After watching & reading about Frederick Chopin, Franz Liszt and also Peter Tchaikovsky’s bio and life stories, we were also curious to know about Mozart’s life.
So we watched the famous movie “ Amadeus “ which is about “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart “ one of the greatest classical composers.
Also we will check about Johnahan Sebastian Bach’s life story in the close future when we have time.
I had seen the movie “ Amadeus “ sometime in the 1980's once. And Ray had as well.
We remembered it’s a great movie, but we couldn’t remember the details much.
Somehow, I felt it was shorter than I expected for this dvd film, and then found out that the director cut some parts of the film for the dvd .
We would love to watch original version with no cuts if possible.
The movie was marvelous , and I agree this is one of the top best films.
I really understand why this movie received many academy awards.
The acting and the music in the movie were awesome !
Seems like some people didn’t like the actor Tom Hulce who played the part of Mozart, and also how he portrayed Mozart’s laughing , but I thought it was funny, like teasing or joking laugh.
And after reading some Mozart’s biographies, it seems that Mozart was like that.
Or at least somewhat similar to this portrayal.
Before, I actually didn’t know Mozart’s character was like that.
From his music, I thought his personality character was maybe social, light, and knowing good manners in the bourgeois world since he grew up in the palace because his father was working there. But…
Now, the movie portrayed Antonio Salieri, who was the court composer, as also being very surprised to know Mozart’s character.
Mozart was totally different from his music.
The impression one gets from reading his biographies and from the movie is a person who was a crazy genius, an idiot savant.
Mozart was Frederick Chopin’s favorite composer, and one of Peter Tchaikovsky’s top favorites as well.
They knew his music of course, but I’m not sure they knew the character of Mozart.
Because Mozart was not known as a gentleman. He was not rude but he was not graceful , he often joked around, childish jokes which are not so funny or which have no point.
This I gathered after reading about his character, and from what Mozart said or wrote in letters to his wife or friends.
My impression of Chopin and Tchaikovsky are that they didn’t like people who were not gentlemen or graceful.
The fact is Chopin didn’t like Beethoven, he thought he had a rather rude attitude and manners ( although he did appreciate some of his music ).
And Tchaikovsky didn’t like another composer, Mussogorsky, and his manners , he called him as a drunk, and not a gentleman.
But Mozart’s music and genius of creativity and memory, with which he made a staggering amount of music in such a short life, of 35 years, is absolutely amazing.
He was definitely one of the all time greatest, an incredible genius of music.
I’m more liking and interested in Mozart than before, after watching the movie “ Amadeus “.
My favorite part of this movie may be in the ending part, after Mozart fainted from exhaustion during a performance of his opera, and is taken back to his apartment, the scene where in the next few days Mozart dictates his Requiem to his rival Antonio Salieri, who writes it all down and is taken aback by it’s sheer beauty and genius and wildly exclaims “ It’s wonderful !!!!!!!!!! “ .
Requiem, what a gorgeous piece !!!
That piece must be one of the best of his compositions.
Now, in the actual events, it was Mozart’s student who wrote all the notes down for Mozart’s ( who was quite ill by that time ) Requiem , and not Salieri, but this scene shows his incredible genius, his memory skill was out of this world.
Frederik Chopin selected Mozart’s Requiem for his funeral , as well as his own music.
Chopin was very picky for everything.
About Antonio Salieri, I thought his music is good, especially his opera in the movie.
However, even though I liked it while watching the movie, I don’t know why I don’t remember the sound of his music.
And I noticed that Mozart’s music has big impact.
It was so funny the scene which follows after his wife left him when she was upset about Mozart, who at that time was like out of control, drinking too much, partying and acting rather selfish.
When Mozart returned home after the partying and discovers his wife has left and moved out much of the furniture.
Soon his mother-in-law comes over to confront Mozart, she was really angry about Mozart’s behavior and started screaming and yelling at him in a sort of high soprano voice.
She was so angry her voice was changing pitch, and like hitting actual musical notes, and Mozart suddenly became inspired with some of the notes she was hitting.
And he started picturing music, while seeing her hysterical face and her voice, not actually hearing anything she was saying, and he actually created a whole opera from the inspiration of her hysterical voice.
This scene was priceless. I suppose Mozart was a completely right brain person, who focuses on how things are said rather than what was said, and pays more attention to the tone of voice, and he was watching that lady like watching a motion picture.
And the opera was awesome. I’m not a big fan of opera but that piece was interesting because Mozart made it something interesting and impact. And it didn’t make me bored.
I love some of Mozart’s other music such has,
Eine Klein Nachtmusik,
Symphony No.40 in G minor,K 550,
Piano Concerto No.21 and more.
And since watching this movie, Symphony No.25 and Requiem became one of my top favorite music !
( after Chopin’s Rondo Krakowiak, these Mozarts’s pieces and Saint Saen’s Danse Macabre, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2, Tchaikovsky’s Violin concerto are all tie breaker )
Seems like this movie Amadeus’s story is just one of the theories of many, as to why Mozart died so young.
