Description:

In Milos Forman's film "Amadeus" (1984), based on Peter Schaeffer's play (1979), the Italian composer Salieri plays a prominent role as a supporting character in the image of Mozart that defies conventional wisdom. In the film, Salieri was portrayed as a villain who, out of irresistible admiration and jealousy of Mozart's talent, concealed his position and commissioned Mozart to compose a requiem, poisoning him and gradually driving him to death. This is nothing but the distant result of the unfounded notoriety that some in Vienna spread in reaction to the popularity of Italian composers during Salieri's later years. In his lifetime, Salieri was a moral educator with a passion for future generations, and in his later years Mozart, who had once harbored a self-serving antipathy toward him, reconciled with him and came to recognize each other's talents. The album couples Mozart's unfinished "Requiem," which was a key work for Salieri's restoration a few centuries later, with the "Requiem" that Salieri composed for himself immediately after his retirement from the opera world, and is conducted by the genius Niquet! (C)RS