2015年2月25日 星期三

What Amadeus gets wrong. Mozart: Portrait of a Genius《莫扎特的自由與超驗的蹤跡》Mozart Pictures – Pictures of Mozart. /《論莫扎特》

24.01. 2013
MOZART PICTURES – PICTURES OF MOZART Portrayals between wishful thinking and reality
Exhibition in the Mozart Residence, Makartplatz 8, 26 January – 14 April 2013
The exhibition is on display in all rooms of the museum and can be visited with the regular entrance ticket (admission: € 10; concessions: € 8.50, children € 3.50).
The Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation owns the largest collection of original Mozart portraits and for the duration of this exhibition they are complemented now by many valuable loans from all over Europe thus presenting a unique display of the familiar and also unknown images of Mozart. About 80 exhibits, half of them loans, are on display. 
On show are portraits from the time of Mozart as well as types of pictures that evolved later. The present-day image of Mozart has very little to do with the portraits created during his lifetime. Nowadays we have an idealized image in mind which is often reduced to a white wig and red jacket.
For the first time almost all the authentic portraits of Mozart can be seen in the exhibition Mozart Pictures – Pictures of Mozart.  Of 14 portraits created during his lifetime 12 are on show; 9 of these are owned by the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation.
Two new authentic portraits of Mozart are included. As a result of sifting through all the documents and sources, a miniature that was previously more or less disregarded has now been clearly identified as a portrait of Mozart dating from 1783.  This is sensational because until now no portraits of Mozart from the last ten years of his life were known that show him en face (in full face). In addition a silhouette from the collection of graphic work owned by the Mozarteum Foundation has also been pre-dated to 1784 and is thus also one of the authentic Mozart portraits.
New information has also been gained concerning the famous “unfinished” Mozart portrait by Joseph Lange. Radiological studies made by the Doerner Institute in Munich early in December 2012 have shown that the famous “unfinished portrait” of Mozart was very probably “finished” during his lifetime. It comprised merely the head and shoulders, the unfinished parts were added later.
An exhibition catalogue has been published by the Anton Pustet Verlag Salzburg containing illustrations of all the pictures shown in the exhibition and a collection of essays reflecting the current state of research on the subject of Mozart portraits. Audio guides in German and in English assist visitors as they go round the exhibition.
The presentation by the Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery Salzburg makes reference to the present. Two pictures by Marc Brandenburg and Bernhard Martin are to be seen.
In the vaults of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation a small exhibition on the theme Mozart Portraits can also be seen. This exclusive exhibition is open once a week for one hour to the public: on Thursdays at midday (for a maximum of 25 persons).
The exhibition team of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation:
Dr. Gabriele Ramsauer, Dr. Sabine Greger-Amanshauser, Dr. Christoph Großpietsch, Linus Klumpner Bakk.phil. Exhibition design: Thomas Wizany

Wolfgang, Is That You?

By DANIEL J. WAKIN February 18, 2013
Mozarteum Foundation
A family portrait of the Mozarts from 1780 or 1781 by Johann Nepomuk della Croce. Wolfgang, center, with his sister Maria Anna (known as Nannerl), and father, Leopold. The painting at center depicts the children’s mother, Anna Maria, who died in 1778.

