Each scene of this movie has such depth. Salieri gets standing ovation with huge applause and certificate from the king proclaiming this as one of the greatest composition, However, Salieri is looking for appreciation from just one person.
He can get the acclaim from probably the most powerful man in all of Europe and he would not care until he gets appreciated by Mozart. And he would never get the appreciation in his life. P.S I know this is fictional but hey it’s fun to make this shit
Parce qu'il sait que les compliments de Mozart sont les seuls à avoir de la valeur à mon avis t'as pas vu le film pour dire ça il est d'une jalousie si folle qu'il est persuader que Mozart est une incarnation de dieux Et puis même dans la vrai vie les vrais artistes entendent le jugement des meilleurs et non des applaudissements de la foule ignorante
Salieri is the antagonist and motzart is the protagonist...the movie would be boring without the conflict between the two. Not difficult to understand why he is doing so.
Same with cooking too. If Biden walked into a 3 star restaurant, to the chef it’s business as usual. If Gordon Ramsay walked in, that chef would pull all the stops to try to impress Ramsay.
@@ffjsb Simply because the movie is fiction does not mean its theme of professional and personal envy is not real. Rivalries such as the one depicted in the movie do happen in real life.
@@ameljoore7731 Holy Roman Emperor are not Roman Emperor. Roman Emperor exsist as Basileos in the East, Holy Roman Emperor are the Kaisers of Germany. It's inapropriate to address them as King becaude they have overarching title, like Queen Victoria should be addressed as Empress Victoria.
It's actually quite difficult to find audio albums of Salieri's complete opera. You might be able to find a few of his pieces in an collection album of various composers but that's it. I once did find a rare recording of this particular opera from the movie but it wasn't even a good production of it.
I think one dynamic that is often missed in the scene is that Mozart initially really likes the opera, enthusiastically applauding and being one of the first to get up and give a standing ovation. However, he gets jealous of the Emperor's praise and reacts defensively by giving backhanded compliments.
One is shown Mozart applauding. He is in the gallery and Salieri can see him there. But in between you can see him look on solemnly and his vaudeville friends/performers also, and not with any look of enjoyment.
The key difference between Mozart and Salieri’s music is portrayed clearly at the beginning of the movie when the priest does not manage to remember any of Salieri’s old hits but remembers Mozart’s. Salieri’s music is technically sound and pleasant to the ear but easy to forget. I bet many of you will not remember an hour after listening to this finale how it sounded. I do not mean that a piece of music should necessarily be easy to remember but it has to have a distinct personality.
Sorry but what barralpha said is true. Not everyone will forget someone not as well know but Mozart I can recall music of. Salieri no. Is it bad? Not at all. But it sounds like everyone else.
Josh, I fully agree with you. You can hear a work by adult Mozart not knowing it is Mozart and you will automatically know who he is. Salieri’s music sounds like any other classic composer but lacks personality: it is nice, pleasant, entertaining to some degree (try to seat through a three hour opera, and then we talk) but generally predictable and academic.
barralpha in my lectures at University, we quite often talk about something that academics like to call the doctrine of the affections. This is basically the idea that when music is written, it should convey emotion to the listener and be able to rouse emotion in the listeners themselves. While Salieri may have used the right musical techniques to convey emotions, such as where to add an octave leap or where to add a forte mark for instance, but in terms of composing in his and Mozart’s time, music in the Classical era was still well-formed, but composers had started creating new ideas of expression, how to be less predictable and how to get the music to rouse more complex human emotions, because human emotions can be quite unpredictable. From an audience point of view, we like the surprises that Mozart brings us. Our minds are ruled by emotion more than they are ruled by reason and theory. Partly why we remember what we remember is because there is some emotion brought into it. Salieri’s music is not mediocre or completely rubbish in any way, it’s just that Salieri may have needed more practice composing with more complex human emotions, maybe his own.
A lot of the genius of the film is Salieri's paranoia. If you watch closely it's never actually certain that Mozart doesnt respect Salieri. For example in this scene, Mozart gives him a standing ovation after the performance. And then makes an effort to come down to speak to him and congratulate him. But Salieri cant get past a rather vague comment Mozart makes about it "sounding like a Salieri". And most scenes are like this. I often think Salieri actually just misreads Mozarts arrogance
No, no. It was very clear from the scene that Mozart didn't consider the opera to be great. Even the musician in the orchestra after the offer their congratulations to Salieri, slink away quietly. The emperor, though, loved it....and what he loves his subjects will love, too. But melodies from Mozar's opera also went on as Viennese popular songs. That is a compliment also.
