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Were Mozart and Salieri rivals?<\/h2>
Though at times there may have been professional tensions, there is little historical evidence of a bitter rivalry between the two composers<\/a><\/strong>, let alone a murderous plot. Yet, this gripping black fantasy of genius<\/a><\/strong> and \u2018mediocrity\u2019 \u2013 as a jealous and wrathful Salieri must accept as his God-given fate \u2013 proves the perfect vehicle to showcase the dazzling skill and versatility of Mozart\u2019s music, and to reflect in a surprisingly sophisticated way on the nature of brilliance, and creativity\u2019s power to consume and destroy.\u00a0<\/p>
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Released by Orion Pictures in September 1984, the film took the Oscars<\/a><\/strong> by storm the following March. Nominated in 11 categories, it won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture for producer Saul Zaentz, Best Director for Milo\u0161 Forman, Best Screenplay for Peter Shaffer and Best Actor for F Murray Abraham, who played Antonio Salieri. <\/p>
Actors Tom Hulce. F. Murray Abraham and Jeffrey Jones, actress Elizabeth Berridge and director Milos Forman attending the premiere of ‘Amadeus’ on September 12, 1984 at Loew’s Tower East Theater in New York. (Photo by Ron Galella\/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure> Who recorded the Amadeus soundtrack?<\/h2>
Notably absent from this list, though, was conductor Neville Marriner<\/a><\/strong> who, as director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF), supervised and recorded the film\u2019s soundtrack<\/a><\/strong>. As the Oscars recognise only original scores, Marriner\u2019s role went unrewarded, as Amadeus<\/em> made near-exclusive use of Mozart\u2019s unaltered music \u2013 acknowledged by Forman and Shaffer as the film\u2019s \u2018third character\u2019.<\/p>
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It was their dedication to Mozart\u2019s music that set the tone for the project, and precipitated a highly original production schedule. Forman had seen the play during its debut London run in 1979 and approached Shaffer to adapt the work for the screen. <\/p>
Over four intense months at Forman\u2019s home in Connecticut, the two produced a script, but both agreed that Mozart\u2019s music, originally supervised by Harrison Birtwistle<\/a><\/strong>, had played too small a role in the stage version. \u2018We didn\u2019t want music in the background cueing the emotion,\u2019 explained Shaffer in a 2002 documentary for the film\u2019s Director\u2019s Cut. \u2018It was, in fact, in the foreground.\u2019<\/p>
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Thus Forman, Shaffer and producer Saul Zaentz approached Neville Marriner. \u2018Our first meeting was in the first class Pan Am lounge in New York,\u2019 remembers Lady Molly Marriner. \u2018We only had an hour before catching planes to various destinations. They explained to Neville that they were approaching him at the recommendation of several big figures in the music world \u2013 only Neville\u2019s name had appeared on everyone\u2019s list. <\/p>
The making of a seminal soundtrack<\/h3>
‘Neville agreed, and they visited us in our country cottage for a weekend. They arrived in a white Mercedes, hired from the Savoy or the Ritz, and worked away very seriously over those two days \u2013 though with frequent breaks for Milo\u0161 and Neville to play tennis, and for Milo\u0161 to watch Wimbledon! By the end of that weekend, they had plotted the music for every single scene.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>
The stage was now set to record the soundtrack in full, before even a single reel of film had been captured \u2013 in contrast to the usual production order in which the music is cut to fit the images. This decision helped honour Marriner\u2019s one condition of accepting his music supervisor role \u2013 that \u2018not one note of Mozart would be changed\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>
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Recording with the ASMF duly followed in Studio One of Abbey Road Studios. \u2018The sessions took a long time and were very spread out,\u2019 reveals Graham Sheen, the Academy\u2019s then-principal bassoon<\/a><\/strong>. \u2018Forman, Shaffer and Twyla Tharp, who choreographed the operatic scenes, were all there. Often, they\u2019d say, \u201cActually, we\u2019ve had second thoughts for this scene and need a different sort of sequence\u201d, so we\u2019d have to repeat sections.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>
‘In those days we were probably one of the five most recorded orchestras in the world\u2019 <\/h3>
For this, the ASMF\u2019s extensive experience as a recording orchestra proved invaluable. \u2018In those days we were probably one of the five most recorded orchestras in the world,\u2019 says Sheen. \u2018The way we worked was virtually unheard of on the continent. <\/p>
