Mozart’s BaZi: Winter Yi Wood and a Single Lamp of Bing Fire

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth time comes from a letter his father Leopold wrote to a publisher: “on 27 January at 8 in the evening my dear wife was safely delivered of a boy.” The chart is Yi-Hai, Ji-Chou, Yi-Chou, Bing-Xu (乙亥 己丑 乙丑 丙戌): Yi Wood, the soft wood of plants, born in deep winter, with a single Bing Fire, Hurting Officer, showing on the hour stem. Our engine gives him a strength score of 0.350, exactly on our threshold for weak, not a point more or less. This page starts from that “exactly”, and looks at where this chart matches the genius who composed at five and died at thirty-five, and where it does not.

Birth data: his father’s letter and the baptismal record

There were no standard time zones in the eighteenth century, and clocks were mostly set by the local sun. If that “eight o’clock” was local mean time, adding the equation of time for late January gives 19:47 in true solar time (the time shown by the sun at the birthplace, which BaZi uses); if the clock was already set by the sun, it was exactly 20:00. Either way it falls in the Xu hour, and the hour pillar, Bing-Xu, is unaffected.

Four Pillars and Ten Gods

Our strength engine scores season, roots, visible stems, Resource and companions against Wealth, Officer and Output: below 0.35 reads weak, above 0.55 reads strong.

A score of 0.350 lands exactly on the threshold for weak, and by rule the engine reads it as weak; but with a slightly different hour it would come out balanced. We cast all twelve hours: 10 read balanced and 2 read weak, and the favorable elements are mostly Wood, Water and Fire. So the more accurate description is a balanced chart leaning right against the weak line: it can carry some load, but not much.

The chart favors Wood (companions) and Water (Resource) to support the Day Master and Fire (Output) to warm it; it disfavors Earth (Wealth) and Metal (Officer). On climate (tiao hou), a midwinter chart runs cold, and our engine flags it as “cold, short of Fire; needs Fire to warm the chart.” That single Bing Fire on the hour stem is exactly what this chart needs most.

The key to the structure: the only lamp in a winter chart

1. Hurting Officer showing on the hour stem: Hurting Officer is the most gifted and least rule-abiding of the Ten Gods. Here it is also the climate Useful God, which means the thing he needed most was his own talent. It is a structure that suits a man who lived by music very well.
2. Heavy Wealth, weak Day Master: all three Earth characters are Wealth, and the Day Master struggles to carry them. He earned well all his life, with good fees for performing, composing and teaching, yet for years he spent more than he made and borrowed from everyone. That comes close to the reading of heavy Wealth on a weak Day Master.
3. Chou and Xu punish each other: the day branch Chou and the hour branch Xu form a punishment, traditionally read as the positions of later life, children and one’s works pulling against one’s own foundations. This is a comparison, not a prediction.

Luck pillars

For a man born in a yin year (the year stem Yi is yin), the luck pillars run backwards, starting at age 8.

“fav / unfav” reads the stem first, then the branch: whether each one’s element is favorable (useful), unfavorable, or neither (neutral) for this chart.

In the Wu-Zi luck pillar of his prodigy tours, the stem Wu Earth (Direct Wealth) is unfavorable and the branch Zi Water (Indirect Resource) is favorable: on one side, his father taking him around to perform and earn; on the other, the best musical education the courts of Europe could give. The Ding-Hai pillar from 1773 has Ding Fire (Eating God) on the stem and Hai Water (Direct Resource) on the branch, favorable in both. In that decade he broke free of the court, became a freelance musician in Vienna, married and wrote his first smash-hit German opera.

Mozart died in 1791, aged only 35. There has been plenty of speculation about the cause of his death; we do not discuss lifespan or cause of death from a BaZi chart, and that holds for every chart in this series.

A few key years

1781 is a Xin-Chou year: the stem Xin Metal is Seven Killings and the branch Chou Earth is Indirect Wealth, unfavorable in both, and that year he broke with his employer and lost his steady income. The next year, 1782, is Ren-Yin: the stem Ren Water is Direct Resource and the branch Yin Wood is Rob Wealth, favorable in both, and he found his feet in Vienna and started a family. 1786, Bing-Wu, is Fire through and through, exactly the warmth this chart needs most, and he wrote The Marriage of Figaro, still a staple of opera houses today. We lay these out and go no further.

