Chapter 25: Salieri (Act 1)
A modern word that best describes that night is surreal. It was like I’d walked into one of those fantastic stories where the main character finds a book that describes his life in intricate detail. But in that theater, I witnessed my life being performed on a stage! There is much I would go on about the play, “Amadeus,” so allow me to share with you my impressions of that show.
The first thing that struck me was that for the most part, it focused on me and a friend of mine: Salieri. At the start, he was portrayed as an older stallion that was confined to a wheelchair. In the first scene, he appeared to be tired, worn out by time as he asked the audience, or rather: “Ghosts of the Future,” to witness what was his confession, and his final performance.
As soon as he was helped out of the chair, his robes were taken off and he was given a powdered wig, appearing to be young again, setting the scene at Canterlot, 781. The character explained that at the time, he was a respectable court composer for Celestia. He’d had a modest wife, a prized pupil, and had already written a good amount of music that had made him the top choice of the rich, powerful and well-to-do. That was until his two little spies (as I like to call them) informed him that I was coming to the city to stay, and had caught the attention of the Sun Princess. Of course, he had already heard of me as being the famous child prodigy so he wondered what I would be like in the horseflesh.
One of the scenes I recall was when he describing the first time he saw me at a Baron’s house. He sat at one end of the stage in a high backed chair, nibbling at a snack when suddenly a mare came squeaking onto the stage. She was swiftly looking for a hiding place and as a result, dove right under a table with a cloth over it. Then came a meowing, young actor in pursuit of the squeaking actress.
“I’m going to pounce, bounce,” he teased. “I’m going to scrunch, munch. I’m going to choo, poo on my mouse, wouse. I’m going to tear her to bits,” he grinning went on the other side of the table. “With my paws claws!” and like that he too went under. There was a howling of laughter where both he and the mare tried to fight their way out from under the table until they both rolled out on the floor, him on top.
“Before I could rise,” the one portraying Salieri said from the chair, “it became difficult to do so.”
I along with the audience laughed at this, and it didn’t take too long to deduce who these two were on stage. They were me and Constanze playing like foals. But to be fair to both the actors and the playwright, that was exactly how I remembered our courtship. Yes, all those jokes of her manuring on the floor and playing games out of nowhere, like having her guess what certain phrases meant backwards.
“If you marry me, you’d be tortzoM eznatsnoC, because I’ll insist on having everything backwards. I want to lick my wife’s plot than her face!” To his credit, the actor (and the playwright) got points for accuracy.
The actress pointed out that I won’t be able to do so, as I would need Papa’s approval, even though I didn’t see the point of it. “I know what he says about me,” she said, “I’ve seen the letters. ‘If you marry that girl you’ll be living on straw and have beggars for foals.’”
To which, the other Moztrot rolled over until he rested his head on her neck. “What’s eM yrraM?”
“Wolfie, I’m tired of this game.”
“No please, you’ll find that it’s very serious.”
She rolled her eyes, “eM… Me… yr-yrram… Marry… Marry Me.” She had a smile on her face before she kissed him. While I admit that it didn’t happen like that, it did make me wish that it had. Along with what happened next.
“.tihs ym taE”
“taE… Eat. Ym… My… tihs. Eat my- You fiend!” The actor, along with the audience and I were laughing at this when suddenly a hoofcolt came in to inform that the concert was about to begin.
After the two had left with the hoofcolt, Salieri monologue to the audience while a familiar serenade with woodwinds began. “And right away the music began. I heard it through the door, some serenade, at first only vaguely as I was too horrified to attend. Progressively, the sounds persisted. A solemn adagio in E-Flat, it started simply enough, a pulse in the lowest registers. Bassoons, basset-horns, like a rusty squeezebox. It would have been comic except for the slowness of it which gave it instead a sort of serenity. And then suddenly, high above it all… an oboe. A single note hanging there unwavering, piercing me through until a clarinet took over. Sweetening it into a phrase of such delight that I was trembling. This sound… it was filled to the brim with such longing. Forever fulfilling, yet unfulfillable longing. It was as if through these simple notes, that I was hearing the very voice of the Divine.”