No one knows the truth about his death, but it seems many parts of the story in the movie are based on the truth, and other parts are more of the director making a story based on theories.
About Mozart and Salieri,
Jealousy might be everywhere in talented people’s world.
Seems like Mozart had a lot of rivals and/or enemies who were composers.
In this movie “ Amadeus “ , the director made the story as Antonio Salieri killed Mozart out of jealousy.
And at the end, Salieri was suffering from his guilt for it and attempted suicide by cutting his throat , and was sent to a mental hospital.
But in actuality , I’ve read some theories, and it seems that he did attempt suicide but did not get any other mental issues but did have other physical illness, gout, and had issue with his eyesight , so for this time period he was at the hospital in the last part of his life.
Also there was no evidence Salieri killed Mozart.
There is information which says that Mozart had said one of his enemies might have put poison in his fried pork. But no one knows the truth.
During that time, Italy and Germany were not in good relationship, and Salieri (who had been the court composer for the Austrian emperor Joseph 2 ) and the other Italian composers in Austria became a target of Germans and Austrians because of the strained relations .
And Salieri had been suffering from this scandal and rumors a long time.
I’m wondering why Salieri attempted suicide?
This action might have caused more suspicions for people.
According to Mozart’s wife, she did say she felt Salieri’s jealousy towards Mozart’s incredible music talent, but she didn’t think Mozart was killed by Salieri.
And from Mozart’s letters it seems Mozart and his father also said he was often blocked from having success by Salieri and the people on his side.
When we look back at Antonio Salieri’s childhood, he was not supported for his music talent by his parents, especially his father who had no interest for music.
How a child’s parents support, or don’t support, their kids well being, their talents, their interests, and guide them, all this influences the child’s confidence.
As a child and teenager, he was dreaming to be the greatest composer. Then, after his father passed away, and he went to study music, his dream came true and he thought he achieved his dream, until Mozart appeared.
I’ve read about that many young talented musicians or composers have experienced similar situations, where there is always someone who is more talented than oneself, and these situations can cause one to feel a complex, or a decrease in confidence.
This type of similar situation even happened to both Chopin and Liszt, when they first saw each other’s performances.
Charles Alkan lost confidence after seeing Liszt playing the piano so brilliantly as to make Alkan feel like a beginner. He later recovered his confidence and continued composing and performing, although in his later years he became somewhat reclusive.
Alkan was known as a very gifted pianist and had won many awards since his childhood.
By reading Tchaikovsky’s letters to his patron Madame, the wealthy widow , I was feeling he may have had some issue or jealousy towards Chopin, even though Chopin had passed away years earlier.
Tchaikovsky became even more upset when the widow pointed out to him “ But some of your music is similar to Chopin “ .
These were all amazingly talented composers and pianists.
I suppose Salieri wanted to get approval , so that he could fullfill his confidence. He created music which was in trend at that time, that particular generation’s trendy music.
It’s possible that he might not have challenged to create more unique music. Unique and impact music can transcend generations. However, in any case, some of his music is still played and recorded.
Salieri was practical and was financially successful while he was alive.
But if it’s true, as it seems to be from reading Mozart and his father and Constanze’s letters, that he was often blocking Mozart’s success, it may have come from his fear to lose his successful position.
I’ve read that there seems to have been other composers who were afraid of Mozart’s talent because more and more commissions were going to Mozart, and less and less to them. And they had fear to lose their financial stability.
Salieri was competing with an incredible genius who was above anyone’s level, so instead of competing with him, why not just learn from Mozart ?
Liszt respected Chopin’s genius talent of composing music and he learned a lot, and he enjoyed playing his own music as well as Chopin’s and other composer’s music in his concerts.
Later, after Chopin passed away, he also studied how to compose orchestra music , and he ended up creating over 1,000 music for solo piano, orchestra, ,piano concertos and others. And he is one of the well known composers in the world.
I feel Salieri could have done the same. Actually, I think Salieri originally may have had more music talent for composition than Liszt , in the beginning.
Liszt was a super confident person, similar to Camile Saint Saens ( although completely different personalities ), and an important part of this is because they were both supported for their music talents by their parents during their childhood.
It was surprising to know that Liszt was one of Salieri ‘s pupils and Salieri had a few other pupils who later became top legendary composers such as Beethoven and Schubert, besides Franz Liszt.
And he was giving them free lessons. Later Liszt was also giving free lessons to all his students.
I suppose, in this way, Liszt was following Salieri’s way of kindness to his students.
Mozart and Chopin often made music which actually was not trendy in their generations, so they experienced some hard times to sell their music.
But they became two of the huge legendary composers since they passed away, and still continuing.
This movie ( Amadeus ) is still popular, and Mozart is attracting more and more fans.
We’ve just bought Mozart’s requiem, and several Symphony music ( which includes No. 25 ), after watching this movie.
Can’t wait to receive them !