The story of Mozart’s death has, over the years, taken on an awful lot of…story. Extant theories regarding how he died number in the hundreds and are still emerging. Even yours truly did an episode of Classical Classroom to try to get to the bottom of the whole thing. In this episode, Dr. Robert Greenberg, a music historian and bestselling creator of courses for the Great Courses and the Teaching Company (and now, for Robert Greenberg Music), explains the facts that we know that we know about how Mozart died. Plus, we explore why it’s so hard for us to accept that incredible human beings like Mozart can, and do die, of totally boring, normal causes.

Audio production by Todd “Wolfie” Hulslander with suspicious eyeballing by Dacia Clay.