What music was played in the movie Amadeus?

There have been many films about the lives of great composers, including about Igor Stravinsky (Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, 2010), Chopin (Impromptu, 1991); Beethoven (Immortal Beloved, 1994); and Tchaikovsky (The Music Lovers, 1970).

None, however, has quite matched ‘Amadeus’ (1984), Miloš Forman’s brilliant account of the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Told through the eyes of Mozart’s rival Antono Salieri, it paints a vivid, if not always accurate, picture of the composer’s life, accompanied by vibrant scenes of court and everyday life in Hapsburg Vienna.

Most gloriously of all, it is chock-full of music by Mozart. You will find most of this available here on 8notes and, using our exclusive arrangements, you can learn to play it on your own instrument (if you can’t find a version for your instrument, subscribers can request new versions at any time).

Here then is the ultimate guide to the music from this great film.

Mozart—Symphony No.25 in G Minor

The film starts with Mozart’s rival, Antonio Salieri being rushed through the streets, having attempted to take his own life. It is accompanied by the dramatic strains of the opening movement of Mozart’s Symphony No.25 in G Minor.

Pergolesi—Stabat Mater

The young Antonio Salieri dreams of being a great composer, even whilst the young Mozart is already playing for kings and emperors. We see Salieri praying in church to the strains of the Cuando Corpus from Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. When his father dies in what he calls ‘a miracle’ we hear, with great definitiveness, the final ‘Amen’ from the same movement.

Mozart—Gran Partita K.361

Salieri unknowingly meets Mozart in an anteroom in the Court of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, where the composer is rolling on the floor with his future wife, Constanza. Mozart breaks off when he hears strains of the Adagio from his own Gran Partita, K.361 playing. Salieri is simultaneously astonished both by the baseness of the composer and the beauty of the music.

Mozart—The Abduction from the Seraglio
Following some brilliant court scenes in Vienna, Mozart is commissioned to write a German opera ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio.’ A number of scenes centre round this, including Katerina Cavallieri singing ‘ten minutes of ghastly scales’ in the aria Doch du bist entschlossen and the exhilarating Turkish finale.

Mozart—Mass in C Minor

We hear the priest at Mozart’s wedding with Constanza intoning the words of the wedding rite to the solemn strains of the opening ‘Kyrie’ of Mozart’s C Minor Mass, K.427.

The folder of music

As Salieri reviews a folder of Mozart’s music, which has been brought to him by his desperate wife, we hear a number of pieces in succession including the slow movement from Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, K. 299; Symphony No. 29 in A, K. 201; Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 365; Symphonia Concertante, K. 364 and, again, his Mass in C Minor, K. 427, Kyrie.




Mozart—The Marriage of Figaro

Mozart plans an opera in Italian based on a controversial play by Pierre Beaumarchais. Salieri attempts to use this fact to sabotage performances of the work. Several extracts from the work appear here and elsewhere in the movie, including the Wedding March; Contessa, perdono!, a section from the finale; and Non Piu Andrai (part of an earlier scene at court where Mozart improvises on a welcome march by Salieri).

Antonio Salieri—Finale from Axur

After the lukewarm reception of The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna, Salieri invites Mozart to see his own new work. We then see a performance of Neue Lust stromt in unsere Herzen, the dramatic finale of Salieri’s opera ‘Axur.’ The Emperor Leopold calls it ‘The best opera yet written’, echoing Mozart’s words about his own work in the previous scene.

Mozart—Don Giovanni

‘So rose the dreadful ghost from his next and blackest opera’ intones Salieri, implying that Don Giovanni was Mozart’s reaction to the news that his father had died. In reality the work is one of great contrast, including some of the loveliest (for example La ci dare la mano) and wittiest (especially Madamina) music the composer wrote. But the film dwells largely on the darkly dramatic Commendatore Scene, in which Don Giovanni is carried to Hell by a chorus of demons.

Mozart—The Magic Flute, K.620

The film turns darker still as a messenger in black commissions Mozart to write a Requiem Mass (Mass for the Dead). The messenger is sent on behalf of Salieri, who plans to pass the Requiem off as his own after killing Mozart (for the real story about Mozart’s Requiem, see our article about it here).

At the same time, however, Mozart is also commissioned by his friend Emanuel Schikaneder to write a new opera, The Magic Flute, promising him ‘half the house’ if he takes his offer. Music from the opera, including the Overture, the Queen of the Night Aria and Papageno’s Aria provide some welcome relief from the machinations surrounding the Requiem.

Mozart—Requiem

Mozart is taken ill and brought home after collapsing during a performance of ‘The Magic Flute.’ There then follows the famous bedside scene where Salieri helps Mozart complete the Confutatis Maledictis from the Requiem. Other extracts from the Requiem elsewhere include the Introitus,Dies Irae, as Rex Tremendae and, most poignantly, the Lacrimosa, which actually does contain some of the last music Mozart wrote. It is heard here as the composer is buried in a mass grave.

Mozart—Piano Concerto in D Minor, Slow Movement, K. 466

As Salieri takes his leave from a shattered priest, to whom he has been confessing, he reassures him with the words ‘I will speak for you, Father. I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.’ He does this to the sublime strains of the Romanza from Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, K.466, perhaps underlining the gulf that lies between genius and mere talent.