As this actor spoke out this monologue, I in my seat didn’t dare move. Such words had stunned me for two reasons: it made me wonder if this was what the real Salieri had thought about my music. Me? The voice of the Divine… and secondly, even if such a thing were remotely true, was such an opinion shared by other ponies too? Had all the things that I had written down left that much of an impression? Is that what my creations meant to those who bother to listen?
But the play went on. Salieri explained that after hearing that serenade, he went home to bury himself alive in his work, from adding more pupils (all the while, not charging them a single bit), supporting poor musicians and dedicating himself to write more so that he could attain the same sound that I had written. At the same time, he sent his spies to search for whatever scores of mine could be found, only to discover that, while no doubt clever, they all lacked the same serenity that he had heard earlier – thus giving him the confidence to meet the other me once more. As he put it, “That serenade must have been an accident that might happen to any composer on a lucky day. Had I simply been taken by surprise that filthy creature could write music at all?”
Ouch…
In the next scene, the play introduced a Celestia look alike along with a string of her musical advisers. The tall mare (in reality a unicorn with a pair of false wings on her sides) entered talking about her plans for later in the evening. The actor portraying Salieri went up to her with a scroll in his aura.
“Your Majesty,” one of the advisors informed her. “Mr. Moztrot is here, shall we send him up.”
“Oh do so,” she smiled. “I have been looking forward to meeting him.”
“Pardon me, Your Grace,” Salieri said with a bow. “I hope you don’t see it as improper, but I’ve written a little march of welcome in Moztrot’s honor.”
“Why what a delightful idea, may I see it?” she took the scroll into her aura to take a moment to read it. “May I play it when he comes in?” Flattered, the court composer said that he’d be honored. She went over to the keyboard. “Bring Mr. Moztrot in,” she told a guard. “But slowly though, I need some time to practice.” She began, clumsily at first, the first few bars; Salieri had to direct her through the march until the same guard returned and gave a loud stomp on the stage floor. The “Princess” began again, more tolerable this time. The other me entered, smiling and bowing but not saying a word as Celestia played through the short march. Once she finished, there was light applause from the court. “Thank you, with less enthusiasm I beg you,” she then turned to the other me. “Ah, Moztrot.”
It’s rather surprising to me how accurate this scene was to real life. Yes, Celestia did play a march for me when I met her that year. Yes, she too also recounted that the last time I was there I was too young to remember. That when I was five or six I was there in Canterlot giving her a concert when I happened to slip on the floor; she helped me up and I kissed her on both cheeks and said, “Will you marry me, yes or no?”
After this, the faux Celestia introduced the other me to the court, including Salieri. “At last, such immense joy, ti saluta in grande considerazione (I hail you in high regard).”
“Conosco il tuo lavoro, signore (I know your work signore),” The other me replied. “In realtà ho composto alcune variazioni su una tua melodia (I've actually composed some variations on a melody of yours.)”
“Oh veramente? Quale? (Oh really? Which one?)”
“Mio caro Adone.”
“Beh, sono lusingato. (Well, I’m flattered.)”
“Una piccola melodia divertente ma ha prodotto alcune buone cose. (A funny little tune, but it did yield up some good things.)”
“Well, there it is,” the other Celestia intervened before commissioning me to write an opera in Equestrian. However, the other me replied that not only would he do it, but he’d already completed the first act the previous week. (I chuckled at that little detail.) After all that was said and done, she levitated the scroll with sheet music on it. “Salieri has written this march in your honor. So here, this is yours.”
“Oh, thank you, senora,” the other me nodded before saying to Celestia. “Keep it if you want it’s already here in my head.”
Everyone, including the actress, seemed surprised. “What? From hearing it once?”
“I… I think so your grace, yes.” I watched in amusement as I could already see where this was going. After the masquerading Celestia told the other me to prove it, he went around to the keyboard and repeated Salieri’s welcome march. It was perfect the first time around, not a note of it wrong. But just as I would have done, he began again; at a specific bar, he paused, “That doesn’t really work, does it? That fourth… Did you try?” He moved his hoof up on the higher register, “Should it be more…” more embellished chords from the lower. “Oh! Or this?” After combining them, he and I were satisfied. “This. Yes… Better? What do you think?” And to my utmost amusement, he transformed the march into one of the arias from the Marriage of Figaro. However, as entertained as I was, I couldn’t help but notice the look on Salieri’s face. It was an echo of the expression I had not too long ago at the park.
