I Thank My God For Graciously

This letter of 4 April 1787, translated by Emily Anderson in The Letters of Mozart and His Family (1938), was Mozart's last letter to his father Leopold, who was gravely ill in Salzburg. Leopold died on 28 May 1787, less than two months later. The meditation on death as "the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness" reflects both Mozart's Catholic faith and the influence of Freemasonry — he had been a Mason since 1784 and used the phrase "you know what I mean" as a Masonic allusion his father would recognize. The letter also mentions the recent unexpected death of his close friend Count August von Hatzfeld, who had died at 31.