The Organissimo Forum Mozart Poll

[mikeweil]

So what do you say .....

[Alexander]

Neither the film "Amadeus" nor any of the numerous stage versions (Shaffer is notorious for rewriting) have claimed that Salieri poisoned Mozart. Salieri *thinks* about killing Mozart. Even plots to do so, but he never actually gets around to it. Mozart dies of an unrelated illness before Salieri gets the chance. What the play and film are about is how Salieri so resents Mozart's talent that he *invents* the story that he killed Mozart. From Scene 19 of the most recent version of play:

"You see, I cannot accept this. To be sucked into oblivion - not even my name remembered. Oh no: I did not live on earth to be [God's] joke for eternity. I have one trick left me - see how He deals with this! [Confidentially] All this week I have been shouting out about murder. You heard me yourselves - do you remember? 'Mozart - pieta! Pardon your assassin! Mozart!' [Truimphently] I did this deliberately! My servents carried the news into the street...The streets repeated it to one another!...Now my name is on every tongue! Vienna, City of Scandals, has a scandal worthy of it at last! [Falsetto, enjoying it] 'Can it be true? Is it possible? Did he do it after all?' Well, my friends, now they can all know for sure! They will learn of my dreadful death- and they will believe the lie forever! After today, whenever men speak Mozart's name with love, they will speak mine with loathing! As his name grows in the world, so will mine - if not in fame, then in infamy. I'm going to be immortal after all! And He will be powerless to prevent that! [He laughs harshly] So, Signore - see now if man is mocked!"

Remember that in "Amadeus," Salieri's quarrel is NOT with Mozart but with God. That is why the play is not titled "Mozart" or "Salieri" but "Amadeus" (which literally means "beloved by God"). Salieri wanted nothing more than to have the talent to praise God through music. God gives him the desire, but denies him the talent. Worse, the talent is inherent in Mozart (a spoiled, vulgar child) who does not use it for God's glory, but for his own. Salieri comes to hate God and swears to block his incarnation in Mozart however he can. Remember that Mozart was largely unappreciated in his own time and died in poverty. Salieri, by contrast, was as successful as a musician could be. What gets Salieri is that while no one else recognizes Mozart's gift, HE does. HE knows that Mozart is better than him and that he will be celebrated and remembered for all time. Salieri doesn't want worldly success (which he has), he wants immortality. In the end, denied the opportunity to kill Mozart, Salieri decideds to hitch his name to Mozart's by spreading the falsehood that he is Mozart's murderer. In the play, the final irony is found in one of the last lines: Two Viennese citizens speaking of the rumor state: "No one believes it in the world!" So Salieri is denied even the satisfaction of this last form of revenge...

[JSngry]

It was the Cubans.

[Spontooneous]

It was the Umbrella Man.

[Free For All]

It was the log lady!

[7/4]

It was the log lady!

...in the library with...a log?

[Chuck Nessa]

It was W.

[Ron S]

It was W.

Weizen???

[Chuck Nessa]

Very close but no cigar.

[brownie]

The CIA did it

[John L]

I think that it is very unfortunate that people associate Solieri with Mozart's death. Solieri was a real person, a real composer of some talent, and, by all historical accounts, a genuine friend of Mozart.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin began the myth with his brilliant but unfair poem.

[Alexander]

I think that it is very unfortunate that people associate Solieri with Mozart's death. Solieri was a real person, a real composer of some talent, and, by all historical accounts, a genuine friend of Mozart.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin began the myth with his brilliant but unfair poem.

Most histories I've read state that Salieri DID confess to murdering Mozart after his botched suicide attempt. It's even recorded in Beethoven's conversation book. This doesn't mean that Salieri actually did it, but that by the end of his life he was clearly losing his mind.

My point is that if anything Salieri himself began the myth. Pushkin simply seized on it and blew it up into drama, as did Shaffer in his play...

[catesta]

Very close but no cigar.

So that rules out the Cubans.

