Having shared a household
with two Mozart fanatics for the past
18 years it is nice for me to finally
catch up and find a framework for all
the bits and pieces of conversation
that have surrounded me during that
time.
I recently read Jeremy
Siepmann’s fine, brief biography of
Mozart, a work aimed at the general
public and perhaps also suitable for
clever secondary school students. Melograni
says he was at first commissioned to
write a Mozart book for young people,
but decided not to in part because once
he began he found the subject so fascinating
he knew he would have to write a serious
and comprehensive work instead.
Melograni’s work is
beautifully written; an enormous amount
of information is presented so felicitously
that you read through the book rapidly
— I read it in a day — but end up learning
more than you usually would in reading
several books. Melograni frequently
contrasts and compares his observations
with those of Maynard Solomon and Wolfgang
Hildesheimer as well as a number of
other critics, in effect reviewing his
own book as he writes it, and addresses
public misconceptions promulgated by
the film Amadeus. The result
is that every idea is presented in well
thought out, digested form, along with
alternative interpretations of the data.
Mozart emerges from these pages much
more alive than I have ever previously
known him, a richly complex character
living an amazing life in his brief
35 years.
The book is divided
into chapters which are further divided
into sections headed by the main events
and years they occurred, making it easy
to go back and check facts, and also
helping to organize the material for
easy comprehension and recollection
by topic. He is able to do this with
a minimum of looking forward or backward
in time, fleshing out events but keeping
the narrative moving forward.
The author agrees with
pretty much everybody that Mozart’s
father Leopold was a schemer and blackmailer
and lied shamelessly to Mozart to manipulate
him into doing what father thought best,
and what was best for father. One reason
the author shied off writing a book
for young people is that he felt young
people already have too little respect
for their parents and he didn’t want
to give them any more excuses. As Mozart
reacts to his father’s manipulations
and gradually works himself out of his
father’s clutches he become more real
to me, more human, than he has ever
been. The story is gripping, the main
reason why you cannot put this book
down once you begin it (according to
the jacket blurb, Claudio Scimone had
this same reaction to original Italian
edition of the book). The author does
not minimize Mozart’s weaknesses nor
his strengths and presents a richly
detailed portrait. Mozart’s sister Nannerl
also leaps alive from these pages, as
does Mozart’s mother, usually a figure
ignored in the biographies.
Some of the author’s
opinions are controversial. He avows
that Mozart preferred Amadé
to Amadeus. The author thinks
the Requiem should be removed
from the catalogue of Mozart’s works
since Mozart had so little to do with
it. In going over the opera plots, he
brings out some areas where he feels
Mozart reveals his deeper self. He has
a suggestion as to why the Mozart family
as a whole seemed so interested in defecation.
He offers that Joseph II suggested the
subject of Nozze di Figaro commissioning
Mozart’s opera to further his campaign
of limiting the power of the middle
aristocracy. He disposes of the poisoning
and assault theories and avows firmly
that Mozart, possibly like Tchaikovsky
later, simply got sick and died during
an epidemic like thousands of others
at the time. The author clearly loves
the music deeply; he defends many of
the "minor" works and urges
the reader to hear them through, just
as he is sure some critics have not.
The only illustrations
in the book are extremely clear and
rich color reproductions of six well
known paintings which depict Mozart
and those around him. The famous unfinished
portrait of Mozart by his brother-in-law
Lange, made in mid-1791 at a time when
Mozart was supposedly in perfect health,
shows a man who is tired and unwell.
It is perhaps not surprising that he
could fall victim to an epidemic later
during that year.
Since the author discusses
Peter Schaffer’s play Amadeus
and the film by Miklos Forman made from
it, it might do to go over just what
the problems are here. Schaffer intended
to write an allegory, using the Salieri/Mozart
legend, first written about as an entertainment,
by Pushkin, as a vehicle. It’s a clever
idea that a jealous, mediocre man could
kill a compulsive genius by pulling
the music out of him faster than he
can endure, of burning him to death
with his own divine fire of inspiration
coursing through him at a fatal intensity.
On the stage it was just that, an allegory,
a fairy tale. But with F. Murray Abraham’s
incredible creation of the character
of Salieri, and the temptation of what
is possible with modern film technology,
in the movie everything got out of hand.
The movie doesn’t look like an allegory
the way a stage play does, it looks
like reality, so the deliberate falsehoods
can have a damaging simulacrum of verity.
Salieri was a professional
colleague, a rival, but he was also
one of Mozart’s dearest friends, a man
who attended performances of Mozart’s
works and shouted himself hoarse with
bravos. One of the reasons for Salieri’s
success in the absence of great talent
is that he was a very nice man. Mozart
and Salieri spent many contented hours
reading scores together and Mozart addressed
him as "dearest father." Salieri
had absolutely nothing to do with the
Requiem, neither commissioning
it, nor writing it down in dictation.
It was actually Salieri who was the
victim when, after Mozart died and all
those in Vienna who had played with
Mozart, teased him by denying him what
he deserved, Salieri got the blame and
everybody turned their game on him.
If they had been jealous of Mozart,
there was now only Salieri to endure
the brunt of their envious attacks.
Salieri’s great talent lay in his ability
to find felicitous musical phrases to
set Italian words so that they were
clearly comprehensible to the audience,
an talent brought to the fore in his
greatest success, the comedy opera Tarare.
His other operas were based on good
traditional librettos, so the absolute
quality of the music, admittedly bottom
drawer stuff, had little to do with
pleasing an audience who wanted an evening
at the theater with colorful costumes
and sets, a simple story they could
follow easily, and music to accompany
their conversations. Mozart was actually
criticized for writing music that was
too interesting, too complicated. Joseph
II really did say "too many notes"
when he commented on Mozart’s first
Vienna operatic success Die Entführung
aus dem Serail.
But uncannily, when
I read in this book extended quotes
from Mozart, I heard them in my mind
in Tom Hulce’s voice. I think Hulce
really did study Mozart’s character
and style, and his delivery must have
had an authenticity to it. At any rate,
the movie Amadeus propelled Mozart’s
fame to the absolute rafters. Even today
people who don’t like classical music
listen to Mozart because they enjoyed
the movie which was able to make the
music seem real to them. Beethoven and
Bach should be so lucky.
Paul Shoemaker
The best biography of Mozart — and one
of the best biographies of anyone —
I’ve ever read ... see Full Review