In the impossible search to know exactly what the face of musical genius looked like, researchers in Salzburg, Austria, have made progress. Their subject was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a local boy.
One portrait long thought to be of Mozart turned out to be someone else. A suspect image was confirmed to be of him. And a third portrait, deemed incomplete, was actually found to consist of a finished piece grafted onto a larger canvas.
The International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Mozart’s birthplace, announced the findings last month in conjunction with an exhibition of Mozart portraits that opened on Jan. 26 and runs through April 14. One goal, the foundation said, was to burn away idealized conceptions of Mozart — a white-wigged, red-jacketed, romanticized figure — and focus attention on what he might really have looked like.
Fourteen images created in Mozart’s lifetime are known to exist, sometimes reproduced in different mediums, like oil paintings, engravings or medallions. The Mozarteum holds examples of nine and has borrowed three others for the show. The remaining lifetime portraits were not available, said Gabriele Ramsauer, director of the foundation’s museums and of the Mozart birthplace.
The exhibition speaks to a yearning within the living to know the past, by knowing the face of someone whose work lives on so powerfully in our own time.
“It’s an emotional question,” Ms. Ramsauer said. “Mozart is such a universal genius. Everybody knows him. Everybody takes part of his life.”
Research done before the show altered assumptions held for decades.
In 1924 a British art dealer sold the Mozarteum a portrait of a boy in a long brown jacket holding a bird’s nest, standing in front of a round table with an open book on it. When the foundation bought the painting, “W. A. Mozart 1764” was inscribed on a page of the book. An engraving of the portrait commissioned by the art dealer and now in the Vienna Museum included the name. The initials stand for Wolfgang Amadeus.
But doubts lingered about the authenticity of the identification, Ms. Ramsauer said, in part because Mozart rarely used"Amadeus"in his lifetime; “Gottlieb,” the German form, was his preferred usage.
“We always wrote ‘Mozart’ with a little question mark,” Ms. Ramsauer said.
When curators examined the painting recently, the name was missing from the book page. A search of the Mozarteum archives found a 1928 restoration report that said all overpainting had been removed, including the “W. A. Mozart inscription.”
“Now we are sure that one of the former owners had made these overpaintings, and had published this engraving in 1906, to sell this portrait,” Ms. Ramsauer said. “We were always wondering why Mozart should be painted with a bird’s nest in his hand.”
An opposite conclusion was reached regarding a miniature painting on ivory set on a tortoise shell snuffbox. It shows a cherubic face surrounded by curly hair, with dark, serious eyes. The Mozarteum acquired the snuffbox in 1956. An inscription inside said, “Johann Mozart, 1783,” using the composer’s first given name. Was it really Mozart? “We always doubted it a little bit,” Ms. Ramsauer said.
A rummage through the archives found a document showing the object’s provenance, she added.
The document said Mozart had owned the snuffbox for 10 years and gave it as a gift to Anton Grassi, a sculptor friend in Vienna. Letters from Mozart indicate that Grassi’s brother Joseph, also an artist, painted a miniature of Mozart. Joseph acquired the snuffbox from his brother and attached the miniature, Ms. Ramsauer said.
“For us now the time has come to say there is no doubt,” she said. The find is considered important, because no other head-on portraits of Mozart exist after 1781.
One of the most famous portraits — and the one Mozart’s wife, Constanze, considered the most true to life — has long been considered unfinished. It is by Joseph Lange, Mozart’s brother-in-law, and shows him in profile, looking down, his face emerging from a dark background, with a triangle of torso surrounded by scratched white space. The painting, dating from 1789, without doubt looks unfinished, like a classical symphony of two movements.
X-ray and infrared analysis performed at the Doerner Institute in Munich, an art research institution, last December showed that a small completed painting of Mozart’s head and shoulder had been trimmed and mounted at some point on a larger canvas, with paint added around the edges to smooth out the surface.
The enlargement was unfinished, not the original.