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In Europe, orchestras would perform a piece several times before recording, with separate rehearsals, but the ASMF would go into a session at 10.30am and by 5.30pm had recorded a Haydn<\/a><\/strong> symphony. So, we were well set up to complete the sessions amazingly efficiently. And because the music for this project wasn\u2019t a servant to the visual side, we were able to perform without restrictions.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>
![\"Violinist](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/04\/GettyImages1406670177_cmyk.jpg?fit=1024,1024\")
Neville Marriner performing with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, circa 1983. (Photo by kpa\/United Archives via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure> Meanwhile, the mammoth task of casting was underway, involving close to 1,400 auditions, due in no small part to Forman\u2019s insistence on the importance of even the smallest roles. Although \u2018every major star wanted to be Salieri in the film\u2019, according to Forman, he wanted \u2018people to see Mozart and Salieri, not big stars\u2019. <\/p>
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Even so, he was surprised upon meeting F Murray Abraham: \u2018He was wonderful, and Salieri became so real and alive. I told him, I will fight for you to play Salieri, and it was<\/em> a fight. But he didn\u2019t believe me and accepted another role!\u2019 Later Forman told producer Zaentz: \u2018Murray thinks he could be a great actor if he didn\u2019t have breaks against him. He is <\/em>Salieri, on and off stage!\u2019<\/p>
Where was Amadeus filmed?<\/h2>
Principal filming took place over seven months in Communist-era Czechoslovakia, Forman\u2019s homeland and a country to which he had never expected to return following the banning by the authorities of his 1967 satire The Firemen\u2019s Ball<\/em>. Despite the perpetual presence of secret police, Prague in the early \u201880s had one advantage: it was relatively untouched by modern development, due to years of infrastructure neglect. \u2018It was wonderful to walk down those streets in those fabulous costumes,\u2019 says Abraham. \u2018Everyone else was an anachronism. It was like a painting come to life.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>
The Count Nostitz Theatre, where several operatic scenes were filmed, was central Europe\u2019s last remaining wooden opera house. Here, some 200 years previously, Mozart himself had conducted the world premiere of Don Giovanni<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. <\/p>
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\u2018Everyone was affected by the spirit of the place,\u2019 recalled Shaffer, \u2018but it was in danger of burning down at any moment, so we had 30 or 40 firemen on standby every day, in addition to 500 extras!\u2019 \u2018We had fire everywhere and could so easily have burned down that historic opera house,\u2019 choreographer Twyla Tharp confirmed in a 2015 interview with the Hollywood Reporter<\/em>. \u2018We had live fire in the chandelier. We were lighting people on stage, and the dancers were whipping those torches around. It only worked because the crew were so devoted to Milo\u0161.\u2019<\/p>
![\"Amadeus](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/04\/GettyImages75442580_cmyk-scaled.jpg?fit=1024,1024\")
Milos Forman, Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham, reunited for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ ‘Monday Nights with Oscar’ in 2007. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure> Who played Mozart and Salieri in Amadeus?<\/h2>
Historically accurate settings, costumes and recorded music aside, the film\u2019s credibility would always be in question were it not for the ability of its leads, Tom Hulce and F Murray Abraham, to convincingly portray the musical skills of Mozart and Salieri respectively on screen. For his part, Hulce, who had only previously played guitar, set about practising the keyboard for three or four hours per day, and as Lady Marriner remembers, stayed on his own in the Marriners’ London flat over the Christmas weekend before principal filming began, \u2018just practising and practising, as he was so keen to get it right\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>
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\u2018There\u2019s no way I was going to be able to act that without being actually able to do it,\u2019 Hulce explained in the Director\u2019s Cut documentary. \u2018The keyboards I played in front of the camera were all silent. All the music was recorded before we started. So, the sequence was either done with music being played out loud or in my ear if there was dialogue going on. <\/p>