@@evakovacs9706 I think it was normal for the musicians to quickly shake his hand and then get out of his way. Lots of people were coming up to shake his hand, so no one person could hog more than a few seconds.
I agree with you in that salieri was paranoid and self conscious. It's like when you think of yourself as average or ugly and then a person you find very attractive gives you a compliment. You take the compliment but you might feel a bit skeptical on the inside. Also, in the scene where Mozart is playing salieris March on the piano and starts adding notes to it, Mozart was never disrespectful towards salieris piece, he was just giving some criticisms and even asked salieri what he thought about the notes he was adding. Salieris pride took that as an insult when Mozart just wanted to create music with Salieri. @Chris Mooney
You seem to forget when Salieri attended that costume-party and Mozart parodied Salieri's paint-by-numbers approach to composition. Salieri fully understood his mediocrity in the shadow of Mozart. Not paranoia.
@@EricA-xd9fn Mozart was doing a parody of many famous composers there. It was fun, yeah, making fun of Salieri, but not necessarily meaning he doesn't appreciate his creations
I always loved this scene because you actually see Salieri conducting for once. At the beginning of the movie you get to know him as a mediocrity with his simplistic welcoming march and his bitter tirades (and as a hypocritical glutton who claims to be a model of virtue) But in this scene you realize: The guy knows his stuff. You actually see him in his line of work and you realize that he's passionate about it and struggles hard to impress. He's not bad, he just lacks that little something. Even Mozart is impressed, it's just that he knows that he's a bit better.
Salieri was court composer and he also composed a lot of operas and other musical pieces. He worked hard and was very competent. But the fact is that he wanted more--at least according to this movie, and his morbid jealousy ate at him and turned him inside out. According to history, Mozart and Salieri had respect for each other. This movie is a fiction, to a great extent, and after Mozart's death there was talk of him having been done in, and I believe his wife had the same idea. Relationships had to be respectful in the Habsburg court. I am amused by those who dismiss Constanza, Mozart's wife, regarding her allegations that Mozart had been poisoned. She was dismissed, and still is, by many in the music world. She understood music, and I gather she had been a singer. There could very well have been something to her suspicions, one way or the other. But she no longer commanded respect as the widow of Mozart. Women are often dismissed in elevated areas of arts, or history for that fact,
@@evakovacs9706 Apart from that Salieri had no reason to be jealous. He had a steady job at the court, unlike Mozart who was a freelancer and always had to scramble for comissions. And he probably wasn't jealous of Mozart's gambling problem either. Regarding Constanze, I think she got a lot of hate because she was independent and self-sufficient, traits that were discouraged from women in her days. She was the one pulling strings to get Mozart's requiem finished after his death, something she doesn't get enough credit for in my opinion.
Mozart's comment to Salieri at the end reminds me of a story of a famous poet in ancient Rome. He was supposed to write this great tribute, lavishing praise on the current Roman emperor. In part of the poem, he rambles on about the emperor's greatness, comparing him with the great planets. The emperor, having a big ego, naturally took this to be a compliment. But if you read the poem more straightforwardly, you realize that the poet is just saying that the emperor is fat. Who says psychology is a strictly modern science?
Also reminds me of a scene in a somewhat obscure movie. A woman is passionately reading poetry to an old man of a completely different cultural background. When she asks whether to continue, he declines saying "One life couldn't wish for more."
You're thinking of Lucan, and this piece of poetry appears in Book I of the De Bello Civile (Pharsalia). The political stance of Lucan is a great controversy of the poem.
Antonio Salieri's music is currently under the greatest revival in 250 years. He has Milos Forman, F. Abraham Murray, and Tom Hulce to thank for this renewal of interest in his work.
In court politics, someone in Salieri's position must be shown respect, or else he could use his influence to destroy the offender's career. Mozart, therefore, had to say something that could be interpreted as a compliment for fear of reprisal. And his 2 statements were incredibly vague and clouded by what people interpret. To the bystanders, who are unaware of Mozart's discriminating musical taste and can't perceive the gulf of talent between the 2 composers, his words came off like praise that cannot be adequately expressed by words. To Salieri, who is increasingly critical of his own work and believes Mozart is similarly dismissive of it, it came off like an insult as if he were incapable of actually composing good music.
People are always pointing out that Salieri and Mozart were friends in real life, but I maintain that the movie never contradicts this. On the surface, this movie portrays them as friends: they seem to frequently hang out and appear to be on friendly terms. It's only because we get to hear Salieri's secret thoughts and see him do things in secret, that we know this not to be the case in this particular story. But personal secrets do not make it into history books, and as such, I think the story is more careful about not contradicting history than it's given credit for.
