BBC（2004/10/15）報導，探討莫札特的妥瑞症與強迫症

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

A documentary to be screened in by Britain's Channel 4 television network, suggests that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may have suffered from Tourette Syndrome.

The British composer James McConnel, a Tourette's sufferer himself, claims that letters and music written by the composer hint at a likelihood that Mozart had Tourette Syndrome.

According to McConnel, Mozart's fascination with wordplay and obsession nature, as well as his documented twitching all pointed to him being a Tourette's sufferer.

McConnel believes the root of Mozart's Tourettes is to be found in the music itself - something McConnel knows from his own experience of composing.

Mozart and Tourette?

The filthy, excrement-obsessed letters Mozart wrote provide a useful starting point for McConnel.

"There's a very rare condition in Tourette's called coprographia - the need to write down filth. We Touretters have filthy minds! "When you write a song, as Mozart did, called Lick Out My Arsehole, that in itself is not so shocking judged by the standards of his day. But what is very odd and Touretty about it is that he set it to the most gorgeous, sublime tune. It's Tourettishly inappropriate."My sense of humor is the same. I never know when to stop."

The language in his letters was sometimes filthy. Mozart was obsessed with filthy verse and breaking wind - evidence, says the composer James McConnel, that his hero was a fellow Tourettes sufferer. In the 18th century, filthiness was largely sanctioned, but Mozart took it further than even his broad-minded contemporaries could accept.

Mozart's nine letters to his cousin Maria Anna, were "full of the obscene childish scatological humor, characteristics, that also runs through his letters home." To his mother, Mozart writes, in verse, "Yesterday, though, we heard the king of farts/ It smelled as sweet as honey tarts/ While it wasn't in the strongest of voice/ It still came on as a powerful noise."

Another example: Mozart wrote a song called L**k Out My A***hole and put it to beautiful music. Penned when he was 26-years-old, the lyrics are said to include: "L*** out my a*******, L*** it till it's good and clean." I have not completed the words out of dicernment for our youth audience. If you are not sure of the implied content, you may contact us and we can clarify for you.

Not only did he write disgusting letters but he wrote disgusting songs, often set to the most beautiful music. That is an indication of the tension between chaos and control in Mozart's music.

When Mozart was born, counterpoint and fugue were going out of fashion. The great courts of Europe wanted nice, fluffy, tuneful dance music. But Mozart rejected the less complex, more formalised musical forms with which he had grown up and looked back to the fugues of Bach and Handel. Fugue and counterpoint became an obsession and he reinvented them: the contrapuntal complexity of his six "Haydn" quartets baffled his friends.

Fugues appear to be chaotic but are rigidly and beautifully structured. Mozart loved to write passages that broke all the rules, yet needed to keep them within a tight overall musical structure. Mozart's interest in counterpoint and fugue - its unfashionable complexity may have appealed to his Touretty side.

Benjamin Simkin, M.D. author of Medical and Musical Byways of Mozartiana looks at some of Mozart's lesser-known "society music"--serenades, cassations, concerted songs, and dance music--and finds there some of the most carefully crafted music ever written, entertainment music that rose to the summit of high art.

Mozart and Tics

"I suspect Mozart didn't have physical jerks as much as me. But there is definite evidence of his grimacing and feet-tapping." We also know a lot about his inability to rein in impulses, the sudden boredom, his sense of mischief and his scatological obsession, which all point to Tourette's. He even had a morbid fear of the trumpet until he was nine. Seriously! He would lie down and scream if he heard one."

The only time McConnel doesn't twitch (put a gun to his head and you could make him stop, he says, but only for so long) is when he's at his piano, composing. In the program he argues that Mozart, too, "self-medicated" by writing music.

"The self-medicating theory is that music is a replacement for the twitching. With me it was subconscious. It wasn't until I was about 25 that someone pointed out that I wasn't twitching when I was at the piano."

Another theory is called the "Mozart Effect®". Science teacher Anne Savanfound could observe the calming effect by measuring a drop in student's blood pressure while they were listening to Mozart's music. Her results now form part of her PhD research on the subject.(article)

Medicating with music dates even to biblical times. King Saul summoned young David to play the harp for him when he was tormented to calm his spirit. (1 Samuel 16)

Mozart had numerous obsessions: clocks, cats, shoe sizes, his wife's safety - he had an unnatural fear of letting her out of the house. There is evidence of him twitching, grimacing, tapping his feet together and behaving oddly. As Peter Shaffer noted in Amadeus, he loved diversions and was always the life and soul of the party; he enjoyed rhymes, silliness and playing with words; he liked jokes and sometimes went too far, in the way that Tourettes sufferers often do.

Because he suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) McConnel takes half an hour to go through all his bedtime rituals - checking lights, looking behind doors and so forth.

"When I am doing them I know it is completely barking," he says. "But I can't not do it and feel comfortable. If I don't, the house will burn down, the children will fry, there will be some terrible calamity as a consequence. That's how it feels."

