Salieri in Amadeus

[Alex K]

The movie "Amadeus" based on the same play is very entertaining, and has aged rather well for an 80s flick, but without knowing much about Salieri, something seemed very odd about how he was portrayed, basically as a bumbling amateur who could barely write a proper piece of music and was enraged by how Mozart was actually capable of composing nice things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ciFTP_KRy4

I wasn't very surprised when I read up on him and discovered that the way he is portrayed in the movie is entirely made up. It's really quite a pity that the film sullied his reputation in contemporary culture like that, when he himself was not only an excellent composer and influential opera pioneer, but also gracious teacher to people like Beethoven, and friendly colleague with Mozart, with whom he even collaborated on occasions as we now know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO7xz7qTrlI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwJ4o84sa4U

[abaris]

The movie just follows through on the very old rumors of Salieri being behind Mozart's death. His reputation had been damaged already by some of his contemporaries. Of course unfounded and not doing his own artistic skill any justice.

It's been quite some time since I last watched the movie, although I have the DVD, so I don't remember, if Salieri actually kills Mozart or if he just contributes to his demise. He's portraied as the one commissioning the requiem, which he didn't do, as we know today. It was some count, wanting it for his deceased wife and most of all wanted to sell it as his own work to his admirers. Which brings me to Mozart himself, who was a big earner but an even bigger spender. He had to virtually whore himself out to keep afloat. One of the first real pop stars, I would say, given his lifestyle of womanizing, drinking and gambling. Also according to his own letters, which point to a pretty vulgar down to earth person and not some august demi god as some as his present followers make him out to be.

[Alex K]

The movie just follows through on the very old rumors of Salieri being behind Mozart's death. His reputation had been damaged already by some of his contemporaries. Of course unfounded and not doing his own artistic skill any justice.

It's been quite some time since I last watched the movie, although I have the DVD, so I don't remember, if Salieri actually kills Mozart or if he just contributes to his demise. He's portraied as the one commissioning the requiem, which he didn't do, as we know today. It was some count, wanting it for his deceased wife and most of all wanted to sell it as his own work to his admirers. Which brings me to Mozart himself, who was a big earner but an even bigger spender. He had to virtually whore himself out to keep afloat. One of the first real pop stars, I would say, given his lifestyle of womanizing, drinking and gambling. Also according to his own letters, which point to a pretty vulgar down to earth person and not some august demi god as some as his present followers make him out to be.

In the movie, Salieri merely thinks to have killed Mozart indirectly by putting pressure on him to finish the Requiem. As an ironic twist, he then helps him write it by Mozart's deathbed, which arguably wasn't the case either since Süssmayr finished the Requiem, not Salieri
At least the vulgar and hard partying (though not really womanizing) side of Mozart was sufficiently portrayed in the movie, although he behaves way more over the top ridiculously and disrespectfully in the presence of Joseph than would have been realistic.

[abaris]

At least the vulgar and hard partying (though not really womanizing) side of Mozart was sufficiently portrayed in the movie, although he behaves way more over the top ridiculously and disrespectfully in the presence of Joseph than would have been realistic.

Well, Joseph hasn't been his only source of income. I'm always amazed by the people not realizing that Mozart, similar to Shakepeare by the way, wrote mass entertainment. Some of his operas have been premiered at his friend's Schikaneders theatre.

[Alex K]

At least the vulgar and hard partying (though not really womanizing) side of Mozart was sufficiently portrayed in the movie, although he behaves way more over the top ridiculously and disrespectfully in the presence of Joseph than would have been realistic.

Well, Joseph hasn't been his only source of income. I'm always amazed by the people not realizing that Mozart, similar to Shakepeare by the way, wrote mass entertainment. Some of his operas have been premiered at his friend's Schikaneders theatre.

Also something which is addressed in the film, actually! The contrast between the high courts and the somewhat vulgar theatre crowd is made very clear.

[abaris]

I remember these parts, but not the actual involvement of Salieri, other than being falsely protrayed as commissioning the requiem.

What I wanted to point out is the distinction, some of our contemporaries make, between pop and high culture. Many of the composers of days gone by have been pop artists, since they adressed the people and not some lofty assembly in most of the cases.

[Alex K]

I remember these parts, but not the actual involvement of Salieri, other than being falsely protrayed as commissioning the requiem.

What I wanted to point out is the distinction, some of our contemporaries make, between pop and high culture. Many of the composers of days gone by have been pop artists, since they adressed the people and not some lofty assembly in most of the cases.

And, seriously, listening to most of Mozart, I find it absolutely obvious. Even J.S. Bach, whom I revere even more than Mozart, and who in our eyes always has this serious aura of pious Protestantism, was no stranger to entertaining the coffee house crowd for extra cash. He famously wrote cantatas for special occasions there addressing pressing (and surely to him personal) issues such as coffee addiction

That being said, the "pop music" of the likes of Mozart or even Bach, when he wrote for light entertainment, has involved an incomparably sophisticated range of musical expression - in the structure of the pieces, which take musical themes and vary and develop them ad infinitum, combining several musical lines and subtle changes in harmonies, to an extent that is not usually encountered in pop music. Contemporary pop music sometimes takes up some of those elements but remains, arguably, technically much much simpler on average. Whether that justifies scoffing at current pop music by default while adoring all the old stuff, is another question.

