1791 was a year of great political change: Louis XVI was beheaded in France; the US Congress adopted the Bill of Rights and the Constitution; and the ideas of Rousseau and the Enlightenment were all pervasive. It was also the year in which Mozart wrote his enigmatic opera 'The Magic Flute' and his renowned Requiem – and then died. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the commissioning of the latter work led to the myth that the composer had been murdered.