Salieri – Requiem in C minor

Although Antonio Salieri most certainly does not stand in the front row of the great composers of West European musical historiography, he had been granted as one of few something quite special: to compose his own requiem. Not even Mozart, Brahms or Verdi, whose Requiem compositions count among the most major of the genre, could claim that for himself. How few of Salieri’s sacred works have to date been absorbed in the general works and concert canon (excepting the operas), can be confirmed by a simple internet search. For instance, if one “googled” the concepts “Salieri” and “Requiem”, much more than 80% of the detected entries establish no relation to Salieri’s Requiem, but rather to Mozart’s incomplete Requiem! However, an absolutely fascinating although untenable connection has persisted most stubbornly since Peter Shaffer’s play “Amadeus” and Milos Forman’s film of the same name: both fictional works want to have us believe that Mozart directly dictated his Requiem to his embittered rival Salieri during the night of his death. Forman’s fascinating images still affect numerous literary writings and the fantasy of authors more than 25 years later.