真假莫扎特

DANIEL J. WAKIN 報道 2013年02月18日
Mozarteum Foundation
約翰·內波穆克·德拉克羅切於1780年或1781年所作的莫扎特一家。沃爾夫岡（中）與姐姐瑪利亞·安娜（也稱南妮兒）、父親利奧波德。畫面中央是孩子們的母親安娜·瑪利亞，她逝世於1778年。
打印 轉發 寄信給編輯 字號
想弄清楚音樂天才們的長相幾乎不太可能，然而奧地利薩爾茨堡的研究人員卻取得了進展。他們的研究對象是出生於當地的沃爾夫岡·阿馬多伊斯·莫扎特(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)。
長期以來，一直被當做莫扎特肖像的一幅畫最後被證明畫的是別人。而另一幅受到質疑的畫像卻被確定是他。人們發現，還有一幅被認為沒完成的肖像，實際上是一幅已經完成的作品被裱到了一張更大的畫布上。
上個月，莫扎特出生地薩爾茨堡的國際莫扎特基金會(International Mozarteum Foundation)在莫扎特肖像展上宣布了上述發現。該肖像展於1月26日開幕，將一直持續到4月14日。基金會稱，他們的目標之一就是消除理想化的 莫扎特形象——一個帶着白色假髮、身穿紅色上衣的浪漫化人物——並專註於他可能的真正樣貌。
據了解，創作於莫扎特在世時的畫像中，現存的有14幅，這些畫有時會通過油畫、版畫或紀念章等不同形式被複制。莫扎特基金會持有其中九幅，並且為這 次展覽另外借了三幅。基金會博物館和“莫扎特出生地”的負責人加布里埃萊·拉姆紹爾(Gabriele Ramsauer)說，目前還無法獲得其他莫扎特在世時期的作品。
這次展覽回應了在世之人對了解過去的渴望，他們希望通過了解一些的人的相貌來達到這個目的，因為這些人創作了在我們這個時代仍具有重大影響力的作品。
“這是一個情感上的問題，”拉姆紹爾說，“莫扎特是世人皆知的天才。每個人都知道他。每個人都從他的生命受惠。”
展覽前的研究工作改變了人們數十年以來的看法。
1924年，一名英國藝術品商人賣給莫扎特基金會一幅肖像畫，畫面中的男孩穿着長長的棕色外套，手裡拿着一個鳥巢，站在一張圓桌前，桌上還有一本打 開的書。當基金會買下這幅畫時，書的一頁上寫着“W·A·莫扎特 1764”(W.A. Mozart 1764)。經過這名藝術商授權的這幅肖像的版畫上也有這個名字，這個版畫目前存放在維也納的博物館內。上面提到的字母縮寫代表沃爾夫岡·阿馬多伊斯。
但是，人們對這個身份的真實性一直心存疑慮，拉姆紹爾說，部分原因是莫扎特一生中很少使用“阿馬多伊斯”，他更喜歡使用它的德語形式“戈特利布”(Gottlieb)。
拉姆紹爾說，“我們說他是‘莫扎特’時，心裡總是存在一個問號。”
最近，當策展人檢查這幅畫時，書頁上的名字消失了。在研究莫扎特基金會檔案時發現了一份1928年的修復報告，報告稱，所有後來的修補痕迹都被移除了，其中就包括“W·A·莫扎特1764”。
“我們現在確定，這些字是它之前的某位持有者加上的，並在1906年發行了它的版畫，其目的是售出這幅肖像畫，”拉姆紹爾說，“我們一直納悶，為什麼莫扎特會被畫成拿着鳥巢的樣子。”
他們對一個龜甲製成的鼻煙盒得出了相反結論，這個鼻煙盒上鑲嵌着一幅微型象牙畫。畫中的人物面龐天真，一頭捲髮，深色的眼珠透露着認真。莫扎特基金 會是在1956年得到這個鼻煙盒的。裡面的銘文寫着，“約翰·莫扎特，1783”(Johann Mozart, 1783)，這裡用的是莫扎特洗禮名中的第一節。這真的是莫扎特嗎？拉姆紹爾說，“我們總是對它有點懷疑。”
她還說，經過仔細翻閱檔案材料，他們找到了一份記錄此物出處的文件。
文件中說，莫扎特持有這個鼻煙盒的時間為十年，之後把它作為禮物送給了維也納的雕刻家朋友安東·格拉西(Anton Grassi)。拉姆紹爾說，莫扎特的信件表明，格拉西同樣身為藝術家的弟弟約瑟夫(Joseph)，創作了一幅關於莫扎特的微型畫。約瑟夫從哥哥那裡得 到了這個鼻煙盒，並把微型畫鑲了上去。
她說，“對我們來說，現在到了說確定無疑的時候。”這個發現被認為意義重大，因為自1781後，就沒有莫扎特的其他正面肖像畫了。
其中最著名的一幅肖像，而且是莫扎特的妻子康斯坦策(Constanze)認為最寫實的一幅，人們長期以來一直認為它尚未完成。這幅畫的作者是莫扎 特的連襟約瑟夫·朗格(Joseph Lange)。這幅作品畫的是莫扎特的側面，他正在往下看。他的面部從深色的背景中凸顯出來，呈三角形的軀幹旁圍繞着帶刮痕的白色區域。這幅畫創作於 1789年，毫無疑問，它看起來還沒有完成，就像是一個只有兩個樂章的古典交響樂。
去年12月，慕尼黑藝術研究機構德爾納研究院(Doerner Institute)的X光和紅外線分析表明，一幅畫著莫扎特頭部和肩部的小型畫作被剪裁過，後來又被裱貼在了一張更大的畫布上，為了使表面看起來更平整，畫面邊緣還用顏料進行了修飾。
因而，未完成的是這個放大版的作品，而不是原作。
本文最初發表於2013年2月6日。
翻譯：陳柳
-----
中國版=《論莫扎特》上海華東師範大學出版社 2006