The play went on. Chairs were set up in a row with actors sitting in them, facing us. The other me stood on a platform that rose a little at the front, center stage, conducting an orchestra while on the right was a singer that “lip-synced” to an aria.
“For the first performance of Moztrot’s ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio,’ held in the presence of Celestia, the creature chose to wear a more vulgar coat than usual. As for the music… it matched the coat completely. For my dear pupil, Caterina Cabaeri, he wrote quite simply the showiest aria I’d ever heard. Ten minutes of scales and ordainments surmounting in the end to a vast emptiness. So ridiculous was the piece, in fact, so much what might be demanded of a foolish young soprano that I knew precisely what Moztrot must have demanded in return for it. Although engaged to be married, he’d had her! I knew that beyond any doubt. The creature had had my darling girl!”
You know… I’m going to say this once, and only once… That part was not true. Yes, I did have a relationship with her at one point (even gone to bed with her) before I knew her sister. Before I knew Constanze, but even after we’ve met, I wrote that aria not because I slept with her, but because I knew what she was capable of and composed it accordingly.
Immediately after that, the scene cut to after the opera in which Celestia voiced her opinion on it. “Well done Moztrot! This is certainly excellent work you have here. Although at times, I admit that it does have a touch…” she turned to one of her advisers, “How should one say?”
“Too many notes?”
“Ah yes,” then she returned to the other me, “Too many notes.”
Just as in real life, my mirror-self responded, “I don’t understand.”
“Oh don’t take it too hard. Do not misunderstand me, I think your work is ingenious. It’s clever. It’s Equestrian. And it just simply has too many notes is all. Just cut a few and it’ll be perfect.”
“Which few did you have in mind, Your Majesty? I had all the notes that I require, neither more nor less.”
“Huh well… there it is.” After she’d gone, all was left was the other me, Salieri and Constanze. After they chatted and Salieri encouraged us to wed, even without my papa’s consent, he expressed to the audience a rather wicked thought. To have her, my wife, for Caterina but at the same time, he didn’t want revenge on me.
As the play progressed, it showed how Salieri saw me struggle to find work with pupils, and how my taste for anything alcoholic led me to gain enemies rather quickly. Then it cut to a New Year’s party, which showed Salieri hidden behind the same chair as before while my wife playing some saucy game of measuring her hind legs with two other stallions. My reflection showed up and dismissed the two to confront her.
“Do you realize what you’ve done? Do you?” he questioned.
“We were only playing a game, Wolfie.”
“More than that! You’ve just shamed me is all.”
She flew into a rage, “I shamed -- I shamed you? Says the stallion that drags his pupils into bed.”
“That’s a lie.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He folded his forelegs, “Alright, name them?”
“The Glassware girl, the Picture Frame girl, oh and who can forget Caterina Cabaeri? She’s a sly little whore that, come to think of it, she’s not even your student at all but Salieri’s. Maybe that’s why he has dozens and you have none because he doesn’t drag them into bed.”
“Well, of course, he doesn’t ‘drag them into bed.’ Do you know why? Have you heard his music? That’s the sound of someone who can’t get it up.” A collective shocked “OH!” sounded from every mouth in the theater, including my own, from the insult. Onstage, the actress started crying, and at the sight of this, the other me quickly changed temper. Trying to apologize for snapping at her, he picked the ruler off the floor and encouraged her to beat him. It took some convincing but she did start the spanking while Salieri slipped from his hiding place.
Soon after that, Constanze had him go offstage by having him fetch something to drink, leaving her and Salieri alone. While he complimented her of being the pretty wife being married to such a lucky husband, she stated, “We’re desperate sir. We don’t have any money.”