Where does the chart miss his real life?

Zi Wei Dou Shu chart

The same birth time, cast in Zi Wei Dou Shu (San He school, the same engine as our Zi Wei chart tool, using the same true solar time as the BaZi chart above). BaZi weighs the five elements and what the chart favors; Zi Wei looks at which stars fall in which palace. The two systems ask different questions, so the Zi Wei chart is shown on its own first, followed by where it agrees and disagrees with the BaZi reading.

The gold frame is the Life Palace; the shaded palaces are its three-sides-and-four-directions (Wealth, Career, Travel). Solid badges are the birth-year transformations (Lu, Quan, Ke, Ji), red names are the six malefic stars, and the small word after a major star is its brightness.

Mozart’s Zi Wei chart has Lian Zhen and Po Jun together in the Life Palace (the Mao palace). Neither major star is bright, but the palace also holds Lu Cun and Zuo Fu. The Wealth Palace has Zi Wei with the Ke transformation alongside Qi Sha, and the Career Palace has Wu Qu and Tan Lang, both brilliant. The old texts describe people with Lian Zhen and Po Jun in the Life Palace as rebellious, unwilling to be tied down and prone to big ups and downs in life; Wu Qu and Tan Lang brilliant in the Career Palace is a combination of great explosive force in one’s work. He toured the whole of Europe as a child prodigy, and as an adult he quit his court post under the Archbishop of Salzburg to become a freelance musician in Vienna, an almost unheard-of choice at the time, which comes close to the Lian Zhen–Po Jun reading. Zi Wei with Ke in the Wealth Palace, the emperor star carrying fame into the palace of money, can be read either way: he did earn good money, yet for years he spent more than he made.

For school, leap-month and Zi-hour settings see the Zi Wei chart page; for how the two systems differ see BaZi vs Zi Wei Dou Shu. The hindsight warning applies here too: once you know the outcome, any star can be made to explain it.

Western astrology chart

The same moment of birth, cast as a Western natal chart (tropical zodiac, Placidus houses, the same engine as our natal chart tool). A natal chart uses the sky at the moment of birth, so it needs no true-solar-time correction, but it does need the latitude of the birthplace to fix the Ascendant and the houses. BaZi and Zi Wei are both derived from the Chinese calendar, while a natal chart computes planetary positions directly. Because the three systems start from different places, the chart is listed on its own below, followed by where it agrees with the BaZi and Zi Wei readings.

The Sun and the chart ruler Mercury are both in Aquarius and both in the 5th house (creativity and performance), and they are conjunct: creation and expression are the backbone of his life, and in an Aquarian way, precocious, rule-breaking and not much interested in authority. His clash with the Archbishop of Salzburg is famous. A Virgo Ascendant values precision and technique, which matches his near-flawless craft as a composer. Five of the ten planets are in air signs, which in astrology marks a chart very focused on thought and exchange. The Moon is conjunct Pluto, 0.0° from exact, traditionally read as very deep feeling with a tendency toward extremes. Where it does not fit: BaZi reads him as a weak Yi Wood sitting right on the threshold, while the natal chart shows no sign of “weakness”. The two systems describe his strength differently.

Domicile, exaltation, fall and detriment in brackets are the classical categories for how comfortably a planet works in a sign; they are not verdicts of good or bad. For how to read the big three, the ten planets and aspects, see rising sign, Moon sign, the ten planets and aspects. The hindsight warning applies here too: once you know the outcome, any sign can be made to explain it.

What does your chart need most?

The four pillars, strength score and luck pillars on this page all come from the same engine as the chart on our home page. Enter your birth date to see your Day Master strength, whether your chart runs cold or warm, and which element the climate needs most. If your score also sits right on a threshold, compare it with the further reading below to see how the balanced and weak readings differ.