這本差點蛀掉
內容有CROSS REFERENCE 卻沒處理

《莫扎特的自由與超驗的蹤跡》 (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,1756-1956 und Mozart – Spuren der Transzendenz)

作者 巴特(Karl Barth1956), 漢斯‧昆 (Hans Küng)1991
出版社 道風書社 1996
ISBN 9789627409793



本 書提供了莫札特音樂與基督神學的關係的兩份現代文獻： 一、現代基督新教神學泰斗卡爾‧巴特（K. Barth）在莫札特誕辰二百週年時寫的幾篇饒有興味的隨筆； 二、現代天主教神學最有影響的思想家漢斯‧昆（Hans Kung）在莫札特忌辰二百週年時寫的兩篇研究論文。


Mozart - Google 圖書結果

Peter Gay - 1999 - Biography & Autobiography - 177 頁
More than an engrossing biography, this is a meditation on the nature of genius and, for any music lover, a wealth of new critical insights.

莫札特－佩戴桂冠的乞丐(Mozart). 出版社：. 左岸文化. 出版日期：. 2006-01-05. 作者：. 彼得．蓋（Peter Gay）. 繪者：. 譯者：. 天悅.

　 「莫札特人生的最後一年，經常被人描述成已準備好死亡的人。事實上，他仍處於創作巔峰，那時他寫了兩齣歌劇、一首鋼琴協奏曲、豎笛協奏曲、一部清唱劇，還 因為無聊隨手寫了一首詠嘆調。他的創作數量一如往常，唯一不同之處，在於他的速度快很多。也許，他把創作當成鎮痛劑，用來治療自己的憂鬱與身處群眾中的孤 寂。」──終章
　　世人總是一廂情願地認為天才的人生必定精彩，所以莫札特的一生總被人賦以許多浪漫的形象及軼事，比如說講到他是神童，似乎他的成就皆是來自於超凡的天賦；比如說到他的落魄，就好像他是無生活能力的生活白癡；連他的死亡，都被文學家添加了許多戲劇性的想像。
　　莫札特的人生就這樣一圈一圈地蒙上迷霧，傳記也是一本比一本更大本。
　　所以我們回過頭來想要帶給您一本簡明，卻不失權威與文采的傳記。
　　彼得．蓋以八種身份（神童、兒子、僕人、自由人、乞丐、音樂大師、劇作家、歷史人物）將莫札特的人生經歷依序展開。讓我們知道莫札特在不同的人生階段，所面臨的外在問題與內在承受的壓力，藉此以還原莫札特應有的形象──茲茲不倦地音樂創作者。
　 　所以對於各種與莫札特有關的傳說，比如安魂曲的創作、死後葬在無名之墓、悲劇性的窮困潦倒，在本書中作者會一一澄清。此外書中不同時期，作者也會提及他 自己認為具代表性的莫札特作品，尤其是針對歌劇的部份，作者對《女人皆如此》、《費加洛的婚禮》、《唐．喬萬尼》等著名歌劇均有詳盡地解說。
本書特色
　 　身為當代的歷史巨擘，彼得．蓋對於精神分析學有高度的興趣，所以他針對歷史人物的外在與整個環境造成的內心糾結，特別具有洞見。本書中不例外，彼得．蓋 特別注意到莫札特父子的情感矛盾；為人子的莫札特，在內心與言行舉止感到父親給他的無形枷鎖。但是對莫札特的父親李奧普來說，有個神童兒子的確是非常驕 傲，但是想到他自己平凡的音樂成就，卻不免嫉妒兒子的才華。
　　就音樂傳承來看，莫札特上承海頓與約翰．巴哈（也曾求教與這兩位大師），雖然未逢浪漫時期，但貝多芬一再強調莫札特對他的影響。這種歷史縱向觀點，也是本書作者身為歷史學家，必然會重視的面向。
　　除此之外，作者認為一般人過於喜歡莫札特的小夜曲，但事實上莫札特的音樂格局非常大，尤其對於創作歌劇無法自拔，所以作者對於莫札特幾齣著名的歌劇有詳盡的介紹。此外對於莫札的室內樂及交響樂作品，作者也有獨特的品味，
　　這些都讓本書成為認識莫札特其人其音樂最精要而不入俗套的指南。
作者簡介
彼得．蓋 （Peter Gay）
　 　1923年生，歷史學家，曾以《啟蒙時代：上卷》獲得國家書卷獎。他出生於柏林，後因為猶太人身分而舉家遷移美國避難。1951年他取得哥倫比亞大學博 士學位，之後在耶魯教授歷史。他的著作特點在於將人物放進大時代框架來理解，並以精神分析的角度剖析歷史人物的心理與人際關係。在台灣翻譯出版的作品有： 《弗洛伊德傳》、《歷史學家的三堂小說課》等。
譯者簡介
天悅
　　國立台灣師範大學翻譯研究所畢業，現任電台新聞編譯，從事翻譯工作多年，譯有《普魯斯特》（左岸出版）