‘I began, as filming went on, to believe the illusion a little bit, so it was always distressing to go back to my practice room and hear what it really sounded like on a working keyboard!\u2019 Clearly the illusion worked, however. \u2018Tom never hit the wrong key, even when he played it backwards,\u2019 Neville Marriner commented with astonishment upon seeing the finished film.\u00a0<\/p>
‘The most beautiful descriptions of music ever written’<\/h3>
For Abraham, the already recorded music and Shaffer dialogue was an invaluable inspiration. \u2018The words of Peter Schaffer have to be the most beautiful descriptions of music ever written, whether on film or in literature,\u2019 he says. \u2018And that the music accompanies the words\u2026 what more can you ask?\u2019<\/p>
![\"Actor](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2024\/04\/GettyImages97225024_cmyk.jpg?fit=1024,1024\")
Actor F. Murray Abraham shows his new Oscar award to his neighbours as he is greeted in the lobby of his Eastern Parkway apartment building. Photo by Bill Stahl Jr.\/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure> Perhaps Amadeus’s<\/em> technically difficult sequence was the dictation of the Mozart Requiem<\/a><\/strong>, by the dying Mozart to the desperate Salieri, who hopes to take down the precious notes and pass them off as his own. Sheen confirms that this sequence was patiently recorded by the ASMF prior to filming, so that Hulce and Abraham \u2013 who had spent much of the production apart to preserve \u2018a slight antagonism\u2019 between their characters \u2013 could synchronise their dialogue to the music, played through earphones on set. <\/p>
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Two separate cameras were set up to capture their performances simultaneously, meaning the sometimes-overlapping dialogue could be captured naturally, as if in the theatre. \u2018I would leave out certain information that I knew Murray needed to go to the next place,\u2019 Hulce remembered. \u2018So, we would have to stop, and it would seem like he wasn\u2019t quite smart enough. The scene is a superb partnership between two players.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>
Was Amadeus successful?<\/h2>
And what of the film\u2019s impact? \u2018We were invited to a private preview in Hanover Square,\u2019 says Sheen, \u2018and at that point I was knocked out by this amazing production. The music had such a central space, and it was all done so beautifully and tastefully.\u2019 <\/p>
Neville Marriner had a similar experience: \u2018I remember the stunned silence when the end titles came up and the Piano Concerto No. 20 was still playing,\u2019 he recalled. \u2018The extraordinary thing was that people waited until the end of the main titles and then erupted in applause as if it had been a concert. You got the first sense that this was going to be an unusual movie and perhaps the music had won.\u2019<\/p>
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And it certainly had. The legacy of Amadeus<\/em> is best encapsulated in the film\u2019s Original Soundtrack, recorded separately to the film sessions and showcasing full works and movements. Following its release, the soundtrack reached Number 1 in the Billboard Classical Albums Chart, Number 56 in the Billboard Popular Albums Chart, and has sold a staggering 6.5 million copies to date, making it one of the most popular classical music recordings of all time.<\/p>
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For Marriner, the risk had paid off handsomely: \u2018We came in for quite a lot of punishment in the beginning because they questioned how an orchestra as respectable as the Academy could become associated with a film that makes Mozart into a buffoon,\u2019 he said in a 1989 interview. <\/p>
‘Neville\u2019s approach was a bit of a revolution’<\/h3>
\u2018But I would say that we have had more reaction from both Amadeus<\/em> and the record of the movie than from any other music we\u2019ve ever been involved in. And if there is any justification for being part of such a patently commercial enterprise, it is that millions of people have heard bits of Mozart they might never have heard if we hadn\u2019t involved ourselves.\u2019<\/p>
Within the classical community, the ramifications were no less significant. Under Marriner, the ASMF had developed a fresh, technically brilliant, chamber music<\/a><\/strong>-focused approach to the works of Vivaldi<\/a><\/strong>, Haydn and Mozart, far removed from the heavier, solid and, at times, ponderous approach of the past 20 years. \u2018I think Neville\u2019s approach was, to a certain extent, a bit of a revolution,\u2019 says Sheen. \u2018He was changing the style and formulating something new; a very colourful and articulated approach that can certainly be seen as a precursor to the period movement that is so dominant today.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>
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