[Rev. Rye]

abarisThe movie just follows through on the very old rumors of Salieri being behind Mozart's death. His reputation had been damaged already by some of his contemporaries. Of course unfounded and not doing his own artistic skill any justice.

It's been quite some time since I last watched the movie, although I have the DVD, so I don't remember, if Salieri actually kills Mozart or if he just contributes to his demise. He's portraied as the one commissioning the requiem, which he didn't do, as we know today. It was some count, wanting it for his deceased wife and most of all wanted to sell it as his own work to his admirers. Which brings me to Mozart himself, who was a big earner but an even bigger spender. He had to virtually whore himself out to keep afloat. One of the first real pop stars, I would say, given his lifestyle of womanizing, drinking and gambling. Also according to his own letters, which point to a pretty vulgar down to earth person and not some august demi god as some as his present followers make him out to be.

Okay, in the movie, Salieri does indirectly kill him, but, in the play version (I have the script), he admits at the end that he created the story as a way of keeping his name alive throughout the generations.

(To Audience)  Dawn has come. I must release you - and myself.  One moment's violence and it's done.  You see, I cannot accept this.  I did not live on earth to be His joke for eternity.  I will be remembered!  I will be remembered! - if not in fame, then infamy.

One moment more and I win my battle with Him. Watch and see!... All this month I've been shouting about murder.   "Have mercy, Mozart!  Pardon you Assassin!" ... And now my last move.  A false confession - short and convincing!

(He pulls it out of his pocket)  How I really did murder Mozart - with arsenic - out of envy!  And how I cannot live another day under the knowledge!  By tonight they'll hear out there how I died - and they'll believe it's true ! ... Let them forget me then.  For the rest of time whenever men say Mozart with love, they will say Salieri with loathing!...  I am going to be immortal after all!  And He is powerless to prevent it.

(To God)  So Signore - see now if man is mocked!  (The Valet comes in with a tray, bearing a bowl of hot shaving water, soap and a razor. ....(some parts omitted owing to insufficient space)... Salieri picks up the razor, and rises.  He addresses the audience most simply and directly.)

Amici cari.  I was born a pair of ears and nothing else.  It is only through hearing music that I know God exists.  Only through writing music that I could worship.... all around me men seek liberty for mankind.  I sought only salvery for myself.  To be owned - ordered - exhausted by an Absolute Music.  This was denied me, and with it all meaning. 

(He opens the razor) Now I go to become a ghost myself.  I will stand in the shadows when you come here to this earth in your turns.  And when you feel the dreadful bit of your failures - and hear the taunting of unachievable, uncaring God - I will whisper my name to you : "Salieri : Patron Saint of Mediocrities!"  And in the depth of your downcastness you can pray to me.  And I will forgive you.  Vi saluto.

(He cuts his throat, and falls backwards into the wheelchair.....)

Apparently, in the Flesh World, the rumours of a rivalry between Salieri and Mozart seem to date all the way back to 1830 with Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri. In real life, the only real evidence of any acrimony between the two was how Lorenzo da Ponte had to be shuttled to Vienna while they were reworking the Prague staging of Don Giovanni, and a remark in one of his letters about being bitter that Salieri was chosen as a singing teacher for Princess Elisabeth of Wurttemberg over him.

And, of course, it should be noted that, by the time of his death, Salieri's music had already fallen from grace, largely because, well, tastes in music had changed, due in no small part to composers like Franz Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert, all of whom were pupils of his. Honestly, far from dragging Salieri's name through the mud, Amadeus probably gave him more of a place in the history books than he'd had since he died.

In one scene of Iron Man, Obadiah Stane plays a couple bars of the Larghetto from one of Salieri's piano concertos as part of his announcement that Tony Stark's been ousted from Stark Industries. On the one hand, it alludes to the inaccurate picture of Salieri painted by Amadeus. On the other hand, do you seriously think Salieri would be well enough known for that scene to exist without Amadeus?

I can't actually find that scene, but here's the music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOVz1RUjbpo

It's okay, but honestly, between Mozart and Beethoven, I can see why Salieri fell out of favor.

[abaris]

It's okay, but honestly, between Mozart and Beethoven, I can see why Salieri fell out of favor.

It was a time of outstanding composers, so a merely good composer won't win the laurel. There are many old and often told rumors surrounding the death of Mozart. Apart from the Salieri tale that he was burried in a poor grave. He wasn't. Mozart was burried according to the statutes Josef II introduced, in a so called common grave.

[Minimalist]

Salieri was also not "court composer" when Mozart arrived in Vienna.  That was Christoph Willibald  Gluck. 


The whole German v Italian thing was a contrivance as well.  Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail was not a novelty.  Singspiel had been around for quite a while in Germany and France and Serail was not even Mozart's first effort in the genre, ( that would have been Zaide.) 

Still, even with the historical slips, a fine film.  Just treat it like the fucking bible:  ahistorical.