名人推薦

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　　就算對古典音樂沒有深入研究的讀者，透過本書能輕易了解莫札特對室內樂、交響曲以及歌劇的貢獻。作者也從莫札特大量的作品中，選出特別具代表性的作品。
　　本書不僅有電影阿瑪迪斯般的戲劇情節，而且提供讀者更完整的莫札特圖像，詳細地解說為什麼莫札特能成為西方文化的代表人物。對於莫札特不熟悉的讀者，作者成功地吸引他們更想更進一步認識莫札特。──Richard E. Hegner
　　電影《阿瑪迪斯》我看了好幾次。我認為這本傳記比電影更好的地方，就是忠實呈現了莫札特在音樂創作上的極限與不足。在整本傳記中，作者只列出部分莫札特在不同年紀居住及工作過的城市，這是為了讓讀者更扼要地握莫札特的生平。──Robert Morri







當代著名歐洲史家Peter Gay的《莫札特：配戴桂冠的乞丐》，一本則是德國歷史社會學大師Norbert Elias的身後編輯出的《莫札特：探求天才的奧秘》Mozart: Portrait of a Genius。


TitleMozart: Portrait of a Genius
AuthorNorbert Elias
EditorMichael Schröter
PublisherUniversity of California Press, 1993/ Polity Press 1994
Length152 pages

