Why was Salieri such a crappy composer?
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podobuzz-1 — 10 years ago(March 18, 2016 10:21 AM)
I don't know that he was a crappy composer, just average. He understood music and could write quite acceptable pieces, but Mozart's talent and understanding was just so much greater. Mozart was an untouchable talent housed in a mind that Salieri considered base and offensive.
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RecordBreaker84 — 10 years ago(March 29, 2016 12:49 AM)
Salieri wasn't crappy at all. He was good enough to make Court Composer, he wrote successful operas and symphonies, and seemed quite well off in the movie. Mozart, however, while depicted as flawed and childish, was one of the greatest composers ever. He was the greatest known to Salieri in the movie. Salieri knew that despite his passion and dedication he could never come close to the abilities of this 'buffoon,' who, in his eyes, was on another level from everyone altogether.
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Suzume-san — 10 years ago(March 29, 2016 06:11 AM)
Rather like being Webster, or Fletcher, or Ben Jonson, when Shakespeare was around. You get to be in the second division, known and admired by scholars and specialists in the field, but eclipsed somewhat by genius.
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Edward_de_Vere — 9 years ago(April 07, 2016 01:29 PM)
He had been playing music since he was a kid, plus he'd risen to be the Court Composer to the Emperor in Vienna, yet Mozart railroaded him at every turn.
Do you really believe that all it takes to be a great composer like Mozart is to play music from a young age? If it were so, we'd have millions of people with Mozart's musical genius.
Salieri wasn't a "crappy" composer, he was a good one, just not a genius of the first rank. Even though he worked as hard at music as Mozart, he didn't have Mozart's innate ability, nor did any musicians in history except for perhaps a handful. -
HijodelCid — 9 years ago(April 16, 2016 10:15 AM)
Salieri has become quite popular on YOUTUBE. One of his last works is a setting of the Requiem; a commentator of the video of that piece says that, when he asked a friend who was unfamiliar with the work who wrote it, the friend guessed Mozart.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein) -
SVU14_1 — 9 years ago(May 21, 2016 09:32 PM)
He wasn't a "crappy" composer.
In the movie, Salieri had an inferiority complex which prevented him from seeing how good he was or how good he could be. I think the other issue is that Salieri didn't want to or was afraid to think "outside the box" if you will unlike Mozart. Salieri seemed to like playing it safe and doing what was "acceptable" for his time. He may have wanted the fame and the fortune but he didn't want to change or try something new.
The idea of "thinking outside the box" is put forth in the movie the scene when Mozart is defending his Figaro opera.
In real life, Salieri was a very respected composer in his day but later on after his time had passed he was criticized for sounding like every other 18th Century composer.
Who knows how many composers existed in Vienna in Mozart's time who are probably forgotten in this day and age. -
Suzume-san — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 01:59 AM)
Small but fun point - I've read that it was Salieri who first realised that although you can obviously only play two timps at once, if you have three or four you can play them in turn, boom bong bang boom bong bang!
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pgFiSheYe — 9 years ago(May 22, 2016 11:36 AM)
Salieri wasn't a crappy composer.
Actually he was good. Mozart was just in an entirely different stratosphere.
It's like saying why was Reggie Miller such a crappy basketball player, when in fact he was very good. It's just that MJ simply was the one above all. -
srnumber9 — 9 years ago(May 27, 2016 01:38 PM)
Maybe the movie has little to with whether or not if Salieri was or wasn't a great composer real life.
The point of it was the genius of Mozart and how others paled in comparison.
-you have to feel for the character as shown in the movie: spending a lifetime as great in his own right and suddenly being so overshadowed. (He's like Sheldon Cooper every time somebody else gets a Nobel Prize!)
I don't think anybody else but F. Murray Abraham could have pulled off that scowl as well! -
strntz — 9 years ago(May 30, 2016 04:00 PM)
Maybe the movie has little to with whether or not what Salieri was in real life.
True. I've read lots of stuff that said he was a mere contemporary, to being an acquaintance, or maybe a friend.
But anyway
Assuming we go on what we saw in the film as fact, Salieri was not a crappy composer; he was quite accomplished. Salieri was one of the very few to truly understand what Mozart was. Even in the Mozart operas that were badly attended and closed down early, Salieri saw the genius in Mozart's work even if the rank and file in Austria did not. As in the movie, Mozart in real life died broke and virtually unknown and was buried in a pauper's grave. Salieri's career was far more successful.
Salieri however didn't care about the relative accomplishments of his career to Mozart's, he was angry that God would give what he saw as a superior talent (that he and so few others at the time saw) to an "undeserving" man-child, when Salieri was chaste and obedient to God. That was the story.
Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad. -
schwester_straw — 9 years ago(August 13, 2016 04:26 PM)
That's beep Mozart didn't die broke, although he lost a lot of money because he had a gambling problem, and he was not placed in a paupers grave. He was buried the same way everybody else was buried at that time in Austria. The king at that time was known for his frugality which he also imposed on his kingdom and people. One way to do that was that he decreed how to bury people. They had to be placed in coffins that had bottoms that opened to let the corpse fall in the hole, so the coffins could be used again. Also most graves at the time were left unmarked. Mozart was buried the same way.
To the claim that he was broke: At the time of Mozarts death the state listed every item in the possession of a deceased to see if the widow had a claim for aid payments from the kingdom. These records are still largely preserved today, Mozarts being one of the preserved ones.
It is a myth that he died broke and was placed in a paupers grave. -
strntz — 9 years ago(August 14, 2016 12:15 PM)
It's true that Mozart earned good money right up to the end, but, for reasons not explained, he constantly hounded family and friends for loans to cover his debts.
Documents show his debts out weighed his assets upon the time of his death.
Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.