Antonio Salieri Research Paper

Joshua Garcia
Music 061
William R. Shannon
Mon - Tue – Wed
Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri is a songwriter who composed classical music mostly in the 18th century. Antonio Salieri was born on August 18, 1750 in the little Italian town of Legnago, which was part of the Venetian territory (Hille). Salieri was always into music even at an early age. He would listen to his brother play, who was a very good violinist, and was always anxious to hear him play at mass or at town events. "Misfortune soon struck the Salieri family with Antonio’s father and mother dying between the years 1763 and 1765" (Hille). Salieri then went on to live with and learn from people like his brother at first, then Mocenigo, Pescetti, and most important Ferdinando
Gassmann took quite an interest to the young Salieri as he was very impressed with his singing and piano playing. He insisted that he take Antonio back to Vienna with him as his pupil in composition. So began Salieri’s career in Vienna where he would spend the rest of his life" (Hille par. 6).
"In 1788, Salieri became court music director, and he retained the post following the death of Joseph II in 1790" (Cummings par. 5). The next couple of years, [Salieri did not explore new directions in his operatic style, thus falling out of fashion,] as a result he fell out of style and was forgotten of (Cummings par. 5). He wrote no more compositions after 1804 but he became a mentor and taught many students including Ludwig Van Beethoven, Antonio Casimir Cartellieri, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, and many
There are theories out there on how Mozart’s death. People say that Salieri was the reason Mozart was put in so much misery, which was what the movie Amadeus was about. And there is also another theory saying that Salieri had so much jealousy that he went as far as poisoning Mozart. “And Salieri the poisoner? Sadly for those who like a good conspiracy theory, there's no evidence that he was any such thing” (Jeal par. 2). Now that we can check mark death by poison off the list we can focus on if Salieri really did torment Mozart to his death. I remember from the movie that we watched in class Amadeus, soon after Mozart’s father passed away, Salieri saw this as a perfect opportunity to get in Mozart’s mind and mess with his emotions. By dressing up as a masked man his father used to wear, Salieri would show up in front of Mozart’s doorstep in the late nights and ask him to compose a song for him after his death. So Mozart works tirelessly day and night, getting little to no sleep. With no real hard facts or evidence to support any of this, all that’s left is pure speculation and hoping that one day we will find out what really