months. The author’s meticulous attention to archival detail provides a sober, evidence-based corrective to the speculative legends that have long dominated the subject.