[Robert J]

It was that copper wire he found in his boot.

[Hot Ptah]

......

Edited December 11, 2015 by Hot Ptah

[mikeweil]

Remember that in "Amadeus," Salieri's quarrel is NOT with Mozart but with God. That is why the play is not titled "Mozart" or "Salieri" but "Amadeus" (which literally means "beloved by God"). Salieri wanted nothing more than to have the talent to praise God through music. God gives him the desire, but denies him the talent. Worse, the talent is inherent in Mozart (a spoiled, vulgar child) who does not use it for God's glory, but for his own. Salieri comes to hate God and swears to block his incarnation in Mozart however he can. Remember that Mozart was largely unappreciated in his own time and died in poverty. Salieri, by contrast, was as successful as a musician could be. What gets Salieri is that while no one else recognizes Mozart's gift, HE does. HE knows that Mozart is better than him and that he will be celebrated and remembered for all time. Salieri doesn't want worldly success (which he has), he wants immortality. In the end, denied the opportunity to kill Mozart, Salieri decideds to hitch his name to Mozart's by spreading the falsehood that he is Mozart's murderer. In the play, the final irony is found in one of the last lines: Two Viennese citizens speaking of the rumor state: "No one believes it in the world!" So Salieri is denied even the satisfaction of this last form of revenge...

You're right, of course, but my experience is that most viewers of the film or the play do not contemplate about it on such a sophisticated level but assume that Salieri did indeed poison him.

Any historic evidence set aside, I find it at best unfortunate to make up such a story, as interesting as the plot about one composer reflecting another's talent may be, on the cost of one virtually unknown composer (at least to today's audiences). The scene was on a high level and pretty competitive when Mozart arrived in Vienna, and to understand his innovations and uniqueness one must compare his music with that of his contemporaries, but whereas his compositions are performed at nauseam, especially at the occasion of this 250th return of his birthday, those of his competitors are hardly played at all.

Those speculations about Mozart's character are another aspect that disgusts me - about any composer, I must confess. I firmly believe there is a relationship between character and music, but most writers - that's my impression - would rather not bother with the intricacies of the music and its position among the other works of its time but prefer to fantasize psychoanalytically inspired plots on envy and passion.

German author Volkmar Braunbehrens published two excellent, very well researched books on Mozart in Vienna and Salieri as a reaction to Shaffer - are there English translations? He proved that Mozart did not exactly die in poverty - that's the only point where I disagree with you - but had taken up money to pre-finance another opera etc. - a procedure he had undergone several times before, and he was able to pay back as soon as the income from the performances was there - but at the time of his death it all was in the works or still in preparation - the Requiem, e.g., was ordered and paid for but still unfinished.

Basically I was just curious about the state of knowledge among forum members.

[Jazzmoose]

It was suicide. Mozart was clairvoyant like Edgar Cayce, glimpsed the future and heard Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again, Naturally", and poisoned himself.

That makes sense. Hell, how many of us have considered suicide after hearing the song? To know it was in the world's future would be too much to take...

[Hardbopjazz]

That reminds me a joke when I was studying music. Pretty bad.

There were two grave diggers walking through an old cemetery in Austria. One of them trips on a rectangle stone. When he gets up, the two of them look at the stone almost completely buried in the soil. On it, it has the letters, W.A.M. They look at each other and say, “my God, Mozart’s grave.” They run back to tell the news to their boss. He in turn calls all these music scholars and other historians and journalists. When they dig up the area, a coffin is found. This only heightens the anticipation. They bring the coffin inside. But when they open it Mozart is lying there erasing music from music scores. The music scholars yell out, “Mozart, what are you doing? You are supposed to be dead for the past 215 years.” Mozart looks at them and says, “I’m decomposing”.

Edited February 3, 2006 by Hardbopjazz

[MomsMobley]

 

 

***

 

 

[Peter Friedman]

It was Islamic Terrorists

[MomsMobley]

idomeneo