Daniel Smith

Music 342
Dr. van Boer
7 March 2012

Was Salieri Behind Mozart's Death?

The egregiously historically inaccurate tellings of a modern-day motion

picture based on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life and supposed interactions with
Antonio Salieri are all too familiar to anyone who's ever had a movie day during
their middle school choir or band class. Unbeknown to many, Salieri, Mozart's
musical predecessor and inferior (as believed by many), didn't have as tragically
dysfunctional of a connection to Mozart as many would be inclined to believe.
One of the composers eventually outshone the other; albeit, the two primarily
maintained (at the worst) a neutral relationship within the musical society of
eighteenth-century Europe. The (likely) fictionalized allegation that Antonio
Salieri colluded the death of W. A. Mozart doesn't stand much ground when

analyzed in evidentiary and scientific detail.

Smith !2

It's important to know that Salieri and Mozart definitely had their
differences; with personal musical achievement as the sole, essential foundation
of their lives, it would have been extraordinarily difficult not to clash with
someone who had such similar motivations. As Volkmar Braunbehrens reports in
his book "Maligned Master: the Real Story of Antonio Salieri" (one of few
available and reliable sources on Salieri's life and his connection to Mozart),
Antonio Salieri was in competition with Mozart and Righini over who should get
to produce their opera first, as they were all roughly at the same stage of
completion. After many trivialities, Joseph II ultimately chose Mozart's Nozze di
Figaro to be put into rehearsal immediately.1 (It's fairly safe to say that much of
the outcome of history of the musically-involved world of the 18th century was
highly political, and generally merely the personal preference of whoever
supposedly had the say.)

Additionally, there must have been moderately compelling reasons why

people thought Salieri was responsible for the death of Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, and Figaro could possibly have been one of them. However, as
mentioned in Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera by John A. Rice, regardless of
Mozart's acquisition of an important musical position at court
1

Volkmar Braunbehrens, Maligned Master: the Real Story of Antonio Salieri, (New York: Fromm
International Publishing Corporation, 1992.), 110.

Smith !3

(Kammercompositor), "Mozart remained below Salieri in the court hierarchy,

where the principle of seniority was rarely challenged. He [Mozart] must have
suspected the he would always be subordinate to the older composer," regardless
of Mozart' immense talent.2 That's not to say Salieri held no musical grounding
of his own; considering his adeptness at composition, Salieri was truly a musical
genius of the highest quality, only comparable with Mozart and other
contemporaries. Braunbehrens writes about Salieri's wonderful talent for creating
masterpieces, even from horribly written lyrics: he took an unfortunately dull
libretto written by Casti (the Grotto of Trophonius) and wrote an entirely
contrasting score, in terms of quality. Braunbehrens continues to add how Salieri
"blended various styles, such as accompanied recitatives and arioso parlando,"
creating a highly popular and frequently played work. 3 Mozart's social inferiority
to Salieri doesn't make it seem plausible for Salieri to desire to stifle Mozart's
existence, primarily due to a lack of any sort of obvious motivation or jealousy.

With an apparent lack of reason to want Mozart dead, scientifically-based

hypotheses clear Salieri's name even further by providing possible ailments from
which Mozart could have suffered, and what contributing factors might have

John A. Rice, Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
Press, 1998) 460.
3

Braunbehrens, Maligned Master, 113.

Smith !4

influenced his demise, as seen in "Salieri and the 'Murder' of Mozart" by Albert
I. Borowitz from the The Musical Quarterly:
The prevailing theory of modern medical authorities who believe
Mozart to have died a natural death is that he suffered from a chronic
kidney disease, which passed in its final stages into a failure of kidney
function, edema (swelling due to excessive retention of liquid in the body
tissues) and uremic poisoning. [...] Medical commentators on Mozart's
death have implicated a number of childhood illnesses as likely
contributors to his chronic kidney disease.4
Moreover, aside from a chronic kidney disease, it is also hypothesized that
Mozart could have likely suffered and died from Grave's disease, which exhibits
symptoms concurrent with those present in W. A. Mozart near the time of his
death: "nervousness, ardour and a feverish restlessness prevailed while physical
strength decreased."5 Therefore, very little basis has been shown that Mozart
died from anything other than natural causes. Salieri and Mozart may have had
their dramatics and differences, but they weren't enemies. At the beginning of
Mozart's career, Salieri had sworn that he would never work with Da Ponte in the
future after Salieri's first opera unfortunately failed. After forgetting about a
petty, anger-driven oath and turning to Da Ponte's primary librettist competition,
Casti for a text, Salieri later joined Mozart and tenor Alessandro Cornetti in
setting the cantata written for soprano Nancy Storace, Per la ricuperata salute

