The composer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) led a life that was dramatic in many respects, including his career as a child prodigy, his struggles to achieve personal independence and establish a career, his brushes with financial disaster, and his
death in the course of attempting to complete his
Requiem. Authors of fictional works have found his life a compelling source of raw material. Such works have included novels, plays, operas, and films.
Fiction
The first major works of literature inspired by Mozart were by the German writers
E. T. A. Hoffmann and
Eduard Mörike. Hoffmann published his Don Juan in 1812,[1] Mörike his Mozart's Journey to Prague in 1856.[2]
In 1968,
David Weiss published Sacred and profane: a novel of the life and times of Mozart,[4] a narrative account on the composer's life drawing heavily on the documented historical record, but with invented conversations and other details.
In modern fiction, the mystery surrounding the composer's death is explored within a popular thriller context in the 2008 novel The Mozart Conspiracy by British writer
Scott Mariani,[5] who departs from the established Salieri-poisoning theory to suggest a deeper political motive behind his death.
Mozart has also featured as a sleuth in
detective fiction, in Dead, Mister Mozart[6] and Too many notes, Mr. Mozart,[7] both by Bernard Bastable (who also writes as
Robert Barnard). Bastable's stories involve the conceit of an
alternate history scenario in which the young Mozart remained on in London at the time of his childhood visit to England, where he has lived a long – though not very prosperous – life as a hack musician, rather than returning to his native
Salzburg or
Vienna to die young and celebrated. The stories are set in the 1820s and have Mozart interacting with
King George IV and his immediate family including the young
Victoria.
Charles Neider's Mozart and the Archbooby[8] is an epistolary novel in which the young Mozart writes to his father about his new life in Vienna and his new problem, the Archbishop of Salzburg. Stephanie Cowell's Marrying Mozart: A Novel[9] provides a fictionalised account of Mozart's relationship with
Aloysia Weber before his marriage to her sister,
Constanze.
Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986) is a defining cyberpunk short story collection, edited by
Bruce Sterling. It contains a story, the "Mozart in Mirrorshades" by
Bruce Sterling and
Lewis Shiner,[10] in which Mozart appears as a DJ wannabe instead of being the real Mozart after he met the people and culture of his future.
In The Amadeus Net,[11] by
Mark A. Rayner, Mozart is an immortal living in the world's first sentient city, Ipolis, where he supports himself by selling "lost" compositions and playing jazz piano in bars.
The
alternate history novel Time for Patriots has a trio of time travelers cure Mozart's wife of an abscess on her ankle (historically documented), which allows them to treat him when he falls ill. In consequence he does an opera based on
Benjamin Franklin and composes other works until his death in 1805.
Drama
Alexander Pushkin's play Mozart and Salieri[12] is based on the supposed rivalry between Mozart and
Antonio Salieri, particularly the idea that it was poison received from the latter that caused Mozart's death. This idea is not supported by modern scholarship.[13]
Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus[14] focuses on the difference between true and sublime genius (Mozart) and mere high-quality craftsmanship (Salieri). Shaffer seems to have been especially taken by the contrast between
Mozart's enjoyment of vulgarity (for which historical evidence exists, in the form of his letters to
his cousin) and the sublime character of his music.
In 2007, he was portrayed by
John Sessions in the Doctor Who audio adventure 100 in a story that explored the ramifications of Mozart being granted immortality.[15]
In
Reynaldo Hahn's "comédie musicale" Mozart with words by
Guitry, Mozart has amorous adventures in Paris in 1778.
Michael Kunze's and
Sylvester Levay's musical, Mozart!, premiered in 1999 to portray an older, more sensually inclined Mozart as he struggles with the spectre of his chaste and productive "porcelain" boyhood. The musical was composed in German but is currently performed in Hungarian.
Peter Schickele, in his
P. D. Q. Bach persona, has paid 'tribute' to Mozart in several pieces, most notably "Ein Kleines Nachtsmusik" and "A Little Nightmare Music," the latter offering a rather humorous retelling of Mozart's conflicts with Salieri.
Evanescence wrote a song featuring many parts of Mozart's Lacrimosa. The song was named Lacrymosa and it was recorded for their 2006 album The Open Door.
Children's literature
Children's author
Daniel Pinkwater has Mozart appear as a character in several of his books, including The Muffin Fiend,[32] in which Mozart helps solve a crime involving an extraterrestrial creature who steals muffins from Vienna's bakeries.
Mozart (as well as his sister
Nannerl) are a major component in the second "39 Clues" book, One False Note.[33]
Comic strip
Mozart, his wife, associates, etc., appear in a story arc in the comic strip Pibgorn.
Wunderkind Little Amadeus, a television show produced in Germany in 2006, focuses on Mozart's life as a child in Salzburg. It has aired in English in Australia (
ABC) and North America (
KQED Kids).
Mozart appears in the Genie in the House, episode "Rock Me Amadeus" (2006).
^Boffard, Rob. "The Bluffer's Guide to Construction Software: DIY Design – Amadeus Revenge". Retro Gamer, issue 94, p. 56, September 2011.
ISSN1742-3155.