In the words of Wilde’s Lord Henry, there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
While it might be true there’s no such thing as bad publicity, it would be nice if Antonio Salieri could transcend his notoriety – as the alleged murderer of Mozart and a second-rate hack – to be recognized for some of his actual achievements. Especially since none of the charges leveled against him happen to be true!
I like “Amadeus” as much as the next guy, and while I am very happy it has served to keep Salieri’s name alive, and perhaps lent a greater degree of commercial viability to subsequent recordings of his music, it is worthwhile to examine the historical facts.
In reality, Salieri was a generous teacher, who fostered Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, and even Franz Xaver Mozart, his rival’s son, who was born a little more than four months before his father’s death.
Salieri himself was a prolific and successful composer. He wrote 37 operas, in addition to orchestral works, concertos, chamber music, and sacred pieces. While he was no Mozart – who was? – his music is finely crafted and often quite enjoyable, certainly no worse than that of a majority of his contemporaries.
Yes, Mozart believed Salieri and the Italian faction ensconced at the Viennese court (including future Mozart librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte) were against him. And there may have been something to it at first. However, beyond a rivalry pertaining to certain specific jobs, Mozart and Salieri appear often to have been better than cordial acquaintances.
The two even collaborated on a cantata, “Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia” (“For the recovered health of Ophelia”), rediscovered in 2016, a joint venture apparently entered into voluntarily (in contrast to an earlier contest, in which two one-act operas were juxtaposed, purely for the edification of the emperor). The cantata was written in 1785, to celebrate the recently-convalesced soprano Nancy Storace, who would soon create the role of Mozart’s Susanna in “The Marriage of Figaro.”
When Salieri was appointed Kapellmeister in 1788, his first act was to revive “Figaro.” He was also responsible for arranging first performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 (K. 482), the Clarinet Quintet, and the Symphony No. 40. He was full of praise for “The Magic Flute.” And as I said, he took it upon himself to educate Mozart’s son.
Sadly, Salieri’s enormous compositional output gradually faded from memory already during the latter years of his life. Ironically, it is the scandalmongers who kept his name alive.
Rumors of Salieri’s involvement in Mozart’s death were codified by Alexander Pushkin in 1831, a few years after Salieri himself had passed, in the poetic drama “Mozart and Salieri.” This was later set as an opera, in 1898, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Peter Schaffer picked up the thread in 1979, when he wrote the play “Amadeus,” which of course was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film in 1984.
As the compact disc era progressed, more and more of Salieri’s output became available for first-hand assessment – and guess what? A lot of it is quite good!
Happy birthday, Patron Saint of Mediocrity!
Russian film version of Rimsky’s “Mozart and Salieri” (without subtitles):
In English, if a bit fuzzy:
Salieri’s Concerto for Flute, Oboe and Orchestra:
Overture to “Les Horaces”
“Das Lob der Musik” (“The Praise of Music”)
A Mozart and Salieri collaborative effort, the cantata “Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia”
“I absolve you.”
