Antonio Salieri
18th August, 1750
One of the worst things about being a historian is that you never get to enjoy yourself. The last time I enjoyed myself to any great degree was on July the 14th, 1993, before the lure of dusty tomes led me into a life of miserable academic pursuit. It was a Wednesday. About 9:30 in the evening. And I had just watched, for the first time, on sparkling, high quality VHS, Miloš Forman’s coruscating masterpiece film version of Sir Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus. It was glorious and I was happy.
I didn’t care if F. Murray Abraham’s Oscar winning depiction of Antonio Salieri was accurate, because it didn’t matter. It was brilliant. It still is brilliant. To this day, hand me a sheaf of badly drawn children’s pictures, or some terribly constructed student’s essay and I will hold it in wonder, tap it gently with my spare hand and, turning to look aghast at the owner, repeat the line “These…are… originals!?”.
It didn’t matter if Tom Hulce’s Wolfy was overblown, absurd and comically drawn, because you suspect, somehow, that Mozart was just a little bit like that in real life. Not like that, but a little bit like that.
The use of Mozart’s music in the movie was outstanding. Miroslav Ondříček’s cinematography was breathtaking.
And I could just enjoy it for what it was. A movie. A brilliant, enjoyable movie that took all sorts of liberties with history and it didn’t matter. Because if you can do something that well, then the suspension of belief is a given.
But then I became a historian and everything went to shit. Now I can barely watch any movie with even a modicum of historical narrative without the sour vinegar boil of incredulity popping on the tongue of reality. Put on Gladiator and I will grow increasingly agitated at the historical bullshit on view. I can just about put up with the Roman-army-in-a-forest jaw dropping stupidity. I can bite my lip over the German tribes dressed as cavemen. I grind my teeth at the Roman cavalry riding through trees. But bring on those fucking burning arrows and I lose it.
But is Amadeus giving us the truth about the relationship between Salieri and Mozart in the first place? How much of it is made-up and who was it made-up by? Sir Peter or someone else?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died, aged 35, on the 5th of December 1791 and rumours of the bitter rivalry between him and Salieri eventually led to the suggestion that the latter had poisoned his young rival. Nothing about Mozart’s death suggests that he was poisoned, however, even if the exact cause is still speculative. Salieri denied having anything to do with his death and despite the widespread belief that he had in some way, even indirectly, contributed to Mozart’s failing health, they were probably best described as mutually respectful peers. Neither friends, nor enemies. Mozart seems, occasionally, frustrated by Salieri and Salieri certainly thwarts, probably fairly, some of Mozart’s ambition in respect of prestigious appointments that Salieri beat him to, but then the older composer was the senior man. Salieri’s eventual descent into mental breakdown, as shown in the movie, was probably affected by the rumours that surrounded him.
In the 1780s, while Mozart was living and working in Vienna, he and his father, Leopold, exchanged letters expressing their belief that Antonio Salieri and a group of Italian composers were deliberately obstructing Mozart’s career. In December 1781, Mozart wrote that "the only one who counts in the Emperor's eyes is Salieri." Both Mozart and his father, as Austrians, resented the dominance of Italian composers in the Austrian court and specifically held Salieri responsible for many of Mozart’s difficulties in securing positions and staging his operas. In May 1783, Mozart wrote to his father about Salieri and court poet Lorenzo Da Ponte: "You know those Italian gentlemen; they are very nice to your face! Enough, we all know about them. And if Da Ponte is in league with Salieri, I'll never get a text from him, and I would love to show him what I can really do with an Italian opera." In July 1783, Mozart again wrote to his father, describing "a trick of Salieri's," one of several accusations he made against Salieri over the years.
After Mozart’s death, rumors emerged that Salieri had poisoned him, a claim often linked to the rivalry between the German and Italian schools of music. Carl Maria von Weber, a composer related to Mozart by marriage, reportedly refused to associate with Salieri, whom he distrusted. These rumors eventually made their way into popular culture, appearing in works such as Albert Lortzing’s 1832 opera Szenen aus Mozarts Leben which, like Amadeus depicts Salieri as a jealous rival who sought to undermine Mozart.
