Juxtaposing The Music Of Mozart In 'Amadeus'

Furthermore, the music of Mozart in Amadeus not only plays a substantial role in telling Mozart’s life story vividly but is also usefully applied to pose Salieri’s feeling of inferiority to Mozart and his masterpieces. The main focus of the movie is the life of Mozart and his great music but, on the other hand, as the plot of Amadeus is unfolded through old Salieri’s confession, the film also has its focus on the narrative of one artist who does not receive talent from God (Cho 215). To elaborate, in Amadeus, by juxtaposing Mozart’s beautiful music and Salieri feeling severe jealousy to Mozart, the director portrays normal people’s internal envy and resentment about geniuses by presenting Salieri, who continually begrudges Mozart’s extraordinary

Salieri’s jealousy and inferiority to Mozart’s music are proposed from the very first part of the film. In the scene of the opening part, old Salieri plays a few notes of his work on the piano and asks Father Vogler if he has heard of the piece. Father says he has never heard of the notes which Salieri played, then Salieri proceeds to play Mozart’s famous set of notes, and this time, Father recognizes it instantaneously. Through Father Vogler who does not recognize Salieri’s music but notice the melody composed by Mozart, the movie briefly shows Salieri’s amplified emotion of contempt for Mozart and foresees Salieri’s jealousy to the genius (J.H. Kim 24). As the plot of the movie is unfolded in earnest, Salieri’s jealousy to Mozart’s music starts to be revealed more clearly in the movie. At first, Salieri’s feeling of enviousness is exposed for the first time in the scene in which Salieri read the music of Mozart. In this scene, by juxtaposing Salieri looking through the score of Mozart and elegant notes of “Serenade

Looking at Mozart who is obscene and indecent but has great musical talent gifted by God, Salieri’s jealousy to Mozart and his talent starts to arouse, and this feeling of inferiority leads Salieri to murder Mozart in the end. After this scene, two episodes, which make Salieri blinded by jealousy of Mozart more and more, are developed in the film. Foremost, in the scene in which Mozart and Salieri come face to face in the court of Vienna, Mozart plays a variation on March of Welcome composed by Salieri without asking for permission of Salieri. Mozart’s rudeness makes Salieri feel severely humiliated in front of other people. Then, his contempt for Mozart is intensified through the episode that Cavalieri, who is the girl Salieri loved, sings in the opera of Mozart. After these two episodes, Salieri’s emotion of jealousy becomes amplified extremely and this emotion leads him to murder Mozart by making him compose even in the moment of his death. The climax of Salieri’s terrible scheme is the scene in which Mozart and Salieri compose “Requiem, K. 626, Confutatis Maledictis”