Salieri’s relationship with Mozart and his family.
It was likely sometime after 1780 and Salieri’s return from Paris after the triumphant premiere of Les Danaïdes that Salieri and Mozart had their first professional encounter. Both Pushkin’s and Shaffer’s plays and certainly Forman’s adaptation portray Salieri as almost obsessively jealous of Mozart’s talent. But why would he be?
Salieri was well liked, respected, and quite successful. Did he realize he wasn’t Mozart’s equal?Possibly. Would Mozart have been his idol as he says at the beginning of Amadeus? Highly doubtful. And certainly, in no way would he have said nor should he have said as he does at the film’s end, “I will speak for you, Father. I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.”
Was he ambitious? Almost certainly. Did he use his connections to further his position? Also highly likely. Was he in competition with Mozart periodically? Assuredly. Not only did Joseph II like to pit his talented composers against one another, something he did quite literally by having each compose a one-act opera or Singspiel to be performed at a 1786 banquet, but they would almost certainly been seeking commissions from within the same circle of nobility.
Still, sometime in this period its likely it would have been Salieri who introduced Mozart to Da Ponte since he was responsible for bringing Da Ponte to the imperial court. In 2015, the musicologist Timo Jouko Hermann uncovered a score for a cantata Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia with words by Da Ponte. Written in 1786, the music was a collaboration between Salieri, Mozart, and someone listed as Cornetti – whose true identity has yet to be discovered.
In April 1791, the year Mozart died, Salieri conducted a grand symphony (probably #40) by Mozart. Also in that year, Salieri attended a performance of The Magic Flute with the famous soprano Caterina Cavalieri. Mozart wrote about their reaction to Constanze, “You can hardly imagine how charming they were and how much they liked not only my music, but the libretto and everything.”
Salieri was almost certainly in Mozart’s funeral procession and there’s at least some evidence that he conducted the première of Mozart’s unfinished Requiem. And if that’s not enough, another of Salieri’s students was Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart.
As for those rumors about Salieri poisoning Mozart, the idea of poison was almost certainly instigated by Mozart who seemed to see conspiracies against him everywhere including allegedly saying as he lay dying, “Surely I have been given poison! I cannot let go of this thought.” Years later the rumor began to spread around Vienna that Salieri had attempted suicide and confessed to this crime. However, two medical orderlies who regularly attended Salieri in his dotage testified that he had said nothing of the kind.
Like many who contract dementia, Salieri had foggy days and lucid ones. On one of the latter, he told the composer Ignaz Moscheles who was visiting him that the rumors were false, “Tell the world that old Salieri, who will soon die, told you so.”
Arriving in Prague – complications and dinner.
We reached Prague about 18:30 and within a few minutes everyone’s luggage but mine reached the hotel lobby. Shlomit called the bus driver who had somehow overlooked my bag and I received an assurance that it would be in my room after dinner.
You might recall that while in the Zentralfriedhof on my first day in Vienna, I met Peter – a Czech-American currently living in Prague. We’d exchanged a few texts while I was in transit and he’d made reservations for six at the Café Louvre – a grand, classic, old world café in Prague’s New Town that’s generally considered one of the two most authentic Czech restaurants in the city
[Photo from cafelouvre.cz]
and one that’s played host to such notables as Karl Čapek, Franz Kafka, and Albert Einstein.
By this point in the trip, it was clear that I was most comfortable spending time with Bob and Betty and Ross and Andrea so I’d invited them to join us. Betty ultimately opted out due to the flare up of a foot injury she’d suffered earlier in the trip so we were a party of five.
Although we had to rush a bit to reach the restaurant, I thoroughly enjoyed, the meal, the company, and the conversation. On our return, Peter took us past and provided some interesting background on a number of sites we’d encounter in the coming days.
And, much to my relief my bag was, indeed, in my room when I returned.