The same was apparently true for the young Mozart. "When he was a child he had to do his bedtime rituals with his father, Leopold, and if they weren't right he would do them all over again."

As Mozart's friends describe him they saw Mozart fidgeting compulsively, talking nonsense and delighting in word-play and the coarsest bathroom humor, and even leaping about the room miaowing like a cat.

"Tourettes is a constant battle between having a compulsion and trying to control it, and that can translate into music. Mozart let his music run off in chaotic directions but then always brought it back under control."

James McConnel is not the first person to suggest Mozart suffered from Tourette syndrome."In 1992, an article was written in the British Medical Journal, speculating that Mozart had Tourette Syndrome." It's not a new theory. But it is one which McConnel is in a unique position to argue because he himself is a sufferer.

The idea of Mozart having Tourette Syndrome had a start from a Scandinavian scientist who based his theory on the scatological tone of Mozart's letters. But, as a composer and somebody with Tourette's, McConnel has a unique perspective. "What I set out to do was to reassess the documentary evidence, as well as to analyse the music. Was there something there that only somebody with Tourette's would recognise?"

McConnel has a background in musicals but also composes for television and film. His wife is the Country Life cartoonist Annie Tempest - and seems to not be bothered or notice his Tourette Syndrome. Their son Freddie, 12, is also classed as having Tourettes. A member of Mensa, he was recently on Mastermind. His specialist subject? Mozart.

The family, however, clearly regard the condition with a sense of humor; McConnel's e-mail name is McTwitch and there is a plate in the kitchen inscribed: "Warning: mad twitcher on the loose.

Did Mozart really have Tourette Syndrome?

Was there a "Malady behind his Melody?"

In late 1992, the British Medical Journal published an article by endocrinologist Benjamin Simkin, M.D. (along with a disputing editorial by neurologist Oliver Sacks, M.D.) speculating that Mozart's love of scatological * language meant that he had Tourette Syndrome. An Associated Press wire story about those articles was picked up by newspapers worldwide, and caused an international sensation! The AP story was full of inaccuracies, and after determined advocacy on the part of the National Tourette Syndrome Association, the wire service issued a retraction.

Media Headlines on "Mozart's TS" Real Dirt on Mozart -- NY Newsday

Mozart's Foul Mouth Blamed on Tourette's -- Vancouver Sun

Mozart had Tourette's, Doctor Said -- Hartford Courant

Illness Could Explain Dirty Words in Mozart Letters -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Rethinking Mozart: Doctor Believes Composer Had Tourette Syndrome -- LA Daily News

Study of Mozart's Letters Led Doctor to Claim Composer Had Tourette Syndrome -- The Sun, Baltimore

Mozart's Foul Mouth Leads to Speculation About His Having Tourette Syndrome -- Arizona Daily Star

Needless to say, the sensational coverage of the musings of Dr. Simkin on medical history created a stir of interest and controversy. Nevertheless, while speculation about whether a famous historical personality of Mozart's genius might have had a medical condition makes for intriguing reading, we can never know if it is true or not. Obviously children and adults with Tourette Syndrome are maligned by such speculation.

Having said that, it has been documented that Mozart's scatalogical letters were written to his cousin Maria Mozart whom he may have loved. He was known to be hyperactive, have mood swings, tics, sudden impulses and a love of nonsense words. He was observed spinning, leaping, fidgeting and performing strange motor movements.

According to Dr. Oliver Sacks, regarding BMJ's editorial: "the case for Mozart's having TS doesn't strike me as entirely convincing. . . But the case for Samuel Johnson having TS, although also circumstantial is extremely strong . . ." Sacks goes on to say that Johnson". . . was observed to have innumerable rituals and compulsions, tics, gesticulations and a great range of involuntary movements and mimicries . . . . His enormous spontaneity, antics and lightning quick wit may have been connected organically with his accelerated motor impulsive state."

* American Heritage Dictionary - The study of fecal excrement (medicine) or an obsession with excrement or excretory functions. Obscene language dealing pruriently or humorously with excrement or excretory functions.

We can't prove Mozart had Tourettes. Without a living patient, any theory must remain speculation. Nonetheless, Tourette Syndrome could explain a great deal about the way he composed and the direction his music took. He would have been a genius anyway, but Tourette's could give a distinctive flavour to his musical processes. What we do know is that he wrote letters to his cousin Maria that contained many obscene words, especially words having to do with bodily functions. His music words sometimes had filthy verses. It has also been documented that he was hyperactive, suffered from mood swings, had tics, and loved made-up words.

Other points worth noting about Mozart and Tourette.

"The story of Mozart's life informs us that he may have lived longer and given us still greater gifts if his father had loved him and accepted him unconditionally. It is this unconditional acceptance of all aspects of the child with TS, to include all his unruliness, irreverence, and wild behavior, that creates the soil in which his gifts will flower to their potential magnificence" - George T. Lynn, M.A., L.M.H.C., psychotherapist from Bellevue, Washington