No one is denying that, but it's also fabulating a story, brilliant as it is, that is just that and there's no reason to believe that Salieri hated Mozart. This is why historical fiction is so good and exciting to read, watch, experience, yet so dangerous when consumed by people that don't know much about history and take it at face value :)
Mozart does very little to earn Salieri, rather it is Salieri’s own sense of self doubt driving it and in the end Mozart admits feeling Salieri did not appreciate him either
Let's put it this way: If Mozart and Salieri were two teenagers today, they'd be sharing their musical experiments on RU-vid and probably they would say "Oh, nice fucking opera right there, Wolftard", "Sally-Salieri, you dirty bastard, that imperial march kicked ass!". But at some point, Mozart would get +1 million subscribers and start monetizing. Salieri acts like it's all ok, but then he gets +2 million subs. Mozart sends a video talking how Salieri is just licking the establishment's arse, and then Salieri counterattacks making a videoclip of him walking down the 'hood at Viena, featuring a well known tenor which happens to like the newest french vibe, but is proud of being austrian. They still do collaborations and stuff. They're the best "friendly enemies" and also the "most antagonist of comrades", until Mozart discovers dubstep... and he dies. That's kinda what happened in real life with both composers. Not the best friends (more like "competitive partners"), but they knew what eachother was doing in the european scene. Love and hate, admiration and jealousy.
ML8593wy I find great offense to your comment. Not only from your pompous attitude towards a culture you clearly have no understanding for, but from your blatant disregard for the genre quite common in American literature of Historical Fiction.
they were made "enemies" in this incredible good movie, else it woul dbe boring, would it not!, if you just play mozart music for 2 hours and see him get drunk, it would not make a fine, great movie like this!, and iam sure their were in competition with each other, all great athlets/writters,/scientists are in competition with each other, it is normal for men to compete, it is what leads to great things!, men pushing their boundries!. but enemies, no, it is not like they wanted to kill each other, and i think this movie comes accross very well in displaying this!, , a healthy competition between 2 great men, making them create better more beautiful things to show the other, they are the better one!.
I think if Salieri has lived in the modern day, he'd be someone like Rick Astley. Have two or three top forty hits, put out a number of albums, do a bunch of tours, make plenty of money, and be well known for a few years before fading away and being forgotten (if not for memes). That's not a bad career at all! 99% of all musicians would kill to have that much success. The problem is when you compare him to Kirk Cobain or John Lenon.
@nelsonchereta816 truly the former is WAY more enviable and desirable. You feel proud, accomplished, and like you made a lasting impact, people appreciated your art, but then you get to actually let go and breathe a sigh of rest after and return to your normal life. I don't envy the most successful of our time...in fact the industry destroys their very souls more often than not.
In 1973, a truly great horse named Sham ran the triple crown races, and in any other year, he would've won them all. But he had the misfortune to be running next to a legend named Secretariat, and the rest is history. Salieri was in the same fix. He was a good composer. He wrote some nice stuff. But Mozart was unearthly, a genius from some other plane of existence, and the rest is history.
@@LazlosPlane To be fair though, Mozart's ouvre is hardly consistent. I agree we should judge composers on their best work, but your comment about having heard "most of his works" could also apply to Mozart.
@@noodles8980 when i decide to get off my lazy ass and finally finish my ruby program, it will displace all of them....what they do can be done by a very small program.
That is the fine Viennese blade. Every word is sweet but at the same time repellent and envy is the most valuable currency with which one can be paid in Vienna.
And Vanilla Ice was at the forefront of white artists trying to crossover into the genre of hip-hop. How has the passage of time and history been to those efforts?
In JS Bach's day, he was esteemed for his virtuoso performances, but only picked for his Leipzig appointment as the third resort. Telemann was the chart-topper and Handel found his greatness outside Germany. Salieri, a good composer and better person, was more esteemed than Mozart and Haydn. P.S. Salieri's variations on "La Folía" are interesting.
The movie is based on a play, which has an enjoyable plot that happens to use historical characters. In the same way, “Gladiator” and “The Fall of the Roman Empire” use the time of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, and “The Prince and the Pauper” is always set at the accession of young Edward VI. It’s actually known that Mozart liked “Axur” a lot.
It is said that Salieri went mad after his friend Mozart passed and in insanity said that he killed Mozart. Thats the premise of this movie. I think people need to stop comparing movie scripts to real life events (not that you are specifically, sir)
Guys, the movie Amadeus is based on real people, but its not based on their actual lives. Mozart and Salieri were actually allot more friendlier than this and Salieri even financially took care of Mozarts wife after he passed.
