Mozart: the toothache of a genius

The medical history of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) has been pieced together from his letters and from anecdotes, but his dental health is one aspect which has been somewhat overlooked. It is known that, from an early age, he suffered from toothache and tooth abscesses, problems that may even have had other medical repercussions. In this paper, the authors explore and consider whether these negative experiences might have influenced Mozart's work and his attitude to teeth and dental pathologies. Two pieces of evidence from the life and work of this great composer provide clues: the aria entitled "A tooth decayed and sensitive to cold" (KV 209 a) (1772), containing the lament of a "sick man" suffering from toothache; and the first of the "Zoroastrian Riddles," which Mozart proposed during a masked ball in 1786, and whose solution is "teeth." Close examination of these two creative feats demonstrate that Mozart's attitude toward dental pathologies was calm and rational, so much so that he even managed to use the topic as a source of inspiration for a small jewel of a composition.