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Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri

alieri and ... other composers vastly his inferior" (Brion 76).

The film is not truly biographical with respect to either man. While Salieri, the narrator, does straightforwardly cover the early life of his rival, that period is far less crucial than the final ten years of Mozart's life which the film focuses on. That early life depicts Mozart as a musical prodigy, touring with his father Leopold (a great influence in his life) and sister through Europe, his ample and liberal education, and his first serious compositional operatic effort in music. In keeping with Mozart's commitment to individuality (one aspect of the Enlightenment), he began to show more independence from his father's influence later in life. For example, Mozart married a woman in defiance of his father's wishes in Vienna. More importantly than choice in women to Mozart, however, was his artistic and creative freedom. In a letter to his father from Vienna, at roughly the beginning of the ten year period covered in the film, Mozart expresses bitter disappointment at his father's protest against his son's angry denunciation of the Archbishop ("I hate the Archbishop to madness!") and his resignation at Vienna:

... I can never abandon my resolve.... In certain passages my honour and my character are so rudely assailed that I must after all answer upon these points! ... You cannot call it otherwise than right [his resignation].... You say that the only way to save my honour is to abandon my resolve? How can you conceive such a contradiction? (Mersmann 163; 167).

All of these basic facts of Mozart's life are roughly accurate, as is the portrayal of Salieri as a man who is generally more favored by the Viennese, especially the elites. The greater favor Salieri receives does not gratify him, however, because he knows Mozart is the better composer.

The film begins to stray into hyperbole when it zeroes in on its true concern--the last decade of Mozart's life in...

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Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 20:35, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709539.html