“What?” inquired Salieri, “But I heard that your husband gives concerts doesn’t he? Why I was at one of them not too long ago where not only he conducted the orchestra but performed on the keyboard.”
“I know, but they don’t pay enough. I’m not saying that he’s lazy because he isn’t at all. Whenever he isn’t performing or at a concert he would write all day. And don’t get me wrong, we’re not poor but we’re broke. His father accuses us of being spendthrifts but that’s not fair. I manage as well as I can but there’s hardly any left.”
“How can I help?”
She had an idea. “I heard that Celestia’s niece is in need of a tutor. One word from you and he’s sure to get the post.”
“Really? I hadn’t heard.”
“If he could just get the job, why more pupils and commissions would come flocking in.”
“I don’t know, even if he is qualified I don’t have proof to back what I would say to her. However, if I could see some samples of his works, it may help. Could you bring them to me, alone?”
“I don’t know if I could do that.”
“What time does he usually work?”
“At noon.”
“Then come at three tomorrow, then I’ll see what I can do.”
Out of all the scenes that one has haunted me; perhaps it is the last scene of Act 1 that will always be in my head. In the final scene, the actress portraying my wife came with a portfolio in her hooves. She and Salieri spoke a bit, he offers her some treat and even some flattery. Then she mentioned, “Wolfgang would be frantic if he found out these were missing. You see, they’re all originals.”
Salieri blinked for a moment, “Originals?”
“Yes sir, as far as I know, he never makes copies.”
Taking the portfolio into his own aura, he opens it up. “These… all of these, are originals?” When told that they were, he stood up as a spotlight fell upon him. He flipped to a random page and stared at it. From the speakers, my music came over the speakers of which I hadn’t heard in years. At first, it was the pizzicato the melody of one of my violin concertos. “Astonishing,” he said to the audience, looking between us and the pages. “I mean… this was beyond belief… She had said that these were the first… first and only drafts of the music. But looking at these, they seemed to me as fair copies for they showed no corrections of any kind… not one.” He closed the portfolio and said, “At first it was puzzling, then frightening as I knew instantly what this meant. What Moztrot had actually done was transcribe music, all compete and directly from his head.”
After flipping to another random page, the speakers played the first movement of a piano sonata. “And he finished it, as most music is never finished… take away even one note, and the whole piece will be diminished. Displace one phrase and the structure will collapse. Here again, only this time in abundance, were those same sounds that I’d heard in the library. Those same crushed harmonies… agonizing delights… glancing collisions… it was clear,” the music stopped as he turned to another random page.
“That sound, that Serenade was no accident. Here again, was the very voice of the Divine.” He once again stared at the sheet music and softly at first but progressively growing louder, we heard a choral piece that I once have written as a peace treaty between my father and my wife. “I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes… at… at… absolute… beauty…” Only the choir now held that moment as I sat there, helpless, to see Salieri’s credibility, his self-respect as a composer, disintegrating before his very eyes. And my music was unstoppable.
But just as the music climaxed, he suddenly dropped all of it onto the stage floor. The lights on the stage went up as the actress looked up, “Was it not good?”
Salieri was dumbfounded. “It is miraculous.”
It was as if I was paralyzed in that seat. No one. Not Papa, not my sister, not my friends, not even Celestia, or anyone for that matter had told me what all I did mean to them. Everypony said I’m the greatest composer, but never once told me why. Never… until that night. When I was questioning if my music was worth remembering, or more importantly, why was it worth such an honor. That scene illustrated to me as clear as sunlight, what the music in my head meant to someone else. I was so stunned at this revelation that I didn’t notice the applause as the curtain went down for intermission.
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Not the director's cut version where she bares herself for Salieri in exchange for his help, I hope.
That certainly would be awkward for the servants to have to reassure Moz that it's fictional speculation and she never actually did that.
Probably not, although to be fair I am borrowing both the play and the movie for the dialogue.
There's a little, cute build up there and then it just comes crashing down like a house of cards.
Never change, Mozart/Moztrot. Never change.
Do you mean 'intricate' detail?
8572658
Fixed and thanks.
Jeez. That was seriously deep.
8572692
No kidding. It made me a bit teary-eyed.