Ironically, Salieri’s music was more aligned with the styles of composers like Gluck and Gassmann than with those of Italian composers like Paisiello and Cimarosa. Despite being Italian by birth, Salieri had lived in Vienna for nearly 60 years and was regarded by critics such as Friedrich Rochlitz as a “German composer.” Even Empress Maria Theresa preferred Italian composers over Germans like Gassmann, Gluck, and Salieri.
Biographer Alexander Wheelock Thayer suggests that the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri may have originated in 1781 when Salieri was chosen over Mozart as music teacher for Princess Elisabeth of Württemberg due to his strong reputation as a singing instructor. The following year, Mozart was again passed over as the princess’s piano teacher, leading Leopold Mozart to complain that "Salieri and his tribe will move heaven and earth to put it down." Around the time of The Marriage of Figaro’s premiere, Salieri was occupied with his French opera Les Horaces. Later, when Da Ponte was preparing Don Giovanni in Prague, he was ordered back to Vienna for a royal wedding at which Salieri’s Axur, re d'Ormus was to be performed, much to Mozart’s displeasure.
The rivalry became public during a 1786 opera competition organized by Emperor Joseph II at Schönbrunn Palace, where Mozart was ultimately considered the loser. This competition is echoed in The Magic Flute (1791), where the Papageno-Papagena duet bears similarities to the Cucuzza cavatina in Salieri's Prima la musica e poi le parole. Additionally, Papageno’s whistle motif was borrowed from Salieri’s Concerto for Clavicembalo in B-flat major.
Despite their rivalry, there were instances of mutual support between Mozart and Salieri. When Salieri became Kapellmeister in 1788, he revived The Marriage of Figaro instead of introducing one of his own works. During the coronation festivities for Leopold II in 1790, Salieri carried with him three of Mozart’s masses. The two composers also collaborated on a cantata for voice and piano, Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia, celebrating the singer Nancy Storace’s return to the stage. This piece was thought lost until it was rediscovered in 2016 by musicologist Timo Jouko Herrmann. Several of Mozart’s works, including Davide penitente (1785), his Piano Concerto KV 482 (1785), the Clarinet Quintet (1789), and the 40th Symphony (1788), were premiered with Salieri’s encouragement, and Salieri is said to have conducted a performance of the symphony in 1791. In his last letter from October 1791, Mozart described taking Salieri and singer Caterina Cavalieri to see The Magic Flute, noting that Salieri paid close attention and praised the opera enthusiastically, exclaiming "Bravo!" and "Bello!" throughout.
Salieri also played a role in shaping Mozart’s legacy by helping to educate Mozart’s younger son, Franz Xaver Mozart, alongside Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Franz was born just a few months before his father’s death.
At the beginning of the 1800s, Salieri withdrew from composing, realising that times and styles had changed and that he no longer had the drive to keep up with them. He continued to teach and to occasionally conduct, including the performance on 18 March 1808 of Haydn's The Creation during which Haydn famously collapsed. He conducted several premieres by Beethoven including the 1st and 2nd Piano Concertos.
He was instrumental in the careers of several composers, particularly when it came to teaching vocal composition. He worked with Beethoven, Lizst and Schubert and his generosity and kindness meant he only ever charged the wealthiest of clients for his services.
On 1823, after a failed suicide attempt, he was committed to medical care and suffered from dementia in the last few years of his life, dying aged 74, in Vienna on 7 May 1825. His own Requiem in C minor – composed in 1804 – was performed for the first time at his memorial service.
Ultimately it might be the inflated rumours about Salieri and the magnificent play and movie those historical liberties inspired that have saved his legacy. Which is more than can be said for most historical narratives in popular culture which often don’t seem to care one iota for either accuracy or context. And that’s ok. Because you can make a movie in which the history is a bit silly, or even just made up, as long as the movie is good enough. One can outweigh the other. It’s always tempting, as a historian, to trundle around with a metaphorical clipboard, tutting at all the inaccuracies, but if the art is good enough, just let it stand on its own merits.
The problem comes when the movie is as crap as the history is, particularly when the actual history is replaced with Hollywood history. The only thing I can think of at that point is ‘why did you even bother’?
Thankfully, Miloš Forman et al cared enough.