Back in the 1980s, my wife and I traveled to New York City for a weekend of fun in the Big Apple. We each picked a Broadway show to see, and my wife picked “Woman of the Year” starring Lauren Bacall. I chose “Amadeus” starring Ian McKellen as Antonio Salieri and Tim Curry as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After the show, we bumped into Ian McKellen on the street, and he stopped and chatted with us (plus he autographed my program). We talked about how lines of dialogue like, “God was singing through this little man to all the world,” were tied to the title of the show, “Amadeus,” a name derived from Latin “amare” (“love”) and “deus” (“God”) -- or literally, “God’s love.” Of course, most historians now scoff at the idea that Antonio Salieri poisoned young Mozart, but it seems that Peter Shaffer’s play’s premise was rooted in reports from the day. I found this in an article in Wikipedia: “The death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791 at the age of 35 was followed by rumors that he and Salieri had been bitter rivals, and that Salieri had poisoned the younger composer, yet this has been proven false,and it is likely that they were, at least, mutually respectful peers.” To be honest, I had never heard of Salieri until I saw Shaffer’s play -- and I was an active listener to classical music at the time. All these many years later, I still can’t say for sure that I’ve even heard a piece by Salieri except for the snippets here and there in the play and the movie. Again, I found this on Wikipedia: “Salieri's music slowly disappeared from the repertoire between 1800 and 1868 and was rarely heard after that period until the revival of his fame in the late 20th century. This revival was due to the fictionalized depiction of Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s play.” This week I decided to listen to something by Antonio Salieri, and I chose his Piano Concerto in C Major. I listened to it twice yesterday, and I’m going to listen to it again today. I’ll post my comments and rating soon. Plus, I’ll post a comment my wife made after she heard it yesterday when I first listened to it. Stay tuned! I have now listened to Salieri’s Piano Concerto in C Major four times, and I could be a bit snarky and say something like, ‘think if Muzio Clementi had written a piano concerto” -- but that would be altogether unfair to Clementi whose works beyond his sonatinas are more complex and captivating than this piece. Salieri’s concerto, a three movement piece marked “Allegro maestoso,” “Larghetto,” and “Andantino,” is pleasant to be sure, but it’s rather dull -- and chord-y. Is chord-y a word? The orchestra and piano play every form of a C major chord, arpeggio, and harmonic run on the keyboard that Salieri could assemble on a page -- and often the accompaniment (both from the orchestra and on the piano) is just the chop, chop, chopping of chords. Yes, the concerto is pleasant -- but engaging? No. Delightful? Well, in a pale, ho-hum sort of way. The first time I played the concerto, my wife was sitting in the room, and when it concluded, I said, “That was by Antonio Salieri.” She knew the name, of course, from her familiarity with Shaffer’s play and Milos Forman’s movie. “That was boring,” she said. At the start of this post, I mentioned my conversation with Ian McKellen about the meaning of Mozart’s middle name, “Amadeus,” and its connection to themes in Peter Shaffer’s play. Oddly enough, though, “Amadeus” wasn’t really even Mozart’s middle name. The composer was baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, and “at its root, Amadeus comes from the third of his long line of middle names, Theophilus: a Greek name meaning ‘lover of God’ or ‘loved by God.’ In its German form, it translates as ‘Gottlieb,’ while in Latin, it becomes ‘Amadeus.’” (Info from ClassicFM.com is HERE). Of course, in Shaffer’s play, Salieri’s one desire was to compose music that glorified God, yet God seemed to favor Mozart. For Salieri, Mozart -- appropriately named “Amadeus” -- was the “Imago Dei,” the manifestation of God in music. Therefore, I thought I’d look up the meaning of Salieri’s middle name to see what that might suggest about the composer; however, I could not find a middle name for Salieri. His birth name was just “Antonio Salieri,” so I looked up “Antonio.” In Italian the meaning of the name Antonio is “beyond praise.” Alas, poor Antonio did not receive much praise here today. His Piano Concerto in C Major earned a Blue Light Saber.
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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