Amadeus Essay Example

Amadeus Essay Example Amadeus Essay Amadeus Essay Essay Topic: Amadeus Amadeus is a play which portrays the rivalry between Antonio Salieri, a famous composer, and Amadeus (Mozart). Salieri being jealous for Mozart’s talent declares war to God promising to destroy Mozart, his preferred creature, as he feels betrayed by God. Even though salieri achieved what he wished most, fame; he felt that this was also his punishment. When had been rubbed in fame to vomiting, it would be taken away from him and Mozart’s music would sound louder and louder through the world, so as to win his battle with God, he tried to convince the world that he poisoned Mozart, to be remembered for infamy at least.Retelling Act 1 Antonio Salieri a famous composer, being an old man, is sat in a wheelchair with his back to the audience. Feeling guilty cries out: Mozart! Pardon your assassin have mercy. The venticelli explain that when Mozart died thirty-two years ago, there was some talk about him being poisoned by Salieri. They wonder why Salieri would do such a thing and why he would confess it now. Salieri asks the audience to be his confessors. He admits his lifelong desire for fame, yet only in one especial way. Music! Absolute music music is God’s art.He longed to join all the composers who had celebrated his glory through the long Italian past. As a result, he implored God, let me be a composer in return, I will live with virtue and I will honor you with much music all the days of my life. God answered to him Go forth, Antonio. Serve Me and mankind, and you will be blessed, Salieri thanked him and promised, I am your servant for life. The very next day, a family friend suddenly appeared and took him to Vienna, where he studied music and soon became the court composer.Salieri decided, Clearly my bargain had been accepted. The same year the young prodigy Mozart was touring Europe. Salieri tells the audience, I present to you, for one performance only, my last composition, entitled The Death of Mozart, or, Did I Do It? Dedicated to posterity on this, the last night of my life. He then takes off his dressing gown and becomes a young man wearing the elegant clothes of a successful composer in the 1780s. The scene shifts to 1781 age of Emperor Joseph II and his court in Vienna. Salieri is thirty-one, a rolific composer to the Hapsburg court, and married to a respectable wife, Teresa. The venticelli, Salieri’s Little Winds, announce that Mozart will be giving a concert for the court. While Salieri sits in a chair eating sweets in the library at the Palace of Schoonbrunn, Constanze Weber, daughter of Mozart’s landlady, runs into the room squeaking like a mouse. Mozart follows her meowing like a cat. Mozart teases Constanze (Stanzi) with sexual innuendoes and bathroom humor and frequently emits an unforgettable giggle, piercing and infantile. His demeanor appalls Salieri.Later, when Mozart begins playing one of his compositions, Salieri responds with such delight that it makes him tremble. He runs out into the street and says gasping for life Addressing the audience he explains, it seemed to me that I had heard a voice of God. .. and it was the voice of an obscene child After the conceit, Salieri buries his fear in work and prays to God, asking Him, let Your voice enter me! When his Little Winds report that audiences seem unimpressed by Mozart’s performances, Salieri begins to think that the serenade he heard was an exception, an accident.Salieri com poses an extremely banal march in Mozart’s honor. When Mozart quickly transforms it into an exceptional piece of music, Salieri admits, was it then, so early, that I began to have thoughts of murder Mozart clashes with the emperor’s advisors over his choice of subject and music for his commissioned operas. He also has difficulty finding pupils. Against the wishes of his father, he and Constanze marry and the two live well beyond their means. When Constanze asks Salieri to help her husband get work, the composer sees this as an opportunity to take his revenge.He invites her to his apartment, where he plans to seduce her. After Salieri makes it clear that he will help Mozart if she grants him sexual favors, she at first resists, but soon starts to tease him. Salieri then throws her out, offended by her commonness and angry at his own considered descent into adultery and blackmail. When Salieri studies the manuscripts Constanze left behind, he hears the music in his head, acknowledging that they are the same sounds he had heard at the palace, the same crushed harmonies, glancing collisions, agonizing delights. The piece he had heard had been no accident.He admits, I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes at- an Absolute Beauty. As a result, he feels betrayed by God:I know my fate. Now for the first time I feel my emptiness as Adam felt his nakedness. You gave me the desire to serve you then saw to it the service was shameful in the ears of the server. You gave me the desire to praise you then made me mute. You put into me perception of the incomparable then ensured that I would know myself forever mediocre. MOZART! spiteful, sniggering, conceited, infantine Mozart im you have chosen to be your sole conduct. A bitter Salieri warns God, From this time we are enemies, you and I. I’ll not accept it from you, do you hear? you are the Enemy. I name Thee now and this I swear: to my last breath I shall block you on earth, as fa r as I am able. The scene shifts to the present, with the older Salieri promising to reveal to the audience the details of the war he fought with God through his preferred Creature, Mozart, in the waging of which, of course, the Creature had to be destroyed. Act 2 Back in the past, audiences are still not appreciating Mozart’s work.His resulting desperation is compounded when his father dies. In an effort to earn money, he writes The Magic Flute, something for ordinary German people Salieri suggests he include in his composition a focus on the Masons, the fraternal order of which both are members. While he composes The Magic Flute, Constanze leaves with the children and his health deteriorates. He is continually taunted by dreams of a figure in gray, who compels him to write a requiem Mass. When a member of the emperor’s court discovers that Mozart has exposed Masonic rituals in The Magic Flute, he is outraged.As a result, Mozart’s reputation and career are rui ned. Soon after, when Mozart dies, Salieri admits to feeling a mixture of relief and pity. In the present, Salieri explains: Slowly I understood the nature of God’s punishment. This was my sentence: I must endure thirty years of being called distinguished by people incapable of distinguishing and finally when my nose had been rubbed in fame to vomiting- it would be taken away from me. Mozart’s music sounded louder and louder through the world. And mine faded completely, till no one played it at all.Salieri admits he has attempted to convince the world that he poisoned Mozart, so that he will be remembered, if not in fame, then infamy, and so win his battle with God. He then cuts his throat. The venticelli tell the audience that Salieri’s efforts failed; he survived his attempted suicide and the public refused to believe he had murdered Mozart. The play ends with Salieri, in a gesture of benediction, telling the audience, mediocrities everywhere- now and to come- I absolve you all. Amen. He then folds his arms high across his own breast in a gesture of self-sanctification. main charactesAntonio Salieri: was a famous musician composer who envied the prodigy talents of Mozart. From his personality, we can say he is a selfish, manipulative person who desired to be famous although he considered himself to be mediocre. Wolfang Amadeus Mozart: was a famous musician composer with an innate talent. He wrote his first symphony at five, a concerto at four and a full opera at fourteen. He is described as a silly, giggly and nervous person who makes enemies easily. Constanze Weber: was the wife of Mozart, although she had a pretty singing voice, she wasn’t as well-known as her older sisters were.