Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri

 

 

Dr. Ruwan M. Jayatunge  

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a great composer who showed his skills even as a child. At the age of three, he started playing the keyboard, and at the age of five, he composed minutes. When he completed his first opera, Mozart was just 12 years old. He composed over 600 works, including 50 symphonies and 17 piano sonatas, during his lifetime. Perhaps Mozart is the most respected classical composer in history.

Although Amadeus Mozart was a genius in classical music, his personal character was full of arrogance and unrefinedness. He was a pompous, overconfident, and ill-mannered musician who was often boastful in his work. There is no doubt that Mozart was a talented composer who could write music from his powerful memory. Mozart was not popular among his colleagues, and he demeaned other composers, considering himself the greatest maestro of Vienna.

Since his childhood, Amadeus Mozart had his father, Leopold Mozart’s, influence.  Leopold Mozart was a prominent composer in Salzburg who played a key role in his son’s successes.  However, his father intervened in Mozart’s every life event, sometimes without giving any independence.  

Emperor Joseph II always knew Amadeus Mozart’s talents and kept him in Vienna.  His father, Leopold Mozart, was not compatible with this idea and wanted his son back in Salzburg. Perhaps Leopold Mozart had less control over his son in Vienna than in Salzburg. Despite his father’s advice, Amadeus Mozart stayed in Vienna and married a girl named Constanze. After the marriage, Mozart’s expenses surged, and he often lived in debt.  

The lifelong rivalry between court composer Antonio Salieri and Amadeus Mozart is intensely speculated about in history.  Antonio Salieri was jealous of Amadeus Mozart’s talents, and at the same time, he was secretly admiring Mozart’s masterpieces. When the Emperor and the other noblemen were against his comic opera, The Marriage of Figaro, following politically based issues, Salieri adored his rival’s operatic play. 

Antonio Salieri was a pious man who believed that God gifted his musical ability. When he saw that Mozart was more talented and more recognized, Salieri renounced God and rebelled against Mozart, thinking that he was fighting God.  Salieri’s hatred towards Mozart was unlimited, and it extended to divinity. His sarcasm and evil wishes were directed at Mozart.  While Antonio Salieri was in personal agony, Mozart took to heavy drinking.

Mozart started overworking to pay his debts, and he was drunk most of the time.  His father, Leopold Mozart, ’s unexpected death caused more guilt in his mind, and to overcome the self-blaming feelings, Mozart started to write a Requiem for himself.

After a temporary separation from his wife, Constanze, Mozart became more isolated and started indulging in alcohol. His behaviour became more and more irritable, and in his final days, Antonio Salieri stayed by him.  Mozart dictated notes from his bed, and Salieri took them down with utmost respect and interest.

While working, Mozart’s condition became worse, and he was in a delirious state.  When Constanze arrived, her husband was in a terminal condition. He was pale and speechless. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 35. He was buried in a common grave without royal respect.

Soon after his death, people were suspicious of Antonio Salieri for poisoning Mozart. Salieri was utterly devastated by these accusations and later had a nervous breakdown. His musical success started to decline, and people forgot his symphonies. Although Amadeus Mozart was dead, his music was immortal.  Antonio Salieri witnessed his professional degradation soon after Mozart left.  He spent his final years in an asylum. In his last years, Antonio Salieri confessed to murdering the great composer Amadeus Mozart.  

Nearly two hundred years after Mozart’s death, a team of pathologists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine came up with a theory of rheumatic fever that killed this great composer untimely. In Mozart's final days, he had irritable behaviour, swelling of the body, and various other physical and psychological symptoms that had been caused by the streptococcal infection of the blood. Hence, murder was overruled. Although Antonio Salieri hated Mozart, envied him, and showed no compassion, he was not in a position to physically murder Mozart.

Their friendship was so strange. Mozart was critical of Salieri’s work and sometimes publicly passed sardonic comments. On the other hand, Salieri accepted Mozart’s talents but was unreservedly jealous of him. Being an Italian, Antonio Salieri wanted to write opera in Italian, and Amadeus Mozart wanted opera in German. They had ideological clashes and competition to get the emperor’s attention. Of course, Salieri could not beat Mozart. He was far ahead of Salieri.

For his failure and Mozart’s glory, Antonio Salieri blamed his God, and eventually it became a fight between a man and God.  Antonio Salieri wanted to be God's mouthpiece and his instrument of music. According to Salieri,  God gave this divine skill to a selfish, ill-mannered creature called Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was an obscene giggler. For this mishap, Antonio Salieri never forgave God. Originally, his fight was not with Amadeus Mozart but with God.

However, in the final days, Antonio Salieri wanted this great man to live for some time and create more music.  His anger and envy turned into compassion.  Salieri was ready to embrace Mozart as the great composer and inimitable maestro. Nevertheless, it was too late. Antonio Salieri was one of the very few composers who went to Mozart’s funeral, and he was one of the few true mourners at the funeral house.

After Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s death, the former court composer, Antonio Salieri, became mentally unbalanced, and self-blaming feelings made him more vulnerable. Anger towards Mozart and towards God turned into a self-directed fury.  Antonio Salieri blamed himself for the death of Mozart and had an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

The story of Antonio Salieri was so pathetic, and it shows how jealousy can destroy a man, making him unfortunate and miserable.