 "Mozart's need for love had grown uncertain of itself in early childhood. His feeling of being unloved found constant confirmation in his changing experiences over the years, and the intensity of his unsatisfied desire to be loved, detectable as a dominant wish throughout his life, very largely determined what had meaning for him and what did not."--From the book
One of the most important social thinkers of our time provides a haunting portrait of Mozart's life and creative genius. German sociologist Norbert Elias examines the paradoxes in Mozart's short existence--his brilliant creativity and social marginality, his musical sophistication and personal crudeness, his breathtaking accomplishments and deep despair.
Using psychoanalytic insights, Elias examines Leopold Mozart's carefully honed ambitions for his son and protege. From the age of six Mozart traveled with his father, performing in the major courts throughout Europe. The elder Mozart worked on his son "like a sculptor on his sculpture," and this deep bond formed the lietmotif in understanding Mozart's early talent and complicated psyche.
Mozart chafed at the constraints of Viennese courtly culture. Growing up in a society which viewed musicians as manual laborers producing entertainment for the court, he fought for an independent livelihood. Vienna's aristocracy ultimately turned its back on the composer, who faced mounting debts, no work, and no prospect of fulfilling his innermost desires. He died feeling that his life had become empty of meaning.
Elias ponders the concept of genius, which he sees as a complex marriage of fantasy, inspiration, and convention. In exploring the tension between personal creativity and the tastes of an era, he gives us a book of startling insight and discovery. "Mozart's need for love had grown uncertain of itself in early childhood. His feeling of being unloved found constant confirmation in his changing experiences over the years, and the intensity of his unsatisfied desire to be loved, detectable as a dominant wish throughout his life, very largely determined what had meaning for him and what did not."--From the book
One of the most important social thinkers of our time provides a haunting portrait of Mozart's life and creative genius. German sociologist Norbert Elias examines the paradoxes in Mozart's short existence--his brilliant creativity and social marginality, his musical sophistication and personal crudeness, his breathtaking accomplishments and deep despair.
Using psychoanalytic insights, Elias examines Leopold Mozart's carefully honed ambitions for his son and protege. From the age of six Mozart traveled with his father, performing in the major courts throughout Europe. The elder Mozart worked on his son "like a sculptor on his sculpture," and this deep bond formed the lietmotif in understanding Mozart's early talent and complicated psyche.
Mozart chafed at the constraints of Viennese courtly culture. Growing up in a society which viewed musicians as manual laborers producing entertainment for the court, he fought for an independent livelihood. Vienna's aristocracy ultimately turned its back on the composer, who faced mounting debts, no work, and no prospect of fulfilling his innermost desires. He died feeling that his life had become empty of meaning.
Elias ponders the concept of genius, which he sees as a complex marriage of fantasy, inspiration, and convention. In exploring the tension between personal creativity and the tastes of an era, he gives us a book of startling insight and discovery.

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What Amadeus gets wrong

Clemency Burton-Hill
(Universal History Archive/Rex)
(Universal History Archive/Rex)
The beloved film of Mozart’s life and death triumphed at the Oscars 30 years ago. It distorts the truth but we are right to remember it as a classic, argues Clemency Burton-Hill.

It is 30 years since Amadeus swept the board at the Academy Awards. Miloš Forman’s 1984 film of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play, took home eight statuettes that night, including best film, best director, best actor and best adapted screenplay. Arguably the finest movie ever made about the process of artistic creation and the unbridgeable gap between human genius and mediocrity, it has taken its place in motion picture history and is invariably described as a masterpiece.

All this is despite the fact the film plays shamelessly fast and loose with historical fact, taking as its basis a supposedly bitter rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his counterpart Antonio Salieri, court composer for Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, that may have been nothing more than a vague rumour. Alex von Tunzelmann, writing in the Guardian, is one of the many historians frustrated by the glittering success of a film that is so inaccurate, historically speaking. She describes it as “laughably” wrong – “a deadly rivalry that never was, a dried-up bachelor who was actually a father of eight, and flops that were hits in reality” – and reckons nothing about the film can redeem “the fact that the entire premise – that Salieri loathed Mozart and plotted his demise – is probably not true”.

It was Alexander Pushkin who first seized on the idea that the alleged rivalry between these two Vienna-based composers might make good drama: in 1830 he published a short play called Mozart and Salieri, in which the latter murders the former onstage. The play was later set as an opera by the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and has continued to grip the artistic imagination ever since.




Amadeus won eight Oscars in 1985 – but Tom Hulce lost out to his co-star F Murray Abraham in the category of best actor (Everett Collection/Rex)



With Pushkin as his inspiration, Peter Shaffer took this grisly anecdote as a starting point for what Simon Callow – the actor who first played Mozart on stage – describes as “a vast meditation on the relationship between genius and talent”. Shaffer, says Callow, gives us a Salieri “who was industrious, skilful and pious, driven to homicide by a Mozart who was foul-mouthed, feckless, infantile and effortlessly inspired. In Shaffer's play, Salieri was the one person in 18th-Century Vienna who fully grasped the extent of Mozart's genius, and was thus the one most savagely wounded by it. To him, it was a cruel joke perpetrated by the God he worshipped - that the vessel chosen to receive the greatest music ever written was the least worthy of His creatures; all Salieri's piety and good taste had been passed over in favour of a repulsive little nerd.”