The interesting thing about this scene is that Salieri's opera was about the very things that Mozart had mocked earlier in the movie when he was at the court to get the Emperor to allow him to do "The Marriage of Figero". Brilliant writing although, as others have stated, the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri is overstated in the movie. Then again, the rivalry does make for an interesting narrative for the movie.
i think overstated is a huge understatement. that's a key aspect of the movie.....to create a foil for the hero, even when in real life it wasnt even remotely like that.
A lot of this film was at best hyperbole, if not outright bullshit. Salieri's music is great, he was also a friend and mentor, in some aspects to Mozart. They even collaborated with one another on some pieces, if I'm remembering my history correctly. None the less, I recommend listening to Salieri's music.
I really like this snippet of Salieri's music. Honestly I like it as much as I like most Mozart. But then, there's some Mozart that's almost untouchable.
We can’t know what kind of relationship they had in real life, people say they were friends but here even Mozart thought they were. At least now centuries later the worlds knows Mozart’s name, not for his reputation but for his talent.
From what I've read, Mozart and Salieri were not really friends. They had a professional relationship and may have had a bit of a rivalry but Salieri was not pathologically obsessed with Mozart as he is depicted in this heavily fictionalized film.
I never knew that music like that was possible. - You flatter me. - No, no!!!! When one hears such sounds, what can one say but... Salieri... This is not even sarcasm, Wolfie is very clear on this occasion.
Categorically exceptional movie. One might think the fiction element is a weakness, but in fact, it is one of the strongest elements, and on top of it the whole story is told by an insane individual, so, there it is.
Sallieri was actually a very remarkable composer, especially with his sacred music. And he was also known for being the teacher of Beethoven and Schubert, no less. Only people who can barely make a diference between Mozart and Beethoven claim that Sallieri was "a mediocrity" as this movie (which is that: a movie and loosely based on reality) portraits. So, for all of you mediocres of the world who barely can play a single tune in the piano: Sallieri forgives you. And certainly, Mozart is greater, far more popular, a total genius only comparable with Sallieri's pupil Beethoven or Wagner perhaps.
Well, Salieri was great, Mozart was greater, Beethoven great too, but not comparable to Mozart. But for me, Bach was a genius, even greater than Mozart, IMHO. Bach beats them all in complexity and melody. He is just divine. Of course I'm comparing different styles of music from different times, and you should take what I wrote with a huge grain of salt.
Ask the general public of 2018 if they heard of Sallieri.... then ask them if they heard of Mozart.... as the wise words of Art LeFleur, Heros get remembered, Legends never die.
@@dezertfox3130 Comparing Sallieri to Kenny G.? There is no comparison. Sallieri was a far much better musician and composer, although not as great as Mozart.
The alternative is that he brought one specifically to award to Salieri at the end regardless of what Salieri produced, and he didn't care about the music at all.
1:27 Mozart was the first people who stand up to apllauding, I think he really liked Salieri's opera. Actually real musician doesn't hate other musician's music, but learn from it.
I would reserve the word "great" for better composers. He was OK and he probably captured the zeitgeist of his time and place. As for influencing each other, that actually happened between Mozart and Haydn. Salieri had nothing to teach Mozart!
Anyone who has ever engaged in an activity where those with natural talent easily excel can appreciate what Salieri feels. You see this in all fields... music, art, sports, dance... Most people have to work, struggle, exert themselves with every fiber of their being to become experts, while others can just make a modest effort and appear to instantly master their craft. They are just blessed with natural talent. And it's frustrating to be in any field where you have to compete with such people. If you obsess over it, it can drive you crazy. You just have to accept that there are people in this world who were gifted with virtuosity, and accept that all the effort in the world will not allow you to surpass what they naturally are capable of. Better to find your own gift. Everyone has one.
Not at all. Salieri was very taken aback by Mozart's hesitation & unemotional off-handed swipe at his talent. He almost lost his voice trying to save face.
I saw a new stage production of Amadeus this week. Like Peter Schaffer’s other plays, Amadeus seems more powerful on stage than on film as effective as this film version might be.it’s reference point is not the historical personages of Mozart or Salieri: the entire dramatic conflict is anchored in Salieri’s struggle with himself, his desire and his beliefs.
This movie is certainly one of the best ever. F Murrray Abraham is a god. I fully accept the fiction that Salieri was mediocre because that is what makes the play and the film so spellbinding.