4 Albert
5

I. Borowitz, Salieri and the "Murder" of Mozart, (1973) 267.

C. G. Sederholm, Mozart's Death, (1951): 348.

Smith !5

die Ofelia, to music. This demonstrated that Mozart and Salieri were able to
work together harmoniously especially when writing for an important singer
like Storace.6 Furthermore, it's quite interesting that in addition to a seemingly
positive rapport, it's said that Salieri rarely, if ever, discussed his personal
opinions of W. A. Mozart or Mozart's music, which was consistent with his
reluctancy to comment on the music of any of his other contemporaries. It
further shows that Salieri had no malevolence towards Mozart, as Salieri even
stated Figaro was his favorite among Mozart's operas.7 All of the accounted
behaviors of Antonio Salieri have shown no real begrudging motives for wanting
to end W. A. Mozart's life; if anything, Salieri's actions and behavior have shown
tolerance and neutrality. As a comparison of personalities, Mozart, in fact, was
said to be more temperamental of the two: "[Tenor] Michael Kelly remembered
Mozart as being 'touchy as gun-powder'we can see as much in his overreaction
to alleged grumblings about his replacement arias." 8 If anyone were to be
vengeful, it most likely wouldn't be Salieri.

Even by ruling out and debunking the homicidal Salieri idea, it's still not
known exactly how and why Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died. Naturally, a
6

Braunbehrens, Maligned Master, 109.

Rice, Antonio Salieri, 460.

Rice, Antonio Salieri, 464.

Smith !6

number of obscure theories exist that attempt to explain the death of W. A.

Mozart, most sounding equally unlikely as the next. For instance, some propose
that Mozart was murdered by the Freemasons as punishment for implementing
Freemason secrets and rituals into or challenging their doctrines in his opera Die
Zauberflte.9 Whereas others believe that Mozart could have died from mercury
poisoning; it is unsure whether mercury would've come from an outside source
and secretly used to taint his food, or if Mozart had been self-administering
mercury as a cure for syphilis, which was a somewhat common method that was
promoted by some physicians at the time. Unfortunately, however, the world will
never know the true cause of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death, as his body is
irrecoverable; "[Mozart was] buried in a mass, unmarked grave." 10 It is clear,
however, that Mozart's cause of death is a mixed bag of scandals and theories,
regrettably and unproportionally dramatized beyond logical thought. Just as the
jury will never be out, it's safe to say that Antonio Salieri can be considered
perpetually innocent... with a marginal chance that an unimaginably vindictive
crime actually did occur.

W. Stafford. The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment. Stanford: Stanford, University Press, 1991.

10

Brian Dunning, Mozart and Salieri, (Skeptoid Media, Inc.), 2010.

Smith !7

Bibliography

Borowitz, Albert I. "Salieri and the "Murder" of Mozart." The Musical Quarterly
59, no. 2 (1973): 267. Accessed March 6, 2012.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/741525.
Braunbehrens, Volkmar. "Salieri and Mozart." In Maligned Master: the Real
Story of Antonio Salieri, 1st ed., 103-124. New York: Fromm International
Publishing Corporation, 1992.
Dunning, Brian. "Mozart and Salieri." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc., 6
Jul 2010. Accessed March 6, 2012. http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4213.
Rice, John A. "Mozart and Salieri." In Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera, 1st
ed., 459-492. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press,

1998.

Sederholm, C. G. "Mozart's Death." Music & Letters 32, no. 4 (1951): 348.
Accessed March 6, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/729066.
Stafford, W. The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1991.