Dramatic licence

Miloš Forman was in the audience for the first preview of the production that starred Callow (and Paul Scofield as Salieri) at London’s National Theatre in 1979. So immediate was the impact of the play that he apparently turned to Shaffer’s agent during the first intermission and announced that he had to make a film of it.

Shaffer has always been relaxed about wanting to write a cracking drama, irrespective of historical precision, describing his work as a “fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri”. “Obviously Amadeus on stage was never intended to be a documentary biography of the composer,” he admits, “and the film was even less of one.” Ingeniously, he gets around the problem by having Salieri, by this stage an old, terminally ill and classic unreliable narrator, show and tell us everything – right from the opening moment, when he whispers dramatically one night in 1823: “Forgive me, Mozart, I killed you.” (Mozart had died a mysterious pauper’s death in 1791). Few historical sources exist about Salieri’s life, so with this formal structure in place Shaffer could take as much dramatic licence as he liked.




Peter Shaffer was struck by the “sublimity” of Mozart’s work and “the vulgar buffoonery” of his character (Saul Zaentz/Everett/Rex)



Like any good dramatist, he identified the things that suited his story – mining Mozart’s letters for scatological baby talk to his cousin, for example – and left out the things that weren’t – for example the fact that the Mozart and Salieri families were friendly enough that Salieri was later employed as Mozart’s son Franz Xaver’s teacher.

“I came up with the idea for this play after reading a lot about Mozart,” Shaffer recalls. “I was struck by the contrast between the sublimity of his music and the vulgar buffoonery of his letters. I am often criticised for portraying him as an imbecile, but I was actually conveying his childlike side: his letters read like something written by an eight-year-old. At breakfast he’d be writing this puerile, foul-mouthed stuff to his cousin; by evening, he’d be completing a masterpiece….”

‘Voice of God’

In any case, the reverence with which the film treats Mozart’s work is undeniable: we, like Salieri, are hit with one perfect melody after another. Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields give outstanding performances on the soundtrack – just listen to the thrillingly articulated punch of their Symphony No 25 or the wrenching Lacrimosa from the Requiem. And as for the opening of the Gran Partita for winds – I remember thinking that my heart would stop with the beauty of that moment when I first saw the film. F Murray Abraham as Salieri talks us through the opening of the piece, introducing each instrument, ending with the words: “This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.” It did, indeed.






Besides, when it comes to Hollywood taking licence with the truth, or selecting and overstating certain aspects of a historical character, what’s new? At this year’s Academy Awards, three of the movies nominated for best film were – for want of a better term – biopics: Selma, The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game. Of Selma, US politician Joseph A Califano Jr wrote recently in the Washington Post of its “glaring flaw” and demanded: “What’s wrong with Hollywood?” President Johnson’s top assistant for domestic affairs from 1965 to 1969, he reckons the film-makers “just couldn’t resist taking dramatic, trumped-up license with a true story that didn’t need any embellishment” and takes issue with the film’s “false” portrayal of LBJ as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. Regarding The Theory of Everything, leading physics writer Denis Overbye in the New York Times reckons, “the movie doesn’t deserve any prizes for its drive-by muddling of Dr Hawking’s scientific work.” And as for The Imitation Game, the family of one of the main featured characters, Captain Alastair Denniston, have said they are “deeply offended” by the “inaccurate and overly harsh” portrayal of their forbear, while the Slate editor LV Anderson is just one of many commentatorswho contend that “the central conceit of The Imitation Game – that Turing singlehandedly invented and physically built the machine that broke the Germans’ Enigma code – is simply untrue.” For Alex von Tunzelmann, once again: “historically, The Imitation Game is as much of a garbled mess as a heap of unbroken code.”

In Amadeus’ case, there are no known descendents of Salieri to come out fighting his corner. But let’s be honest: nobody seriously thinks Salieri murdered Mozart. And for all the academic imperfections of Amadeus, the essence of the film is irrefutable. Salieri was a perfectly reasonable court composer, capable of writing the odd good tune here and there; Mozart was a genius. “Why does God only speak through Mozart’s music and not mine?” Salieri asks, tormented, and we feel his pain. There will never be an answer to that eternal question. Just listen.
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