It’s one of those scenes where I was either expecting absolute success or failure. But I can actually see the two of them exchanging pleasantries as civil people like this No ill at all. Unless I missed something
I'm not sure what the writers had in mind, but I think there are multiple ways to view it. Salieri is so jealous of Mozart that it drives him to push himself to his artistic limits and create a brilliant piece such as this. Mozart has no doubt in his mind that he's the best, but he so craves validation in the form of the Emperor's approval. He is, himself, jealous that Salieri is held in a position of such high esteem while he gets told that a piece he views as perfect has "too many notes." This dynamic creates many possibilities. When the two talk at the end of this scene, Salieri is basking in the glory of his victory, so happy that Mozart was there to witness it. When Mozart offers his compliments, it's possible that he was being genuine but also possible that he was being facetious. The "what can one say but - 'Salieri?'" line comes off as a bit snide to me; perhaps Mozart was implying that the piece borrowed from him? Salieri drops his smugness and seems genuinely proud to have earned Mozart's respect, but you can see the wheels turning in his head as he processes that particular remark. Maybe Mozart did mean what he said, but, in that moment, upon reflecting on how much Mozart influenced him, Salieri felt his victory was lessened.
It is an interesting scene, putting aside different real facts that are not fully or badly consider in this film. AS for me Mozart is being polite and diplomatic with some sarcasm in his words. I remember the film highlights Mozart feelings about the other musicians (musical idiots), including Salieri. So I think here Mozart goes as a diplomat but also to say that his music is always easy to recognize, (for being bad?). What the film depicts very well is that Axur was a triumph, as it was the original French version, Tarare.
Mozart was making a snide remark but he masked it as admiration for Salieri. In reality, Mozart was envious of Salieri because the King recognized him when Mozart from the very start thought Salieri was inferior to him. Mozart threw shade because he could not afford to make an enemy of Salieri, who wielded much power in the King’s court
Another dynamic I do think that's not been mentioned is when Mozart says "I never knew music like that was possible" I feel like Salieri's pride diminishes, even though he's received an honour from the emperor because Salieri knows music even greater than that is possible and Mozart is the one who could create it (I think Mozart knows as well and it is a subtle jab at him) that line for reminds him of his own mediocrity in the face of Mozart.
The difference between Mozart and Salieri is like the difference between John Williams and Hans Zimmer, both talented composers but only one of them produces truly memorable scores that stand the test of time.
That particular performance was probably the one time that Salieri came close to the amazing and unrivalled Genius of Mozart, touching and nibbling at the edges of a musical fabric/texture/complex style that was as astonishingly brilliant as it was well ahead of its time and pioneering, the various masterpieces that Mozart produced. And although I believe that Mozart's comment was quite genuine and sincere, there was this partially concealed reserve of smug superiority and unmatched talent that Mozart knew was far ahead of any raw talent and musical gifts that Salieri possessed, granted that piece above had this spark of genius to it, and was impressive to boot. Though still not on the same level as much that Mozart ever conjured and produced, in terms of multi-layered complexities and musical dynamics that would work together in this intricate yet seamless fashion, beautifully harmonious, smoothly melodic and magically flawless, all exquisite perfection, perfect timing, mathematical symmetry and flowing, well balanced musical notes that all tied in together with this sublime and extremely well coordinated, seamlessly complex grace. Perfection, divine perfection. And Salieri knew that all too well, coming somewhat close to Mozart just that one time. Basically, Mozart was in a league all his own, and he was keenly and unabashedly aware of that fact, and, I SHIT YOU NOT, probably 200 years ahead of his time, much of his later work that was produced in Vienna. Fucking otherworldly and supernatural, till Beethoven showed up on the scene Mozart was untouched, uncontested and OUT OF THIS FUCKING WORLD. Salieri knew that, excellent musician that he could be.
Taylor Ahern i think beethoven out matched mozart by alot and i mean by a lot. Beethoven composed music literally all in his head when he lost his hearing and proved that he could listen too music in his mind as he wrote, unlike mozart whose talent only got him so far. I love both but if i had to choose it would be beethoven
Taylor Ahern why do you go through long flowery sentences to make a simple point. You need a lesson in cogency. I picture you to be a modern day Salieri but in the writing world. Moron
Non Player Character Thank you so much for that fine and lovely compliment, as it was much appreciated, as was your penetrating insight, writing prowess and illuminating inspiration, of which your writing is drenched in it. Have a great and marvelous day my man, and please tell all the other idiots that I said hi. Cheers!!
Back then just like today, those of less gifted in music are celebrated while those with true talent are ignored by the masses. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Mozart was still given credit. Franz Schubert for instance died thinking he failed as a composer. He had around 5 percent of his works published in his lifetime.
